Mental Health And Its Fluid Relationship With Water…

Water can be used in so many ways as part of your daily self-care and a mental health aid. It’s a balm, a tonic, a tool for change…

The element of water is all about intuition and emotion. We are mostly water, water is a sign of life, and our planet’s surface is mostly water. Because water is so intertwined with life, nature, and emotion, it’s an amazing tool in elevating mental health. Water encapsulates the various sides of life — from calming, gentle waves to the crushing catastrophe that is a tsunami. The mind is filled with this type of duality as well.

When you’re considering self-care that leads to better mental health, consider how water can affect your mood. Whether you’re swimming in it, bathing in it, or drinking it, water is a vital part of life that can do wonders for your mental health through its powers of deep feeling and emotional depth.

1. Swimming

It’s amazing what it feels like to swim — to be weightless and surrounded by density at the same time, and be able to mold it around your body. Whenever you’re feeling like you need a mental boost, try swimming. Swimming can be used as a recovery tool in addiction, to stay cool, and to calm the mind. Use it to relax or to exercise; either way swimming in water can be a nurturing feeling for your mind and body.

2. Sweating

Everyone handles self-care a little differently. For some, it helps to sweat — to feel the water leaving your body. Sweating removes toxins, and exercise releases endorphins. Whether you’re in a sauna, working out, doing hot yoga, or spending time in the sun, the water in your sweat is a cathartic release that helps some people with their mental health. It’s also a natural way for our body to cool itself. Sweating in itself is a tool for our bodies to release and lower our internal temperature.

3. Outdoors

Just being around water can have a positive effect on your happiness and inner peace. Imagine sitting on a dock over a lake, walking through the waves of the ocean. You could be listening to a nearby stream, or watching the water flow through a river. Spending time outside is cathartic in itself. Immersion in nature can help with depression and anxiety as well. Watching water flow through the earth is seeing it breathe life into our planet. Experiencing water doesn’t have to mean being inside it; it can mean being near it as well.

4. Rain

There’s something about experiencing the rain — to feel it fall on your face or to hear it hit the window. To jump in puddles, or hear tires driving through it on pavement. Rain can be calming in the same way that water can be calming in many different natural forms. Walking through it, lifting your face to the sky to feel it, or just reading under a blanket while it falls outside can all help to induce a calm that can help your mental health.

5. Bathing

Bathing in water is a major form of self-care. The warm water of a shower is soothing, and the nurturing water of a bath can seep into the crevices of your mind to sooth the soul as well as the body. It’s important to take inventory of your care and happiness when you’re considering your mental health. If you need a boost, use water to take a shower to rejuvenate. If you need time to yourself, get a bath bomb and a book and treat yourself to a bath. It can be both literally and figuratively cleansing and helpful for the mind to take a shower or a bath when feeling mentally drained.

6. Drinking

There is psychology to drinking water just like there is psychology to eating food. Each person’s relationship with food is different, and so is each person’s relationship with water. However, a psychological relationship with drinking water is something you need to build. Drinking water is important for your body’s needs and can work to replenish you from the inside out.

Water is life. The more you really feel that, and treat the consumption of water as a regular and vital act, the more your biology will utilize the consumption of water for rejuvenation and health both physically and mentally.

7. Crying

Crying is the cathartic release of emotions through water. Don’t be afraid to cry if you need it to feel the release of those feelings through your body. It’s healthier to do so by crying because water is adaptable and malleable. Water will allow those feelings to easily flow through you, instead of being stuck behind anger or resentment.

Bodies absorb and release water in a number of ways; crying is just another way that our bodies use our water in an emotionally significant way.

There are many ways you can interpret the use of water. It’s not just about the actual act of swimming in water or drinking it. It’s about experiencing it, feeling it, and watching it interact with your body, your emotions, and the world around you. It’s about acknowledging how water makes you feel. The idea of water and your mental health isn’t tangible; it’s an interpretation.

Self-care and mental health mean something different to everyone, but if you’re feeling uneven, experiment with water. Your mental health and happiness is so important.

Just remember: You can’t help others without helping yourself first. You can’t pour from an empty cup.