How to Stop Panicking in Open Water (Swimmer's Guide)
Why open-water panic happens, the exact mid-swim reset an Olympic coach uses, and a 1,400m pool workout that drills sighting, breathing, and calm.
Triathlete recently ran a piece on strategies to avoid panic in open water from Olympic coach and marathon swimmer Paul Asmuth — and the through-line is reassuring: panic is not a character flaw, it is a learned response you can train out. You do it not with willpower on race day but with a handful of in-water skills you rehearse in the pool first. Here is why the panic happens, the exact reset to use when it hits, and a 1,400m session that drills the skills that keep you calm.
Why open water triggers panic In a pool, everything is controlled: a wall every 25 metres, a black line on the bottom, clear water, a known depth. Open water strips all of that away. There is no wall to grab, limited visibility, currents, cold, and dozens of other swimmers brushing past you. Your brain reads the loss of those cues as a threat and fires a fight-or-flight response — your breathing speeds up, which makes you feel short of air, which feeds more anxiety.
That is the panic spiral, and it catches experienced swimmers too. The good news is that because panic is a learned response to unfamiliar cues, it can be un-learned. The fix is not to be braver — it is to make open water feel familiar and to have a rehearsed plan for the moment things go sideways. Coach Paul Asmuth calls this “open-water safety mastery”: having the tools to connect with the water instead of fearing it.
The reset: what to do the moment panic hits The single most useful thing you can carry into open water is a rehearsed reset. Asmuth’s advice is blunt and effective: do not try to power through. Instead, pause and let yourself settle. The key move is to roll onto your back and take a few relaxed backstroke strokes to breathe — not to sit up and tread water vertically, which burns energy fast and, in chop, leaves you swallowing water.
Take three slow breaths on your back until your breathing comes down, then roll over and continue. If you are in a race and something genuinely goes wrong — you get kicked, swallow water, or just need a moment — head to the nearest support kayak or paddleboard. They are there for exactly this. Asmuth, after years of marathon swimming, still uses them: he recently took a kick to the face mid-race, swam to a kayak, checked he was not bleeding, adjusted his goggles, and carried on.
Using the support is not failing; it is part of the plan. The last piece is perspective. Whatever the conditions — heat, cold, chop, even jellyfish — they are the same for everyone in the water. You cannot control the conditions, only your response. Knowing you have a reset that works is most of what turns dread into confidence. Build confidence before you ever leave the shore The biggest misconception, Asmuth says, is that you need a big or deep body of water to prepare for open-water racing.
You do not. Confidence comes from familiarity, and that can start somewhere shallow enough to stand up in. Set yourself a short, repeatable course — even 200 metres back and forth — and swim it until your mind knows you can always return to shore or stand up. Once that certainty is there, the panic starts to fade and you free up attention for technique and breathing.
A brightly coloured tow buoy helps too. It trails behind you, makes you visible to boats and other swimmers, and gives you something to grab for a rest. It is not a certified lifesaving device, but it removes a real anxiety — being unseen — and that alone tips many swimmers from stressed to manageable. For a fuller checklist of acclimatisation, wetsuit, and sighting habits, see our guide to open-water swimming tips .
The pool workout that panic-proofs you — 1,400m You do not learn to stay calm in open water by gritting your teeth on race day — you learn it by drilling the skills in the pool until they are automatic. This 1,400m session does exactly that. It builds bilateral breathing (so chop never blocks your air), sighting (so you always know where you are going), and the deliberate roll-onto-your-back reset — the same move that saves you mid-race.
Keep it easy throughout; the goal is control, not speed.
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