I’ve always found that water, no matter in what form, helps me think.
In my life, I deal with a lot of complicated problems. Most people do. I recognize that the problems I deal with are far less stringent than a lot of other people’s. But they are problems nonetheless, and it doesn’t help to measure my life against someone else’s.
With my brain occupied with these problems, it needs time to rest. Not giving your brain a rest is like not breathing during the marathon. It gets suffocating.
The healthy way of doing this is through meditation; I know many people who marinate on their problems via the medium of meditation. It’s never worked for me. Maybe I’m weird.
My usual strategy is to jump in the pool. My apartment complex has a swimming pool within the complex, luckily enough. You don’t know how liberating it is to come home from work, jump in the pool, and do a few wraps.
You see, most of my problems come down to gravity. Basically any complexity in my life boils down to the fact that the Earth traps everything in its gravity well prison. Being free from this pervasive force feels good. It removes that strain from my mind.
There’s also a number of other benefits, by my take. It’s good cardio. Water’s good for your skin, probably. In the current heat wave, jumping in the cool off lets me avoid AC bills.
I also just like it. I’ve been a strong swimmer since I was a kid. The water feels like home to me.
I remember seeing a theory forever ago about how humans were meant to be partially aquatic. I don’t know enough about biology to find papers that confirm this, but it feels intuitively right to me. Water is where I belong.