Book Review: Blue mind: How water makes you happier, more connected, and better at what you do

By WALLACE J. NICHOLS PH.D 

Published by Little, Brown Book Group  

ISBN: 9780349139579  

Reviewed by William Pattengill  

Several years ago, my doctor strongly recommended Your body’s many cries for water by F. Batmanghelidj, M.D., a book that warned of the dangers of chronic dehydration which was identified as the root cause of many common and persistent health problems. When I came across a podcast featuring the author of Blue Mind: how water makes you happier, more connected, and better at what you do, I was intrigued by how it seemed to be complimenting the first book with a much wider scope.  

As an aside, I wish someone would write an investigative piece on the subject of Book Titles: why all works of non-fiction must have a short punchy intro followed by a colon and a rundown of what the author is really up to. Dr Nichols’ title is a classic of the form, and at first glimpse I asked myself, ‘Do I really need 276 pages plus 40 more of notes to tell me why water makes me happy?’ But because of the other two less obvious claims, I took the plunge (both the author and I cannot resist the random relevant metaphor). As it turned out, the neuroscience that illuminates the link between ‘happy’ and ‘H2 O’ is just as fascinating as the others. 

Dr Nichols admits that his book is awash in “the wave of neuroscience” that has swept over us lately. The reader will encounter its proliferations that target specific mental activity: neuroaesthetics observes how the brain responds to perceived beauty; neuroeconomics attends to our choices of value, and as for neuro-marketing, enough said. Then there is the sexiest of the lot, neuroplasticity, with its seductive offering of internal changes that were once thought impossible. Today these new disciplines are providing insight into the invisible mechanics of things we always knew were true by intuition or circumstance: such as, we like, we want, we need water!  

The book is a mix of autobiography, casual but well-informed conversations with a variety of colourful contributors, and hard science backed by innumerable studies and research projects. The author occasionally reminds us of his fondness for his current place of residence, the Pacific coast south of San Francisco (“the Slow Coast”). His laid-back style makes the science easier to swallow as well as the smooth marketing of his annual Blue Mind Summit. These gatherings serve to advance his unique vision of environmental activism which came as a surprise to me since it was not foreshadowed by the scope of the title, except maybe as being “more connected”.  

Books of this genre that cater to the non-academic science fan tend to regale the reader with a steady stream of interesting tangential facts and figures which I enjoy if not overdone. Such as: the colour blue is by far the favourite worldwide by a wide margin. And that a polluted pond in England coloured turquoise by chemicals was still so attractive to local swimmers, despite ill side-effects, hat the property owners had to dye it black to keep people out. I enjoyed reading about water’s as yet unexplained benefits to autistic children, and that the phrase “ocean view” is one of the most value-loaded in the English language. This continues to be true despite the slow increase in danger when large bodies of water misbehave and the even slower upward creep of sea levels. This diverse collection of information serves to illustrate how wide and deep is the influence of this primal element on human activity of all kinds. Why do we float? Why is immersion in water so beneficial to our bodies? You will find out. You may also be surprised, as I was, that death by drowning far outnumbers all others causes of accidental death worldwide, but that doesn’t keep people out of the water.  

There are interviews with a range of characters who spend a lot of time in or upon the sea, some for nearly-addictive pleasure, and some for livelihood: swimmers, surfers, divers, and boatmen, and those who call themselves watermen. He doesn’t leave out what happens within us when we bathe, shower, float in an immersion tank, stroll by a river, or even gaze into an aquarium. No surprise that since we are mainly composed of water, our five senses find the stuff delightful, and he will explain how that works too. Blue Mind is his term for our connection to this primal element, and without it, our world would be overheated and dehydrated, both inside and out. He suggests it could also be a holistic alternative to anti-depressants and performance-enhancing drugs. Several studies showed how time spent in nature/around water improved test scores in cognitive functioning. Most of our tech-dependent urban work environments provide little opportunity for communing with nature, and the result is attention fatigue that quietly burns up energy and lowers our concentration and effectiveness.  

Looking at the bigger picture, Dr Nichols applies Blue Mind to the crusade against climate collapse in unexpected ways, and to counter “the neuroscience of destruction”. He presents as an example of this tragic tendency the auction price paid by a Japanese restaurant tycoon for the prestigious first bluefin tuna of the season: $1.76 million. The destructive aspect is that the population of that same tuna species is in collapse, but the dynamics of instant gratification, craving for status, and inability to truly grasp long-term consequences overwhelm the logic of conservation.  

Instead of laying on more guilt trips and gloom-and-doom scenarios, Nichols takes a positive-reinforcement approach to environmental activism, maintaining that the negativity is just not working. He has a lot more to say about how that might be managed, but I hope I’m not spoiling a good read by revealing that on the 276th and last page, he writes:  

All I want, really want, to say is this:  

Get in the water.  

IAHIP 2022 - INSIDE OUT 97 - Summer 2022