Introducing the Blue Hour

The calendar on the kitchen wall looks like a chessboard, some of its squares filled-in with so many events that they’re almost black. Only, a proper chessboard would have regular white squares in between. Mine has mostly dark squares, and none of the cells are exactly empty.

There’s soccer practice, track practice, and track meets. And soccer games. And ballet, and honors chorus, and Cub Scouts, and the Arts and Science Fair. There’s an event that’s been crossed out, but then circled and underlined, and there’s an acronym I don’t recognize with a time next to it. I think I’m supposed to bake brownies for that, which reminds me that I need to find time to get to Dawson’s for cinnamon and dark chocolate. When’s that going to happen?

Every minute of our kids’ time (and our time, for that matter) is accounted for, most to be spent either inside or on sprawling fields of manicured grass, with car rides in between. Intuitively, it seems like too much structure and not nearly enough real outside-time.

In his 2005 book, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, Richard Louv presents research that shows that spending time in natural settings is essential for kids’ psychological, physical, and spiritual wellbeing. He uses the term ‘green hour’ for unstructured time spent in nature, whether it be wilderness or an overgrown lot at the end of the road. Louv advises parents to carve out time for things like exploring and playing in the dirt, and hands the reader approaches to talking to school- and community leaders about enabling this.

Louv’s ideas about outside-time are on my mind as my train takes me underground, the jewel of a spring sky abruptly giving way to the muggy darkness and dingy light of WMATA’s tunnels. I’m on my way to Blue Mind 5, a conference dedicated to how people interact with water, and the intersections of brain science and conservation.

The Blue Mind summit is organized something like a TED event, full of new ideas, but with an old-fashion and genuine feel that stems from strangers meeting around a common passion. In addition to the usual academics, consultants, and nonprofit leaders who share research and innovative thinking at this sort of event, Blue Mind involves others who bring unusual and profound perspectives on the water.

Yes, there are artists and adventurers, and their stories about the beauty of vanishing marine life and cheating death on the high seas are poignant and harrowing. But perhaps more significant are the people less accustomed to standing at the podium. An 83-year-old community leader talks about his hometown’s struggle to build a public pool, and its significance for a man who grew up in segregated America. A former US Marine shares in pointed detail his personal war with depression, alcohol abuse, and sleep disorders, and how Operation Surf is helping him overcome them by riding the waves.

While much of the neuroscience describing the positive effects of time in and around water is still in its infancy, it seems clear enough that there are real benefits. Some of this is described in Wallace J. Nichols’ book, Blue Mind: The Surprising Science That Shows How Being Near, In, On, or Under Water Can Make You Happier, Healthier, More Connected, and Better at What You Do. Research suggests that relaxing by the water has benefits beyond relaxing in other settings, and similarly, that exercising in -or simply being in- the water carries its own set of positive results. Researchers have speculated about using water exercise and therapies to help manage everything from attention-deficit disorder to stress and sleep disorders.

As science pieces out how to measure and test these benefits, complicated by the tricky business of adapting clinical equipment for use in the water, we parents have a luxury that peer-reviewed scientists don’t: We can simply say, “This works for our family, so let’s do it.” From a parent’s standpoint, it doesn’t necessarily matter whether something has to do with reducing stress hormone levels, or if it’s leftover genetic programming that predisposed early humans to spend time near resource-rich waters. What matters is that it works.

Unfortunately, in a community that celebrates being overscheduled and highly accomplished, any activity that doesn’t deliver a certificate, a grade, or a trophy has little hope of getting space on the calendar. There are already more organized activities than there’s time for, and if there were an extra couple of hours in the week, convention seems to demand that they be spent on more of the same. Time spent in the water, doing nothing in particular, seems frivolous.

Establishing a blue hour, a bit of unstructured or loosely structured time in, on, or around the water, will create legitimacy. Lovechild of Louv’s green hour and Nichols’ blue mind, the blue hour affirms parents’ common sense with established and emerging research on the benefits unwinding, being outside, and enjoying the water. This gives us social permission for regularly doing things like hunting for shark teeth, paddling on the lake, or swimming without a team.

The blue hour---which by no means needs to be exactly one hour---provides time for relaxing, getting exercise, exploring, praying, thinking, chatting, or some other undertaking so seemingly inconsequential that there’s not a word for it. The lack of structure is important, because this makes space for the mind to spend time engaged (or disengaged) in whatever way it needs to. Being in or close to the water also creates a natural barrier to distractions from electronic devices. Kids can’t play Angry Birds while wading in a tide pool, and Dad can’t check email with both hands on a paddle.

This act of subversion can take place anywhere you can access a conspicuous body of water. Beaches, lakes, and riverfronts seem likely candidates, but so too are overgrown creeks and ponds. Though natural places offer the combined benefits of the green hour and the blue hour, there’s no reason that you can’t get at least a little of both at an outdoor swimming pool.

It’s perfectly OK to leave blanks on the calendar that will enable whatever water time the season and the day call for, or if need be, draw a battle line by actually scheduling this wasted time. If the plan is simply to head to the lake or the pool, you’ve successfully built a blue hour into the schedule without overwhelming the experience with structure.

If it’s hard to rationalize an activity that has no hope of being itemized on a college application, then think of it as cross training for your and your kids’ brains. Runners may do some yoga to overcome poor flexibility, and soccer players may take up a bit of cycling to build endurance without the stress on the knees. Likewise, anyone getting a biology degree is also going to take courses in chemistry. All of these endeavors help to fill gaps, create breadth, or solve problems associated with specialization. In a similar way, your blue hour helps your kids to be ready to learn and compete better by complementing their formal sports and academics.

Time in, on, or around the water is good for your kids’ bodies and minds. The science is already beginning to explain why this is, and seems poised to provide more practical insight. In the meantime, we need to prioritize these kinds of positive experiences that help our kids to be healthy and happy. How will you spend your next blue hour?

A version of this article originally appeared on The Good Men Project.