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Water Therapy: A Somatic Path to Resilience from a Polyvagal Perspective Resilience is often described in psychological terms — as a person’s ability to “bounce back” from adversity or remain mentally strong under pressure. However, Polyvagal Theory, developed by Dr. Stephen Porges, offers a deeper and more embodied understanding: resilience is not just in the mind — it lives in the body. According to Dr. Porges, resilience is a physiological capacity rooted in our autonomic nervous system (ANS). It’s the body’s ability to respond to and recover from stress while maintaining — or returning to — a state of internal balance, known as homeostasis. We are born with the capacity for resilience. Dr. Porges emphasizes that it is an adaptive system, designed to help us survive stress while staying regulated. But this capacity isn’t guaranteed. Resilience is not a fixed trait — it is dynamic and trainable. It can be strengthened, rebuilt, and reinforced through supportive experiences like safety, play, and connection. It can also be weakened by trauma, chronic stress, and isolation — which erode our flexibility and limit access to healing. The social engagement system is how we co-regulate with others. Engaging in safe, playful interactions "exercises" our resilience. When we are pushed outside our window of tolerance, the nervous system may lose its flexibility. So it’s not just about what happened to us — it’s about the loss of access to safety. Without this, the body struggles to heal, grow, or connect. Water therapy offers a rich and unique ground to "exercise" resilience. Taking place in 35°C warm water, this therapeutic modality integrates aquatic bodywork with somatic and trauma informed methods, creating a safe and co-regulated environment. 💧 Buoyancy supports effortless movement, and water naturally invites playfulness and exploration — both key for nervous system flexibility and regulation. 💧 Hydrostatic pressure gently surrounds the body, enhancing proprioception as well as interoception and helping reestablish physical awareness and boundaries — a foundational element of felt safety. 💧 Warm water promotes parasympathetic regulation by creating a sense of calm and safety — conditions that support vagal tone and nervous system restoration. By supporting muscle relaxation it reduces tension, which in turn lowers stress signals to the brain. 💧 Water therapy can potentially initiate different hormonal and neuromodulators responses that reduce stress (↓ cortisol), promote well-being (↑ endorphins, serotonin, dopamine) and enhance bonding (↑ oxytocin). 💧 The presence of another attuned person in the water activates our social engagement system and enables co-regulation through touch, rhythm, and relational presence. In this way, water therapy doesn’t just relax the body — it helps retrain the nervous system, restore access to resilience, and reopen the door to a state of safety and healing.

Our first yield with the environment occurred somewhere in the first week of our embryonic development, when we were only a cluster of cells that met the uterine wall and surrendered to the point of contact, long before we had a shape of a body. Every cell in us was ready for rooting, to continue the form’s changes and the growth from there. The uterus, for its part, made its yield towards us, as if it was there to teach us encounter for the first time. Yield is the somatic expression of our primary attachment with the world, creating a safe and stable base from which we will go out to explore and to which we will return in times of distress and need for rest and recharging. Yield is our first developmental "movement" and the basis for subsequent movements that will propel us forward and bring us to exploration and fulfilment with the environment. It's amazing to see the natural movement in infants towards an experience and our so common tendency as adults to avoid the unfamiliar/unknown. How would the push towards the next thing feel if we paused for a moment in yield and took the time to feel ourselves? Would something change in the quality of our actions? In the readiness to encounter the unknown? Water therapy allows us an opportunity to evoke the physical and emotional experience of yield. To be in yield requires trust. Learning to trust requires remembering how to be in yield. And remembering is possible through the body. I often encounter people in the water on the verge of collapse from their intensive daily lives, thirsty for rest. When we collapse into an experience or encounter, we cannot acknowledge the presence of something or someone else in front of us. When we are yielding, we are present in ourselves and more able to let go into trust that the other will receive us. When we are yielding, we are in a meeting that can hold both acknoledgment of the other's existence and a sense of our own self simultaneously. There are boundaries but also connection. Two but also lack of separation. Relationships' learning. The expectation or idea that one should relax in water therapy can be replaced with remembering to yield with the environment – with the water, with the therapist, And what happens then? When a real encounter occurs? When we don't collapse and don't act from a compulsive need to push and move forward in order to get somewhere or from avoidance of the unknown?

Water, touch, and social communication are three significant elements for a healthy and balanced nervous system. Just as a contracted or lethargic muscle has difficulty feeling itself and the environment, so do we when we navigate the world from a place of chronic tension, restlessness, reactivity, or sensory and emotional numbness. When space opens up for us to breathe, let go, sense, feel, and choose, a whole world of connection unfolds, both within ourselves and with our environment. We can acknowledge pain in the body while also finding joy within it, learning to flow with life as it comes, free from manipulation, forgetting, or survival strategies. Our internal capacity expands, fostering resilience that carries over from our experiences in water to our daily lives. ​ Through curious exploration and awareness of the body, we gain a deeper understanding of the processes within us and how to navigate them. This enables us to integrate everyday events into the flow of our lives rather than being overwhelmed by a constant sense of struggle, avoidance, or collapse into exhaustion and helplessness. ​ In encounters with water and another person, incorporating sensory experiences of movement and touch allows us to slow down and embark on a journey of remembrance. Water can evoke a somatic memory of our primary embryonic experiences in the womb, a developmental stage where we had yet to form ideas about ourselves and the world. It provides a space of freedom not often accessible in everyday life, from which creativity and intelligence can emerge, or another opportunity for healing to those of us who were impacted at that stage of development. ​ In a safe environment, water can reflect everything that has formed within us, become stuck, or frozen in time, bring a new movement to the layers of our being and facilitate change at the cellular level.

There is one moment in the process of embryonic development that always moves me deeply: the moment when the fertilized egg is ready to implant in the uterus, and the uterus, in turn, seems to reach out to welcome its arrival. Implantation is, in essence, full consent and acceptance. A meeting. Even in an unplanned or unwanted pregnancy—for a single moment, the entire universe said yes! And the forming embryo was received fully, just as it was. Every person in this world, beyond their personal story, holds (even if only for a fleeting moment) this experience within their very cells. "New findings show that human beings are shaped by their environment, not just by their DNA. Our first and most significant environment is our mother’s womb. The experiences we undergo in the womb accompany us into our adult lives. They influence our choices—and the state of the world." One of the amazing things that being in warm water allows is access to those ancient and primal moments that shaped us in the womb environment. Through the body—through somatic experience and embodiment—we can revisit the developmental stages in the womb that influenced the formation of our sense of self and our relationships later in life. We can reconnect with the places that nourished and nurtured us—or with those that remain stuck and hidden in our bodymind—and explore their impact on the mental, physical, and emotional layers of our adult lives. In doing so, we bring more awerness, choices, and freedom to how we are in the world.

Water Therapy Is More Than Relaxation — It’s a Vital Tool for Nervous System Health: In his book Our Polyvagal World, Dr. Stephen Porges explains that our nervous system has what’s called a “Yellow state”— a mode designed to help us manage short-term danger through heightened alertness, stress, and vigilance. But when this state becomes our default way of living (as it often does in fast-paced work environments and modern life in general), the consequences are real. We become reactive, emotionally volatile, and disconnected from the parts of the brain responsible for creativity, self-regulation, and connection. Over time, this constant state of activation wears us down — mentally, emotionally, and physically. Water therapy can help activate what Porges calls the “Green state” — a biologically grounded state of calm, safety, and social connection. This is where real recovery happens. Water provides the ideal environment for this shift. It soothes the body, calms the mind, and creates space for both emotional and physical decompression. In essence, water therapy gives our body the homeostasis it craves — pockets of deep rest that protect us from burnout and long-term stress damage. We don’t need to feel safe every minute of the day. But we do need regular moments when our nervous system can reset.

Stability does not come from a fixed posture or position, but from the quality of a relationship. The understanding of this sentence in my body was revolutionary for me. What an accurate metaphor for so many aspects of our lives. Most of us naturally cling to the idea that if we organize our lives on solid ground, we’ll be protected from the upheavals of life, from inevitable changes, and find that stability we so deeply long for. But what if we could play with the idea that stability doesn’t come from something fixed and singular, but rather from the communication between the different parts that are in constant motion and in relationship with one another - Stability and motion which occur simultaneously? 💦 Our bodily experience in a water-based, low-gravity environment allows us to feel the ongoing organization between the different parts of our body into one organism moving in continuity and flow, constantly changing according to the position we are in. Through movement and physical organization, we can also explore and learn about emotional and mental organization. When we learn to recognize the different parts within us, we gain the ability to choose, and we can use them in a way that supports the whole, according to the situation or circumstances.

© 2026 by Shahar Yarkoni

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