Does the practice of swimming provide benefits on the mental health of its practitioners? Systematic review

Abstract

Objective

To carry out a systematic review on the practice of swimming with an interface on mental health and to answer the following question: Does the practice of swimming provide benefits on the mental health of its practitioners?

Methods: Articles published between 2018 and 2023, in Portuguese and English, and in the following databases, PUBMED and SCIELO, were analyzed and read in full.

Results: It was found that swimming provides improvements in depression and anxiety scores, benefits in sleep quality and advances in quality of life levels, respectively.

Conclusion: There is a scarcity of epidemiological and intervention studies on swimming and mental health in professional and recreational athletes in the national and international literature. More robust research is needed to assess the effects of acute and/or chronic practice, to see if variables such as training session intensity, ideal volume, weekly frequency and applied methodology influence the psychophysiological responses triggered in its practitioners.