If there’s one thing many learners struggle with when learning to swim, it’s breathing. That uncomfortable feeling of holding your breath or getting water up your nose can be enough to make both children and adults hesitate to even try. But here’s the good news: mastering breathing is absolutely possible.

One thing I often tell my students is that practicing a skill doesn’t always require endless hours of repetition. Sometimes, it simply takes understanding how the skill works.

Breathing is automatic — we do it without thinking. But when learners try to apply everyday breathing habits to swimming, they often struggle. Inhaling or swallowing water by accident is common, and it’s frustrating. That’s why the first step is understanding how breathing works in water, and learning how to control it. Once you grasp that, everything else starts to feel far more manageable.

The key difference between regular breathing and swimming breathing comes down to three questions: when, where, and how. To make this easier, we break the skill into two parts:

Mechanics – covering where and how

Timing – covering when

The Mechanics

Swimming involves two mediums — air and water — and both play an essential role in breathing. In everyday life, breathing is automatic: you inhale, you exhale, and you rarely think about it. But in swimming, breathing becomes a conscious skill. You need to control where and when you breathe in, and where and when you breathe out.

Let’s break it down into two simple steps: inhaling and exhaling.

Inhaling (Breathing In):
This happens in the air, when your face is above the surface of the water. Just like regular breathing, you can inhale through your nose or mouth — whichever feels more natural.

Exhaling (Breathing Out):
This happens in the water, when your face is submerged. You release your breath slowly and steadily, either through your nose or mouth. If you choose to exhale through your mouth, try forming a small ‘o’ shape with your lips — this helps control the flow and prevents water from sneaking in

💡 Tip:
To check if you’re breathing correctly underwater, listen and look for a gentle bubbling sound. That’s the air being exhaled and released as small bubbles — a sign that you’re staying relaxed and in control.

The Timing

Now that you understand where and how breathing happens in swimming, the next crucial piece is when to breathe. Timing is everything.

Unlike regular breathing, you can’t simply inhale and exhale at any moment — swimming involves two mediums, air and water, and transitioning between them takes time, even if it’s just a split second.

One of the most common reasons learners struggle with breathing is because they skip the pause between inhaling and exhaling. Without that brief moment of control, it’s easy to accidentally swallow or inhale water — leading to that sharp, stinging sensation in your nose or throat, and sometimes even an instant headache.

When

Once you understand the timing, breathing becomes much more comfortable — and you’ll be able to avoid those unpleasant surprises like water in your nose or throat.

Think of swimming breathing as a gentle, continuous rhythm:

Breathe in → pause → breathe out → pause → breathe in → pause …

Each pause gives your body time to adjust between air and water:

• Before breathing in: You pause to lift your face above the surface and prepare to inhale.
• Before breathing out: You pause as your face goes back underwater, ready to exhale.

The timing focuses on transitioning between air and water — giving your body a moment to settle and breathe with control. These tiny pauses are powerful — they create control, rhythm, and confidence in your breathing

Give yourself time to understand the simple function of breathing. So many learners struggle at this stage — and that’s completely normal. Don’t put pressure on yourself. Take small, steady steps, and before you know it, you’ll be breathing comfortably and confidently while swimming