Dive into Slowness

Why slow can be better

A different kind of time

At 18 meters below the surface, everything slows. The only sound is your breath — in, out — calm, measured, rhythmic. Down there, rushing has no place. Panic is dangerous. You learn quickly: presence is survival.

The first time after I moved to Thailand I heard a lot of time “relax, slow down”. I didn´t understood why they told me to relax, I felt relaxed.

I relaxed over time but it needed time to really understand what they told me.

Over time I felt more and more calm, the reactions I had in Germany in my “old life” disappeared more and more. Faded away.

I started to really think about it when friends told me I would be in constant holiday. Which is not true.

As a divemaster or dive instructor we don´t work less, it just feels like.

We work sometimes from 7am to 7pm but the stress level is not on a constant high level as it was in Germany.

I probably realized it fully when I needed to come back to Germany during the pandemic time and work in my old job field again.

We live in a very time driven society. We need to be in time at work, for meetings, in time at the kids school, we work longer, we rush to pick up the kids, drive them somewhere, meet our friends, try to be at the grocery store before it closes – even they are open longer than they did a couple of year ago.

We constantly run after the clock. We don´t have time to relax in between.

That´s the main difference. When I work in diving of course I have to be in time at the boat, there are peaks of stress but the stress also calms down after it. Thanks to that the stress level is pretty balanced. There are ups and downs. Like this it doesn´t feel that stressful then my time before in my “old life”.

Luckily I took a lot of that with me when I needed to come back to Germany.

What diving taught me about stress

I realized how stressed some of my friends where when there were traffic jam, or the train didn´t arrived in time and so on.

I also realized how stressed I was the first time I arrived in Thailand. Everyone was right to tell me to relax. The thing is, when you live in constant stress you don´t even realize it any more. You think it´s a driving mechanism and if you´re like me and your usual reaction to stress is the fight mode you can actually operate quite well under constant stress.

Studies show that this is not a good thing, it´s not at all healthy. I can´t count the times any more where I arrived somewhere last minute, was stressed and directly focused this stress onto the next task.

In diving we learn that you shouldn´t dive when you are not fully calm and relaxed. If you feel off, overwhelmed or not well you should not dive. The risk of an accident is potentially higher cause you are may do mistakes that could cost your life. Interestingly enough the same rule applies to motorbike driving. And every cautious diver and motorbike driver follows this rule.

Why does this not apply to driving a car?

I´m guilty as well. Driving under a lot of stress, having meetings over the phone, not at all being focused on driving. We have this false feeling that just because we have a crumble zone around us and an airbag in front of us it´s not as live threatening as driving a motorbike, diving or sky diving.

Changes I took with me

Back in Germany I operated different. I instinctively planned my day different, I didn´t let people push me to meetings outside of my working hours any more, I didn´t got stressed cause of traffic jam etc.

Living in a very relaxed society where everyone is okay with waiting, no one is getting upset by traffic jam cause it´s anyway there and you can´t change the outcome, where people make the best of this situation and just sit on the side of the road and talk or smoke a cigarette is very helpful. First you don´t understand it but after a while you start to adapt when everyone around you is acting this way.

It´s like a situation on the diving boat. You as a customer would get stressed when you see that your dive professional gets stressed. We are. We just don´t show it.

Same for your nurse or doctor. You would get nervous if they get stressed, right? Well, probably they are quite often but they don´t show it.

Stress of the people surrounding us is contagious. So is relaxation and calmness.  

I also changed my habits and my thinking about it when I learned about the change of mindset. It will work out. I don´t remember any more where I´ve read this but it´s helpful. Instead of stressing out of a late train just manifest that it will work out and that the next train will be there as well. Well, of course it doesn´t work out well all the time but quite often it does. But even if it doesn´t work out it just calms you down and you can react different in case it doesn´t.

Okay yes, travelling in Asia where you don´t have time schedules and very often you don´t even know where you are and if and when the next mini bus will arrive helps as well. You are forced into believing that this unknown system works. And it does. Surprisingly for a lot of western people but it does. You always arrive at your destination. Sometimes later than expected, yes, but you do.

The other important difference here is also that first you are on holiday, so you have more time than at home. Over time you plan more time for your travel cause you can´t predict the exact time of arrival. Fair enough.

That is the other important part I took with me:

Lower the expectations

Just because we live in Germany or somewhere else in the western society we expect that everything works in time. We plan our meetings according to the train schedule and we get nervous and stressed when this doesn´t work out.

At one point I´ve asked myself why I have these expectations in Germany but not in Thailand. Does that make sense? We all know that the train system in Germany is not in time. So why bother?

After lowering my expectations it all became easier.

Or as we say in diving: “Adapt the situation and change the plan”.

Yes, we do have a plan for every dive. Of course we plan it. But we also know we are in the middle of nature and we can´t predict everything. We don´t have control over the weather or the currents.

In these cases we just need to change the plan.

We can do the same while living in a western society. The only thing we need to change is our expectations and planning.

Don´t get me wrong, I felt myself back in the hamster reel as well after a couple of month. I felt trapped again. I just realized it and was able to change it.

Time for a change

Well, okay, I bought a 42 year old van. Best decision? Probably not.

But I loved to drive around in this old car. It was loud, it was smelly, it was SLOW! It fitted so perfectly.

Driving around in a car with a maximum speed of 80km/h, which needs a rest after 300km, at steep hills sometimes the maximum speed was 25 km/h slows you down as well. You can hope to arrive in 2 days but it can also happen that you will arrive in 3 days. So what? And you have a hell lot of time to think and enjoy your surroundings.

Don´t get me wrong. I love speed. I had a motorbike as well and I loved the acceleration and driving 240 km/h. I loved to drive 200-240 km/h with my company car.

I just prefer the slow movement. So much more time. Not time driven. It is what it is like we say in Cologne. Followed by “and it still worked out well”.

I think we all should learn to slow down again.

Drive over the small streets instead of the highway. Enjoy the landscape, enjoy the way.

Slow down and enjoy the ride.

Do you feel ready to slow down a bit?