As you descend into the waters, your heart begins to accelerate. You begin to see glimmers of vibrant marine life. And suddenly, you’re living in the moment more than you have in a long, long time. That’s the beauty of scuba diving—it’s an adventure sport that will teach you as much about yourself as it will about the ocean life around you. The life lessons you’ll learn from scuba diving will last you a lifetime.
Life Lessons You’ll Learn From Scuba Diving
Here are eight life lessons you’ll learn from scuba diving.
1. Appreciate Nature
Experiencing marine life firsthand during a diving experience will show you the importance of nature. After all, there’s something about swimming alongside a sea turtle that will cause you to appreciate the world more than ever. Witnessing nature’s beauty beneath the water and taking in the reef ecosystem’s fragility is sure to increase your enthusiasm.
2. Relax and Breathe
Imagine you start to feel stressed while scuba diving. Your breathing sound through your regulator will quicken, so you’ll start to slow down to conserve your air. Diving will teach you how important it is to pay close attention to how you’re breathing, and you’ll learn to breathe regularly all the time.
Meditation teaches you these same principles to calm yourself down. Why? Because when you master this technique, you can handle your daily stresses far more easily, improving your quality of life long-term.
3. Enjoy Life
Another life lesson from scuba diving is that you should always have a good time in what you’re doing. The truth is, scuba diving isn’t just thrilling or educational. It’s also fun. That’s why so many people love it despite its risks and dangers. Likewise, if you can learn to have fun while working and completing your daily activities, your life will start to feel more fulfilling, no matter what you face day to day.
4. Remain Calm in Tough Situations
Diving safety training teaches that, on a dive, you must remain calm in difficult situations. You have to remember this when your mask becomes flooded, when your air runs low, or when the current makes a dive too dangerous. You can’t panic.
Just as in scuba diving, you also need to learn how not to panic in your daily life. Scuba diving teaches you to always think before you act in an emergency situation, preparing you for any eventuality you may face.
5. You Can Count on Friends for Help
Another lesson you learn from scuba diving? Have somebody close to you whom you can depend on and trust. In diving, you must have a buddy right beside you to help in a dicey situation. Having a spouse, family member, or good friend beside you helps to navigate life.
6. Communicate Well
Scuba diving also teaches the importance of proper communication. While diving, you use hand signals to communicate with your diving buddies. For instance, you give a thumbs-up signal to indicate that you’d like to go deeper. Communication is also key to achieving success in your daily life. With proper communication, you can build deeper, more harmonious relationships.
7. Don’t Always Expect a Breathtaking Experience
When you dive, you experience breathtaking moments at times—like viewing a glorious shipwreck. But other times, you don’t see much that excites you. And that’s okay.
The same can be said about life. Not every day will send an exciting chill up your spine. You will get bored sometimes. The trick is to embrace the ordinary, as this helps to balance out the outstanding and appreciate extraordinary experiences that much more.
8. Equalize Your Air Space
My final life lesson you’ll learn from scuba diving is to understand that while you’re scuba diving, you have to learn how to equalize—or add air to—your mask’s air space early on in your dive. And you have to do it often. You can do this by pinching your nose, then lightly blowing to add air to your head’s canals and cavities. Otherwise, you will experience discomfort in your ears, as well as other areas of the body.
In life, you also need extra space to overcome the pressure surrounding you. Don’t surrender to the pressure, and don’t rush; just take your time figuring out how to adapt to the challenges and pressure you’re facing. And keep moving.
Learn More about Yourself and Your World
If you would like to experience a greater appreciation for the earth while also improving yourself, you can’t go wrong with scuba diving. The right diving experience can easily change you for the better, setting you on the path to embracing yourself and the world above the waters in a fresh way. Start planning out your next diving experience today to elevate your understanding of yourself and your world.
For More:
- Diving safety training
- On our site: more on scuba diving
- More on scuba diving from MarineBio.org
- Marine Megafauna Foundation, marinemegafauna.org
- Andrea Marshall’s Ray of Hope Expeditions, www.queenofmantas.com/
- All Fish Faces, by Tam Warner Minton, introduces amazing, colorful underwater creatures many have never seen before, but are crucial to our oceans. Showing kids of all ages the amazing life beneath the waves is the way to preserve our oceans for future generations! Partial proceeds benefit the Marine Megafauna Foundation.
4 Comments
Very nice article. Interesting view points and connections between diving and life wisdom and psychology.
Agree, Emily! And really, our hobbies and adventures should benefit us in different ways, teach us things and help us grow.
Thanks so much, Emily! I’m so glad you enjoyed the piece. I think, sometimes, it’s hard to stop and reflect on the things we are so used to doing. We breathe in the lessons and many times don’t even realize the impact they have on the rest our lives and work.
NICE; thanks Katie. Wise words.