If you've been feeling down, disconnected, or like you're drowning in loneliness, it may be time to try Stand Up Paddleboarding for a mood boost. Learning to paddleboard could be the game-changing experience that turns your emotional state around.
You don't need an ocean vista out your window to tap into the sport's mood-lifting magic. These days paddlers can hang ten everywhere from a pond in the local park, a nearby river, wave pools and VR simulators. So living far from the beach is no excuse to miss out on this happiness hack.
A sport that puts us in an awesome state of flow. The challenge of balancing, and reading the water, helps distract our worried minds. All we can focus on is the surge of the ocean, or the flow of the river and our body's movement upon it. These micro-moments of getting lost in the flow add up to joyful hours where negativity simply washes away with every paddle stroke.
Paddling across that water also reconnects us to nature's power and beauty. Looking out from our board, we might witness a sunset stretching across the sea or spot dolphins playing in glittering midday swells. .
Even wiping out links us to the amusing, clumsy chaos of the human experience. We laugh at ourselves and others - bonds beginning to build with your fellow paddlers. After a day paddling the water among new friends who share the joy of the sport and nature's gifts, loneliness just can't survive.
Remember you’re never too old to look cool, nor do you need to be living in a tropical paradise, so why wait! Find a club, a school, or the neighbour along the road that surfs.
Surfing's transformative magic could help you turn the tide emotionally while you literally stand on water.
If you have already discovered the joy of this sport, then why not pay it forward? Let others know when you are going out, let them join you, help someone around you. As you never know who may just need that hand of friendship to get them out there.
Let’s get out there, and let’s end loneliness together!
