Why We Swim

"Humans, like other mammals, are born with two kinds of fat. White fat stores energy. Brown fat burns it, creating heat energy. Cold-water swimming is a combination of chronic cold exposure and exercise, both of which are known to have a “browning” effect on white fat—turning it into what’s called beige fat—and revving up your metabolism."

"We get flashes of forgetting the water. In the forgetting, we can drift. Daydreaming is critical to problem solving and creativity. Scientists now know that when our minds are wandering without any particular external focus, the brain’s “default-mode network” is active. It’s what makes fresh, unexpected connections possible."

"The new wonder drug prescribed for the nasty health effects of urban living? Cold seawater. And thus the English seaside resort was born—not for sun worshipping or frolicking, but for dunking oneself in the cold miracle cure of the ocean. It was the collective baptism of a country."

"Swimming, he found, reduces blood pressure by an average of nine points—in the blood-pressure world, that’s significant. It also decreases arterial stiffness, a condition in which the walls of your arteries become less elastic and add strain to the heart muscle."

"“I know you can swim longer, but you’ll get afterdrop. Your body temperature will keep dropping after you get out, and that’s when you’ll get really cold.” Turns out when it comes to cold, the biggest threat isn’t the swim itself but the afterdrop that follows."

"For many swimmers, the act of swimming is a tonic, in that old-fashioned sense of the word: it is a restorative, a stimulant, undertaken for a feeling of vigor and well-being."

"Swimming is the second most popular recreational activity in America, outranked only by walking. But swimming is the one that quite literally takes us out of our element."