Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 3: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe mcformick.
Speaker 2: So the title for this episode comes from a poem
Speaker 2: by English poet Elizabeth Jennings With nineteen twenty six through
Speaker 2: two thousand and one. This poem contains the lines observe
Speaker 2: it there the fountain too fast for shadows, too wild
Speaker 2: for the lights which illuminate it, to hold even a
Speaker 2: moment an ounce of water back. The poem in full
Speaker 2: details how we might observe a fountain in an urban
Speaker 2: center and makes a comparison to more ancient traditions. Joe,
Speaker 2: were you familiar with this poem or this poet prior
Speaker 2: to this episode? She was a new one for me.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure the name is familiar, but I need
Speaker 3: to look up more of her stuff to to see
Speaker 3: if there's anything I recognize well.
Speaker 2: This poem fountain, Like I say, it also connects back
Speaker 2: to some of these more ancient traditions that are reflected
Speaker 2: in our tradition of spending times with fountains and other
Speaker 2: water features. Just to read another bit from it, quote
Speaker 2: see in that stress, an image of utter calm, a stillness.
Speaker 2: There it is how we must have felt once at
Speaker 2: the edge of some perpetual stream, fearful of touching, bringing
Speaker 2: no thirst at all, panicked by no perception of ourselves,
Speaker 2: but drawing the water down to the deepest wonder well.
Speaker 3: That phrasing gives a much profounder spin to the kind
Speaker 3: of awe that I recall feeling when looking at fountains
Speaker 3: as a child. Particularly, what I remember is a fountain
Speaker 3: in the mall in my hometown when I was a
Speaker 3: kid that had a kind of kind of a tile
Speaker 3: mosaic bottom that was always covered in pennies. I guess
Speaker 3: the idea is that people would throw pennies into the
Speaker 3: fountain and make a wish. At least that's what I
Speaker 3: was always told you did, and I really liked to
Speaker 3: do this, and I think firmly believed in the magic
Speaker 3: of the wish granting powers of the fountain.
Speaker 2: I didn't even think about fountains and water features and malls,
Speaker 2: but oh man, shopping malls had some great ones as
Speaker 2: far as I remember, and of course smaller at the time,
Speaker 2: so they seemed more gigantic, you know, some sort of
Speaker 2: a fountain there in the atrium of the mall beautiful
Speaker 2: to behold.
Speaker 3: I do remember thinking when I saw all of the
Speaker 3: pennies on the bottom, I also thought, at some point
Speaker 3: they must clean all those up, because it's not like
Speaker 3: overflowing with pennies. They've got to go in and get them.
Speaker 3: And then my thought as a child was who gets
Speaker 3: to keep all that money? That's so much money when
Speaker 3: you collect all of them, you know, that's got to
Speaker 3: be tens of dollars.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is why that one scene in the
Speaker 2: Goonies I think was so impactful, the extrap elation of
Speaker 2: our dreams of harvesting the coins of a fountain.
Speaker 3: You know, Oh, is that is that in the Goonies.
Speaker 3: I don't remember that they had the same thought I did.
Speaker 2: Well, no, they in the Goonies, if memory serves, It's
Speaker 2: been a long time since I've seen it. There's that
Speaker 2: there's like these caverns beneath the wishing well, and that's
Speaker 2: where all the coins are, and one of the kids
Speaker 2: goes to steal a bunch of them, and they're like, no, no,
Speaker 2: those are peaceful people's wishes. You're not supposed to take them.
Speaker 2: And the children, you know, abstain and ultimately they have
Speaker 2: pirate gold on the radar.
Speaker 3: So well, I didn't make the connection. I did believe
Speaker 3: in the wish granting powers, and I did greedily lust
Speaker 3: after all of the penny money, but I didn't think
Speaker 3: that would be stealing people's wishes. It's already granted right
Speaker 3: once the pennies there, Now it's just free money.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't know how that it depends on superstitious Sure,
Speaker 2: I guess how it works, but at any rate, I yeah,
Speaker 2: I always am curious to see if a fountain has coins,
Speaker 2: And even though I don't nowadays, I'm not thinking about
Speaker 2: harvesting them. I'm still just one of the things I
Speaker 2: kind of like checking off the mental checklist when I
Speaker 2: check out a fountain. Are there coins in it? What's
Speaker 2: the filtration system look like? You know, where's the water
Speaker 2: coming out of? Like, if there's a fountain somewhere, I
Speaker 2: need to get closer to it so I can take
Speaker 2: it all in. Beyond that, I don't think i'd ever
Speaker 2: really thought about, you know, any universal truths about the
Speaker 2: calming nature of fountains. I've always just kind of in
Speaker 2: the back of my mind thought well, they're nice. Sometimes
Speaker 2: they have interesting statues incorporated into their design, and they
Speaker 2: can be cooling on a hot day, that sort of thing,
Speaker 2: And they're often like at the center of everything, you know.
Speaker 2: I think of like the fountain in Washington Square, you know,
Speaker 2: I think about the indeed, the fountains in the atrium
Speaker 2: at a mall, at a shopping mall, which was like
Speaker 2: a center of community in some respects.
Speaker 3: Well, and yet another way that the fountain was sacred
Speaker 3: to my child's brain. But taking some of the profound
Speaker 3: varnish off of it, I do associate the idea of
Speaker 3: a fountain with the smell of the mall food court,
Speaker 3: you know. It's that's where the saborrow mingles with the
Speaker 3: with the Kariaki place.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the ma All food court of our childhoods. This
Speaker 2: is a place where you also had freedom, like suddenly
Speaker 2: you could often often the case, you could choose what
Speaker 2: you were going to eat, and it made you feel powerful.
Speaker 2: But coming back to water features and fountains specifically, of course,
Speaker 2: we have to think larger than that. We have to
Speaker 2: think too about just like running water, bodies of water
Speaker 2: in general, and you know, personally, and I think this
Speaker 2: applies somewhat universally. I've always found waters to be calming
Speaker 2: to be around. They're often great places to do some
Speaker 2: thinking or to do less thinking in a good way,
Speaker 2: you know, to sort of unshackle from your normal thought process.
Speaker 2: And I think I've mentioned before on the show that
Speaker 2: there's a very useful stress reduction exercise that makes use
Speaker 2: of this connection. It's called leaves on a stream. It's
Speaker 2: a cognitive diffusion technique that allows you to distance yourself
Speaker 2: from the thoughts that you're having. So the way it goes,
Speaker 2: and you can look this up online. There are plenty
Speaker 2: of online resources that that spell it out in more detail.
Speaker 2: But you imagine yourself seated beside a running stream. You
Speaker 2: imagine taking a given thought, essentially taking it out of yourself,
Speaker 2: placing it upon a floating leaf, and allowing the stream
Speaker 2: to carry that leaf and the thought away from you.
Speaker 2: And you know, everyone's mileage may vary, but I find
Speaker 2: it very constructive. But I was thinking about it again here,
Speaker 2: thinking about fountains, thinking about natural bodies of water, and
Speaker 2: they're they're they're calming powers.
Speaker 3: It does seem like an especially nice image for concretizing
Speaker 3: your your emotions and your thoughts because it's it's passive,
Speaker 3: like the the water does the carrying away for you,
Speaker 3: so it doesn't even involve you having to imagine like
Speaker 3: forcing or shoving the idea away. It is just carried
Speaker 3: away by nature.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, Now we've talked a bit on the show
Speaker 2: previously about the history and importance of public water works.
Speaker 2: We're not going to reachret all of that here, but
Speaker 2: I wanted to at least touch on some of it
Speaker 2: in this case via a twenty fifteen article titled Short
Speaker 2: Global History of Fountains by Juty at All, published in
Speaker 2: the journal Water. That's pointed out that the word fountain
Speaker 2: stems from the Latin fawnds, which can refer to both
Speaker 2: artificial and natural water features, not like the fawns on
Speaker 2: happy Days, but fis I've also read that the source
Speaker 2: is fontana, which informs the medieval fount or source, and
Speaker 2: so fountain becomes a symbol of a providing source as well.
Speaker 2: Like this idea of a fountain as being this thing
Speaker 2: from which something else beneficial arises becomes pretty crucial to
Speaker 2: a lot of a lot of our language. Now, the
Speaker 2: construction of fountains properly dates back to ancient times, and
Speaker 2: the authors of this paper point out that regional water
Speaker 2: available played a role in what form fountains took and
Speaker 2: how they were fed. For instance, they mentioned that for
Speaker 2: the ancient Egyptians bringing water out for the people or
Speaker 2: for personal use, it was a matter of pulling water
Speaker 2: from the Mighty Nile. Meanwhile, the Minoans and the Greeks
Speaker 2: brought water down from the mountains via aqueducts. So this is,
Speaker 2: you know, something to keep in mind. There's the sort
Speaker 2: of especially when you go back into the origins of fountains,
Speaker 2: there are a lot more practical purposes in mind for
Speaker 2: having that water there, And then how do you get
Speaker 2: the water there? You're not just piping it in from
Speaker 2: the local modern water system, you know, there are other
Speaker 2: means that have to be in place. One of the
Speaker 2: primary purposes for ancient fountains was of course to bring
Speaker 2: water to the people for drinking, as well as for
Speaker 2: other uses such as bathing. We've talked about that on
Speaker 2: the show before. Another big one that I hadn't thought
Speaker 2: as much about, and I guess part of this is
Speaker 2: because we haven't we've touched on Firefight, but we haven't
Speaker 2: done a lot on firefighting, but this was another reason
Speaker 2: to have a source of water available in a center
Speaker 2: of the population.
Speaker 3: I think we actually did a pretty extensive look at
Speaker 3: firefighting in our Invention episode on the fire extinguisher.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we got into like fire extinguisher grenades and
Speaker 2: so forth. Yeah.
Speaker 3: But going into ancient history, how the fire fighting in
Speaker 3: ancient Rome and how it had a very different character
Speaker 3: because if I remember correctly, the early version in maybe
Speaker 3: like the first century BCE or so, there was like
Speaker 3: a rich guy who instituted fire brigades who would come
Speaker 3: to your house if it was on fire, not to
Speaker 3: like as a public service, put it out for you,
Speaker 3: but to say, hey, I will buy your house for
Speaker 3: the following price, take it or leave it. And if
Speaker 3: you know, if you agreed to let this guy buy
Speaker 3: your house, then his dudes would put out the fire.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think there's a scene in one of Stevens
Speaker 2: Sailor's Gordian Honest books that take place in ancient Rome
Speaker 2: where this exact situation takes place with like the building
Speaker 2: burning down and here's the sky shows up and he's like, well,
Speaker 2: you know, it looks like your property is really plummeting
Speaker 2: in value. Now would be a great time to sell
Speaker 2: to me, as opposed to five minutes from now.
Speaker 3: Wicked in an especially hilarious way. But of course, you know,
Speaker 3: later on the idea of firefighting as a public service
Speaker 3: that benefits everyone does develop, And yeah, of course there
Speaker 3: are a lot of different ways to fight fires, and
Speaker 3: not all of them involve water. Of course, some involve
Speaker 3: like you know, pulling down structures to create barriers to
Speaker 3: fire spreading and things like that. But yeah, water of
Speaker 3: course is quite often one of the most important tools
Speaker 3: in fighting fires.
Speaker 2: Now. One of the things about bringing water into a city,
Speaker 2: one of the problems here are potential potential problems, is well,
Speaker 2: you can have to deal with drainage, removal, fouled water,
Speaker 2: and various public health challenges that can emerge from public
Speaker 2: water works, and that can get into things like you know,
Speaker 2: I have to worry about water borne ill illnesses, potentially mosquitoes,
Speaker 2: things of that nature. So systems to bring water into
Speaker 2: a city these were extremely important for human civilizations, and
Speaker 2: we see them in all the major civilizations of the
Speaker 2: ancient world as well as the various ancient civilizations of
Speaker 2: the New World. The earliest carved water basin apparently dates
Speaker 2: back to three thousand BC in the Mesopotamian site of Tello,
Speaker 2: and a stone fountain figure in another Mesopotamian site, Mari
Speaker 2: dates back to two thousand BCE. This would basically be
Speaker 2: in line with the common fountain trope that we've seen
Speaker 2: again and again of a goddess holding a base of
Speaker 2: some sort that releases piped in water, just sort of
Speaker 2: an irresistible image. And I guess part of this comes
Speaker 2: down to, like what a fountain does that like recasts
Speaker 2: the idea of water being gifted to people.
Speaker 3: As if from a morton.
Speaker 2: Joe, Yeah, yeah. The Romans were, of course masters of hydraulics,
Speaker 2: which they adopted from the Etruscan civilization, and the Roman
Speaker 2: tradition greatly influenced the medieval fountain tradition to follow. Now,
Speaker 2: one thing in this paper that I thought was really interesting.
Speaker 2: They point out that in China, wells and streams were
Speaker 2: along the primary source of water, so wells tend to
Speaker 2: play the role we see public fountains play in other
Speaker 2: parts of the world. In some of these Mesopotamian accounts,
Speaker 2: these public wells were crucial as well to city planning.
Speaker 2: These would be the things that you plan the structure
Speaker 2: of the city around. They also note that quote spring
Speaker 2: and structures have also assumed characteristics of fountains in China,
Speaker 2: so what we might think of as proper fountains were
Speaker 2: also introduced and built in urban and palace settings later
Speaker 2: over the course of centuries. But sometimes you might have
Speaker 2: something just constructed at a where a spring emerges or
Speaker 2: where a spring has come to, and this will sort
Speaker 2: of take on the building and appearance of a western fountain.
Speaker 2: Now The authors even include discussion of modern and industrial
Speaker 2: age water kiosks in the paper, which serve the purpose
Speaker 2: of distributing clean water to the people, though without most
Speaker 2: of the more aesthetically pleasing aspects that you associate with
Speaker 2: a public fountain. Nowadays, you can look up images of
Speaker 2: various water kiosks that I believe they're especially common in
Speaker 2: subs of how in Africa a place where people can
Speaker 2: go and get water, and it often takes on a
Speaker 2: more I guess, sort of commercial appearance. I mean it
Speaker 2: looks like a little shop in many cases. Sometimes they
Speaker 2: even you see something that looks more like a vending machine.
Speaker 2: And you can also make comparisons like water kiosk and
Speaker 2: say public ice dispensary, you know those you see these especially,
Speaker 2: we see these a lot in the United States. I know,
Speaker 2: when you go into rural areas and there's like the
Speaker 2: standalone machine that you can pull up to, you pay
Speaker 2: the machine and you get some ice. You know you
Speaker 2: are buying water. I'llbeit in a frozen form from that
Speaker 2: machine right now. That Beings said, I guess water kiosks
Speaker 2: could still be considered like a social center, a place
Speaker 2: where people were going for water. And while most of
Speaker 2: the examples I was looking at seem largely transactional and functional,
Speaker 2: I suppose it doesn't have to be the case.
Speaker 3: Though.
Speaker 2: When I looked around for like more pleasing designs and
Speaker 2: water kiosks, the only thing that was coming up for
Speaker 2: me were various design competitions that were more situated in
Speaker 2: say London, and were essentially coming up with water fountain
Speaker 2: designs that you know, looked crazy things that weren't necessarily
Speaker 2: I think, actually brought to life in urban settings. But
Speaker 2: I don't know, maybe the there have been efforts to
Speaker 2: sort of evolve water kiosk sites throughout the rest of
Speaker 2: the world as well. I'm not sure.
Speaker 3: Well, this idea sort of highlights the two different faces
Speaker 3: of the civic water dispensing area. So you can have
Speaker 3: on one hand, something that is functional that is there.
Speaker 3: It's a place for people to get water that they
Speaker 3: need for you know, everything in life basically that you
Speaker 3: need in order to drink, to cook, to clean and
Speaker 3: so forth. And then the other idea is water based
Speaker 3: infrastructure that is there to be enjoyed, maybe the same
Speaker 3: way that a park would be there to be enjoyed.
Speaker 2: I think in the popular imagination, something that brings all
Speaker 2: these together is, of course the chocolate factory of Willy Wonka,
Speaker 2: where we see the chocolate mixed by waterfall. It is
Speaker 2: a pleasing water fall to behold. You're you're not supposed
Speaker 2: to swim in it, of course, but still, you know,
Speaker 2: some uses of the chocolate are available via fun and
Speaker 2: then of course we do have chocolate chocolate fountains at
Speaker 2: events and all. So it is weird how we get
Speaker 2: into this use of fountains, both in the imagination and
Speaker 2: in reality, for liquids that are not drinking water.
Speaker 3: Why do the culinary fountains always go in the sweet direction?
Speaker 3: I want to see more savory ones, you know. So
Speaker 3: it's the nacho cheese fountain, the gravy fountain. I don't
Speaker 3: know what, maybe cheese fondue fountain. I guess that's pretty
Speaker 3: similar to nacho cheese.
Speaker 2: Well that that surely exists, right, some sort.
Speaker 3: Of a cheese fountain, I suppose, I would guess.
Speaker 2: Anyway, coming back to this Water Journal paper, the authors
Speaker 2: here they stress that fountains also often stood as symbols
Speaker 2: of power and wealth. Somebody builds them, someone provides them
Speaker 2: for the people. But there's still this calming element to
Speaker 2: the urban fountain, offering sites and sounds conducive to relaxation
Speaker 2: that are frequently cited in histories and literature. As many
Speaker 2: of the practical reasons for public fountains declined in modern times,
Speaker 2: the esthetic elements remained in playing the soothing sites and
Speaker 2: sounds of the running water. Another interesting point this is
Speaker 2: something I read in Fountains as Reservoirs of myth and
Speaker 2: memory from Myths on the Map the Storied Landscapes of
Speaker 2: Ancient Greece from twenty seventeen by Betsy A. Robinson, or
Speaker 2: this section about fountains is by Robinson, and in this
Speaker 2: they point out that public fountains, specifically those in Greek traditions,
Speaker 2: were also a means of quote, connecting past and present
Speaker 2: and establishing authority by the manipulation of architectural form and
Speaker 2: the selective retelling of stories. So I found that fascinating
Speaker 2: to think about and be reminded of, because the public
Speaker 2: fountain here is both a means of bringing water to
Speaker 2: the people, but also conceptualizing the deliverer of that water
Speaker 2: by means of myth and legends reflected in the carvings,
Speaker 2: the statues and so forth then make up a given fountain.
Speaker 2: For instance, who is the goddess that is pouring forth
Speaker 2: the water, and what is that goddess's relationship to the
Speaker 2: to the people in power at the moment, et cetera.
Speaker 3: Yes, flowing water almost kind of naturally tells a story,
Speaker 3: or it easily can be narrativized in some way by
Speaker 3: you know, filling in the infrastructure around it with images
Speaker 3: and representations.
Speaker 2: Yeah, can you imagine if our primary sources of water
Speaker 2: today are faucets, what if by law they were required
Speaker 2: to resemble entities or beings or specific people in power
Speaker 2: as they're bringing forth your prescious drinking or dishwashing water.
Speaker 3: Yes, the faucet is like your local water commissioner's face
Speaker 3: and the water is coming out of their mouth or
Speaker 3: something like vomiting the water to you.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Away. The main idea we're exploring this episode, though,
Speaker 2: is the idea that there is something soothing, calming, and
Speaker 2: mentally restoring about public fountains, something that may, you know,
Speaker 2: subjectively seem to be the case with many of us,
Speaker 2: but you know, is there something more objective there as well.
Speaker 2: There's actually been a fair amount of certainly recent scholarship
Speaker 2: on the topic that we're going to touch on in
Speaker 2: this We're going to get into this idea of blue spaces.
Speaker 2: So in the world of urban and land use planning,
Speaker 2: there's green space obviously, you know, we think of gardens, trees,
Speaker 2: whole parks, et cetera. And then there's a subset of
Speaker 2: green space known as blue space. And the blue of
Speaker 2: course refers to water, you know, as water is often
Speaker 2: blue on the map, if not in actual visual appearance,
Speaker 2: and it entails all manner of naturally occurring and artificial
Speaker 2: water features, including fountains. Now, once again it's important to
Speaker 2: stress that proximity to natural and or artificial Blue Spaces
Speaker 2: has always come with certain additional risks and potential danger.
Speaker 2: We talked about those already, but there's also this compelling
Speaker 2: idea that blue spaces are an overall mental and or
Speaker 2: physical health benefit to those with access to the feature.
Speaker 2: And on one hand, this basic idea would seem to
Speaker 2: line up with the late EO. Wilson's biophilia hypothesis, something
Speaker 2: we've talked about on the show before.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is kind of interesting. So we've done multiple
Speaker 3: episodes exploring and critiquing the biophilia hypothesis at length in
Speaker 3: the past, so we're not going to go into great
Speaker 3: depth on that again here, but briefly, in Wilson's words,
Speaker 3: this would have been what he believed was quote the
Speaker 3: innate tendency to focus on life and lifelike processes. So
Speaker 3: the argument goes that there is something in our brains
Speaker 3: that calls us to be fascinated by and attracted to
Speaker 3: other forms of life beyond just the obvious and direct
Speaker 3: benefits to our survival that we would get from them.
Speaker 3: So it's obvious why you would be attracted to, say
Speaker 3: an animal or a plant that you might eat for food,
Speaker 3: but that our fascination by and attraction to life forms
Speaker 3: goes way beyond this, goes to you things that you
Speaker 3: can't eat, things that you can't necessarily get any tangible,
Speaker 3: quantifiable benefit from. We still these other life forms, We
Speaker 3: still want to see and touch and spend time around them,
Speaker 3: and when they're not present in our lives, we feel
Speaker 3: a kind of we feel that loss as a kind
Speaker 3: of malaise or unhappiness. And so a funny thing here
Speaker 3: about water is that, of course, moving water is very
Speaker 3: often associated with the suite of esthetic and environmental preferences
Speaker 3: suggested by the biophilia hypothesis. Yet of course water is
Speaker 3: itself not alive. It, like rocks and air, is part
Speaker 3: of the inorganic environment. And yet of course the presence
Speaker 3: of water is greatly associated with the presence of life. Basically,
Speaker 3: all life on Earth needs water to survive. And it's
Speaker 3: not an accident that when you know, you're walking through
Speaker 3: the desert and you come to an oasis, it is
Speaker 3: suddenly surrounded by forms of life that were not found
Speaker 3: in the surrounding landscape.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, And you know, you can make the argument that,
Speaker 2: you know, we're hardwired to appreciate something like a nice
Speaker 2: flowing stream as opposed to another body of water. How
Speaker 2: would how would Donald Pleasance put it?
Speaker 3: Joe, Oh, the spirit of dark and lonely waters.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, the dark and lonely water.
Speaker 3: That's it, ready to trap the unwary, the show off
Speaker 3: the fool.
Speaker 2: In this, we're of course referring to something we discussed
Speaker 2: in an older Halloween episode what Jenny Green teeth, But
Speaker 2: it was what a British public service advertisement or video
Speaker 2: message warning you against stagnant ponds and the danger to
Speaker 2: young children posed.
Speaker 3: There right, warning children not to play in the in
Speaker 3: the pools of black liquid that gather in abandoned buildings.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's yeah. Thinking about biophilia hypothesis in light of
Speaker 2: all this is interesting. And I was looking around in
Speaker 2: the book that Wilson co wrote on it, and at
Speaker 2: one point mentioned he mentions that while uphill or spraying
Speaker 2: aspects of artificial fountains rarely occur in nature, He points out,
Speaker 2: you know, obviously the geysers.
Speaker 1: But.
Speaker 2: Still even if a fountain is pumping water straight up
Speaker 2: in the air, you know, it's still something we connect with,
Speaker 2: even if this is not the normal way that water
Speaker 2: behaves in just the average environment. He writes, quote, yet
Speaker 2: the motion of water in fountains seems to have the
Speaker 2: same hypnotic attraction as water flowing downhill in a waterfall.
Speaker 2: He also writes that it would be interesting to see
Speaker 2: a study of people observing quote, quiet and repetitive motions
Speaker 2: of predators, sharks in an aquarium, circling birds of prey,
Speaker 2: or other stalking movements of wolves, or large feeling which
Speaker 2: combine Heraclitian movement with potential danger. Now, just to note there,
Speaker 2: Heracliteanism is a philosophy concerning everything except the logos remaining
Speaker 2: in flux, with the four elements eternally cycling into each
Speaker 2: other and so forth. There's a lot to it, but
Speaker 2: the philosopher of its namesake Heraclitis circle of five hundred BCE.
Speaker 2: His ideas can be basically condensed down to the idea
Speaker 2: that everything flows, that everything is becoming but never being,
Speaker 2: and that does feel like it lines up with a
Speaker 2: lot of the essence of moving water observations and the
Speaker 2: various metaphors we form about it. But at any rate, yeah,
Speaker 2: I like how this flows into the idea of the
Speaker 2: attractive nature of streams and fountains. But coming back to
Speaker 2: what Wilson ponders here and I looked up. I looked
Speaker 2: it up. I wasn't able to find any studies that
Speaker 2: actually took the challenge here, but I was wondering, Okay,
Speaker 2: aquariums are especially relaxing, I find, or at least the
Speaker 2: parts that involve fish and water. Sometimes the you know,
Speaker 2: the crowds can be a bit much, but in terms
Speaker 2: of like steering in through the aquarium glass at an
Speaker 2: aquarium enclosure can be very relaxing. Sometimes there are sharks there.
Speaker 2: Our local aquarium has sharks, and I was trying to
Speaker 2: I was looking back on my experiences of viewing those sharks,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, is this relaxing? And I'm not entirely sure.
Speaker 2: I mean obviously for me anyway. I mean, if I'm
Speaker 2: looking at a shark in a shark tank, I know
Speaker 2: that I'm not in danger. It's not gonna you know,
Speaker 2: pop out of the glass at me. I'm distant from it.
Speaker 2: On the other hand, observing large predators and zoo environments
Speaker 2: sometimes can feel a little uncanny in my experience, you know,
Speaker 2: like if the lion's looking right at you, that sort
Speaker 2: of thing, or you know, another large predator is eyeing
Speaker 2: your toddler, your infant, like that that gets a little
Speaker 2: that starts, you know, turning on some some lights that
Speaker 2: are kind of buried in your psyche. But in terms
Speaker 2: of the sharks and the aquarium, I'm not sure. I
Speaker 2: asked my wife about this and she was like, like, no, no,
Speaker 2: it's it's absolutely relaxing. There's nothing, there's nothing stressful about
Speaker 2: observing these predators. For her, I don't know if you
Speaker 2: have any thoughts in this show.
Speaker 3: Well, I feel like I may have missed something. Here
Speaker 3: was Wilson suggesting that the predators would be relaxing. I
Speaker 3: interpreted that him to mean that the idea of a
Speaker 3: slowly circling predator with Heraclidean movement would be like an
Speaker 3: arresting image.
Speaker 2: Well, I think what I took to be the idea
Speaker 2: is like which energy is going to win out? Like
Speaker 2: the movement is relaxing, but it's a predator engaging in
Speaker 2: the movement. In these we see traditional movements have said
Speaker 2: predators like what is going to be the end result?
Speaker 3: I see, yeah, okay, Well, I'm not sure what I
Speaker 3: would say about sharks in particular. I mean, I certainly
Speaker 3: find aquariums incredibly relaxing. But like you also, that is,
Speaker 3: they're strongly counteracted by the presence of loud crowds around them.
Speaker 3: But like a viewing an aquarium in a quiet space
Speaker 3: is I think one of the most relaxing things I
Speaker 3: can imagine. I'm not sure, Yeah, I'm not sure that
Speaker 3: a shark being in there would really change anything about
Speaker 3: it seeing a shark swimming around, I mean, assuming I'm
Speaker 3: not in the water.
Speaker 2: Yeah, or in the captivity of a bond villain that
Speaker 2: sort of thing.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, I think that's probably still just as relaxing
Speaker 3: as any other side of an aquarium.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, we've drifted off course a little bit.
Speaker 2: Let's get back to just the basic idea that spending
Speaker 2: time near a body of water would have some sort
Speaker 2: of beneficial effect on you.
Speaker 3: Right, So, at this point there have been a lot
Speaker 3: of different studies investigating the impact of green and blue
Speaker 3: spaces on human well being, and specifically, the question with
Speaker 3: blue spaces would be does living near or spending time
Speaker 3: I'm near a body of water improve your mental and
Speaker 3: physical health, and if so, how does it create those improvements?
Speaker 3: And fortunately, just a couple of years ago, there was
Speaker 3: a meta analysis that rounded up all of the existing
Speaker 3: research and synthesized what we know so far with a
Speaker 3: special focus on the mechanism of action the question of
Speaker 3: how blue space works on us. The paper is called
Speaker 3: Mechanisms of Impact of Blue Spaces on Human Health, a
Speaker 3: systematic literature review and meta analysis by Mikhail Georgiu at
Speaker 3: All published in the journal the International Journal of Environmental
Speaker 3: Research and Public Health in twenty twenty one, and this
Speaker 3: study begins with a general survey of the research on
Speaker 3: the health effects of exposure to natural environments. The authors
Speaker 3: note that most of the research in this area has
Speaker 3: actually been focused on something slightly different, on green spaces
Speaker 3: rather than blue spaces, and this is also something we've
Speaker 3: looked at in multiple episodes in the past. But short summary,
Speaker 3: there is pretty strong evidence that living near or spending
Speaker 3: time in areas where surfaces are covered in plant life
Speaker 3: basically where you'd be exposed to grass, trees, vegetation of
Speaker 3: various sorts, is correlated with a wide range of benefits
Speaker 3: in all kinds of domains and everything from markers of
Speaker 3: physical health, cardiovascular health, and so forth, to mental and
Speaker 3: emotional well being, lower rates of anxiety, and things like
Speaker 3: that and even like greater cognitive performance in school children. So,
Speaker 3: in short, I think we can say with pretty high
Speaker 3: confidence that it is good for you to spend time
Speaker 3: in a park or a forest compared to spending the
Speaker 3: same amount of time in a landscape fully paved with
Speaker 3: metal and concrete and plastic. Something about living near and
Speaker 3: spending time in those kinds of environments has a wide
Speaker 3: range of benefits for your body and mind. Now, the
Speaker 3: authors of this study note that a lot of the research,
Speaker 3: unfortunately does not disentangle the variables of exposure to blue spaces,
Speaker 3: meaning bodies of water, including lakes, rivers, coastlines, canals, and
Speaker 3: in some cases even smaller features like fountains and things,
Speaker 3: from exposure to green spaces. Sometimes the presence of water
Speaker 3: is treated as part of the definition of green spaces,
Speaker 3: sometimes not. So that's unfortunate, and it would be good
Speaker 3: to separate these variables out to see if they have
Speaker 3: effects independent of one another, And fortunately some studies have
Speaker 3: done that. They've separated them out and looked at blue
Speaker 3: spaces independently. Now, the first half of the question, do
Speaker 3: blue spaces have positive effects on our well being? The
Speaker 3: answer seems to be a pretty firm Yes, the author's right.
Speaker 3: Recent epidemiological studies have shown that blue spaces have a
Speaker 3: positive effect on public health, including the reduction of mortality
Speaker 3: rate with the greatest rate of decline seen in areas
Speaker 3: closest to blue space, better physical health, and better minntal health,
Speaker 3: and their copious citations and support of these general statements.
Speaker 3: So this brings us to the main question explored here,
Speaker 3: which is why why is exposure to water or living
Speaker 3: near water good for you? Why would it be good
Speaker 3: for say, lowering your mortality or giving you better physical
Speaker 3: health or mental health. And the authors of the study
Speaker 3: explore four main hypothetical mechanisms, all of which are on
Speaker 3: their own known to have significant positive effects on mortality,
Speaker 3: physical health, and mental health. And these mechanisms are social interaction,
Speaker 3: physical activity, environmental factors, and restoration. So physical activity, this
Speaker 3: is pretty straightforward. Maybe blue spaces encourage people to get
Speaker 3: more exercise. Getting more exercise is strongly correlated with decreased
Speaker 3: mortality and improvements in mental and physical health. And maybe
Speaker 3: something about living near water or having water in your
Speaker 3: geographical area makes you more likely to exercise.
Speaker 2: Okay, that seems to track.
Speaker 3: Yeah, second mechanism. Maybe it's social interaction. Maybe blue spaces
Speaker 3: encourage people to spend more time interacting with others rather
Speaker 3: than alone, which again has well known, well established benefits.
Speaker 3: Third thing is environmental factors. This refers to the effects
Speaker 3: of bodies of water on other local environmental variables that
Speaker 3: have their own effects on human well being. The author's
Speaker 3: right quote blue spaces may contribute to a healthier environment
Speaker 3: and reduce air pollution, heat island effect, risk of flooding, etc.
Speaker 3: And then fourth restoration, Exposure to blue spaces might improve restoration,
Speaker 3: which they define by saying that they use the definition
Speaker 3: from another paper, So I had to look up what
Speaker 3: that paper was to get the definition, and basically it
Speaker 3: seems to be quote recovery from depleted attentional capacity or stress.
Speaker 3: This is also something we've blowed on the show before,
Speaker 3: but basically the question here would be weather. Exposure to
Speaker 3: water sources helps people relax and recharge, to recover from
Speaker 3: depleted attention spans from having you know, people spend a
Speaker 3: lot of their attentional energy on certain types of tasks,
Speaker 3: or not even tasks, maybe even just you know, like
Speaker 3: scrolling their phones or something all day. This creates a
Speaker 3: lot of stress. And then there are other types of
Speaker 3: experiences people can have that tend to restore depleted attentional
Speaker 3: resources and relax you and sort of remove those biomarkers
Speaker 3: of stress that people would notice, like you know, elevated
Speaker 3: levels of cortisol and blood or in the saliva.
Speaker 2: Interesting. So yeah, it's kind of a satisfying exercise to
Speaker 2: take these different factors and apply them to different sort
Speaker 2: of activities and environments. Like, for instance, you think of,
Speaker 2: say a fishing pond. A number of these you can
Speaker 2: easily check off. I don't know, physical activity. I guess
Speaker 2: you could have a discussion there regarding phishing, and I
Speaker 2: guess it depends on how you're going about fishing. And
Speaker 2: then likewise, if you apply it to say a fountain
Speaker 2: in the middle of a public square, that sort of thing,
Speaker 2: some of these more easily or checked off the list here.
Speaker 2: But even like physical activity, I mean you think of
Speaker 2: environments that have a fountain. I mean, I don't know
Speaker 2: about the rest of you. I think of like children
Speaker 2: playing inside fountain, whether they're supposed to do or not.
Speaker 2: I think of people doing things around the fountain. So
Speaker 2: even if you're not say attempting to swim laps in
Speaker 2: the fountain or do boating in the fountain. There still
Speaker 2: may be physical action that is encouraged around.
Speaker 3: It, right, So we'll get to in a second what
Speaker 3: the evidence for these factors or not is. But yeah,
Speaker 3: you can't always know exactly how it works, but you
Speaker 3: can imagine tons of possibilities like maybe having a canal
Speaker 3: or a river or something nearby just makes people want
Speaker 3: to get out and go on a walk more often
Speaker 3: that it could be. Yeah, But finally I wanted to
Speaker 3: finish up my note about what the mechanism with restoration
Speaker 3: would be if blue spaces do encourage restoration that leads
Speaker 3: to the better effects on mental and physical health, because
Speaker 3: the authors say, quote stress, anxiety, depressed mood, and psychological
Speaker 3: well being have been linked with the risk of cardiovascular
Speaker 3: diseases and mental health issues, so that link is also
Speaker 3: firmly established. So the authors did their review and analyzed
Speaker 3: all the studies that had any results illuminating these possible
Speaker 3: mechanisms whether they hold true or not, and there were
Speaker 3: fifty studies total. In their review, they said twenty seven.
Speaker 3: Ultimately they concluded had data relevant to the meta analysis
Speaker 3: on this question, and what they found was quote three
Speaker 3: of the four hypothesized pathways physical activity, restoration, and environmental
Speaker 3: factors are supported by empirical evidence, while findings on social
Speaker 3: interaction are inconclusive. Now, as for physical activity, they say,
Speaker 3: people's physical activity seem to increase with both their proximity
Speaker 3: two blue space and and with the total amount of
Speaker 3: blue space in their geographical area where they lived. So
Speaker 3: it seems that both of these factors are correlated with
Speaker 3: people getting more exercise. It seems people get out and
Speaker 3: get more physical activity if there is water somewhere in
Speaker 3: their neighborhood, and also more if their home is physically
Speaker 3: closer to water. So this seems like a pretty strong
Speaker 3: candidate explanation. Second one is restoration. They found that blue
Speaker 3: space was correlated with increased restoration the author's rite. Intriguingly,
Speaker 3: the increase of amount of blue space within a geographical
Speaker 3: area was found to be the highest among all mediating
Speaker 3: pathways and exposures. This evidence, therefore suggests that developing more
Speaker 3: blue spaces within neighborhoods could primarily benefit the restorative character
Speaker 3: of an area. So having some kind of blue space
Speaker 3: in your general geographic area definitely that helps with alleviating stress. However,
Speaker 3: the interesting and kind of prizing thing to me was
Speaker 3: that they did not find evidence that your individual proximity
Speaker 3: to blue space had an effect on restoration. And they write, quote,
Speaker 3: while urbanicity is found to increase mental disorders through stress,
Speaker 3: we propose that creating more blue spaces and promoting contact
Speaker 3: with them can be used to reverse this effect and
Speaker 3: ameliorate urban living. So it looks like another fairly strong
Speaker 3: candidate to me here, Having more water and waterways in
Speaker 3: the general area where you live seems to have a
Speaker 3: relaxation and restoration effect on people, counteracting stress and thus
Speaker 3: achieving improvements in health. Of course, again, chronic stress is
Speaker 3: bad for you. Now, the other two mechanisms were more
Speaker 3: complicated or a different story. As for environmental factors, they say,
Speaker 3: there is evidence for a couple of things, but it's
Speaker 3: kind of complicated. So the authors did find some evidence
Speaker 3: that blue spaces correlate with lowering heat stress and with
Speaker 3: improving air quality, but they said that the evidence base
Speaker 3: for those was kind of small and messy, and other
Speaker 3: environmental factors they looked at, such as effects on noise
Speaker 3: pollution and biodiversity, there was not enough evidence to reach
Speaker 3: a conclusion. And then they also say when it comes
Speaker 3: to environmental factors, there are some that could be operating
Speaker 3: in the opposite direction. As you mentioned earlier, there could
Speaker 3: be some negative environmental effects of having water nearby, such
Speaker 3: as say being a vector for infectious disease or something
Speaker 3: like that. So this one seems to be sort of
Speaker 3: a question mark. The evidence for the effects that are
Speaker 3: there is kind of weak, and effects appear to be
Speaker 3: going in both directions. And then finally, for social interaction,
Speaker 3: they said that the evidence again is kind of weak.
Speaker 3: Previous findings were mixed, but the meta analysis did not
Speaker 3: find a significant effect of blue spaces on social interaction.
Speaker 3: But it does look like the evidence for two of
Speaker 3: the four categories is pretty strong. Having more blue space
Speaker 3: in the neighborhood and living closer to blue space appears
Speaker 3: to increase people's amount of physical exercise, which has strong
Speaker 3: benefits for health, and living in an area with more
Speaker 3: blue space in the general geographical region has restorative effects.
Speaker 3: It helps people relax and recharge to counteract the stress
Speaker 3: of life. Now, I do want to mention that this
Speaker 3: study was focused on blue spaces in general, and the
Speaker 3: majority of effects documented. From what I could tell, we're
Speaker 3: probably coming more from larger natural and artificial waterways like
Speaker 3: lakes and rivers and canals and so forth. So I
Speaker 3: don't know how much you could map the total effects
Speaker 3: of blue space onto specific things like smaller water features
Speaker 3: installations like fountains and so forth.
Speaker 2: Right, So don't take this podcast episode or or these
Speaker 2: various studies here is just like clear evidence that it's
Speaker 2: time to install that water feature in your yard, because
Speaker 2: it might not have ultimately have that big a difference,
Speaker 2: but who knows. Maybe it'll be delightful, maybe it will
Speaker 2: be calming. Maybe all you need is that the sound
Speaker 2: of trickling water.
Speaker 3: But a lot of the more specific and detailed oriented
Speaker 3: questions out of the way, it does seem just generally
Speaker 3: true that, yes, green space is good for mental and
Speaker 3: physical health, and blue space also seems to be pretty
Speaker 3: good for mental and physical health.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Now. I was looking at a study out of
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two titled a population based Retrospective Study on
Speaker 2: the Modifying effect of Urban Blue Space on the impact
Speaker 2: of Socioeconomic Deprivation on Mental Health two thousand and nine
Speaker 2: through twenty eighteen by Giorgio at all published in scientific reports.
Speaker 3: I think this is the same first author as the
Speaker 3: meta analysis I just looked at.
Speaker 2: So this particular study quote aim to investigate whether living
Speaker 2: near blue space lounge of two udinally modifies the effect
Speaker 2: of socioeconomic deprivation on mental health the author's right quote. Hence,
Speaker 2: we study longitudinally the impact of a large scale regeneration
Speaker 2: of the Glasgow branch of the Fourth and Clyde Canal,
Speaker 2: an urban blue space, on mental health, using routinely collected
Speaker 2: clinical data. Now I had to look up some images
Speaker 2: of what this area looked like. I included one here
Speaker 2: for you, Joe. It looks nice. You basically have a
Speaker 2: canal space with a lot of vegetation grown up on
Speaker 2: one side of it, you know, and then I mean
Speaker 2: a little bit on the surface of the water. You
Speaker 2: have all it looks like a walking and or bicycle path,
Speaker 2: and then some more green space and some walls and
Speaker 2: some trees and whatnot. And it looks pleasant, looks like
Speaker 2: a place if you lived in this area you might
Speaker 2: go to for a bike ride or a walk, et cetera.
Speaker 2: So a number of factors went into this localized study,
Speaker 2: including distance one resides from the blue space, psychotropic medication prescriptions,
Speaker 2: socioeconomic deprivation in the area, comorbidities, and demographics. So what
Speaker 2: do they determined in this analysis? Will they identified a
Speaker 2: protective modifying effect of living near the blue spaces in
Speaker 2: relation to the impact of socioeconomic deprivation and mental health disorders.
Speaker 2: So the idea here is that the blue space doesn't
Speaker 2: completely cancel out all of the negative effects on mental health,
Speaker 2: but it provides what they describe as a quote unquote
Speaker 2: protective moat mm, which is also clever because you know
Speaker 2: it's a water feature. But they also write that their
Speaker 2: findings suggests that increased exposure to blue spaces rolled out
Speaker 2: in urban spaces could reduce medication intake and reduce mental
Speaker 2: health inequalities in urban areas.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's important to note that while like
Speaker 3: the positive effects of things like blue spaces does appear
Speaker 3: to be pretty good, also the effects are fairly modest,
Speaker 3: so they're not going to be like a fix all
Speaker 3: for all of everyone's problems. But they seem to be
Speaker 3: part of a suite of solutions to generally make life
Speaker 3: and make urban environments more friendly and those kind of things.
Speaker 3: While no one of them is going to be life changing.
Speaker 3: Probably they can add up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, they can all add up to an increase
Speaker 2: in quality of life, staving off some of these additional
Speaker 2: mental and health issues. So something that should certainly should
Speaker 2: be factored into urban planning, to urban restoration projects and
Speaker 2: so forth. And you know, just on an individual level,
Speaker 2: you can feel a little better about taking time out
Speaker 2: of your day to be near water, be it in
Speaker 2: the form of you know, some sort of an artificial pond, fountain,
Speaker 2: et cetera, or local bodies of water and so forth.
Speaker 3: You know, there's something I wonder about that I haven't
Speaker 3: seen this sighted in any papers looking at or anything.
Speaker 3: This is just kind of an amusing but I wonder
Speaker 3: if there is some psychological benefit or quality of life
Speaker 3: benefit to just having something near you that is an
Speaker 3: excuse for you to go do something you don't have
Speaker 3: to do, you know, And it can be anything. It
Speaker 3: can be a you could be a park, or could
Speaker 3: be a pathway near your house, or something just an
Speaker 3: excuse to like an excuse to go do something that
Speaker 3: is not work and is not like a screen. Does
Speaker 3: that make.
Speaker 2: Sense, Yeah, And that you know ultimately occupies your mind
Speaker 2: in a way that that may force out other thoughts
Speaker 2: and other preoccupations. You know that that taps into, you know,
Speaker 2: our basic primal wiring to see what's going on over
Speaker 2: there by the water. Are there ducks? What are the
Speaker 2: ducks doing? Are they are they mining their own business?
Speaker 2: Or are they looking at me suspiciously? Are there in
Speaker 2: the fountain? Et cetera. And again, if you're on the
Speaker 2: fence about building that coy pond, you know, don't don't
Speaker 2: build it just because you listen to this episode. But
Speaker 2: also maybe don't not build it.
Speaker 3: We're not saying it's going to be a cure all,
Speaker 3: but also, hey, you know, water's nice. Why not go
Speaker 3: for it?
Speaker 2: It might be nice.
Speaker 3: Now, the one thing I would hesitate on is throwing
Speaker 3: pennies in the pond with the fish.
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, yeah.
Speaker 3: I don't know that that's a bad idea, but I
Speaker 3: have a hunch.
Speaker 2: Oh, I mean, based on all the signs I see
Speaker 2: places I go, they say don't throw the coins in
Speaker 2: because they're not good for the fish or the turtles
Speaker 2: or what have you. So unless it is a designated
Speaker 2: wishing fountain, don't cast your wishes because it's you know,
Speaker 2: it's not gonna work. All right, we're gonna ahead and
Speaker 2: close this episode out, but we'd love to hear from
Speaker 2: everyone out there. What are your thoughts on green spaces
Speaker 2: and blue spaces? On naturally occurring bodies of water and fountains?
Speaker 2: Do you have a favorite that you have observed or
Speaker 2: hang out around frequently us, No, we'd love to hear
Speaker 2: from you. Also, thanks to my wife who suggested this episode.
Speaker 2: We were kind of casting around and I would I said, hey,
Speaker 2: what would you like to hear an episode about? And
Speaker 2: she said, oh, I've heard some about some studies regarding
Speaker 2: blue spaces, and so we looked into it, and here
Speaker 2: we are. If you would like to catch up on
Speaker 2: past episodes of the show, where you can find them
Speaker 2: in the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed. We
Speaker 2: have core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We have episodes
Speaker 2: of Listener Mail on Monday's, short form Artifact or Monster
Speaker 2: Fact episodes on Wednesdays. On Fridays, we set aside most
Speaker 2: serious concerns to just talk about a weird film on
Speaker 2: Weird House Cinema. And in terms of that fire Extinguisher
Speaker 2: episode of Invention that we mentioned offhand, I cannot remember
Speaker 2: if we have republished that one in the Stuff to
Speaker 2: Blow Your Mind podcast feed. I assume that we have,
Speaker 2: but there is also a separate abandoned podcast feed for Invention,
Speaker 2: which is a show we did for a period based
Speaker 2: on inventions, so you can also find it there.
Speaker 3: Wish huge thanks to our audio producer JJ Posway. If
Speaker 3: you would like to get in touch with us with
Speaker 3: feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a
Speaker 3: topic for the future, or just to say hello, you
Speaker 3: can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your
Speaker 3: Mind dot com.
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