The Healing Power of WATER

It's not just our bodies that need the element of life-it's our minds too

- Elizabeth Bernstein

On a dusty August day in 2020, Wallace J. Nichols hiked into the California valley where he had lived for more than 20 years to find his family's home and all their possessions destroyed by a wildfire.

Stunned, Nichols searched the debris. He walked the entire property. Then he did the only helpful thing he could think to do: He went down to the nearby creek, stripped off his clothes, and submerged himself.

Nichols, who is a marine scientist, was seeking the healing power of water.

It has been a rough few years. Many of us are finding ourselves exhausted, burned out, struggling to build balance back into our lives. We need to recharge.

Water can help. Neuroscientists say that spending time near oceans, lakes, rivers, and other blue spaces can provide a range of benefits including reducing anxiety, easing mental fatigue, and rejuvenating us.

Participating in water activities such as swimming or surfing can help us enter a "flow state," where we become fully immersed in what we're doing. This calms the mind, which is often absorbed by rumination and worry, says Ricardo Gil-da-Costa, a neuroscientist and chief executive of the neurotechnology company Neuroverse, who has studied how water affects our brain.

Bodies of water also can produce a glorious sense of awe-the emotional response to something vast that expands and challenges how we see the world. Awe can decrease stress and help us put things into perspective.

Water naturally relaxes us (and helps focus our thoughts) "by taking away all the noise," says Nichols, whose work centers on how blue spaces affect our well-being. "All we have to do is show up."