As a health professional, bank executive, or office worker, you are always busy. In fact, you don’t have time to exercise for your own health’s sake.  Well, there’s one form of exercise which won’t consume much of your time and will give you more benefits in return.  And it’s swimming.

People have been swimming since prehistoric times. Drawings from the Stone Age were found in “the cave of swimmers” near Wadi Sora (or Sura) in the southwestern part of Egypt.  Written references date back up to 2000 B.C., including Gilgamesh, the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Holy Bible (Ezekiel 47:5, Acts 27:42, Isaiah 25:11), Beowulf, and other sagas.

In 1538, Nicolas Wynman, a German professor of languages, wrote the first swimming book entitled “Colymbetes.” Competitive swimming in Europe started around 1800.  Swimming was part of the first modern Olympic Games in 1896 in Athens, Greece.

Today, swimming is a great recreational activity for people of all ages. Recreational swimming can provide you with a low-impact workout and it’s also a good way to relax and feel good. Common swimming styles in recreational swimming are breaststroke, backstroke, side stroke, and freestyle.

Spending time in a group workout, whether water aerobics or a master’s swim practice, is a great social outlet. Exchanging stories, challenging each other, and sharing in the hard work make swimming with others a rewarding experience.

Unknown to many, swimming has its share of health benefits.  For one, swimming is an excellent form of exercise because you need to move your whole body against the resistance of the water.  Without overworking the heart, swimming improves the body’s use of oxygen and increases lung function. It is also recognized as a terrific low impact exercise for those who don’t like the effects of jogging on their knees, because while in the water you are non-weight bearing.

Swimming alleviates stress.  With the everyday routines we have to endure, life can indeed be stressful.   Sometimes it is good to get it all out and do some swimming. Exercise is one of the best ways to relieve stress.  “Use swimming as your stress reliever whenever you feel a large amount of stress on your shoulders,” a health expert recommends.  “Practice your breathing correctly when swimming. Breathing correctly will be what keeps you going while swimming, and it will help you get the stress out from your body.”

The University of Maryland Medical Center adds that swimming is an ideal exercise for many stressed people including pregnant women, individuals with musculoskeletal problems, and those who suffer exercise-induced asthma.

Speaking of asthma, it is interesting to note that many famous swimmers are asthmatic. Mark Spitz, the 5-gold medal winner in swimming at the 1972 Olympics, is an asthmatic.  No stranger to breaking records, Alison Streeter has her name already appeared four times in The Guinness Book of Records.  She was diagnosed as suffering from severe asthma as a child.  Her doctor suggested that some kind of regular exercise might help her and her parents enrolled her in the local swimming club.

Most asthma websites recommend swimming as one of the best forms of exercise for asthmatics, but the idea is getting controversial. The reasoning behind swimming’s positive pulmonary effects makes sense. Taking deep breaths and holding one’s breath at regular intervals increases lung capacity and trains the lungs into steady breathing patterns, both of which can only help asthmatics.

 According to various well-respected asthma sites like Global Initiative for Asthma or the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, swimming is also a beneficial exercise because indoor pools provide a moist, warm environment good for the lungs. But, researchers like Brent S. Rushall, Ph. D., and Larry Weisenthal, M.D. argue that this environment actually makes indoor pools dangerous for asthmatics. In Swimmer’s Asthma: The Serious Health Problem with Chlorinated Pools, they discuss how public pools often use too much chlorine to sanitize the water, and inhaling high concentrations of the toxic by-products of chlorine can damage the respiratory tract.

Is swimming a good form of exercise to lose weight?  According to the latest studies, a-half-an-hour of swimming exercise can burn more than 1100 calories.  But the on-line Merck manual explains that swimming is not the best way to lose weight due to the cooling effects of being in the water.  While you do use up a lot of calories when swimming, once you get out of the pool, much of that calorie burning stops.

On the other hand, doing land-based exercise like running or cycling may use about the same amount of calorie per hour as swimming. But once you stop exercising, the land-based workout usually leads to continued increase in calorie use for as long as 18 hours after the workout. Why? Because when you are in the pool,   you don’t heat up as much as you do on land and your body does not have to work to cool you down as much once the exercise session concludes.

According to experts, exercising in water can considerably reduce high blood pressure.  In 1997, the Journal of Hypertension fixed their attention on the results of a swimming exercise, carried out at the Exercise Science Department of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville on 18, stage 1 and 2 hypertensive men and women for 10 weeks.

The group was selected from people with previous sedentary lifestyles, 10 being engaged in a monitored swimming exercise, while the other group of six were just present for comparison.  It was noted that the swimmers’ systolic pressure had dropped significantly from 150-144 mmHg, about 5% drop when they were seated and also about the same when they were lying down.  When seated, their diastolic pressure also changed but to a lesser degree.   The conclusion: “Swimming training elicits significant reductions in arterial blood pressure at rest in individuals with hypertension.”

Swimming is great for women recovering after breast surgery.  TheBreastcancersite.com shares this information: “Swimming after breast surgery is an excellent means of exercising all the major muscle groups, and avoiding muscular atrophy often seen in post-surgical patients who remain sedentary for prolonged periods.”

“One of the big pluses of swimming comes from the magic buoyancy of water. There is no pressure or strain placed on the muscles and joints,” says Dr. Jane Katz, an American professor of health and physical education.

Nevertheless, there are also health risks with swimming.  The most common is drowning, which can cause injury or even death.  Thermal shock after jumping into water can cause the heart to stop.  Spending time in the water can wrinkle the skin on the fingers, palms of the hands, and the soles of the feet.

Water in the pool is an excellent environment for many bacteria, which may affect humans. The risk and severity of infection, however, vary with the water quality.  For instance, swimming can cause athlete’s foot.  Swimming can cause ear infections in the ear canal.