How to Relieve Stress with Water Meditation

Water meditation is a technique in which you visualize water. You do everything you can to imagine yourself being submerged in it, feeling the coldness of the liquid and its refreshing flow. This technique has been used to relieve stress since time immemorial. 

The most crucial part about water meditation is that you have to be relaxed while you are doing it. Otherwise, the visualization won’t work at all. This can be achieved through breathing properly. So you should take deep breaths, slow and relaxing ones.

Once you get past this step, you can start with the visualization part.

Here’s how to do water meditation:

  1. Put on some comfortable clothing and enter a place with a pool, lake or even a bathtub.
  2. Enter the water and swim slowly to the other side, ensuring you don’t use up too much physical energy during this step. This should take approximately three minutes.
  3. Take as long as you like (up to 15 minutes) to float on your back in the center of the body of water. This helps bring your mind to a singular focus, inducing a deeper meditative state for you to explore.
  4. After your 15 minutes are up, swim back across the body of water to where you started.
  5. Exit the body of water and dry off with a towel or air-dry. Resume your normal activities.

Benefits of water meditation:

  • The rhythmic nature of water creates an environment that encourages body movement, uniting your mind and body into a peaceful, single-minded experience.
  • The feeling of uniting your mind and body into one cohesive unit promotes a meditative state that is conducive for clearing the mind of many types of distractions.
  • The water supports your weight while you are doing water meditation, allowing you to meditate without using up too much in the way of physical energy.
  • Because you are surrounded by water, your awareness can shift from concern for other matters in your life to a singular focus on the mindfulness-inducing activity at hand, facilitating a meditative state throughout your body and mind.

Tips for getting the most out of your water meditation (water in a glass):

A water meditation is a fun, simple way to move your mind away from the clutter of daily life and into calm, meditative states.

It’s also an easy way for novice meditators to get started with meditation, leading to increased creativity and productivity.

Let’s take a look at some tips for getting the most out of your water meditation practice (water in a glass:

  • Start with a glass of still, clear water on an empty stomach. Some people wait until the morning before their first meal of the day. Some start this process in the afternoon; around 2 pm or so works best for some.
  • Find a quiet place where you won’t be disturbed. I prefer to take this meditation outside, looking at the calm water while listening to the sounds of nature around me, or in a quiet room with no other distractions.
  • Position your body however it is most comfortable for you. Sitting in a chair works fine, but you can also kneel if that’s more comfortable for you. You can even lay down if that’s best for you, but make sure there is nothing around you like pillows or blankets that might get in your way and make it difficult to sit up.
  • Focus on the glass of water. Look at the shape and color of the glass, notice any designs or images on its surface. What about inside? You can even place your hand lightly on top if you want.
  • Take a few deep breaths through your nose and out your mouth, focusing on the rising and falling of the air in your chest and belly. This should help relax you, but also prepare you for this upcoming meditation.
  • Begin to clear your mind. Simply let go of thoughts that enter your mind. The trick here is not to try and push them away, but just notice them and then focus back on the task at hand.
  • Thoughts may come to your mind about what you need to do tomorrow, or something fun you did last week. Just let them pass without judgment or attachment. These are thoughts like clouds passing in the sky, and you should not attach to them or take them too seriously.
  • Once you have achieved a state of clearing your mind, begin to move your focus onto the glass of water. The goal here is to “enter” the glass through its surface and see what’s inside without actually breaking it open. So look at it directly, then glance at it out of the corner of your eye. Don’t move your head too much.
  • Move past the outside of the glass and enter inside very slowly, as if you’re moving through a doorway. Just go with the feeling and see what’s on the other side. What do you see? Is there anything there?
  • You might see bubbles of air inside the glass. Maybe you’ll notice colors swirling around like paint in water. Or maybe it will be totally clear on the other side, depending on what type of glass you’re using.
  • When thoughts come back into your mind, or you feel yourself getting distracted by anything outside of the task at hand, just let them pass and go back to your glass of water.
  • Continue this process until you feel like you’ve had enough or it’s time for you to end your practice. You can always try again another day too!

And that’s the basics of getting the most out of a water meditation. The key here is repetition; practicing on a daily basis is best, so you don’t lose the sensation of what it feels like to enter the glass and explore what’s inside. If you need more time, then just take it!

Which is the best time of day to do water meditation?

Water meditation is known to help people deal with their day-to-day struggles in life. But how can you properly use this practice so that it will be beneficial and not harmful? In addition, which time of the day should you do water meditation for the best outcome?

Water meditation is meant to be done in the morning. Doing it before noon will make sure that you are really pumped up for the day ahead, while doing it afternoon would mean that you will find it really hard to be motivated.

Therefore, water meditation should be done after waking up and before noon. While doing it at this time of the day, your mind and body are refreshed. Both are prepared for entering a new phase in which they have to focus on daily tasks. That’s why water meditation is so effective at this time of the day.

It is advisable to do it not only on a regular basis but also with some interval between one session and the next. This way, you will see even better results on your mental strength, which you can then use for achieving goals in life.

Water meditation might be difficult at first, but it does pay off in the end. Once you get used to it, you will realize that it’s one of the most relaxing things in your life.

Final thought:

Water meditation is a type of meditation in which your objective is to focus on the sensations you experience while conducting activities underwater. 

For some, the simple act of spending time around a body of moving water provides deep physiological and psychological benefits, which are difficult to explain using traditional western science. I guess it’s about time you also tried it. 

Mercy Maina

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References :


[0]Waters, L., Barsky, A., Ridd, A., & Allen, K. (2015). Contemplative education: A systematic, evidence-based review of the effect of meditation interventions in schools. Educational Psychology Review, 27(1), 103-134.

[1]Wachholtz, A. B., & Pargament, K. I. (2005). Is spirituality a critical ingredient of meditation? Comparing the effects of spiritual meditation, secular meditation, and relaxation on spiritual, psychological, cardiac, and pain outcomes. Journal of behavioral medicine, 28(4), 369-384.

[2]Compson, J. (2014). Meditation, trauma and suffering in silence: Raising questions about how meditation is taught and practiced in Western contexts in the light of a contemporary trauma resiliency model. Contemporary Buddhism, 15(2), 274-297.