Greg Voisen
Well, welcome back to Inside Personal Growth. This is Greg Voisen, the host of Inside Personal Growth. And joining me from Monterey Bay, while close to Monterey Bay is Dr. Wallace J. Nichols. It's okay. He said if we call him Jay. So that's what I'm going to call him throughout this interview. Good day to you, how are you doing?

Dr. Wallace Nichols
I'm doing really well. It's really good to be here with you. And I'm looking forward to it for a number of months.

Greg Voisen
Well, thank you, I we finally got it together. And I'm glad we did because I think my listeners are going to love to hear about your book, Blue Mind: The Surprising Science That Shows How Being Near In, On, or Underwater Can Make You Happier, Healthier, More Connected and Better at What You Do. And while the subtitles are long for all my listeners, the content of this I really want you to get this from Jay because it's really important. And Jay I'm going to let the listeners know a little bit about you. For those of you who want to learn more, you can go directly to his website at Wallace j n. I see h o l s dot o RG. There you can find more about Dr. Nichols. So in short, the real short, short bio is that he's a marine biologist, author, water level, lover, Turtle nerd explore movement builder, and embarrassing dad and creator of useful words. Beyond that, just a little bit more. He helps people reestablish healthier, more creative and regenerative relationships with themselves, each other in their environments through water, wonder, wellness and wildlife. And that's really really a good alliteration of the W of words if you want to look at it that way. He's called the keeper of the sea by GQ magazine. A visionary by Outside magazine, a water Warrior by aquatics international friend of the sea by experience Life magazine, godfather of water by Irish Life health and Santa Cruz waves magazine, an innovator, solo busting entrepreneurial scientist, movement maker, renowned marine biologist, voracious Earth and ideal explorer, wild river advocate, Best Selling Author and sought after lecturer, fun loving dad, and he also likes turtles lot. You want to read more about him? There's quite an extensive bio there at his website. And what I like to start off here is, you know, you had Celine Cousteau, who is the granddaughter of Jacques Cousteau, write the foreword to your book, which is very appropriate. You also said that Oliver Sacks really pushed you to kind of write this book. You were going to have someone else write it and I remember our conversation from months ago about that. And I'm glad you did. She said of my grandfather's many famous quotes, there's two that I hear, read and see. She said in blazoned on the walls and websites, Mona most often seen the sea come out one is casted spell holds one and the net of Wonder forever. And the other quote, she said was, people protect what they love. Jay, for you. Could you give the listeners a brief overview of kind of blue mind? The book, your work? What inspired you to write it initially? Maybe you weren't inspired? Because you know, if it weren't for Oliver Sacks, you may not have written it, but you did finally write it and it is a wonderful book.

Dr. Wallace Nichols
Yeah. Well, yeah, that's you know, that those quotes from Jacques Cousteau that Celine pulls out in the in the foreword those are those kinds of summarize the why in a way I, I've been enthralled by water, my entire life is all the way back as far as I can remember, just loving being by the water in the water under the water. That led to a career as a marine biologist. In within that career, I learned that there was a lot of work to do to protect and restore what we love. And as Jacques Cousteau people protect what they love, I fell in love with water and sea turtles and all the other creatures out there. And so began engaging with that aspect of Marine Science, learning what we could do to help restore some of what has been lost. And in that process, I learned that the toolkit that we were using was incomplete, because it was missing this thing I now called Blue mind. It was not well articulated when we made an argument for nature for the ocean for the rivers. The economic arguments were incomplete, and therefore maybe problematic. And the spiritual arguments were pretty much left out or downplayed. The emotional arguments were left to the side because you want it to be taken seriously. But I realized the reason I had dedicated my life to protecting the waters of the world was this deep emotional connection I felt as a kid. So to dial it out, didn't make any sense. It was literally it was my engine, I believe it was Jacques Cousteau is engine I know it was his grandkids, his grandchildren's engines, and many of us are, we move forward and do the work we'd love for something that can't be simply explained by economics. Or, or threat or fear. It's love with a capital L. So I wanted to understand that more. And I went looking for, as you mentioned, I was looking for a book to read, that I could apply to my work to protect and understand the water. And I couldn't find the book that I wanted to read. I kept looking in out of print and other languages, different keywords, and just could not get my hands on this book that I knew had to be out there. And eventually, that led me to write it. Because I wanted Oliver Sacks to write it. And the he said, it's a fine idea. And I thought, Well, that's good. You do it, I was expecting him to say that's a fine idea, I'll do that. And then I would be able to, you know, help in any way that he could possibly have needed help. And maybe get mentioned in the acknowledgments. That was my kind of my hope. Instead, it went completely differently. And here we are talking about it.

Greg Voisen
I was glad he did. Because you know your as you read through this book, and you look at the experiments you did, you needed to do that. And I'm glad that he that he pushed you to go beyond the bounds of just being someone who got recognition in the book, but who actually wrote the book. And so what the listeners may want to know is how your background and marine biology and neuroscience contributed to your understanding that connections between water and our well being. You know, I sense that you're very sensitive to this. And that this is it has been a personal journey. I'm not certain everybody out there listening understands the importance of this connection between what's covering over 70% of the surface of this blue dot planet. Which is why almost every time I vacation, and I live within two miles of the ocean, I go to more water. But it's kind of more subconscious. It's like I'm not really thinking about it. But then when I really realize most of my vacations have been near water in water someplace where I could swim. And I just was telling you, I got back on that from one. And as we explore into Blue Mine, how the neuroscience and psychology shows us that our brains are hardwired to react positively to water. And I think that's really kind of a real key important part of this of this book. Because you want to let people know that not only just protecting these waters, but being in near and or around these waters, is really having an impact. And I remember you writing about this, the sands research stuff where you put the electrodes on your head and went down on how they got electrodes to work under the water. I have no idea. But if you would explain to the listeners, this neuroscience, marine biology connection, and why water is so important for us as a species.

Dr. Wallace Nichols
So you're right this it's a very deep topic you might say and it is fundamental to all life. A life on Earth is water based. We are mostly water along with all of our fellow beings. we all spent somewhere around 9.21 months underwater, began our lives that way, in our own private ocean called mom. We share that with our fellow mammals. And that is not to be taken lightly we are we are made of water, we are from the water, we need water to survive. If you don't have water for a week, you're in really big trouble, you're probably done. And so the signal of water, the sound of water, the sight of water, the smell, even of water, the touch of water, lights us up in a way that tells us we're okay, we're home, we're going to survive. It's it runs from an evolutionary perspective as deep as anything possibly can. You might parallel with it in parallel with sort of the way we feel when there's co2 build up. When you're holding your breath, and you have a buildup of co2, you start, you start to panic, oh, that would be a red mind response to the lack of oxygen with water, you see the blue, you see the water, you hear it, and it signals very deeply, very quickly, that you're in the right place. Now, of course, if we're if we're talking about hurricane winds and tsunami waves, that's a different story. That's not the kind of water we're referring to here, we're talking about the inviting kind and the healthy kind and the clean time. So I was curious about that. And I went to the literature and found what had been published and work with colleagues to advance the research. And neuro psychologists have an incredible toolkit. You can measure electricity in the brain, you can measure oxygen flow in the brain, using EGS, and fMRI eyes and various technologies. You can measure hormones and blood and saliva. You can measure heart rate and breathing rate. And then tried and true technique, which is you ask people questions, and you score their answers, and you believe what they have to say. And when you put that all together, as I described in my book, what you find is pretty conclusive, and very clear indication that when we're by the water, when we're in the water, even when we close our eyes and think of water, it slips us into what I call a blue mind state, our heart rate slows our breathing rate slows, our skin temperature cools slightly, people report higher levels of happiness or contentment, or well being. While in that state, our brain activity shifts kind of more away from the processing and problem solving prefrontal cortex kinds of things into a more maybe distributed mode, where we're more creative and more connected, even in our nervous system becomes more connected to itself. And it feels different than what I refer to as Redmine, which is our new normal. Lots of screens, lots of information, lots of sound, lots of lists, lots of deadlines. Monkey Mind, sometimes is referred to as in the meditation community.

Greg Voisen
Yeah, that's right.

Dr. Wallace Nichols
And, and in the meditation, community, water is often invoked. Imaginary water is often invoked to help get us into a more mindful and more meditative place. So with your eyes closed, you may calm down, think of water think of the waves lapping on the beach. It's very common. And so not surprisingly, even imagining water moves us into a blue mind state. And so actual water does it really well. standing at the edge of the ocean or a mountain lake as you were describing earlier, and just looking out over it. So what's going on there? Visually, the world is simplified. Very few billboards. Not a lot of activity necessarily on that lake. Sometimes there's a boat, or a few boats, some birds, maybe a dolphin if you're on the ocean. So visually auditorily we pick up the sound of the water and that sound sort of precludes the noise. It filters out the noise or masks the noise that might be in the background. And then of course, when we get into the water somatically we get relief. So you're no longer fighting gravity, you no longer positioning yourself, you're just floating or bobbing. And so your body is at rest. The visual processing parts of your brain are at rest, the auditory processing, portions are at rest, and then you slip into this other mode and you don't go to sleep. You acquire other skills, maybe more creativity, more compassion, more courage, some people say contentment LDC words calmness, cohesiveness or connectedness. These are some there's a surprising number of see words that people use to describe their, their blue mind state. That happens, you know, in the, in the proximity of water according to being immersed in the water. Yeah,

Greg Voisen
well, it is it, you know, in a sense, you know, I live in an area where we're surrounded with surfers, you know, and so it's, it's addictive. You know, I think to the sense that I see a lot of servers are addicted to surfing, right? I maybe addiction isn't the right word, but they've got this strong desire. They keep doing it over. I watched a documentary just the other night about the free divers the Red Bull thing where they've, you know, these people are going down to extreme deaths or holding their breath. And I always wonder what compels one to do that because in the end, one of the people died going underneath that reef you probably saw it. But yet, you know, they are all of them say the same thing that the water calls them, right. It's like, it's this the woman from Italy which you probably know, which ended up breaking the other lady's record for freediving said she was called to the water all the time couldn't basically stay out of it. Is that a pretty typical thing you found in your research that you know, when you look at the brain activity, these people what's going on? I think they're a little nuts okay, because there's no way I'm gonna dive that far. But it because they come up and many of them have to be kind of resuscitated right? So there is

Dr. Wallace Nichols
a there is a with a more active watersports, there is a dopamine component, and people are getting stimulated, but in a in a positive way. So there is a there's, there's good stress in our lives, that makes us stronger, strive and thrive and connect and want more. And it's not debilitating, it's actually strengthening and strengthening kind of stress. So whether it's surfing, even big wave surfing, free diving, even deep free diving. Yeah, that's what we see in these athletes and people who just do it for fun, they crave it, they miss it. The dopamine feels good. When the waves are flat, or they can't get to the water. They, they crave it and they miss it. And they have to find maybe another outlet. So it's one of the reasons why we see many therapeutic programs using free diving, surfing, swimming votings everything. Yeah, as a way to help people who are dealing with stress, anxiety, burnout, and even addiction. And so it's kind of saying, Okay, let's not get that dopamine high from something that makes your life worse. Let's hitch it to something that will be maybe a NERT or make your life better, make you stronger and healthier, and even a better athlete. So that's not to say if you're if you're addicted to surfing, it may interfere with your job or your relationship. There are those kinds of social side effects.

Greg Voisen
Yeah. But I do know that water is used. I do know, Dr. Nichols that water is used extensively in rehabilitation therapy for people that are having problems with joints or they've you know, they're trying to rehabilitate a shoulder or knee or leg or whatever. And Mayo Clinic has done a lot of research on that in that area. And I have friends that are involved in that and it's the healing time is so much faster. Right so in other words, it's excelled healing time to be able to go in a therapy pool. And then there's the whole thing around which I'm sure you're totally well aware of is these cold baths. My son is a big one jumping into like extreme cold water. People are buying pools for their garages and their brand backyards and all kinds of things. What is it with the cold water that is, you know, there's been so many books written, there's so many noted names that I can't think of right now that are advocating this for your health. But obviously, again, it's in and around water, right, but very cold water.

Dr. Wallace Nichols
So the cold water does all of those things therapeutically, that you just described. And whether you're recovering from an injury, or just trying to trying to be stronger and more flexible, it's a stress. Yeah, stress. So you know, I often refer to you go into the gym, and you've got these machines or weights that stress your body and call it a workout. And you're surrounded by screens with news programs that stress your mind. And that's what we call fitness, when you go into a room with other people who are sweating, and stress our bodies and stress our minds for an hour. And then we walk out and we say, Oh, I got a good workout. And you do get benefits from that. But when you're in the water, you get a better workout in less time, because every movement is resisted by the water every part of the range of motion. And it's also supported by the water, so you're less prone to injuries, meanwhile, and it's doing that to every single part of your body. So if you're moving your arms, and your legs and your torso, you're getting this kind of full body workout, which is very efficient. But it's also helping you relax. So the relaxing aspect, you leave your phone behind. Hopefully you don't bring the TV screen into the pool, or into the lake. So you leave all that screen time behind. Maybe have a conversation with someone to people say there. It's more relaxing to exercise in the water. So you get this brain therapy, mental emotional therapy along with the physical therapy while you're in the water. Now,

Greg Voisen
you were plunging? Yeah, you went in a well, yeah, let's finish with the cold plunge in

Dr. Wallace Nichols
the cold plunging adds another level to it. So it's, it's activating your dive reflex. It's improving circulation, when you improve circulation, there are all kinds of knock off improvements there. And I think it all occurs on a background of modern life being on one hand stressful, chronically stressful. And on the other hand, incredibly comfortable and convenient. So your, you know, it might be 110 degrees in parts of the country right now. And people are moving from 72 degree office to a 72 degree car to a 72 degree home. And then they go to sleep, and the food is readily available. And so in many ways, our built environment is very comfortable. And so our bodies evolved to deal with temperature changes and to deal with heat and cold and, and we're actually at our best, I believe outside, solving problems together. So outside in motion solving problems together. Our brains are in our brains and our bodies are at their best in that mode. And most of our institutions are pushing us to be inside primarily isolated, doing routine tasks, or just consuming information being a consumer. Not in motion at all, sitting still. So kind of at our worst. And those are our schools, our office buildings, and our entire entertainment. Industry is kind of pushing us in that direction more and more every day. It seems like so well, those are

Greg Voisen
those effects long term. We've already seen that because, you know, I wasn't a digital native. I'm 69 years old. So I recognize that. In my early years, I spent so much more time outdoors. You know, it's interesting, my father had a landscape construction company. So I spent all my time helping him dig holes, put plants in the ground, bury pipes, whatever it was, and it was a pretty decent sized company. But I always enjoyed the physical work and solving the problems outside there. You talk about solving problems. We have plenty of them to solve. But you know, that isn't the world today. Pretty much for the average worker like you've been saying. We're in this fast paced digitally. connected world, stress is a common concern. Those stressors have now fast forward themselves to diabetes, heart disease, any kind of disease that you could think of today that we're dealing with, because I've worked with males done all the studies. I know high cholesterol levels, you know, on and on and on and on, it's just their obesity. How can embracing the principles that you're advocating, or at least exploring in your book of the blue mind to help individuals manage stress and improve their overall well being? Because if everybody listening to this was in that environment, you just talked about 72 degree cars 72 degree home? This is the they just moved from this to this to this and have not been exploring alternate ways to deal with that very, always on environment? What would you tell them? What would you advise them?

Dr. Wallace Nichols
Well, you're right, I think our especially our young people are experiencing peak convenience. And you know, you can download an app and it will you touch a few buttons, and it sends you food. Yeah. And wherever you are, you pay a premium, or sends your car or gives you any song ever made, for the most part. And so it's just a wild, outrageous level of convenience. And so when things go wrong, what we're seeing is our young people don't know what to do, they really hit the panic button, rather quickly. And so part of what interacting with water teaches you is grit and resilience, you know, jumping into cold lake, builds confidence, you know, you I've done it with people, and they said, No way. No way, I'm not getting in that cold water. And they'll say, Well, you can do it just for 30 seconds. No way, no way. And then they do it. And they feel like they just climbed a mountain. And it's a major accomplishment. They say, Wow, that wasn't that bad. I could do that again. So that's a simple piece of it. But my advice to you is, you know, what can people do? The answer isn't just go around and jump in cold water everywhere. That's not really the answer. The answer is the practice blue mind daily. If you can do it for 20 minutes, great. If you live near a body of water, lucky you use it. But we also have water in our homes, we have tubs and showers and hoses. And people can fill up, you know, of course jobs and put them in outside and do their CO plans there. We have virtual water in the form of art and poetry and music, and film and photography. The first chapter of Moby Dick is a great ride. And then we have our imaginary water that we use just the water you think of when you close your eyes and meditate on it or just remember it. And then all of our cities have sometimes fountains or water sculptures, or urban waterfronts, Lake, France, river funds, ocean friends, where you can go for a walk. So there are lots of ways for you to practice blue mind daily, even if you don't live on an island, or live near a big river or like swimming pools or another spas, all of these bodies of water. So my advice to people is, make a list of ways that you can practice blue mind daily, you may want to add a list of things you might be able to do once a week, maybe once a month, once a year, or your big dream trip, you know to Orcas Island or the South Pacific or something that you might have to plan and save for. Make that list of things you can do daily and then maybe the big, the big stretch trips and then set out and make that part of your life. This water conversation is not a niche conversation. I am to my mind, it's one of the most important conversations happening right now. Because our you know our waters need help and the more we value them, the more we understand that if you're in a community and you have a healthy river, and that healthy river helps first responders heal. It helps our nurses are working so hard for us to helps our teachers and our journalists, keep their head together and not burn out. When you start to value your local water as a healing resource for the people who serve us, every day, and in fact, are burning out, we're seeing these very high burnout rates among people who have service oriented careers. First responders, fire police, medical people, teachers are burning out. That's not okay, the people who have been training and working and learning for decades, we need them to be the leaders and be strong and be able to show up for work. So if you're lucky enough to be in a community that has these water related resources, and I think that all communities have it, we just need to be more creative in some places utilized that there isn't, isn't a better way to heal our bodies and our minds and to spend more time near in on underwater. And I would put music in that category as well, you know, our relationship with music is so healing your songs will take you up and they'll bring you down and they'll make you excited, and they'll make you melancholy, they'll shift your mood and make you cry. And they really are soft music is medicine. And in a very similar way. Water is as well. Well,

Greg Voisen
You know, in the book you wrote about the some of the statistics. And I think for our listeners, this would be a great place to insert this and then I want you to talk about your nonprofit plastic oceans. You mentioned the book, that water covers 70% of the surface, and that 95% of those waters are yet to be explored. I thought that was interesting. We've been referred to as a blue marble. I'm trying to remember the gentleman that that referenced that was it. The Great. Who's the British guy? It was these and all the documentaries, bro. Bro. Yeah, isn't that where that came from? So you mentioned that over 80% of Earth's population lives within 60 miles of coastline. Okay, I'm sure there's a lot of people out there that don't really know that coastline, Lake River, and the other half. And the other a half billion people owe their livelihoods directly to water in some way. So you're now we're starting to make all these connections, right? We live near it. We're your livelihood to it. You also state that we use 80 to 100 gallons of water every day for our basic needs. Your book also emphasizes the importance of connecting water for environmental conservation. How can fostering this blue minds a blue mind mindset contribute to a greater sense of responsibility and stewardship for oceans, lakes and rivers? And I'd like for you to expose to our listeners about your nonprofit plastic oceans. And you also do another one for the turtles.

Dr. Wallace Nichols
Yeah, well, so there, there are many nonprofit organizations, I co-founded a group called the plastic pollution coalition and have worked closely with plastic oceans. And part of the reason is 25 years ago, I started noticing the buildup of plastic in the ocean and rang the alarm bell, and started working with a small group of colleagues who were equally concerned. And that has grown into a global movement to address the issue. And we could spend an entire podcast talking about that issue. But suffice it to say,

Greg Voisen
they used to call it the garbage patch, which was the size of Texas. Yeah, he's kind of floating around. Is it still? Or is it larger now? And is it become more is become greater and mass than it was? And I'm not just saying that that's the only place because obviously we're seeing birds that are ingesting it and then dying. It's on the beaches of many places that are in the furthest most regions that people wouldn't think would be, you know, plastic bottle caps and all this crap that's popping up everywhere. So it's a huge problem.

Dr. Wallace Nichols
Yeah, and I would say you kind of answered the question there that this, you know, this plastic garbage patch begins in your kitchen. And it extends to the farthest reaches of the ocean and the mountaintop. So at this point We're dealing with micro plastic pollution and macro plastic pollution in our bodies. And at virtually every corner of the planet, even the deep parts of the ocean and the surface, well,

Greg Voisen
are we consuming about an amount of a credit card a day of plastic that's,

Dr. Wallace Nichols
that's, that's what they say that this the, we're even getting it passively you think you're doing a pretty good job, dialing it out. But it's, it's, you know, it's this material that you know, we build so many things out of it from the things we use briefly to the things that we drive, and the couches, we sit on the clothes we wear. And so as a result, we've got this, this slow, slow breakdown over decades, and these micro and even nanoplastics that you can't even see, right, that are in, in us in our in our food and our water in the wildlife. So, you know, it was a little bit of a misstep in terms of communication to point to the middle of the ocean as the problem initially, that drew a lot of attention. And but then we had to kind of shift the communications and say, well, it's not a far away middle of the ocean issue. It's in your own kitchen, it's in your own in your own household around. And that's where we need to begin to solve it. As well as you know, with our political leadership, and business leaders, innovators, but that, you know, I want to connect that, that, you know, sort of the ocean crisis and plastic pollution, climate change, you know, all the things that keep people like me up at night, stressed. If you stay in that Redmine stressed out mode about the future, you're not going to be the best possible problem solver,

Greg Voisen
correct.

Dr. Wallace Nichols
Right now, you, you may be a good fighter, you may be able to hit really hard for a few minutes, you may be able to run really fast at a wall and do some damage to the wall and yourself. But the fight or flight mode is not we're not at our best for the skills, we need to solve big problems. And so that's where blue mind comes in red mines very useful red mind, you know, sometimes you need to be aggressive. Sometimes you need to fire yourself up and get things done, get to the finish line. That's why we're able to do that. It saves our lives sometimes. And you will burn out if you stay in that mode too long. And I have felt it, you know, working on the plastic pollution issue for nearly 30 years and extinction issues with sea turtles and other ocean wildlife and climate change. And if you just stay in that place that fight plays, you will fall apart, literally you

Greg Voisen
kind of have to get to the state as the Buddhists say into non duality, right because, you know, in your state you can, you can resist that put up resistance, or you can accept it and understand that you can be a force for good. And I think that's an important part. I mean, I I just got back about the from this retreat. You know, many we do walking meditations on one end there is enlightenment, the Buddha and on the other end, there's a skeleton, which is your impermanent. And we're all impermanent here, and we're not going to be here forever. And we have to be in balance with that. Right? This duality in this union? Yeah, Yang, this is good and bad, this dark and light, it seems like it's going to be inherent for a long time, especially as we go explore the outer regions of space. Now you're talking about water. I'm fascinated by the Webb telescope and what it's showing us about the formation of this earth that we've never seen in our lives, which is just, it's a wonderful time to be alive, to really get this information and understand it better. And that leads me to the society and the values of this productivity and achievement. Because the reality is this balance is around productivity and achievement and then embracing the concepts of blue mind, and it challenged or reshape our definition of success and happiness. And I think at the core level, another core principle with inside the bucket is, hey, this is where we need to get to what would you advise our listeners about? Because in the subtitle of the book is how to be more healthy. Eat More wellbeing be happier. And I think everybody's looking at happiness. You don't have to go to Bhutan to be the happiest place in the world to like, say, Hey, I'm in Bhutan. So I'm, that's where I'm going to be. How have you found personally and stories that you could provide to our listeners about? You've cited a few so far, but maybe down to the level of Jay himself, you know, your personal journey with happiness? How has this helped you

Dr. Wallace Nichols
get there? Well, I've, I've dealt with my share of challenging moments. And, and these last handful of years, I think we're all kind of in the same boat in that regard. Exactly. Pandemic has tested us. It's hurt people, it's killed people. It's changed our livelihoods. I recently lost my mom to dementia, that was accelerated, probably due to pandemic isolation. During the pandemic, we lost our home and to a wildfire. In every everybody's got their story, their of being tested, relationships have been tested, livelihoods, your career, your health. And then the backdrop,

Greg Voisen
he looked at the fires in Maui, just you know, I mean, we're there's 1000 people missing right now. 95, they've identified as deceased, but, you know, you talk about water, you talk about an island, you talk about people and just the devastation. And this seems to be happening more frequently. So it's always on top of us, right. And I think it's this blue mind that can help us learn to

Dr. Wallace Nichols
cope. Better. Yeah. And not ignore our issues, not ignore the problems, but get back to a place where we can be the best at selling them, or we're working together. And, and so, you know, for me, personally, that that's been water, you know, right after the wildfire. We want my daughter and I went to check to see what remained after we had evacuated back the next day. And there was nothing, there was a stone fireplace, where the house was, and every everything that I called home, you know, my journals, and our kids aren't working on the books I love and house itself and on and on. Ashes, ashes, all of it. And my first gut response was to walk down to the creek, tear off my clothes, and sit in it going up to my neck, and then stick my head on there and just reconnect as thoroughly as I could with the water in that place of grief and confusion and loss. And you know, and I still feel I can't, I'm telling you it now I'm starting to kind of get a little emotional and it's right there. It's right. It's three years ago, and it's right there. And I watched the news from Maui, and my heartbreaks again. Because I feel for that community and the loss of life and of livelihood and of possessions and home and it brings all of that up. And so

Greg Voisen
but would you would you from a spiritual standpoint, because we're, we're getting deep and I'm glad that you are. You know, I recently did a podcast with Thomas Moore's written 23 books. One's called the eloquence of silence. We got into this discussion about emptiness, our bucket being empty. And, for me, I've been exploring that more. You know, it's like because we're always trying to fill it up with something more. As soon as it's empty. We're not okay with empty. Right? And I can't imagine because I haven't lost my house to fire. Thank goodness. But for you the emptiness you must have felt, but then to pull yourself back together and go, Well, we're going to refill it back up again. We're going to build again, we're going to reconstruct, we're going to do whatever you have to do. How has your work with neuroscience, marine biology, the blue mind helped you cope

Dr. Wallace Nichols
with that Yeah, that emptiness is real. And I, you know, it's interesting that you say that because I've, the way I've described, this time has just felt like all of my tanks have been drained. Right, financially, emotionally, socially. You know, physically, spiritually. And, and I think your point is, is it's worth considering? Well, okay, what does that what does that like? What does? What does? What does it feel like to operate on empty tacks? Right? Sit with them? And can

Greg Voisen
you? Can you, you know, because the natural state of I think our species, and in other words, the way we're molded, the way we're built for the most part is, okay, it's gone. We got to put something in its place. We're not going to just live with empty, just not going to work. But what is the emptiness teach you? Or what did it teach you, during the times that you've had that in your life?

Dr. Wallace Nichols
Yeah, I think I can say now looking back on it, although I'm still experiencing it to some degree, I think what you want to be sure you do when you are in that place of having an empty tank is not to quickly fill your tank with sludge, or something that you will regret putting in your tank, right? That's easy, society will make that easy for you. Right. And that range is, you know, we're seeing it now, the people who move in quickly with offers that seem helpful. opportunities may not, it may not be a good idea to just say, hey, I'll sell my land to you. Because you're here. Or there's, there's all kinds of things that go on. When you find yourself in that empty place, people move in and take advantage of your empty nests. Or you try to fill that tank with something that it you will regret filling it with. So it is probably a good idea to sit in that emptiness for a while, and I did I walked on our, on our land, I walked in circles in the ashes. For months, for months, months and months, I would even say years. Thinking and figuring out what do I do here. Cleaning up my mess was the first stage. And once that was accomplished, that took a year there was kind of a blank slate. And then I thought, Well, what do I do with this. And rather than jump at the first realtor who walked up the road and said, Hey, you want to do a deal. Or rather than jump and build a house because I needed a house ran not like the house that I built so quickly. Took some time. And so

Greg Voisen
I appreciate you sharing those insights, because I think for our listeners who've either been through it, or you know, they've gotten to that space of empty, whatever it might be a divorce, a loss of a home, a loss of a loved one, you just went through all of those can leave you on empty, a bankruptcy, financial downturn, whatever it might be, can leave one on empty and the wave through it, is to embrace it. I think and embracing it with a new perspective, which is what the blue mind is, is basically teaching and with that I think we ought to do is maybe give some tips or suggestions for incorporating the blue mind principles into the lives of the listeners, and how they might practically integrate these concepts into what you would call busy routine. Because a lot of people out there in busy routines, right? It's just it's automatic pilot get out, they look at the list. They go after the list, if they accomplish the list, great. If not, they move it to the next day. They go on to the next list the next day. But that doesn't usually bring happiness, just the completion of the list. There's got to be something more so from a spiritual psychological emotional state with the blue mind principles. What would be one or two big tips you'd want to leave our listeners with?

Dr. Wallace Nichols
Well, you know I when I work with people in this way, one on one you We come up with something called a blue scription. And the cool thing about a blue scription is I can give you one you can give me one, we can give our neighbors one. And there's no side effects, you can't overdose on blue mind. And so, you know, I asked people to make, make that list we talked about before. of ways you can practice blue mind in your life, and then set out to do a little bit of blue mind practice every day, in some form, versus red mind versus red mind and you will find is once you engage with the water you love, whatever it may be, you'll do it probably a little longer than you had planned. Because it's good. And so if you're taking a shower, for example, is keep it really simple. Turn and let the shower just beat on the back of your neck. Let your head relax, close your eyes, relax your body. And then feel the water on the back of your neck more than you've ever felt before. Just Like Put, put your focus on the water as it touches your skin and feel it. And while you're doing that, listen deeply into the sound of the water and try to discern the sound of every droplet as it's coming through those pipes. from nature, you know that water used to be wild water. It used to be rain, it used to be a river, it used to be an aquifer, it used to be inside a well, it's going around and around used to be in the cloud. And now that water is on you. So go deep into that the way it feels, the way it sounds, and the way it looks, the way it tastes. And have have the most mindful shower of your life. Now, if you're in a water conservation district, be aware, you know,

Greg Voisen
Yeah.

Dr. Wallace Nichols
And, and really get every possible benefit, emotional and spiritual benefit from every drop of water that you possibly can for those minutes. And that's just one if you take that approach that you can apply in your own shower or bathtub in your own home and apply it when you're walking down the street and there's a fountain, maybe sit and have that cup of coffee next to the fountain and pull up next to somebody that you want to chat with. Fountains do something quite lovely. They, they create a cone of privacy. So if you were on the other side of the fountain, you wouldn't hear me if I was having a conversation or trying to have a conversation, or even 10 feet away. But if we switch next to each other, we can hear each other quite well. And nobody around us can hear us because the sound of water masks the human voice better than any other sound. And so you get this kind of blue mind blue noise quality that occurs. You can think your own thoughts in privacy, you can have a conversation, a public conversation in private. And this world is losing its privacy rather quickly losing its solitude. And water gives us that back. So those are just sort of two,

Greg Voisen
those are simple. Those are great examples for our listeners. And, and I just want to encourage the listeners, you know, water takes many different forms. We haven't had time to really talk about it. But you know, there's steam, there's fog, there's ice, you know, however it takes its form. Look at that water. I know for me on a foggy day, I really love foggy days. I like that feel of the fog, right? That's another sense for me of just exploring something that maybe some of my listeners might want to explore. How do you feel walking around the fog? How do you feel when you're on a mountain? It's all icy. It's virtually got tons of water underneath you right the snow. So, you know, it affects us in so many different ways. And I think for my listeners, the plastic pollution coalition would be a place for them to learn more about what's going on with pollution in the oceans. Go to the website, which I'm going to say again, just so we've got it. It's Wallace J Nichols and I see h o l s dot o RG we'll have a link In our blog as well. And, Jay, it's been an honor and pleasure having you on speaking about your personal things, what's going on the loss of your home, I know that was very emotional for you. And I appreciate you sharing, sharing about empty buckets together, because we both had them. And everybody out there listening has had them as well. And how your book, and what you teach with inside this book, can really help a lot of people deal with this much more effectively, emotionally, and physically and spiritually. And it's been a wonderful interview, I've really enjoyed it a lot. I was listening to every word.

Dr. Wallace Nichols
Likewise, really, really appreciate your, your insights and where you took the conversation. And I will I will be exploring my own emptiness more. In a positive light, I will say,

Greg Voisen
Yeah, well, look, I was going to say when people's Creek runs dry. I think it's again perspective, we said, well, when we're empty, it's like a place where you used to go to and there used to be a creek and it was filled or there was a body of water that's no longer there, it's gone. You know, the water doesn't go anywhere, you know, in other words, in the sense it may have disappeared or evaporated from that spot. But it's still here globally, it's either over somewhere, it's somewhere here. And I think that's the best part of this. If there's any really super positive about here, the waters are shifting all the time. And it's really we're made up of 80% water. So we're shifting all the time. And that's part of our emotions inside of us is that, you know, work I know, I'm a water sign I got fountains, one here in my office, one of my patio went out front of God all over the place, right? And it gives me a ton of peace. So I would encourage my listeners, go explore what water really means to you what a blue mind means to you. Take some time with that. Don't take it for granted. And get involved if you would with some of these plastic pollution coalition, the sea turtle one which is at his website, he's got to help the Patreon. The blue mind you can go there but learn more about Jay and his book. And I think it will trigger something inside of you to do something. So namaste to you. Thanks, Jay for being on and thanks for spending this time with our listeners.

Dr. Wallace Nichols
My pleasure.