Mindfulness swimming

Mindfulness is a practice of focused attention. I have found it helps me to enter flow state.

I am learning to side breath in freestyle form. While practicing, where I place attention made a difference in whether I made progress. Only when I place attention on the feeling of inhaling air, did I make consistent full strokes with breathing. If attention tracked the noisy sounds as my ear or arm exit and enter the water, I held my breath. Sometimes I lost the stroke rhythm. If attention was on my legs kicking, my head turn is minimal. If attention was on my arms, I felt I was swimming faster, but I swam forward without exchanging air.

When I do place attention on the feeling of inhaling air, side breathing happened very naturally. I was surprised by how effortlessly I achieved it. This reminded me of flow state. So I checked research. It turns out “that greater mindfulness is associated with higher levels of flow,” according to this meta-analysis paper:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191886922003762