I say it at the end of every class. Drink water. Every single time. And I thought it might be helpful for me to write more about why.

Your body is mostly water.

Not in a vague way, we're talking around 60–70%. Your blood, your lymph, the fluid around your joints, the environment your cells sit in. All of it, water. According to the US Geological Survey, your brain and heart are 73% water, your lungs are 83%, and even your bones which you'd assume are solid are 31% water. We are, quite literally, a water-based system.

And sound loves water.

Sound travels through water around four to five times faster than through air. So when you're lying in a sound bath and the bowls are playing, the vibration isn't just moving around you,  it's moving through you. Through your skin, your tissues, all that fluid. It's a physical process. Which is why people may feel something shift during a session, even when they can't explain what. Their body was genuinely responding, not just their mind.

Back to the water.

When sound moves through your body the way it does in a sound bath, your system has been involved in something real. Even when it feels subtle. Drinking water afterwards helps your body settle and integrate. It's like rehydrating after a swim. You've been in the water, your body has worked, it needs replenishing, its kinda the same principle.

The research backs this up.

A study from the University of California San Diego, published in the Journal of Evidence-Based Complementary & Alternative Medicine, found that after a singing bowl sound bath, participants reported significantly less tension, anger, fatigue and low mood. People who were brand new to it experienced even greater benefit than those who'd been before.

I've always loved the sea. It's my favourite place. The rhythm of the waves, that vast constant sound, and for me the way everything in you just settles when you're near it. I think we're drawn to it partly because our bodies recognise something in it. The frequency, the water. We feel it because we're mostly made of it.

So all this talk of water and the sea I've recorded a 15-minute sound bath inspired by the sea. A gentle, atmospheric sound experience with ocean waves and sound bowls, designed to help your nervous system soften and settle.  Link below.

[https://www.thesoundspace.me/pages/sea-soundbath-audio-file]

And when it's done? You know what I'm going to say. Drink some water. 🌊

References: US Geological Survey — The Water in You | Goldsby et al. 2016, PubMed