[HN Gopher] "Blue Mind Theory"
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"Blue Mind Theory"
Author : RickJWagner
Score : 71 points
Date : 2023-06-11 15:53 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.insidehook.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.insidehook.com)
| karaterobot wrote:
| > That's according to Dr. Wallace J. Nichols, a marine biologist
| who coined the term "blue mind theory." (Ted Talk here, book
| here.)
|
| This breathless nonsense was popularized by a TED Talk? Who could
| possibly have guessed that.
| MollyRealized wrote:
| Yes, it's not as if people like Stephen Hawking, Jane Goodall,
| Jill Tarter, Richard Dawkins, and Svante Paabo have given TED
| talks. Oh, wait.
| CrampusDestrus wrote:
| You know, by this metric since every historical journal has
| hosted papers from the greatest scientists we should just
| believe their word forever
| USB5 wrote:
| [dead]
| karaterobot wrote:
| I'm not sure what this is supposed to prove, but did you know
| there have been around 4000 TED Talks, and one of them was by
| a guy who thinks smelling the ocean makes you live longer?
| scottLobster wrote:
| Is this an ad?
|
| Article Summary: Living near water is good for you, because
| there's a completely correlative 17% reduction in all-cause
| mortality if you live near the ocean. One study in particular
| used the the incredibly scientific metric of "wonderful tonic"
| for how ocean smells and sounds impact our health.
|
| Also some marine biologist, who spent most of his career studying
| sea turtles, did some "research" on humans, and did a TED talk
| and wrote a book about how living near water is better for your
| health (link to buy said book).
|
| Now go visit some fucking water, any water will do, even whatever
| you can find in your backyard! It's good for you!
|
| Thanks for reading "InsideHook", because InsideScoop and
| InsideLane were taken.
| asimovfan wrote:
| They come so close to the mind. Just practice meditation every
| day. You will find the real blue, endless and deep
| ftxbro wrote:
| > "the areas with the highest concentration of centenarians --
| every one of them is situated along a coastline."
|
| geographic profile maps which are basically just population maps
|
| https://xkcd.com/1138/
| AnonCoward42 wrote:
| Beside the really bad article here, water indeed seems to have a
| weird effect on me. It's kind of resetting my head for a bit. I
| really do not know what it is, but submerging, or shower over,
| the head brings a sense of clarity in my mind, removing clouds.
| Hard to put into words, but it just happens.
|
| I have my doubts that I'd live longer if I'd do it more often or
| for longer tho.
| paulpauper wrote:
| _If you take a look at a map of the world's Blue Zones -- the
| areas with the highest concentration of centenarians -- every one
| of them is situated along a coastline. Little wonder: settling
| down by the sea, in a so-called "blue space," has been linked to
| a 17% reduction in mortality rate. One study suggested that
| living within 250 meters of a seaside environment helps reduce
| stress levels, with the smell and sounds offering a "wonderful
| tonic."
|
| _
|
| sigh typical confusion of correlation and causation so common in
| the health industry and media. people who live near water
| probably have more money. they can afford better healthcare.
| cassepipe wrote:
| Before that even, coast people have historically have had
| access to better food supplies and some essential nutrients
| from the sea I don't the name of in english, seems more
| important than the "smell and sounds"
| hungryforcodes wrote:
| Says an American. But in pretty much every other Western
| nation, health care is more or less the same...
| maelito wrote:
| In France, there is a global population move towards the west
| coast-line, particularly the Atlantic coastline.
|
| As a consequence, the price of housing has become high enough to
| trigger riots. In the Basque Country, in Brittany. Lots of locals
| cannot buy any space anymore. Lots of (mostly not high salary)
| seasonal workers have to go live further in the countryside,
| triggering longer commuting by car in these regions where trains
| are underdeveloped.
| n8cpdx wrote:
| Loma Linda is in a desert valley situated between parched hills
| and the I-10 freeway, nestled under a blanket of perpetual smog.
|
| This is a criminal abuse of zoomed-out maps and a negligently
| written article. A more accurate representation of LL's "seaside"
| location:
| https://www.google.com/maps/place/Loma+Linda,+CA/@34.0389499...
|
| It might have more to do with the strict lifestyle choices than
| the sights and sounds of the sea an hour drive away.
|
| https://pulitzercenter.org/stories/i-breathe-loma-linda-how-...
| kaycebasques wrote:
| It took me a while to figure out how your comment connects to
| the submitted article, but I think I've got it now. The article
| is advocating for blue zones, and Loma Linda is a designated
| blue zone. Is that right?
| Ireallyapart wrote:
| Loma Linda is a bluezone because of diet and community. They
| are very far away from the ocean. The environment their is
| more desert rather then Mediterranean climate.
|
| How do I know? I live in LA county about a couple miles due
| west of loma linda. That city is really inland and not
| considered to be near the ocean at all.
| [deleted]
| smusamashah wrote:
| > "When you see water..... it triggers a response in your brain
| that you're in the right place"
|
| I was once on a public coach in a mountain area and was feeling
| extremely motion sick/nauseating because of all ups and downs and
| circles of the way. I was just trying to hold off the vomit as
| long as I could. Suddenly after a turn I saw the river flowing
| through the glass window of the coach and right there that
| feeling stopped. It was a sudden calm just by looking at that
| river water.
|
| It was weird so I did experiment with it. If I looked away nausea
| came back after a few moments. Did it a few times. Finally I held
| on to keep looking at the river to keep feeling better.
|
| It may be unrelated to this theory but I don't have any other
| explanation.
| DenisM wrote:
| If you get sea sick on a boat look at the horizon. It brings
| your vestibular system in sync with your visual input. If you
| look inside the boat your visual and vestibular systems are out
| of sync.
|
| The same could have happened to you on the coach - the river
| gave you something distant to fix your eyes on because of the
| visual appeal, while other objects did not offer the same point
| of stability because they were not attractive enough for you to
| fixate of them or not distant enough to provide stability.
| User23 wrote:
| By far the strongest predictor of centenarians is the rate of
| social security fraud.
|
| I will say though that watching the sun set over the Pacific does
| fill me with a deep joy.
| mberning wrote:
| Blue Zones, where people miraculously live longer due to fraud
| and poor record keeping.
| rawoke083600 wrote:
| source ?
| blakesterz wrote:
| https://www.livescience.com/oldest-people-may-not-be-so-
| old....
|
| The World's Oldest People Might Not Be As Old As We Think
|
| Poor record-keeping and fraud may be inflating the numbers.
| paulpauper wrote:
| yeah the concept of blue zones seems really dubious . even if
| they do live longer the underlying variable is probably wealth
| genocidicbunny wrote:
| Or diet and exercise, which need not be uncorrelated with
| wealth, but something tells me that places like Sardinia,
| Okinawa and Nicaragua haven't historically been that wealthy.
| Especially when you consider that to have the most
| centenarians now, those centenarians must have been born in
| the first quarter of the 20th century, 100+ years ago.
| Whatever effect blue zones have, it's not likely to be an
| entirely recent one; People don't tend to suddenly gain huge
| amounts of life expectancy in their middle age.
|
| (Of course, this is all presupposing that the number of
| centenarians in those areas is not greatly exaggerated, and
| that there hasn't been a massive migration of centenarians
| from other areas to the blue zones.)
| alanvillalobos wrote:
| Nicoya (Costa Rica) is not Nicaragua
| genocidicbunny wrote:
| Whoops, you're right. The picture I saw was relatively
| low res and it kind looked like it was Nicaragua.
| mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
| On your parenthetical, here's a hypothesis. It's kinda hard
| to be old in rural areas(no way to get around, limited care
| available, etc), which tend to be inland, whereas cities
| tend to be coastal or situated on a river.
|
| So I could definitely see it as plausible that the older
| people get, the more people move into cities, which
| coincidentally involves moving closer to water.
| 0xcde4c3db wrote:
| Or genetic mutations (which also may interact with specific
| lifestyle factors). At least one such mutation was
| identified in an Italian family that is seemingly immune to
| atherosclerosis [1], and the "blue zone" populations tend
| to be relatively small and isolated (at least before the
| industrial revolution).
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ApoA-1_Milano
| [deleted]
| mkl95 wrote:
| > Why you should be in, around, under or on top of water
|
| Easier said than done. I grew up close to a pretty cool
| coastline, and I've wanted to live there all my life. Regular
| people like me used to be common there decades ago, but it has
| been parasitized by millionaires and it's unaffordable these
| days. If you have a million or so in the bank sure, go enjoy the
| psychological benefits of such a place.
| kaycebasques wrote:
| The article acknowledges this and proposes alternatives:
|
| > Obviously, we can't all live a walk from the beach (or on the
| isle of Icaria, for that matter). But any engagement with
| water, even a creek, can offer a salve for our embattled
| brains.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Does the dishwasher count?
|
| As I sit by my desk now, everyone else in the household
| already asleep, I listen to the water flowing and splashing
| and rumbling in the machine under the kitchen counter, and
| think to myself - except for occasional mechanical clunk, it
| really _does_ sound like a river, or a sea (depending on what
| part of the program is running).
| troad wrote:
| Same story here. I could not afford today to buy a house in the
| seaside neighbourhood I grew up in.
|
| Wealthy non-locals "discovered" it, snatched up all the
| housing, and promptly formed "Stop overdevelopment now!"
| lobbies, leeching off the locals' discomfort with the newcomers
| to protect their own new-found property values by preventing
| any further increase in housing supply. It's honestly just
| depressing.
|
| Nothing will change until we drastically ramp up house
| construction. You don't "protect" a community by keeping the
| buildings the same while replacing all the existing inhabitants
| with different, richer ones.
| genocidicbunny wrote:
| May I ask why you should have more right to buy a house in
| that town than someone else? You say 'grew up in' which
| implies you've moved away. At that point, you're also a non-
| local aren't you?
| troad wrote:
| I don't think I should have more of a right to buy a house
| there than anyone else, and I'm genuinely puzzled how you
| got that idea from my comment. I think housing should be
| sufficiently plentiful that everyone has the opportunity to
| make a home in a community of their choosing.
| sojournerc wrote:
| So, anybody and everybody should be able to live in
| Monaco?
|
| It's just unrealistic for a finite resource such as a
| location to accommodate anybody who could possibly want
| to live there. That's why desirable places are expensive.
| genocidicbunny wrote:
| I got a sense from your comment, and the one you replied
| to that the problem was that the wealthy were buying the
| housing, rather that only the wealthy could buy the
| housing. I admit I may have read into your comment a bit
| much.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _the problem was that the wealthy were buying the
| housing, rather that only the wealthy could buy the
| housing_
|
| Those are actually the same problem. The wealthy can buy
| housing faster, more decisively than the less wealthy.
| They may also push out the less wealthy, simply by
| offering them an above market price. And as the wealthy
| start to buy up housing in an area, the prices start to
| go up, and soon become high enough that only the wealthy
| can buy.
| vkou wrote:
| > May I ask why you should have more right to buy a house
| in that town than someone else?
|
| You should ask that question to the NIMBYs that have pulled
| the ladder up from under them.
|
| "Nobody is allowed to move to this area after I did" is
| insane, toxic, and selfish.
| genocidicbunny wrote:
| It's not insane, it's quite rational as long as real
| estate is an investment.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _as long as real estate is an investment_
|
| And therein lies the problem.
| bentcorner wrote:
| Maybe that's part of the explanation? It's just a correlation -
| being able to live near the coastline requires wealth which
| means you can take better care of your health.
| mkl95 wrote:
| Pretty much. This so called blue mind theory is just saying
| that rich people tend to be happy.
| falcor84 wrote:
| Maybe with the rising global water levels, living "in, around,
| under or on top of water" will become a more attainable
| possibility for a whole new range of people /s
| rektide wrote:
| It's definitely a dream of mine to live next to or on the water
| for some part of my life. It's amazing to have lakes & ocean &
| rivers nearby. It's also exceedingly competitive property.
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