Increasing numbers of people are watching livestreams of aquariums to enjoy peace and relaxation. Even better, you can join in from anywhere.
Aquariums closed to visitors because of lockdown have, perhaps unsurprisingly, reported huge increases in traffic to their live webcams as people turn to the underwater world for relaxation and stress relief. It's remarkably calming and various studies show that exposure to underwater settings does indeed have a positive impact on our wellbeing.
California’s Monterey Bay aquarium, for example, reports that visitors to its website has tripled compared to the previous year, with people enjoying its 10 live webcams, with the sea otter, jellyfish and shark exhibits proving the most popular. “People watch them religiously,” said Dana Allen-Greil, Monterey Bay aquarium’s director of digital strategy. “They email us and say ‘I eat breakfast every morning with the sea otters’ - it becomes part of their daily life.”
Meanwhile, Georgia aquarium, on the other side of America in Atlanta, says it had a 3,000 percent increase in daily traffic to its webcams at the start of lockdown, in particular to its 6.3m-gallon whale shark tunnel.
Watching live streams of underwater worlds has also been popular among teachers’ suggested self-care routines for students. “Students were worried and anxious, and quite a few of them told me that watching the webcams helped them focus and calm down,” said Laura Reeve, a middle-school teacher in Santa Cruz, CA.
If you wish to take a calming break, another great aquarium viewing option (in addition to those listed above), is The Aquarium of the Pacific, Long Beach, California which also has wonderful above and below water livestreams of penguins.
Original source: Guardian
More vicarious pleasures: