Benefits of swimming, worth getting wet for

Imagine this: a new pill on the market with all these benefits for midlife women:

· Mood lifting

· Insomnia relieving

· Weight controlling

· Relaxation inducing

· Confidence building

cooling, refreshing, revitalising...

Wouldn't we all be racing off down to the chemist to get stocked up with this magic pill?

Google Ads are supplied randomly and are not endorsed by Natural Menopause Journey

Well - unfortunately there is no such pill (at least as far as I know!) - but get this:

There is one single activity that has the potential to bring all those benefits and more...

SWIMMING magic...

everything the midlife woman needs to know about the benefits of swimming and health:

HEALTH BENEFITS of SWIMMING

Swimming through midlife and beyond can make you feel and look great.
Health benefits of swimming - read more

BODY MIND CONNECTION in swimming

Swimming is much more than sport - swimming is art, swimming is meditation, swimming is freedom ...
Mind body connection & swimming - read more.

CONFIDENCE and SELF-ESTEEM through swimming

Improve your swimming safety and build your confidence in the water and your self-esteem on land.
Improving your water confidence - read more

Swimming - PLAIN SIMPLE FUN Re-discover the simple joy of swimming and get all these benefits by just having fun
Enjoying the water - read more

The primordial attraction of water - an explanation for the benefits of swimming?

Water. Blue, crystalline and sparkling. Salty sea spray. Calm, mirror smooth lakes. The options are enticing, but why is swimming such a great activity?

Certainly the positive wellbeing and the healing power that water has for human beings is well known: the sight, sound and smell of the sea, rivers, waterfalls and cascades have influenced human culture since time immemorial.

But perhaps there's a more fundamental reason:

An interesting theory, developed by Welshwoman and writer, Elaine Morgan, is that human beings passed through a phase during our evolution when we lived a semi-aquatic existence . Carefully researched and documented, Morgan's theory challenges conventional anthropological thinking that our ancestors were exclusively terrestrial.

Morgan argues that human beings may have passed through a "semi-aquatic" phase during our evolution in which our ancestors - just prior to Homo Erectus - spent up to 6 hours a day wading around in water. Morgan claims that this theory can explain several aspects of our "uniqueness" as primates, such as our layer of subcutaneous fat, our slightly webbed hands and feet, our opposing thumb as well as our upright stance and the development of language.

Although this theory has not been accepted by mainstream evolutionists (2), it nevertheless has gained a lot of popular support - perhaps it’s a romantic idea.

Perhaps it's a theory whose time will come - if fossil or other more firm scientific evidence can be brought to support it.But whether you accept the theory or not, Morgan's book "The Aquatic Ape" makes a fascinating read.

Bibliography

1) Morgan E. The Aquatic Ape. Souvenir Press Ltd. 1982

2) Langdon JH. Umbrella hypotheses and parsimony in human evolution: a critique of the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis. J Hum Evol 1997; 33:479-94.

©Natural-Menopause-Journey.com

Published November 21st 2010. Last updated 10/7/2011

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