How star bathing can benefit mental health and sleep, improve mood, and teach about the cosmos
- Star bathing is the act of stargazing while tuning out the noise of everyday life. Research links the meditative practice to better sleep and mental health
- Enthusiasts describe the benefits, from relieving stress to learning about the constellations and how to find focus
“A deeply immersive experience” was the way Moksha Sachdev, a chartered accountant based in Delhi, India, described his first evening of star bathing.
“I felt at one with nature as I tuned into the sound of silence and soaked in the canopy of twinkling stars above me. All my tensions melted away as I reflected on the vastness of the universe and how I could become a better person by focusing on the bigger picture.”
Sachdev had signed up for a meditative camp in Mukteshwar, in India’s northern state of Uttarakhand, in December with Starscapes, an Indian company that organises such experiences for nature lovers.
Founded by photographer and astronomer Ramashish Ray in 2015, it has organised more than 100 camps at six observatories across the country.
Such has been the demand for its star-bathing experiences that Ray gave up a lucrative corporate career to run the company full time.
Starting with one observatory in the village of Kausani, in the Himalayas in the northern state of Uttarakhand, he now manages six of them across several Indian states.
