The Healing Power of Water: The essential guide to blue health

by Lizzi Larbalestier

A fresh introduction to ‘blue health’, The Healing Power of Water shows how building a new relationship with water can calm stress, awaken clarity and enrich your body and mind.

From coastlines and rivers to lakes and rain, ocean advocate and Blue Health Coach™ Lizzi Larbalestier combines academic research and lived experience to encourage you to discover some of the many ways water heals and how you can connect more deeply with it.  

This photographic-rich book  

Guided practices: breathwork, short meditations, and sensory exercises you can do wherever you are. 
Practical activities: rituals and thought experiments, as well as physical activities such as snorkelling and surfing, to cultivate simple everyday habits and bring blue health into your routine. 
Evidence and explanation: accessible summaries of the latest scientific research on how water improves health.
Eco-centred perspective: reflections on stewardship and how deepening your relationship with water supports planetary as well as personal wellbeing. 
Beautiful imagery: evocative photography and illustrations that make the book a tactile, coffee-table companion as well as a practical guide.

Whether you live by the sea or seek peace of mind in busy urban spaces, The Healing Power of Water offers science-informed tools to reduce anxiety, sharpen attention, restore vitality and cultivate a more fluid way of living. This is the perfect book for wellness readers, mindfulness practitioners and anyone wanting to develop their blue health. 

Let The Healing Power of Water be your invitation to slow down and connect with water, to fall in love with it in the many ways it shows up in your life, and to enhance your mental and physical wellbeing, whilst helping protect the planet’s most vital natural feature.

For more ways to connect with nature, discover other books in the series, The Healing Power of Trees and The Healing Power of Sound.  

322 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 5, 2026

Reviews

[Chris]

Enjoyed this one. As someone who partakes in open water swimming, cold water swimming, contrast therapy, pool swimming and cold water swimming (I’ve done various summer and winter challenges along the way) and who also took part in a Zoom workshop with Lizzie through Outdoor Swimmer magazine, I was fascinated by this book. It takes its inspiration from the Blue Mind book, but takes a much simpler, and easier to understand approach. The book has some absolutely gorgeous photographs in it where you can lose yourself by imagining you are in those places. Some great activity suggestions and some great reminders why we need water. It’s also made me think about the language we use about water, this idea that we aren’t using it, we need to understand water is not a commodity: it is a tool for emotional and nervous system regulation; we live and breathe alongside the water and it’s all part of us, a complex ecosystem; and we are all wired for water - humans should recognise themselves as completely relational to it and embed themselves within its natural system, rather than seeing themselves as ‘water users’. Think of the water as being an active partner in our lives. It really makes you reconsider you relationship to water at so many levels so is a very powerful book.

[Kelly Hollingworth]

I did a freshwater swim recently with a friend and finally appreciated the healing and mental calming such an experience brings. This book highlights this and so much more. I enjoyed the fusion of academic research, ecological and environmental messages and the lived experiences the author conveys, all enriched by the stunning photography. Water has always been my sanctuary whether it is sea, stream, salt or fresh. The book highlights the physical and psychological benefits - the Blue Health and Blue Mind. I read it cover to cover but will be keeping it at hand to dive back in. It is a beautiful book inside and out, mirroring the beautiful water it champions.

[Reader]

A lovely and enjoyable book where every page brings something new and makes you want to turn the next one. I love that it’s also tactile (and the photos are great too!). Recommended.