Does it take you a while to get into a pool?

Post Reply New Topic

The only time you will find me in a pool is when the water temp is 85 or above

When I used to go swimming in the summer I would just jump in. Dipping my body in one part at a time was torture as it would take me about 15 minutes to be fully in the pool from shoulders to toes. I don't swim anymore though.

I jump in, especially if I know the water is somewhat warm if the pool is heated, or it's a hot day so the colder water would feel refreshing.

I slowly walk in until the water is up to my shoulders then i dunk my head in to get used to it.

I generally either jump in or go in fast and dunk my head under. Depending on how cold, I try to deep my shoulders under so that I stay used to it. (I don't go in if it's not at least 72 or so)

Huh. I never would have thought about attributing not liking the "pool transition" to a sensory issue. Don't most people hate this?

I used to loathe it and would ease myself in. Now it's not really so bad.

I not sure if this is an AS issue or not.

For me, I ALWAYS had problems getting into pools that weren't at least body temp or warmer. Especially from the waist up I was so sensitive to cold. I wonder if it's common among NTs to have a similar problem and it's more biological disposition than an issue of AS.

Good question. I hadn't thought about it, how my problem with going into the water quickly is connected to sensory issues.

i do not enter pools. i see no fun in doing so and i can not be persuaded by anyone to do it.

when i was a child i had to swim a few times in our pool because i was told to by my parents, but after a few dips in the pool they did not persist in demanding i go in.
i can not bear the temperature difference between my skin and water (if it is unheated water) and i was not impressed with their demands.

because air is relatively easy to warm, then when i am in cold (still) air, my skin radiates a kind of heat shield around me, and i do not feel very cold. this morning when i woke up at 7:30am, the temperature was 6 C outside, and 23C in my bedroom, and 11C in other rooms of my house (i have thermometers everywhere).

i got up and was wearing "terry toweling" shorts and a thin tee shirt, and i left my 23C bedroom and walked into my lounge room which was 11C and i opened the blinds to let the sun heat the carpet, and i leaned and rested my elbows on my podium that faces out the window and watched the little birds for a while. i did not feel cold for about 10 mins. even then it was not unbearable, just slightly unpleasant. i decided i needed 3 more hours of sleep so i went back to my 23C bedroom (ahhhhhh... it was pleasant to reenter my bedroom).

with water however, my skin can not radiate a heat shield and the water wins overwhelmingly in pressing it's coldness into my body immediately.

when i am exposed to such extreme temperature drops, i become illogical and fight my way out of the water because i simply can not stand it.

i also hate being wet.
when i am wet, i can feel every slight breeze on my skin and it drives me to almost insanity.

when i am wet, i rush to a towel and feverishly dry every part of me quickly.

showers are not so bad because the shower room is warm after my shower, and there are no breezes, so i can pat myself dry with more leisure.

I am overweight and will not get back into a pool till I am comfortable with my weight again.

More accurately, water is a much more effective conductor of heat than the air is. Cold water pulls heat away from your body much faster than air will.

And thus the wet suit was invented, and later, the dry suit.

funnily enough, when i wrote that, i thought that the "intellectuals" on the board would hasten to "correct" my "scientific" "innaccuracy".
on the other hand, if i decided to write my post in a "scientific" way (describing thermal conductivity of water), then it would be siezed and bashed by the "scientists" here who would resent my attempt to "join their club" and they would find some flaw and magnify it for the rest of the board to see, then end it with a "wink" icon.

also, the average people here will more likely not read my post if it is a scientific analyses of water and air etc (i know they mostly will not read anything i write, but i have more chance of being read if i keep it simple).

so i decided to write my post from my personal subjective experience and my description was adequate to convey my sensation of getting into water, rather than the "wiki-version".

i stand corrected (but dry)

Last edited by b9 on 06 Jul 2009, 8:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

It's pretty hard for me to jump in, I just slowly go in because it feels so cold

I have a fear of water and can't swim, so I avoid pools completely. But I remember when I was a child and my mum tried to at least get me into the shallow end that it was always too cold, so I would take slow steps to get in.