How to Heal Yourself in Tears of the Kingdom

The world of “The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom” (TotK) is a dangerous place. Enemies and perils lurk around every corner, ready to deal damage and wipe out Link’s life bar. If you’re not careful, you could find yourself facing a “Game Over” screen. Fortunately, there are multiple ways to heal yourself and stay alive.

This guide will show you exactly how to heal in TotK.

How to Heal in TotK

In TotK, just like in other games throughout the “Legend of Zelda” franchise, Link’s health bar is represented by a series of hearts. Taking damage drains a heart (or a few, depending on the enemy’s difficulty), and if you run out of them entirely, you’ll die and have to start over.

Healing allows you to refill your hearts bar, and there are three different ways to heal in TotK:

• Eating
  
• Sleeping
  
• Completing Shrine Challenges

Below, you’ll find out more about each of these methods.

How to Heal with Food

The most common way to heal in TotK is through eating. Most forms of food, both raw and cooked, will give you some of your health back. You can find ingredients and raw foods all over Hyrule, from apples and mushrooms to meat and fish. Plus, you can eat whenever you like, even during battles.

Here’s a quick guide on how to heal with raw food:

1. Gather some food from the world, like apples from trees.
   
2. When you need to eat, press the + button to access your inventory.
   
3. Use the L and R buttons to navigate over to either the “Materials” or the “Food” tab.
   
4. Scroll through your items and find something to eat.
   
5. Select your chosen food item with the A button and select “Eat.”
   
6. Link will then eat the food, getting back a few hearts.
   

Eating raw food is handy in the early stages of the game or if you’re in a tricky spot and have no other option. However, raw items don’t usually restore much health or provide any other benefits. To get the best value out of your food, it’s better to cook it. Here’s how:

1. Find and collect ingredients from the world.
   
2. Locate a cooking pot. There are dozens of them dotted around Hyrule, or you can buy a portable Zonai pot to carry around with you.
   
3. Press + to access the inventory and navigate over to the Materials tab.
   
4. Find the ingredients you want to cook with and select them with the A button. Press “Hold” on each ingredient. You can select up to five at a time.
   
5. Exit the menu, and press A to place your ingredients in the cooking pot.
   
6. Watch the cooking animation. When it ends, you’ll automatically receive some cooked food.
   

Cooked food typically restores much more health compared to raw ingredients. Plus, if you find the right recipes, you can even get extra benefits, like bonus attack power or resistance to certain forms of damage. Look for recipes in the world or experiment with ingredients to discover them.

It’s also worth noting that you don’t necessarily need to find a cooking pot to cook some food. You can also cook items like apples and meat by placing them directly into a fire. There are many fires to find around the game world, or you can make your own with some flint and wood.

How to Heal with Sleep

Another quick and easy way to heal up in TotK is by sleeping. You can sleep in any of the game’s many beds to restore your health. Beds are available in towns and villages; you can always find one in any village inn, but you’ll have to pay a small fee of 20 rupees to sleep in it.

Once you wake up, you should see that your whole health bar has been refilled. In addition, sleeping has the effect of passing the time, and you’ll be able to choose whether you wish to sleep until morning, noon, or night.

How to Heal by Completing Shrines

The final healing method in TotK is to complete a Shrine. There are over 150 shrines in the TotK world, presenting the player with an array of unique challenges and puzzles to solve. By finishing a shrine, you’ll be rewarded with a full health bar, in addition to other treasures.

However, even though completing a shrine can heal you, this isn’t recommended as a reliable healing method. There are also various dangers in the shrines that can deal damage or finish you off if you’re low on health. So it’s better to heal in other ways and get your life bar filled up before entering a shrine.

How to Heal from Gloom Damage and Cracked Hearts

During the course of your playthrough of TotK, you may notice certain hearts on your life bar that look cracked. This means that you have taken Gloom damage. Gloom is a new feature for Totk, and there are specific Gloom enemies, like Gloom Hands, which can crack your hearts.

The usual healing methods won’t restore these broken hearts. For example, eating some cooked food will only restore hearts up to the cracked ones. Fortunately, there are a few different ways you can heal from Gloom damage:

• The easiest method is to leave the Depths. Gloom damage and cracked hearts only apply in the Depths, which is the name of the underground area of the world. If you go back to the surface or fly up to the Sky Islands, the hearts will gradually fix themselves, and you can then use food to refill them.
• If you can’t leave the Depths yet, you can also search around for a Lightroot. There are 120 Lightroots in the Depths, and they’re all situated directly underneath the shrines of the Surface level. You can also teleport to Lightroots after finding them, and simply interacting with one will fix your cracked hearts.
• The third and final method to heal from Gloom damage is to eat food that has the word “Sunny” in the name. You’ll need to use an ingredient called Sundelions to make these food items. You can find Sundelions in the Sky Islands, and a few can be found in very high spots on the Surface map. Simply add them as an ingredient to your recipes to make Sunny meals.

FAQs

What happens when you die in TotK?

If you run out of health entirely, you’ll see a “Game Over” screen and continue from your last save. Fortunately, TotK autosaves a lot, so you’ll usually spawn quite close to where you died and won’t lose too much progress. However, it’s worth noting that if you die in a shrine, you’ll respawn right back at the start.

How do I get more hearts?

To obtain more hearts, you’ll need to either beat bosses or complete shrines to obtain Lights of Blessing. You can exchange four Lights of Blessing at a Goddess Statue for a new Heart Container.

Heal Often to Stay Alive in TotK

With multiple healing methods and countless food items all over Hyrule, keeping yourself alive isn’t too difficult. Regardless, it’s wise to stock up on food and obtain as many Heart Containers as you can.

Have you been enjoying TotK so far? Found any awesome recipes for restoring hearts? Share your tips and thoughts in the comments section.