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The Nuance
There’s a Scientific Reason Why Water Is So Calming
Exploring the ‘Blue Health’ phenomenon and the well-being benefits of oceans, lakes, and other bodies of water
Human beings are land animals. We have feet, not flippers. While our body needs water to survive, those needs don’t require that we submerge our heads in H2O.
You might think that diving into water, like peering over a cliff’s edge, would provide a little adrenaline rush. But it turns out that just the opposite is true. “Water submersion has some counterintuitive calming effects,” says Roly Russell, PhD, a researcher at the Sandhill Institute for Complexity and Sustainability and first author of a 2013 Annual Reviews paper on the health benefits of time spent in nature.
When a person’s face is underwater, research has found that heart rate slows and certain blood vessels constrict. Blood is redistributed from the limbs to the brain, heart, and other central organs. Vagal tone and parasympathetic nervous system activity — both of which are associated with the body’s “rest-and-digest” states — are turned up. At the same time, elements of the sympathetic nervous system and the body’s “fight-or-flight” responses tend to mellow out.
