What Is Blue Space Therapy? Exploring the Benefits of Water
Sep 30, 2024
Your environment has much more to do with your overall well-being than many scientists once thought. While the study of mind-body medicine remains in its infancy — especially in the West — holistic techniques such as blue space therapy now have evidence to support their use in treating several physical and mental disorders.
What is it about water that makes it so healing to human beings? Here’s what you should know about the benefits of water and how to harness them for better wellness.
Green Space, Blue Space
The evidence for being in nature more often for better health is well-established. However, blue spaces may be as — or even more — effective than green areas in encouraging healing. Proximity to water may be what Western health needs most.
Traditional Chinese medicine embraces the idea of five elements. Many Western lives are full of fire — a powerful Yang energy stoked by society’s emphasis on productivity as a virtue, resulting in a hurried-up, frenetic pace of life. Water is fire’s opposite number. It is no less powerful — after all, it carved the Grand Canyon — but it counteracts fire’s Yang energy with Yin. While fire is hasty and quick, water is slow, deliberate and calm.
How Proximity to Water Calms the Nervous System
Of course, Western minds seek concrete, scientific explanations for why water soothes the nervous system. Part of the answer may be pragmatic — spending time near water generally requires going outside. According to one Swedish study, women with more sun exposure live up to two years longer, and most people also recognize the instant mood boost time in the fresh air brings.
Water affects senses beyond sight. Many people find the sound of running water soothing — it’s why fountains feature so prominently in interior decor. Research studies support this sound’s ability to lower anxiety levels, even when performing stressful tasks like inserting a catheter.
Of course, visual clues and color science may also contribute. Blue inspires feelings of stability and reliability, along with inducing calmness and relaxation. Many offices embrace such color palettes because time spent in these environments makes people more productive and creative.
Benefits of Using Blue Space as a Therapeutic Modality
One obvious benefit of using blue space as a therapeutic modality is cost-effectiveness. It’s free to visit most bodies of water, assuming you live close enough to one. Painting is one of the least expensive renovations around, and touches of blue look good against other neutral decor colors like white, beige, brown and gray. Simply put, it’s easy for many people to get more blue in their lives.
Water, Inside and Out
Part of water’s benefits may echo its importance to your overall health. While you can live several weeks without food, you won’t last long without water, and that’s in ideal conditions. Even a mild degree of dehydration can result in negative health effects that impact your mood and mindset, and it’s hard to be happy when you feel icky.
For example, becoming only 1.6% dehydrated can increase your feelings of fatigue and anxiety. Dehydration while working out hinders athletic performance. In daily life, it can result in headaches, sullen skin, dry hair and bad breath.
If it continues, headaches may become more severe as you develop dizziness from the decreased blood volume trying to deliver blood to your brain. When cells remain deprived of fluids, they eventually perish.
Although it may not qualify as blue space therapy, carrying a reusable water bottle with you is an invaluable health tip. Setting a periodic alarm to sip up can help if you tend to become so absorbed in your daily activities that you ignore pesky physical needs like thirst.
Tips for Trying Blue Space Therapy in Your Life
Integrating more blue space therapy into your life can involve going to a professional who specializes in alternative modalities like nature healing. However, you can try many techniques on your own with no risk. Try the suggestions below, perhaps keeping a journal to track how you feel after engaging in the following interventions.
1. Add a Water Feature to Your Outdoor Living Space
You don’t need a large yard — or any grass at all — to take advantage of this intervention. For example, urban apartment dwellers with little more than a sunny balcony can still incorporate a small table or wall fountain in the space, preferably surrounded by growing plants. Even an 8-foot by 6-foot patio can become a meditative retreat by planting bamboo for privacy around the perimeter and adding a babbling water feature to cover traffic noise.
Of course, those with acreage can go a little crazier. Perhaps you want a pool for sunning yourself on warm days or a koi pond near your yoga gazebo.
2. Plan a Watery Escape
Taking a vacation also offers impressive health perks, such as boosting your immunity and lowering your susceptibility to burnout. Combine them for a one-two punch of goodness.
Those who live close to the shore may find a beach getaway well within reach. However, many cities arose around bodies of water. Is there somewhere near you where you can camp inexpensively near a lake or a river? Those with more means might jet off to a Caribbean island to surf the waves or scuba dive with the sharks and dolphins.
3. Join a Pool
Joining a pool boosts your blue space exposure every time you attend. It’s best if you can find an outdoor facility for the added vitamin D and fresh air. However, those who live in colder areas might get greater benefits from an indoor facility they can use year-round.
4. Take a Bath
A little planning can transform your evening bath into a spa-like getaway. Keep your tub clean and stock up on whatever enhances the soaking experience for you, from an over-the-bathtub bubbler to circulate the water to Epsom salts for soothing tired muscles. Take your phone and a speaker with you and put on some solfeggio tones — the sounds reverberate through the water and may spur greater healing.
5. Stay Hydrated
Remember — water benefits your health inside and out. Keep your reusable bottle full and carry it with you. Set reminders to sip and practice tuning into your body’s natural thirst cues, even when you’re busy.
Sink Into Blue Space Therapy
Blue space therapy harnesses the power of water and the outdoors as a natural holistic intervention. Exposure to such areas soothes the nervous system, which can help create the right physical and mental conditions for healing to occur.
You can seek blue space therapy from an alternative practitioner. Furthermore, you can engage in many interventions yourself with no fear of adverse effects. Add a water feature to your life or spend some time near a lake or ocean today to improve how you feel mentally and physically.