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Surfing: An Antidote against Stress

Do you feel low today? Tired of doing the usual stuff you do every now and then? Then maybe it’s time for you to get out there, smell the fresh air, step out of your porch, leave your comfort zone and start learning how to surf for a stress-free body and soul.

According to Ryan Floyd, he always wakes up at dawn and then do his regular routine (prepare his clothes for work, take a bath, prepare breakfast and then hops in his car for work) in which it entirely sums up his daily lifestyle as simple yet boring. Before he found out the greatness of surfing, he was a regular dude that goes to work, bond with guys during free time and goes home to sleep.

Several days after, Ryan Floyd tried out surfing with his buddies for a change. And it completely changes everything about him and his visions in life. He wakes up before dawn and hops in a car with his four surfing buddies and goes to their favorite surfing spots which is the Ocean Beach or the Half Moon Bay.

Three of Ryan Floyd’s buddies are doctors, surgeons and a CFO of a public technology company. If you are wondering what is Floyd’s work, he is a successful venture capitalist and a father of three. He and his surfing buddies have a surf wagon that is a Mercedes 4000.

For Floyd, surfing is a really good antidote to the stressful Silicon Valley lifestyle. After his discovery about surfing, their early sessions has changed, they include changing from wetsuits to dress shirts and slacks on the side of the road which he considers not an actual surfers would do but they definitely enjoyed the moment. Floyd and his friends don’t exactly fit the surfing stereotype. Floyd happens to be a Silicon Valley professional who lives in Menlo Park. Other Ocean Beach regulars are plumbers, college students and CEOs. Surfing in San Francisco is, for the most part, a serious athletic hobby shared by people from all walks of life, not – as Hollywood would have it – a subculture or a good way to get a tan.

While in Southern California and Hawaii there is something of a lighthearted beach- culture – though not nearly as kitschy as the ones presented in movies – in San Francisco the winter climate and plus-size waves simply don’t allow for a fun-in-the-sun sensibility.

At Ocean Beach, the waves can suddenly pick up to double-overhead – twice a surfer’s height – and there’s often a dangerous riptide. The gnarly conditions foster a sense of camaraderie among surfers battling huge breakers in hooded wetsuits. But despite this bond, the surfers are ultimately responsible for their own survival.

Alex Martin, a local of the Ocean Beach Bay, knows the surroundings and surfing for more than 20 years after he moved from Brazil in 1993. Now he lives with his wife and daughter in a house right across from the beach with a view of the waves. For a living he runs a surf repair shop.

If you like to try surfing just like Ryan Floyd does, simply shift your daily lifestyle slowly but surely to help you ease up your mind in a convenient way. Enjoy surfing and make it a habit.

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