That pressure is just the weight of all the water that’s now above you, pushing down on you due to the Earth’s gravity.
We are adapted to air pressure such that we don’t feel it in our day-to-day. We become aware of it when it changes though — Denver, Colorado is about a mile above sea level. Because it’s so high up, there there’s less atmosphere above you, pushing down on you. That translates to Denver only having about 85% the air pressure as at sea level, and people who travel there sometimes have to take time to acclimate to the “thin” air. Going deep underwater is the opposite — in addition to the weight of the atmosphere above you, you are also adding the weight of water.
Whenever you are in the water you really have a column of water on top of you all the way to the surface, you are basically being crushed by that water as if you were carrying a bunch of rocks on your head.
The deeper you go the more water is above you and the greater the weight. This weight is what we call pressure.
It might seem strange but the same is true for air as well. At sea level the pressure around you is 1 “atmosphere”, 1 atmosphere is equal to about 15 pounds per square inch, meaning that the air above you presses down on you with 15 lbs of pressure on each square inch of your body.
Lets replace water with people.
If you have a pile of 10 people and you’re the person on top, you have no weight on top of you.
If you are the 5th one down, you have the weight of 4 people on top of you and it’s probably not going to be very comfortable.
If you’re the one on the bottom, you have the weight of 9 people on top of you, and at this point you should probably start rethinking your life and how you ended up in this situation.
Water works the same way. Water has weight to it, so the further down you go the more water there is above you pressing down.
It usually starts when you notice a friend drinking water. Then they say “come on, have some” , but you know better. Next you see all your friends drinking water, and you feel left out of the group. Eventually you give in to the pressure and drink the water. Before you know it you feel like you’ll die if you don’t get your next drink of water. The water pressure got to you.
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