Why grieving people
seek water

There is something many bereaved parents notice in the days and weeks after a loss. An unexpected pull toward water. A river they walk to without planning to. A beach they find themselves at in the middle of winter. The bath, running long after it has gone cold.

This is not a coincidence, and it is not sentimental. There is an emerging body of research on what happens to the human nervous system when it encounters natural water — and it helps explain something that grieving people have known instinctively for a very long time.

What research on blue space tells us

The term “blue space” refers to natural water environments — rivers, lakes, coastlines, ponds, streams. Research on how these environments affect human psychology and physiology has grown significantly over the past decade, building on work in environmental psychology and neuroscience.

Studies link time near natural water with better mood and lower stress. Researchers at the University of Exeter found, for example, that people in England who live closer to the coast report better health and wellbeing, even after taking income and other factors into account.

The reasons are not fully understood, but several explanations have been proposed. The steady sound of moving water and the view of an open horizon may help the body move out of alert and into rest, the work of the parasympathetic nervous system. The absence of visual complexity that characterises most natural water environments may reduce the cognitive load on a brain that is already working very hard.

Grief and the threat response

The body in acute grief is on high alert. Grief switches on the stress response, the same system that reacts to danger. This is why bereaved parents describe the physical symptoms of grief — the racing heart, the inability to eat, the constant low-level anxiety — that so closely resemble fear.

The parasympathetic nervous system, which time near water may help to engage, works against this state. It is not a cure for grief. But it is a relief from the constant physical burden of it. This may explain why so many bereaved parents describe feeling, for the first time in weeks, able to breathe properly when they are near water.

The Japanese practice of forest bathing

Related to the research on blue space is the Japanese practice of shinrin-yoku — forest bathing — which involves spending time slowly and attentively in a forest environment. Studies on shinrin-yoku published in peer-reviewed journals including Environmental Health and Preventive Medicine have shown measurable reductions in cortisol, blood pressure, and activity in the prefrontal cortex — the area of the brain most active during rumination and worry.

Shinrin-yoku is not about exercise or achieving anything. It is about presence — moving slowly, engaging the senses, allowing the environment to do what environments do when we are not too busy to notice them. For bereaved parents who feel unable to rest but also unable to act, this quality of gentle, purposeful presence can be easier to access than formal meditation or therapy.

What this means in practice

None of this is to suggest that a walk by a river will resolve grief. Grief cannot be resolved — it can only be carried more gently over time. But the research does suggest that the instinct many bereaved people have toward water and nature is a sound one, and that following it is not avoidance or escapism but a genuine act of physiological care.

If you find yourself drawn to water in the weeks and months after a loss — a particular stretch of canal, a specific beach, the sound of rain — trust that instinct. Your nervous system may know something your mind is still working out.