Been on a bunch of boat rides/fishing trips lately. Can’t help but notice how tired, relaxed, and sleepy everyone feels (especially on the ride back).
Is there a chemical level of science behind this?
In: Earth Science
Because if your brain slows down before you drown you conserve more energy/oxygen to help not drown. We might be able to logically plot out where we swim to for escape, but dumb ape with no sapience thousands of years ago panicked until it washed ashore or drowned.
I’ve got a few suggestions for possible reasons.
Some people find the rhythmic sound of waves very relaxing and lulling, as well as the feeling of rocking back and forth in a boat. The effect could be partly psychological.
Fishing trips traditionally involve a fair amount of drinking beer in the sun, which is a reliable way to feel tired pretty early in the evening. So if any day-drinking is going on, that would explain a lot of it.
Standing up (eta: and sitting up, for that matter) on a boat, especially a smaller fishing boat, requires you to work your leg and core muscles in a way which is very different from standing on land. Actively keeping yourself balanced on a rocking boat all day long is actually a fair amount of exercise, and you might not notice yourself doing it or getting fatigued from it.
Its pretty simple actually! People like being rocked, its very soothing because it reminds us of being in the womb. When a pregnant woman is walking around it creates a gentle rocking feeling for her baby and puts the baby to sleep.
That feeling never goes away. That’s why babies and toddlers love being rocked so much, it feels safe and comforting like being back in the womb. We never stop being comforted by the feeling. Its just a lot harder to rock someone as they get older but we still have that feeling on a boat, or rocking in a hammock, or anything else with those kind of gentle movements.
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