We have no house, no car, just a boat, a dinghy and two collapsible bikes.  In the five years we have been sailing we are fitter and healthier than we have been for a long time so I decided to research the scientific reasons that are contributing to the healthier versions of ourselves. I was surprised at the myriad of the factors that contribute to why we look and feel younger.

Seven Scientific Reasons Sailing Makes You Healthier

1. Air Quality

Having lived on a farm in rural New Jersey, I never considered air quality a negative health factor. When I think back though, I did get colds and was stuffy a lot. According to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIH), air pollutants are a factor even rural areas face. There’s a good reason that in the five years we’ve lived on our sailboat, we haven’t had one cold.

If you live in or near a city, you are probably familiar with the concept of air pollution. It causes over 6.5 million deaths a year across the globe. Health concerns from pollution include:

• Respiratory disease
• Cancer
• Cardiovascular disease
• Reproductive issues
• Neurological disorders
• Auto-immune disease
• Obesity

Even if you live in a rural environment, you are most likely exposed to volatile organic compounds from paint, cleaning supplies, home furnishings, craft materials, and pesticides.
Living on a sailboat, where we have transitioned to eco-friendly cleaning products and spend 90% of our time breathing in pristine ocean air, our respiratory and immune systems are very healthy and happy.

2. Eating Fresh

My first reaction to moving aboard a sailboat was to stow tons of dried, packaged and canned food. Five years later, I have 90% of that dried, packaged and canned food still stocked in my cabinets and bilge compartments. If we happened to get stranded on a desert island, we will be able to survive for at least a year. On a day-to-day basis, I rarely touch those things.

Someone wise once told us this would happen. His reasoning was, “there are people all over the world. People need food. That means there are stores and food available everywhere you go.”

This has proven to be true other than a few isolated islands or stretches of uninhabited coastline. When I shop, I usually get enough fresh food for a week or two. Healthy, unprocessed food is abundant on our boat.

How is eating fresh making us healthier? Here is a list of the science behind eating healthy, unprocessed food, compiled from the CDC, Healthline, and Medical News Today.

• Keeps skin, teeth, and eyes healthy
• Supports muscles
• Boosts immunity
• Strengthens bones
• Lowers risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and some cancers
• Promotes gut health
• Reduces cravings
• Helps the digestive system function
• Helps achieve and maintain a healthy weight
• May help you live longer

3. Exercise

Spend five minutes trying to balance yourself on a sailboat in rough seas and any doubts you had about staying in shape while living on a boat will be dispelled. A day in our lives while sailing includes hoisting sails, cranking the winch handle, climbing up and down the ladder to our cabin 50 times a day, and tightening every muscle in our body to stay balanced and navigate around the boat safely. It’s physically exhausting.

When we are in port we get in the cardio. We paddle board or row our dinghy to shore, we swim, snorkel, and scuba dive. To get anywhere, we walk or ride our bikes. On average, we walk five to seven miles on any given shore outing. We love to explore and whether we are looking for stores or hiking along coastal trails, we always end up walking or biking for miles.

What are the proven health benefits of getting lots of exercise? According to the healthyhumanlife.com website, the benefits include:

• Increase in energy efficiency
• Makes our skin younger
• Improves posture
• Improves flexibility
• Boosts mental capacity
• Increases metabolism
• Slows cell aging
• Relieves stress

4. Lack of Stress

Stress happens to be the next topic. Can sailing be stressful? Absolutely. When the weather starts to deteriorate, when we are stuck in a crowded anchorage with people who don’t know how to anchor properly, when a boat part breaks, we certainly feel stress. These occurrences don’t happen that often. They are known factors of this lifestyle, and thankfully, are relatively short-lived events.

Stress we don’t have: bills to pay, a job to show up to five days a week, cars to maintain, taxes, traffic, or anything on our schedule that tells us where we have to be and when to be there. We have very few annual expenses except for: navigation apps, insurance, and communication.

Other than food, diesel, replacement parts, and the occasional cruising fees, our economics are very simple.  Stress causes:

• Headaches
• High blood pressure
• Heart problems
• Depression and anxiety
• Skin conditions
• Costs Americans $300 billion annually

What are the benefits of living a relatively stress-free lifestyle? Considering Webmd.com says that 43% of all adults suffer from the effects of stress and up to 90% of all doctor’s office visits are stress related…I would have to say the benefits are huge. We haven’t needed a doctor or medication in the 5 years we’ve been sailing.

5. EMFs

EMFs or Electro Magnetic Frequencies have been present in our lives in nature, via the sun. At the beginning of the 20th century, exposure to EMFs has increased through power lines and indoor sources of EMFs in our homes and places of work. We are also exposed through medical procedures that use x-rays and scanning equipment.

90% of the world’s population uses electrical appliances. On a daily basis, you are exposed to computers, microwaves, bluetooth devices, wireless routers, as well as many other forms of radiation. What effects do all these EMFs have on your body? Healthline explains some of the research that has studied the effects. Studies have shown that exposure to EMFs can cause the following health concerns:

• Increased risk of cancer
• Neurological and psychiatric problems
• Harmful to cognitive abilities
• Increase risk of Alzheimer’s
• Nervous system and tissue damage
• Headaches
• Tremors
• Dizziness
• Sleep disturbances

What better way to avoid man-made EMFs than living on a sailboat? We have no electrical appliances other than a hand blender. When we are under sail power and sleeping at night, all electronics are off.

6. Better Sleep

There are nights where we don’t sleep well. When we are on ocean passages, we usually take three hour shifts at night. Our sleep is interrupted and we rely on naps during the day. We still get plenty of sleep, just not in one stretch. Passages are rare. The majority of the time we are sleeping peacefully at anchor.

Some nights get rough. My husband may get up several times a night to check our position. If we are in a crowded anchorage and someone anchors too close for our liking, we may lose sleep worrying about the other boat dragging into us.

However, when we do sleep, it is deep, restful, and we wake up feeling wonderful and energized. The good nights outnumber the restless nights a dozen to one.

Why is the deep and restful sleep on boat making us healthier? WebMd.com provides 5 great reasons.

1. Good sleep boosts brain function.
2. Sleep creates better emotional health.
3. Quality sleep makes your heart healthier.
4. Sleeping well makes you less hungry and reduces cravings.
5. Healthy amounts of sleep improve coordination and productivity.

We have certainly felt the effects of improved sleep living on our boat. Now we know why!

7. Less Television

Couch potato days are a bygone since we’ve moved aboard a boat. No more lazy Sunday afternoons eating guac and chips and watching a series of football games. We no longer do rainy day movie marathons or binge watch the latest and greatest television series.

Television is not a daily event anymore, it’s a rare treat. We do have a television screen on the wall in our salon. I’m sure it feels neglected as it rarely gets turned on. We do have a hard drive filled with movies and TV shows that we can watch when we have a rare rainy evening and are in a smooth anchorage

What has watching less television done for our health? Besides making us less likely candidates for coronary disease, Becoming Minimalist provides great reasons why watching too much television is bad for you.

• It influences your world view. We gather our own information about the world using real-life experiences. Television doesn’t accurately portray life accurately and provides disillusionment about the world around us.
• It takes away from the real people around you. Instead of spending the evening watching people on TV, we are off in the cockpit of another boat, socializing with people from around the world, making new friends and learning about new cultures.
• It saps your brain function. Watching TV takes away your ability to concentrate. Your mental energy is sapped by the drama unfolding on the screen.
• It impairs your ability for rational thought. By oversimplifying reality, your ability to think clearly and rationally is impaired. On TV, problems are solved in 60 minutes or less. Reality is over simplified. In real life, solutions take thought, problem solving skills, and sometime long periods of time to resolve.
• Less satisfaction with real life. The Journal of Economic Psychology report that people who watch TV have less satisfaction with their own lives, are more materialistic, and have more anxiety.

With expensive subscriptions to cable cancelled, the horrifying daily news not running in the background, and noisy ads enticing you to buy something new and great having been eliminated, our lives without television definitely enhance our physical and psychological health and happiness.

Non-Medical Reasons Sailing Makes You Healthier

8.  Doing Something You Love

State-of-mind is something everyone can agree makes you happier when it’s in the right frame. Imagine waking up every morning knowing you will be doing something you love. A happier person is a mentally and physically healthier person.

We look forward to waking up every day. Our days might not always be easy, but the difficult days are surmountable because we are doing what we love.

9. Learning New Things

One way to fight the pain of aging is to constantly challenge yourself to learn new things. Every day is an opportunity to improve our skills as sailors, figure out new and better ways to improve the function of our boat, and learn about the new countries and cultures along our journey.

It makes us feel young again to be students of the world instead of repeating the same old grind, living in a house, and going to the same job every day.

10. Improving Relationships

There are only two outcomes for a couple living onboard a boat when it comes to their relationship. Perfection or separation. Every successful sailing couple I know has an outstanding relationship with their partner. If you don’t have the ability to adapt and work together, you will never be successful living together on a sailboat. Those who don’t have this ability end up selling the boat.

There may be some rocky moments in the beginning. When you finally iron out who is in charge of what and develop a routine that works so well, no words are even needed, that’s when you’ve achieved perfection. This ability to work together brings you closer. You argue less, spend more time enjoying the journey, and discover your sailing partner is your greatest asset and your best friend.

Healthy Sailing Take-Aways

Living aboard a sailboat is not always easy. The benefits you reap both physically and mentally make it one of the most glorious and rewarding lifestyles. You will look and feel healthier. The health benefits occur because you eat better, sleep better, get more exercise, watch less TV, and have less stress in your life. You breath fresh air, have less exposure to harmful air pollution and to the high levels of harmful Electro Magnetic radiation found in modern society.

Sailing can build strong relationships as you learn to establish routines and work together with your partner. You begin each day knowing you are doing something you love. This has mental and physical benefits. Your mind and body are energized as you look forward to new challenges each and every day, as you continue to learn new skills and gain knowledge along your sailing journey.

Alison Gieschen
SV Equus

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About the Author:

Alison Gieschen met her husband met in 1985 in a sailboat race in New Bern, North Carolina. After learning they both shared a passion to someday sail around the world, they fell in love, got married and raised a family. When the children were all grown up, Dan and Alison embarked on their sailing adventure, Their plans include visiting every continent and living aboard their sailboat for 10 years.

Read more about their voyages at Sailmates.org

Watch their videos on the Sailing Equus YouTube Channel

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Related Links:

Three Simple Exercises to do OnBoard

Healthline – EMFs

WebMd – Why is a Good Night’s Sleep So Important?

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Other INSIGHTS can be found here.

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The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect the view of Noonsite.com or World Cruising.

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