PODCASTThe Science of Happiness

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We explore water as a resource that not only hydrates, but encourages well being through connecting with all five of the senses. Listen to our guest experience and share how we can incorporate water into our day-to-day lives. 

A growing body of research shows that connecting with water through things like sight and sound and touch can have a positive impact on how we feel, how we think, and even the state of our bodies. This week, we activate all five senses through connecting with water in hopes of applying that research into reality. We hear from an environmental psychologist about the many proven benefits of spending time by water, as well as an indigenous scholar about the view of water not just as vital resources, but as kin that need protecting.

This episode is supported by Tianren Culture, whose vision is “One Wisdom, One Health.” Tianren Culture is a next-generation social platform that acts as a catalyst to foster positive global values and lifestyles.

Practice:
This practice is all about connecting your five senses: taste, sight, sound, touch, and smell– all through water. Here are five steps that could help improve your daily routine. 

1. Taste: Create a daily ritual of mindfully drinking water. 
2. Sight: Recenter yourself by seeing bodies of water in person, virtually, or even in your mind's eye.
3. Sound: Listen to the sound of rain, the sounds of waves crashing to reduce stress, or the faucet dripping.
4. Touch: This could be swimming, showers, even placing your hands in water
5. Smell: Take in the different smells of water bodies in nature.

​
Today’s guests:

TARANEH ARHAMSADR Based out of Oakland, Taraneh is a mother of two who’s worked in nonprofit communication for over 20 years, all the while being a part time blogger. A little under four years ago, she also co-founded Piper + Enza, a media venture dedicated to empowering families on their health journeys through storytelling. 

Read more on Taraneh: https://piperandenza.com/our-team/
Read some of Taraneh’s work: https://www.mother.ly/author/taraneh-arhamsadr/
Follow Taraneh on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taraneharhamsadr/

DR. MATHEW WHITE is a social psychologist researching the relationships between natural environments, physical health, and psychological health. White has worked at the European Centre for Environment and Human Health for nearly 10 years, and is currently continuing his research at the University of Vienna. 

Read more on Mathew: https://env-psy.univie.ac.at/about-us/mat-white/
Read more on his research efforts: https://www.ecehh.org/person/dr-mathew-white/

DR. YURIA CELIDWEN is an indigenous scholar of contemplative studies, and author of the new book, Flourishing Kin: Indigenous Foundations For Collective Well-Being.
Read more on Yuria: https://www.yuriacelidwen.com/#about
Follow Yuria on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yuriacelidwen/
Read Yuria’s work on kin relationality: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.994508/full

Science of Happiness Episodes like this one:
The Healing Effects of Experiencing Wildlife: https://tinyurl.com/49pkk6eu
How to Do Good for the Environment (And Yourself): https://tinyurl.com/5b26zwkx
Experience Nature Wherever You Are, with Dacher: https://tinyurl.com/mrutudeh

Tell us about your experiences or relationship to water and the five senses. Email us at happinesspod@berkeley.edu or follow on Instagram @HappinessPod.

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TARANEH ARHAMSADR: I grew up about 30 minutes from the ocean. Immigrant family, you know, parents worked hard. And on the weekends my parents took us to the ocean. A lot of weekends, most weekends, and I remember as like a seven or eight year old kid, just throwing my body in the water. I don't know how the time passed. I don't know what I was doing, but I was just there. When I was in college, I was 10 minutes from the beach, and if like, somebody broke up with me and I was sad, or like, I had to study for a midterm that I wasn't prepared for-- drive to the beach, put a towel down, and sit there for 30 minutes, an hour, walk up and down the beach. It didn't solve my problem, but it sure made me feel better. 

This summer I was visiting my family, and one night, I woke up in the middle of the night in severe pain. Blinding pain. And the next day I went to the emergency room, and they told me I had a one inch by one inch kidney stone that was lodged in my kidney and was not going to move without surgery. The main reason this happened is because I am chronically dehydrated. And it had been growing, based on the size, for a couple of years, maybe longer. It's actually kind of funny. Water has always brought me peace. I grew up near water. I live near water now. It's always there for me. But ironically I have not used water to support my physical health. As a busy mom, as someone who's always on the move, drinking water, filling up my water bottle even, is inconvenient. I also just turned 40 and, It made me realize that I can no longer get away with just going, going, going. It was a serious wake up call. 

DACHER KELTNER: Approximately 60 percent of our bodies are made up of it. Seventy-one percent of the earth is covered by it. But how often do we really think about water? 

Welcome to The Science of Happiness, I'm Dacher Keltner. A growing body of research that we've talked about from time to time shows that connecting with water through things like sight and sound and touch can have a positive impact on how we feel, how we think, and even the state of our bodies. Of course, that depends on individual memories and experiences with water.

Our guest this week, Taraneh Arhamsadr, is a busy mom with two young kids, juggling work and family, and like many parents, self care often goes to the back burner. She tried a practice in connecting with water using all five senses in hopes it could have some of the positive impacts we'll hear about today. Later in the show, environmental psychologist Mat White shares his research on the many benefits of spending time near water.

MAT WHITE: It's not that everyone goes surfing and sailing and diving, it's that they walk more. And we've also done experimental studies where people underestimate the time in blue spaces, relative to other spaces. In other words, you walk for longer just because it's just nice, and you've lost track of time. 

DACHER KELTNER: We also hear from Dr. Yuria Celidwen about the indigenous view of water, and nature in general, not just as vital resources, but as kin that need protecting.

YURIA CELIDWEN: When we are raised in a cultural context that embraces these reverence towards nature, this interconnectedness with the natural environment, then we are constantly paying attention to how we are impacting this environment.

DACHER KELTNER: Welcome back to The Science of Happiness, I'm Dacher Keltner. Joining me is Taraneh Arhamsadr. For our show, she immersed herself in water through all five senses—listening to its sounds, spending time nearby, and feeling its presence. She began her journey by creating a daily ritual of mindfully drinking water, turning each sip into an opportunity to really tune in and be present.

Here's part of our conversation. 

DACHER KELTNER: Taraneh, thanks for being with us today. [use whichever one is smoother transition] 

TARANEH ARHAMSADR: Thank you so much for having me. This is exciting. 

DACHER KELTNER: Tell us about sort of this daily mindful hydration. I think a lot of people may have heard about sort of mindful eating, savoring the taste and the like. What was it like for you to mindfully drink water?

TARANEH ARHAMSADR: I think from a physical perspective, like I'm still feeling pain, as a part of my recovery, I'm still in my healing mode. And so almost every morning when I wake up, when I drink the water, I literally think about it filtering through my organs, filtering through and keeping my kidneys clean. I mean, that's kind of TMI, but, that is what I'm visualizing because that is something I just need to be on top of moving forward it was a practice in just stopping and slowing down. 

DACHER KELTNER: You know, there's nice science that shows that, hydrating in terms of just having a kind of more focused attention span and all that it has to do with what you're talking about. 

So tell us about seeing water live in the Bay Area. As we're lucky to, there are streams here on the Berkeley campus, fog, the Bay, and the ocean's an hour away. What'd you do?  

TARANEH ARHAMSADR: The most straightforward thing I did is I just went to, the waterfront in Berkeley, Emeryville. It's so close. And especially after a long week when the kids have been at school, we've been at work. Fridays, you remember how it is as a working parent on Fridays with young kids. You're just, you just feel, dead.  And the kids are fussy and all of that stuff. And we just went to the water.

My daughter's 10. She's starting to push back. She's like, "I don't want to go. I want to watch TV. I don't want to go." But we just piled them up all in the car and we get to the beach. And it's usually pretty gentle, and we just, we walked down to the water, we had some friends with us who also had young children. 

And we just sat on the rocks, and put our toes in the water and, just looked at it, and just kind of took in the gentle waves lapping against the little rocky shore, watch the kids play and inevitably grumpy, fussy, whatever. By the end of it, their feet are in the water, shoes on. I was like, oops. But they're, they're re-centered, and we are re-centered as a family just from that 10 minutes of sitting there and just being in space with the water. 

It was a reminder that this is always here for us. And that it is such a simple gift that brings us peace as stressed out adults, but it also brings our children peace. And it was a reminder that we need to do this more.

DACHER KELTNER: In your vivid description, and it was so powerful to use the word peace, and there's a lot to it. Convergent research that shows that just being near bodies of water, it shifts in the air and the ionization and  the sound and the feeling like you described, whether it's an ocean or a bay or a lake or a river, even in virtual reality, it helps us find a little bit more peace, a little bit more calm, a little bit less stress. Work out of UC Davis, you know, just even looking at the water in this research, it helps lower your heart rate.

We know, you know, it's really cool science that just listening to rain or waves, just the sounds of it can calm your neurophysiology of stress, reduce anxiety, give you better focus. What did it shift in you? 

TARANEH ARHAMSADR: Depending on the time of day, the tide, the waves, they're different and they have a different personality. And usually in the evening, if the weather is pleasant. It's just very, very gentle. That brings a lot of sort of peace. It kind of slows your heart rate. It, it's melodic and it can put you kind of in a trance, right? That's very different from the experience of crashing waves. It's very different from the experience of a powerful waterfall. That feeling of exhilaration that rush. That good rush that you get. All of these things make me feel better, make me feel good. It reawakens something that's always been in me, which is an appreciation for and an instinct for seeking water to bring me peace and wellness. 

DACHER KELTNER: How did you engage with water with touch?

TARANEH ARHAMSADR: Let's start with a shower. Is that weird?

DACHER KELTNER: I like to start my day with a shower. 

TARANEH ARHAMSADR: And sometimes end it that way. I'm healing from surgery. I'm still like dealing with pain. And so taking a shower, I'm always like, taking an extra moment to let the water, the warm water, just kind of massage an organ and a part of my body that has undergone surgery that's bruised, that's healing, that has, you know, scar tissue. So for me, like, it is a daily source of comfort from the perspective of touch, or feeling because it is soothing pain and discomfort, and again, it's like a visualization of this is helping reduce inflammation just by letting this warm water, just run over this, this organ or this part of my body.

DACHER KELTNER: That's wonderful. What scents of water, what smells, did you encounter during your water practice? 

TARANEH ARHAMSADR: Salt water is the first one. You don't smell it all the time here in the Bay. Sometimes it depends on the night or the breeze that comes through. I'm always looking out for it because it makes me happy. It reminds me that I'm near the ocean. And every time I even get a, like a whiff of it, just like, yes. That feels good. That makes me really happy. 

There is a really distinct difference between like the smell of like in nature the smell of ocean water kind of musky musty smell that you get when you're stepping into a river, and so those are also really distinct differences that if you pay attention, they can tell you where you are. 

DACHER KELTNER: Yeah, absolutely. Such valuable information. I wanted to step back, Taraneh, and ask you, doing these nature focused practices, which we've been profiling on the show, is that, they inevitably remind us of climate crisis. And surveys show a quarter of the world experiences water scarcity, and half of our rivers and lakes are polluted with micro plastics and the same with our drinking water. And Wallace J. Nichols, who was a pioneer in this area and recently passed away very tragically, had his Blue Mind Theory that our health depends on healthy water. It's very intuitive and he articulated that. So, as you did this water practice, how did it sort of, what did it make you think about with respect to our climate crises and being better stewards of the Earth, what went through your mind?

TARANEH ARHAMSADR: From a human perspective, water is life. As human beings, if we don't have access to healthy water, enough water, we can't even focus on our other problems, right?

And so, a recognition and a constant reminder that we're lucky and so many around the world don't have this. Basic access to this life giving necessary thing. And then from like a whole earth perspective, because you know, we're very human-centric, right? We're not going to be able to sustain our planet if we keep treating it like crap. You know, if we keep  polluting our waterways. If we keep doing what we're doing. And so I think that that's also something that I'm constantly aware of, constantly reminding myself of, and in my own life, doing what I can to to reduce that footprint.

DACHER KELTNER: You say water is life, and I think most of us feel that viscerally, and we've had experiences like that. We are in hurricane season, and water's also destructive. And going deep into your relationship with water and the waterfalls and the gentle lapping waves of the day, and just thinking about what it means to us, how do you think about these extremes of water? 

TARANEH ARHAMSADR: As adults, there's a point where we all develop a healthy respect for the water and realize that It is a natural life force. And by the same token, natural disasters are a part of world history. I'm actually reading a book on hurricanes and tornadoes with my son right now. And there was a timeline that started in like 1054 A.D. So it's documented, right? These natural disasters have been happening since the beginning of time. But going back to the climate crisis, they are being exacerbated by climate change. 

And so, understanding and respecting that. These natural disasters are a part of being on and existing on earth and an awareness that there are things that we can do to, reduce the severity and the devastation that is caused by these natural disasters. You just have to respect it and know that there are things that we can do to make it better to some degree. 

TARANEH ARHAMSADR: Because I underwent this practice while healing,I will always remember how it helped my body while I was healing. And I think that for that reason, I'm more likely to not forget again that water is life, and it's life giving, and it's always going to provide that for me.

DACHER KELTNER: Taraneh Arhamsadr, thank you so much for taking us on this journey through the senses and our relationship to water. Thank you.

TARANEH ARHAMSADR: Thank you so much. It was fun. 

DACHER KELTNER: More about the science of water and wellness, after this break. 

DACHER KELTNER: Welcome back to The Science of Happiness, I’m Dacher Keltner. 

I'm joined by Shuka Kalantari who's here to share more about how spending time around natural bodies of water can support our minds and bodies, and ultimately the health of our environment. Here's Shuka.

SHUKA KALANTARI: Hi everyone. We know that cities around the world have historically been built along rivers, lakes, coastlines, and not just for their beauty but for practical reasons— facilitating trade, transportation, drinking it.

MAT WHITE: Most people live in urban settings, and most of those settings are very close to water. So we felt that it was probably pretty important to start looking at this. 

SHUKA KALANTARI: That's Mat White, an environmental psychologist at the University of Vienna and a leading researcher on the benefits of "blue spaces," things like lakes, coastlines, etc. Over a decade ago he noted there were a lot of studies about how green spaces are good for us, but not much about our waters.

MAT WHITE:  For the first three or four years, we focused on the UK, and we put together a lot of data showing the potential benefits to mental health from spending time in and around the water, especially the coastal environment. 

SHUKA KALANTARI: White expanded his research to other parts of Europe, and also California, Queensland, Hong Kong… All to see if their UK findings applied elsewhere.

MAT WHITE: To cut a long story short, they do. Very positive globally. 

SHUKA KALANTARI: They also studied in Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines.

MAT WHITE: We were looking at in very different communities where this was often the livelihoods of people, not just nice to have to go to the beach on holiday, but these people were living from the resources from the coast. 

These were also the places where they would meet socially, often surrounding family and food, it was extremely important. There were spiritual and cultural heritage meanings to these places, which was super important. Time and time again we see that inland blue spaces, lakes, rivers, but especially the coast. People go there to meet friends and family. So they're having good social time. And we know that good social contact, good social time is good for mental health, right? So there's this kind of sense of belonging that blue spaces can really bring.

SHUKA KALANTARI: Being near water can also be really good for our bodies. For example, studies show that people who live near coastlines tend to exercise more. 

MAT WHITE: It's not that everyone goes surfing and sailing and diving-- it's that they walk more. And we've also done experimental studies where people underestimate the time in blue spaces relative to other spaces. In other words, you walk for longer just because it's just nice and you've lost track of time. And of course, if you do that regularly, it stacks up.

SHUKA KALANTARI: Being around water as a child also strongly shapes how we experience it later in life.

MAT WHITE: The crucial period is before about 10 to 11 years old to build that connection. Then they're going through puberty and all sorts of other things become more interesting and important. 

SHUKA KALANTARI: That connection usually comes back in their 20s and beyond, and it often leads to a sense of responsibility to protect the environment.

MAT WHITE: But those things are often set in stone relatively in childhood.

SHUKA KALANTARI: White also studies the flip side of water: all of its possible health impacts and drawbacks.

MAT WHITE:  Everything from drowning, to microbial water pollution, to heavy chemicals in the environment to destructive flooding and so on. So we know that the risks go hand in hand, and it's really important not to lose sight of that. This is all to be taken seriously. But if we scare everyone away, we're potentially missing out on benefits you're not considering here. So our aim in all of this was to recalibrate the risk approach to water, to say there are benefits that are not being looked at. 

SHUKA KALANTARI: White conducted a study across 14 European countries to show the economic impact on public health if people didn't have access to things like lakes, rivers, and beaches because of pollution.

MAT WHITE: Because that meant people would no longer go swimming there. 

SHUKA KALANTARI: Or walk, or create core memories building sandcastles, and so on.

MAT WHITE: Those costs were in the billions of pounds or billions of euros a year. And the European environment agency was really interested in that because obviously cleaning up water costs money. There's a cost benefit to being in water. The benefits often outweigh the risks.

SHUKA KALANTARI: For 15 years, White has been gathering proof that water benefits our health, all in hopes it will encourage governments to invest in restoring it.

MAT WHITE: You have to keep playing the same songs to policymakers over and over again to have impact. Keep taking it to a new country, keep showing the effects over and over because it takes a long time to shift policy.

YURIA CELIDWEN: As we know, we cannot survive without water. So as keepers of the water and water protectors, we have captivated the attention of the world from the indigenous movement of standing rock halting pipelines, to demanding clean, safe drinking water, 

SHUKA KALANTARI: That's Dr. Yuria Celidwen, an indigenous scholar of contemplative studies, and author of the new book, Flourishing Kin: Indigenous Foundations For Collective Well-Being. 

YURIA CELIDWEN:  [Speaking Nahuatl and Tzeltal languages.] What you just heard are my Indigenous Nahuatl and Tzeltal languages. 

SHUKA KALANTARI: Celidwen is of Nahua and Maya lineages and was born and raised in the highlands of the Chiapas in Mexico. For nearly 20 years, she worked with the United Nations on sustainable development goals, which today emphasize protecting the health of our oceans, rivers, and freshwater.

YURIA CELIDWEN: So these have been part of the recommendations that we, as an international community, have been pushing governments to adopt. The difference is that one is to give recommendations, another is demanding much more than just recommendations. There needs to be really legally binding agreements that push governments to really commit to changes for the health of water bodies, the health of life on earth, the health of forests, etc. Because we need to start thinking of all of us as part of a global community, of a planetary community. Really include all other living beings, including water, including the skies, including  all these much collective beings like forests, et cetera, that usually within western perspectives are not understood as living entities .

SHUKA KALANTARI: Celidwen says one reason indigenous communities are at the forefront of environmental movements is that they experience water, and nature, as more than just resources.

YURIA CELIDWEN: For many, if not most, if not all of indigenous cultures of the world, there is a very similar view on seeing elements in general, of the natural universe as kin, as relatives. It is part of our sense of belonging, our sense of being in the whole of the environment. 

So when we are raised in a cultural context that embraces this constant relatedness and intra connectedness with the natural environment, then we are constantly paying attention how we are impacting this environment. So it is not just, "Oh, we are here to take or extract," but rather, we are constantly seeing how our presence impacts all that is around, because we are responsible, because we are in relationship with these different living beings.

We as a planetary community, need to really embrace, really integrate in our understanding of the world that the whole universe is alive.  That water is alive. That the whole natural environment is a living entity that is speaking to us, speaking through us, because it always inhabits us. 

DACHER KELTNER: That was indigenous scholar Dr. Yuria Celidwen. She'll lead a meditation in examining our relationships with water through the five senses, and a few more, on next week's Happiness Break episode.

Our next Science of Happiness episode is all about how to practice gratitude when you really aren't feeling all that thankful.

STEPHANIE FOO: I decided to do this mental subtraction of events, which is envisioning what it would be like if I didn't have New York. What if I didn't have Joey, my husband. What if I didn't have Malaysian food? What if I didn't have my cat?

DACHER KELTNER: Thanks for joining us on The Science of Happiness. Our associate producers are Dasha Zerboni and Hamza Fahmy. Our research assistant is Selina Bilal. Sound design from Jennie Cataldo of Accompany Studios. Shuka Kalantari is our executive producer. I'm Dacher Keltner. Have a great day.