If you’ve ever met a surfer, you might understand the love and devotion that sport can inspire. Not only is this sport incredibly popular, but it can even inspire a lifestyle based on surfing. As Kelly Slater famously once said, “Surfing is my religion.”
Surfing is such a popular sport due to the wide range of physical and mental benefits it provides. As the surfer is forced to quiet their thinking mind and completely focus on the unpredictable waves at hand, they’re primed to enter a state of flow and experience its ecstatic benefits.
In the rest of this article, we’ll take a look at all the possible reasons that make surfing such a popular sport. We’ll see the physical and mental benefits it’s providing each surfer, as well as how it helps them enter a state of flow.
Physical Benefit of Surfing As Exercise
The stereotype of the surfer carries some truth in it. When you think of a surfer, you might think of a happy, laidback guy or girl with a smile on their face and a chilled-out attitude. While this won’t be true for all surfers all of the time, there’s something about surfing that can impact your mood and general disposition.
Surfing is giving you all the benefits of intensive exercise. Surfing is, by nature, a sport of interval training. In one moment, you are sitting at the back of your board, resting. In the very next moment, you catch a wave and begin to harness all of your physical strength. You need to paddle with full intensity in that moment and ride the wave all the way to the end.
Additionally, there’s no room for you to talk yourself out of giving your all. You can’t control when the waves are going to come. You simply must give it your all when one arrives. It’s not like in other workouts where you’re setting the pace and the length of your rest. You have to keep up with the pace of the ocean, which doesn’t care if you’re tired or not.
High-intensity interval training (also known as HIIT) has a wide range of proven health benefits. As your heart rate constantly rises and falls throughout a surfing session, you’re positively impacting both your physical body and your mental state.
When you engage in HIIT, you release neurochemicals in your brain that contribute to a positive, happy mood. One of the notable chemicals being released is known as BDNF or Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor. When this chemical is low, studies have found links to anxiety, depression, and other neurological issues.
When you create more BDNF in your brain, you increase its neuroplasticity. This state means it’s easier for your brain to create new, healthier neural networks. When we have the ability to create new neural pathways, we’re able to learn, grow and adapt to the changing world around us.
However, these benefits are true of all HIIT regimes. So, what makes surfing different from any other kind of gym workout? Let’s take a look at some of the other possible factors.
Surfing To Enter Flow State
The concept of flow state has become increasingly talked about in the world of psychology, neurology, and personal performance and growth. A flow state is what’s often referred to as being “in the zone” where you’re completely absorbed in whatever task you’re completing.
When the ideal conditions fall into place, you can experience complete immersion in your current experience without the normal chatter in the mind. This experience of being so fully present in the moment can eliminate doubt, hunger, pain, and other experiences that would usually distract you from the task at hand.
This experience of being completely present in the moment and performing at your peak can bring all sorts of good feelings, including even ecstasy. In order to enter one of these states and experience these feelings, the prefrontal cortex must quiet down. This is the part of the brain that can generate the chatter that can keep us distracted from what is actually occurring in the present moment.
Surfing presents countless opportunities to enter a state of flow and bask in all the amazing feelings that come along with it. When the waves come and how they’ll behave isn’t a thing a human can control. In order to surf, you need to surrender control of the mind and be completely open to the current experience.
When you drop the chattering of the mind and its impulse to plan and control, you are primed to enter a flow state. This quieting of the mind is also known as transient hypofrontality and is the key to accessing a state of flow. When you open yourself up to the present conditions and allow yourself to fully participate in them, you’re able to access the power available to you in a flow state.
When you drop the chattering of your mind and instead turn your focus on your current experience, you might find yourself doing a turn you didn’t think you could land or coming out of a tube like you’ve never managed before.
Your ability to enter a flow state will also depend on the challenge at hand. When you quiet your mind and are faced with a challenge that’s a good match for your skill level, conditions are perfect for entering the state of flow.
Surfing provides countless opportunities to face the right challenge for you. As your skills improve, you can continue to seek out more challenging moves or conditions to continually allow you to enter states of flow.
The benefits aren’t over when you get out of the water. Studies have shown that people who access flow states tend to be more productive, more creative, and happier in their day-to-day lives. These benefits can last up to three days after the flow state was experienced.
Therefore, for surfers entering states of flow, the appeal of getting back out on the water can be intense. The positive changes they may see in themselves after surfing can provide an intense intrinsic motivation to continue pursuing the sport.
For a closer look at the link between surfing and flow states, check out this video on YouTube by Kale Brock:
Additional Appeals of Surfing
There’s no denying that the reasons why people are drawn to this sport are wide and varied. In addition to the physical benefits of exercise and the unique ability to enter a flow state, some surfers just like being in harmony with nature.
Surfing allows you to connect deeply with the flow of the ocean and nature itself. To commune with the ocean’s powerful movements and find harmony within them.
Others enjoy the community both in and out of the water. Surfing has its own community, where its version of etiquette and support exist for everyone.
Others enjoy the fact that there’s always something to work on in surfing. From timing, technique to the ability to quiet the mind, there are plenty of waves to grow as a person both on and off the board.
To hear from other surfers on why they are so drawn to this sport, you can check out this short video on YouTube:
Final Thoughts
From the chemicals it releases in your brain to the abundance flow states to the supportive community, there are a wide range of reasons people are drawn to surfing. Whether for the sunshine and waves or for the personal growth that can occur, it’s no doubt that surfing is a sport that can inspire excitement and devotion.
