April 10, 2014 • 29 mins
The season of rebirth may be one of the most uplifting seasons humans experience, with a sense of renewal and meaning materializing before their eyes in nature. But could it change our perception and behavior. And is there a dark side to spring?
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to stuff to blow your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot Com. Hey you welcome to stuff to below
your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. Julie,
do you like spring? Do you like the season spring?
Of course I do. Yeah, How could you not like spring?
(00:23):
It's true. It's even even though I've never been a
summer person. Where I used to not be a summer person,
I always did like springs because no matter how short
your spring is depending on where you live, and it
feels like we have very short springs at times here
in the South. It's it's a time when things begin
to come alive a little bit, but not everything I
(00:44):
was alive yet, not all of the really annoying things
have have have sprung up around you, such as the
mosquitoes necessarily, or the poison ivy, all the things that
drive you indoors um. But it's just nice enough to
to exist outside, to not have to turn on the
air conditioning or the heat. You can set around, you
can read you're comfortable out there in nature, as perhaps
(01:07):
got into um for me, it's just emerging from winter's
dark shadow, right because you have been inside, you've been,
you know, you've had cabin fever, and all of a
sudden you can step outside and the sun is a
shining and the festivals are are all over the place,
especially in Atlanta. April is festival of Go Go Time.
(01:27):
And for me, the best sign of spring in Atlanta
is when you see people walking down the sidewalk with
their pillows for International Pillow Fight Day. I did not
know this existed April five. Huh yeah, because really, I mean,
you've got that big blue sky. People are about to
collabor each other with with soft weapons. Is this the thing?
(01:47):
This sounds This is a little crazy like Shirley Jackson's
The Lottery, you know, like it. It sounds like something
you would encounter in some isolated town and then you
would yeah, Freedom Parkway. Well actually I think this year
it's going to be in Grant Park. But every year
in Freedom Parkway people gathered with their pillows and you
see feathers just to fly and wow, well that that
(02:09):
is strange. But indeed to your point, though, spring is
a time where you you come out of your your hibernation,
you come out of the darkness and to get down
to the very primal root. Stop it springtime means the
winner didn't kill us, that that god or the gods
did not abandon us to the darkness and the chill
of night. Like springtime came and it saved our lives.
(02:31):
Things are growing again, food is available again, and it's
to be celebrated. And you see this in different cultures,
you know, since time immemorial, right, because people are they're relieved,
and they're going outside and they are celebrating this. You
see that this in the festival of Holly, right. Um,
this is a celebration of the colors of unity and brotherhood.
(02:53):
You see this in India where people go around they
pelt each other in the face of all these beautiful
different colored um sands. And this is a way of saying,
as you say, hey, guess what we all made it.
All of us are brothers and sisters, and this whole
human thing we survived in another winter. Yeah, I mean.
In the Christian tradition, of course, you have the the
(03:14):
death and Resurrection of Jesus as well, which which fits
right in there and plays upon on older uh Easter
traditions as well. Now, now it also brings up the
question why must we have tax season right in the
spring like that seems to really just sour the whole equation.
It's like, we finally come out, we're free, we're alive.
Now you have to pay taxes. It's kind of like
(03:35):
having to worry with your car tax when your birthday
comes along. Oh, it's just like the I r s
to be like ha ha ha spring. You think everything
is renewing and emerging. Death to your money exactly. I mean,
because it comes back. What are the two things you
can't dodge in life? Right, death and Texas? And there
you go, and they are interlaced with each other, death
and taxes at a very basic level. But that's a
(03:56):
rant for another time. Yes, that is um. So let's
talk about this idea of spring a little bit more
in the context of how it might just not only
symbolize this reemergence, but it may even change our behavior.
But before we get to that, we should probably talk
about how much time we spend indoors. Yes, And it's
(04:17):
pretty pretty disturbing because because most of us we go
through our lives and we don't necessarily think of it
in those terms, like we're not keeping a precise diary
of how much time we spend outside dear Diary. I
mean I feel a little more in touch with it
these days, with the with the toddler, because taking the
toddler outside the park is huge. And so when like
(04:38):
suddenly not being able to go outside for a few
days or a week is is very noticeable because it starts,
you know, clawing at eufanity. Yeah. Well, according to the
Environmental Protection Agency, Americans spent about eighty seven percent of
their time indoors and another six percent in their vehicles.
And as you say, you probably you don't really unless
(05:00):
you are, you know, putting it down in your die,
or you don't realize because you think, well, I went
outside to go to the grocery store, I went outside
to do the other errand and you feel like you've
had outside experiences when in fact you have been inside
sort of cloistered, especially if you work in an office, right,
and and you see, you know, different surveys make that
(05:20):
percentage a little higher to like I've seen seen nine
for Americans on a two thousand nine e p A study.
I've seen for people in industrialized countries on another study.
So it's a talking percentage to to really think about. Yeah,
social you take that plus that six percent. You get
(05:42):
that really inside a location, right, that's sealed in, right,
And that's key because we we did a whole episode
talking about how artificial indoor environments, how those are really
alien environments that we've we've created like not only just structurally,
but also the uh, the the micro biology of those structures,
(06:02):
the things that we're breathing in. We've created these strange
realities that are separate from the natural environment with well
we've evolved to thrive in. That's right. We did. We
looked at that study with hospitals opening their windows to
let fresh air and their fresh microbes, I guess you
could say, and that being exceedingly beneficial to the patients. Um. Now,
also consider that when you are inside, you are most
(06:25):
likely sitting down or lying down in the ladder. Of
course is necessary for sleep, but the former, as we know,
is associated with a smartgese board of physical ailments, including
an increased risk of type two diabetes. So all of
this sedentary inside stuff not so great force, and of
course it would play out in many different ways. Yeah.
I also want to point out that according to the
(06:46):
e p A, indoor levels of pollutants maybe two to
five times higher and occasionally more than a hundred times
higher than outdoor levels, which is important to think about,
especially here in Atlantic where occasionally we received these alert
saying that if you're very young, are very old, please
don't go outside today because the air might destroy you. Um.
But then you have to start stop and think, well,
(07:07):
what what kind of air am I fleeing to? You know? Yeah,
but let's let's get toned to the more like rainbows
and kitten farts here thinking about it. I know, I know,
but let's take out the sun and look at it,
because she'll shine upon us and take away all of
our ailments. The power of the sun is immense. When
you step out into the sun, those rays or about
(07:28):
a hundred and forty nine million kilometers away, and when
they hit your skin, they unleash a chemical chain reaction
that benefits us. For instance, vitamin D is produced yes,
which most of us do not get enough of no,
and that helps to absorb calcium and foods and which
of course that helps to grow bone and and uh
maintain bone health. And it also helps to bolster the
(07:52):
immune system. So it makes sense that when you go
out into the sun, wonderful thing has happened. You should
wear some screen of course, yes, yeah, is that there's
too much light makes the baby go blind, as they say.
Now a more quantitative look at this is a two
thousand and eight study published in the journal Psychological Science
which looked at the cognitive benefits of spending some time
(08:13):
interacting with old nature. University of Michigan psychologist Mac Berman
took a sample group of thirty six people, broke them
into two groups, and then put them through a series
of rigorous cognitive test He then let each group take breaks,
one group walking around the city street and the other
through a secluded wooded park. Now, of course, who do
(08:34):
you think performed better on the cognitive tests later on?
And and of course memory being one of those things
the nature group, Because the idea is that strolling in
a city forces the brain to constantly remain vigilant as
you navigate cars and people, and you sets out the
relevant information from from irrelevant information. Um, so for instance, relevant,
(08:59):
oh don't say up in that poop? Irrelevant there's a
sale on bras right, Um. The end result is that
those those city walkers are having a less restorative scenario
for their brains. In your prefrontal cortex is very occupied,
so your cognitive functioning in terms of learning is not
going to be as great. So it kind of takes
(09:21):
our sort of everyday myopic view of the world that
the flashlight view, and maybe opens it up a little
bit a little more lamp like where're actually absorbing sense
data a little more openly. Yeah, because you're in a
calm environment, Um, you don't have to worry about what's
coming next so much. And of course it's fascinating too
when you you start then asking the question, well, how
(09:42):
much time do when you spend out of the day,
I'm spending this enormous like like hovering near nine of
my life is spent indoors, So how much of that
do I have to give back? Like some impossible amount
do I have to give back? Well, studies show that
just five minutes a day can give you that boost
in mental health. Just five minutes, Like that's that's not
(10:04):
even that's not even all of your lunch break, you know,
that's just that's just a leaving work five minutes early
or something. Yeah, that's from two thousand and ten research
published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, and they
looked at self esteem and nature. And they found that
just that the five minutes of people who were engaged
in exercise, cycling, walking, running, gardening, farming. Um, if you
(10:28):
had that amount of time, then your self esteem and
your mood would be elevated. And of course they measured
this using standard psychological tests before and after the activities.
Now smoke breaks don't count though, right, uh, I don't
recall that being covered. We depend, I guess on the
nature of your smoke break, but probably not so. Of course,
(10:48):
the idea begins to emerge. We should frolic outdoors daily
for at least five minutes more if possible. But is
there something to spring itself? Are these day ease of
sunshine really special in that sense of of re emergence?
Is that well founded? Is that not just symbolic? Do
(11:09):
you should we just take off spring some work. Well
there's spring break, of course, which you know, to a
certain extent, just one week. Yeah, but the whole season? Yes? Okay,
well yeah, this gets into the whole question. Is there
not only link between spring and mood, but is there
a link between weather and mood, between climate and modd Like,
(11:29):
how much of what's going on in the environment is
affecting my mental state to begin with. Right, all right,
we're gonna take a quick break and when we come back,
we're gonna answer that very question. Alright, we're back, and
we're discussing this question. Does the weather, does the climate?
Does this everything going on outside the window? Does it
(11:50):
affect affect our mood? And we often fall into the
trap of thinking that it just universally does. We've all
seen the cartoon image of the depressed person with their
own personal rain cloud hovering over their head, right, uh,
and so, and it's easy to fall into that trap
of say thinking that, well, everyone in Seattle must be
depressed because it's raining all the time. Or I really
want to boost my mood. I want to move somewhere
(12:12):
where the weather is nicer, and therefore my internal weather
will be nicer as well. But when you actually analyze it,
this doesn't really hold up. No. Matthew Keller, a lead
researcher of the meta study at Warm Heart and a
Clear Head the Contingent Effects of weather on mood and cognition, says, quote,
everyone thinks weather effects mood, But the biggest test of
(12:34):
this theory in two thousand. In the year two thousand
found no relationships. So we went back and found that
there are two important variables, how much time you spend
outside and what the season is. If you go from
winter to spring and spend enough time outside, there is
a noticeable change. So it's this change that's key. This
this emergence from the dark into the light, from the
(12:55):
cold into the warm, and actually getting out there and
experiencing it. That's what can actually make a difference on
your cognitive state. Yeah, and it is a certain degree
of temperature that will actually make the biggest impact on
your state of mind. And we'll talk a little bit
more about Keller's research, but I just wanted to mention
(13:16):
that all of this has to do with spring, because
a peak mood occurred at sixty seven point four degrees fahrenheiten.
This is kind of the goldilocks of temperature and not
too cold, not too hot that you see in spring.
So when we talk about some of these different aspects
of the research, to keep in mind that that's the
perfect spring day weather right where you've got the blue
(13:36):
skies and um, you know, you're just as comfortable as
you can be. It's almost like the metaphor of being
in the womb and floating around and in your you know,
the edges of your body just melting into everything else
around you. Maybe you don't have the exact feeling of
that when you go out your front door in that weather,
(13:57):
but there is a feeling of comfort. Well yeah, I think,
but I think we often do have that that feeling. Again,
it comes back to that whole realization, Hey, the weather
is nice enough outside. I don't have to turn on
the heat. I don't have to turn the air conditioning.
I can open a window. Or you walk outside in
the spring day and you say, hey, it's nicer outside
than it is indoors, which is such an insane thing
(14:17):
to say, but but but it's true. And then you
feel the edges of your body melting around you, and
you think, ah, I felt this before somewhere. All right,
let's talk about these studies. There was one in which
nineties seven people reported their mood and how much time
they spent outside. Then they were asked to remember a
series of numbers. They were also given a short favorable
description of a fake employee, and then they were given
(14:39):
additional unfavorable information about that same person and asked to
assess the employee's competence in performance on the days with
high pressure, that's the clear, sunny days when you have
high barometric pressure. People who spent more than thirty minutes
outside saw an increase in memory, mood, and flexible thinking styles.
(15:00):
Those who spent the time indoors, though, they saw a decrease.
So when they talk about flexible thinking styles, we're talking
about a sense of openness. So they were regarding that
employee and some of the more unsavory details about that
person in a more open minded way and kind of
giving them a pass on those days that there was
(15:20):
beautiful weather and they were spending a good chunk of
it outside. Interesting. Interesting, Now the second experiment that has
a D twenty one people spend time outside, of course,
or inside on a warm, clear, beautiful day. Have you
ever had that experience where you you both have been
outside just frolicking, or you've been inside chained to your
(15:42):
computer looking longingly outside. Yeah, kind of think. I had
one of those days last week where it was inside
here the office all day doing stuff, and then I
went outside at the end of the day to go
home and realize it was beautiful, and I felt this
this deep sadness because I knew that one of the
few uh nice days that we have in the city
was lost to me. Well, that is exactly what happened
(16:04):
in this experiment. Of course, people who went outside their
moves were lifted. Uh, they felt great, they had some
pep in their step. But the people who were changed
to their desks and made to stay inside were angry
about it. Now, they weren't physically chained in the experiment,
it's worth noting just just to be clear. No, there's
a rope. There's a rope. Yeah, we don't want it
to rub too much, exactly. Yeah. And then the third study,
(16:26):
the researchers collected data through a website from three eight
seven respondents who lived in various climates, because what they
wanted to do here is to try to get out
of the northern climates that they are already in and
make sure that they had some other representations of climates
throughout the world. And they correlated the submissions with the
weather in each city for that day, and they found
that participants who spent more time outside during the spring
(16:48):
but not during any other season had better moods overall.
So again, everyone is coming outside everythone is emerging. It's
like that that the flower is opening to the warmth
of a world, society is is coming alive again. Everyone's
creeping outside of the cave. But it turns out there's
a dark side to this as well, and to understand it,
(17:09):
we have to first back up a little bit to
Christmas time. Now. Now, Christmas, the holidays, whatever you want
to call them, whatever they are to you, they are
essentially the around the darkest times of the winter, when
things are at their at their their their blackest, things
are at their coldest, And a lot of what's going
on there at a deeper level, is about the hope
(17:31):
that spring will come again, that if we do right
by nature, by the God, by God's by ourselves, whatever,
we can survive the rest of this night and emerge
into springtime. And there's this myth that has just stayed
with us, largely because it's repeated over and over again
in the media that suicide rates are hired during the holidays.
And it's an easy one to buy, because, yeah, people
(17:52):
get down sometimes in the holidays. They can be a
little sad. You know, suddenly you're having the holidays and
someone that you've lost isn't there with you anymore, or
you're you know, you're experiencing some degree of seasonal effective disorder.
The world's dark, everything's colder. Maybe that's getting you down
as well. But according to the Anneburg Public Policy Center,
it's the idea that to suicide rates peaked during the
(18:13):
holidays is complete, complete bunk, and the media should stop
repeating it and driving home this falsehood. Yeah, Brian Palmer,
writing for Sleep magazine, says it's a convenient narrative that
would keep picking up lonely people becoming despondent around Christmas time. Um,
the real information here is that suicide actually peaks in
(18:35):
the spring and summer, and if you start to try
to sess out all of the reasons why, it becomes
very difficult. Now. Um, when Palmer was writing this article
for Sleep magazine about suicide upticks in spring and summer,
he went through some various theories about it. But I
just wanted to say that there's no one like unified
(18:56):
theory here, and a lot of it has to do
with that person's particular circumstances, not just because this person
happened to work in this kind of job in Uruguay
at the time, but we should probably run through it
because it is really interesting. The one that seems to
during the most with the most truth for me is
the is the sociodemographic factor. And this is the idea
(19:19):
that during winter, what are you doing. You're surviving the winter.
You're kind of hibernating in some way, shape or form.
You know, you're you're buckling down, You're you're you're just
about get through the holidays, get through the new year.
You know, throw in you know, weird work schedules and
trips and more time with the family. You know, it's
gonna very case to case, obviously, but for the most part,
(19:40):
you can say that throughout this this winter you are
you're keeping it close. You know, you're shutting off, you're
not really dealing with as many people, uh in the
outside world. But then when spring comes, everyone's getting out
and about uh there, you know, suddenly everyone has new
projects that you're launching at work. It's not about just
let's get through all the weird works I all the holidays.
It's suddenly like, let's have meetings and get things done.
(20:03):
Let's start building things together. Oh and then oh and
then taxes are here. We have to pay the taxes
as well. Uh, Suddenly the socio demographics of the world
around you are erupting and coming together, and things that
say that, you know, problems in your life that you
might have been able to to dodge by hiding from them,
Suddenly you're not able to hide from them as well,
(20:23):
you know, or plans that you had made, Uh suddenly
have to come together in a different way. I mean
it's you're suddenly exposed to more frustration, more conflict in
your life, and if, if, and and that can spill
over into self destruction. Yeah. A good example of this
is the paper is Occupation Relevant and Suicide and this
(20:44):
studied suicides in Finland during the years of nine and
what it found is that the spring suicide peak is
more pronounced among people employed on farms or in factories,
who experience greater seasonal variation in the intense of work
and social interactions. In addition, developing countries with a higher
(21:04):
proportion of agriculture workers see more seasonal changes in the
stuff in the suicide rate than you developed countries, and
Palmer says that the magnitude of seasonal changes in suicide
rate is more than ten times higher in Uruguay, for example,
than in Belgium, because suddenly the pressure is on let's
get it, let's grow things. We have to plant things.
The cycle is is is heating up at the farm,
(21:27):
and therefore the pressure is on you. There's more frustration
and and that can spill over. Now there are just
there's a raft of controversial studies linking something like allergens
or even temperature spikes to suicide rates. But there's really
no one weather pattern or one variable that you can
point to when it comes to those studies. So I'm
(21:49):
not going to spend much time other than to just
mentioned that they are out there. Yeah, because you start
breaking and they're like with a lot of things, especially
things that involve human behavior and its interaction with other factors.
You start looking for that unified theory and things start
breaking down. Uh, there's no there's no single argument for
why people are going to you know, be more suicide
(22:12):
prone in the spring or summer that matches up with
one particular variable, right, Because there's another subset of people
who have committed suicide and they happen to be cubical workers,
and this their uptick is in September, So you can't
just say across the board it's spring and summer and
it's just agriculture workers. There's all sorts of factors going
on here. But I think the real point here is
(22:32):
that the darkest days for humans is not you know,
in December and the holidays. This it's just this myth
that we perpetuate that this idea of moods and chemicals
that create our moods are far more nuanced than just
saying boom, this is what happens. Yeah. Spring is about
the world coming to life again, the world that you
(22:54):
live in, and that can be a really happy thing,
that can also be a really depressing thing, are very
RESTful thing. Yeah, So it depends on your individual circumstance
really in a number of ways. So Robert, now that
you know about the International Pillow Fight that we've got
a couple of days to prepare here, will you be participating? No,
(23:16):
because I'd probably have to bring my son there and
I don't really want him to see a bunch of
grown people hitting each other with pillows and sleeping. No.
Pillows are for expressing your love and your angst. And um,
the fact that he's as you said, that we we
uh we survived it, We survived the wintertime. Let's get
(23:36):
out there and just whack each other silly. Okay, Well
maybe next year, maybe next year. All right, that's not
gonna happen. You're just saying that, we'll see, we'll see.
All right. Uh, we should do a little bit of mail. Yeah,
let me call over the robot and let's see what
we have, all right. This one comes to us from Adam.
(23:56):
Adam says, Hi, Robert and Julie just found your podcast
on my long road trip from Texas, Illinois, and heard
your show a musical time machine for the brain, and
wanted to share my driving music with you. Pretty much
any track by the techno band The Prodigy, but namely Breathe. Also.
Another favorite for adournaline pumping, fist fighting, body moving, head bopping,
vampire sucking nights in a Cede, Russian nightclub would be
(24:19):
the track Confusion by New World, featured in the Wesley
Snipe vampire Hunter movie Blade. Thanks for asking, Adam of Texas.
This one comes to us from Lena. Lena says, Dear
Robert and Julie, I really enjoyed your podcast, The Illusion
of Continuity because I'm in ap psychology and we just
finished our unit on sensory and perception. It was incredibly interesting.
(24:40):
I had never realized the extent to which my senses
cannot be trusted. However, the brain is also extraordinary and
its ability to fill in gaps, filter out on necessary stimuli,
and make sense of complex images. It seems like the
more science figures out the human brain, the more questions
one could ask about it. The dance and Spider Man
gift really cracked me up by the way. I played
K pop and some other songs and it worked, although
(25:01):
I could see some discontinuity, but maybe that was my
years of music lessons kicking in. I love your podcast.
Keep up the amazing work, Lena. All right, we've got
one more here, and this is from Iona and in
the subject line it says this one has a really
cute cat gift. And indeed she did attach a gift
of a cat on hind length hind legs a kittie.
(25:23):
Was that a trick that she played on this to
to try and make sure that we read this particular
email and I didn't get lost. I don't know, but
it worked. If it was, it worked, um, says Hi.
Robert and Julian needed to let you know that Stuff
to Blow Your Mind is my favorite podcast and makes
my daily commute on the Northern Line, known to Londoners
as the most oppressing of all the two blinds, bearable.
(25:43):
So thank you so much for all your hard work.
Your podcast about the Night Janitor reminded me of the
short story The Sweeper of Dreams by Neil Diamond, which
runs with the same analogy. It's super short, so it
doesn't take long to read, and you can see it
here or there's a video of Diamond reading it. Allowed
I managed to listen to your musical time Machine for
the Brain podcast. On the same day I read this
(26:03):
essay on why we love repetition and music by the
director of the Music Cognition Lab at Arkansas University, and yes,
my mind was blown. This one isn't a super short read,
but it is really interesting and even has audio clips
where you can see how looping words make them seem
as if they are being sung. That's about it again,
Please never stop. Thank you Iona. Awesome. It's always comforting
(26:26):
to know that people are listening to us on the
Tube Because I I have a thing for trains and
underground trains especially so I fondly remember all the time
I got to spend on the London too when I visited,
so I I love the idea that we're reaching people
in those underground spaces. I feel like you need to
hook up with Robin Hitchcock someday. Yeah, the the the
(26:49):
singer songwriter, because he has an obsession with trains and uh.
In fact, he has an album called I Often Dream
of Trains. I will have to check that out, yes,
but I do love that she was reading that essay
at the same time that she was checking out the
podcast about music and how it works on the brain.
Very cool. One final bed here, I do want to
point out we uh we We did the episode on
(27:11):
on the Verry Wide Effect and why Barry White's voice
resonated with us so much, and we asked the question,
who is the new Berry White? Are there any voices
out there in the current world that are filling the
same space you know, for us that are it's able
to be you know, alluring but also safe. Uh. Some
people pointed out Neil de grass Tyson, which is an
interesting choice. I love Neil de grass Tyson. I think
(27:34):
sometimes when he's an argumentative mode, which is awesome because
there are things that Neil de grass and Tyson needs
to argue about, and only he can argue about them.
Especially only he can. Yeah, only he can. He has
the probaged position of doing it and has all the
tools to win the argument. But you know, maybe I
think maybe he's a little less Verry White in that
particular mode. Wow, I was just thinking the opposite. I
(27:57):
was thinking in Cosmos he's a little too soft, he's
a little too reassuring, and that when he's fired up,
you get a little bit more of the kind of breathiness. Well,
I guess, yeah, I guess it comes down to what
do you want out of your Neil deGrasse. Tyson's kind
of like two two flavors there. Other people mentioned Bennedict Cumberbatch, who,
(28:19):
of course, uh this in addition to looking kind of
like an honor, which we discussed in an upcoming video,
also has a phenomenal voice that's nice and deep and
British and uh, you can't help but to fall under
its spell. So I think that's a decent suggestion as well,
if you want to fall under our spell a little
bit more. I'm kidding, I'm winking. I'm nudging. Uh, there
(28:41):
are a couple of places you can do that. You
can go to Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Yes,
that's the mothership. That's where you'll find all our videos,
our podcast, all our blog links out to our social
media accounts including Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler, Google Plus, as well
as our YouTube channel, which you'll find on YouTube as
mind Stuff Show. UH be gonna keep an eye on that.
(29:01):
We have some some cool video products coming out, including
a series that uh that I just shot titled Monster
Science that's going to have a nice sort of daytime
horror monstery vibe while also remaining very steeped in real
world biology. Indeed, and in the meantime, if you would
(29:22):
like to send us a note, please do so, and
you can do that that Blow the Mind at Discovery
dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
Say isn't how stuff Works? Dot com
Welcome to stuff to blow your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot Com. Hey you welcome to stuff to below
your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. Julie,
do you like spring? Do you like the season spring?
Of course I do. Yeah, How could you not like spring?
(00:23):
It's true. It's even even though I've never been a
summer person. Where I used to not be a summer person,
I always did like springs because no matter how short
your spring is depending on where you live, and it
feels like we have very short springs at times here
in the South. It's it's a time when things begin
to come alive a little bit, but not everything I
(00:44):
was alive yet, not all of the really annoying things
have have have sprung up around you, such as the
mosquitoes necessarily, or the poison ivy, all the things that
drive you indoors um. But it's just nice enough to
to exist outside, to not have to turn on the
air conditioning or the heat. You can set around, you
can read you're comfortable out there in nature, as perhaps
(01:07):
got into um for me, it's just emerging from winter's
dark shadow, right because you have been inside, you've been,
you know, you've had cabin fever, and all of a
sudden you can step outside and the sun is a
shining and the festivals are are all over the place,
especially in Atlanta. April is festival of Go Go Time.
(01:27):
And for me, the best sign of spring in Atlanta
is when you see people walking down the sidewalk with
their pillows for International Pillow Fight Day. I did not
know this existed April five. Huh yeah, because really, I mean,
you've got that big blue sky. People are about to
collabor each other with with soft weapons. Is this the thing?
(01:47):
This sounds This is a little crazy like Shirley Jackson's
The Lottery, you know, like it. It sounds like something
you would encounter in some isolated town and then you
would yeah, Freedom Parkway. Well actually I think this year
it's going to be in Grant Park. But every year
in Freedom Parkway people gathered with their pillows and you
see feathers just to fly and wow, well that that
(02:09):
is strange. But indeed to your point, though, spring is
a time where you you come out of your your hibernation,
you come out of the darkness and to get down
to the very primal root. Stop it springtime means the
winner didn't kill us, that that god or the gods
did not abandon us to the darkness and the chill
of night. Like springtime came and it saved our lives.
(02:31):
Things are growing again, food is available again, and it's
to be celebrated. And you see this in different cultures,
you know, since time immemorial, right, because people are they're relieved,
and they're going outside and they are celebrating this. You
see that this in the festival of Holly, right. Um,
this is a celebration of the colors of unity and brotherhood.
(02:53):
You see this in India where people go around they
pelt each other in the face of all these beautiful
different colored um sands. And this is a way of saying,
as you say, hey, guess what we all made it.
All of us are brothers and sisters, and this whole
human thing we survived in another winter. Yeah, I mean.
In the Christian tradition, of course, you have the the
(03:14):
death and Resurrection of Jesus as well, which which fits
right in there and plays upon on older uh Easter
traditions as well. Now, now it also brings up the
question why must we have tax season right in the
spring like that seems to really just sour the whole equation.
It's like, we finally come out, we're free, we're alive.
Now you have to pay taxes. It's kind of like
(03:35):
having to worry with your car tax when your birthday
comes along. Oh, it's just like the I r s
to be like ha ha ha spring. You think everything
is renewing and emerging. Death to your money exactly. I mean,
because it comes back. What are the two things you
can't dodge in life? Right, death and Texas? And there
you go, and they are interlaced with each other, death
and taxes at a very basic level. But that's a
(03:56):
rant for another time. Yes, that is um. So let's
talk about this idea of spring a little bit more
in the context of how it might just not only
symbolize this reemergence, but it may even change our behavior.
But before we get to that, we should probably talk
about how much time we spend indoors. Yes, And it's
(04:17):
pretty pretty disturbing because because most of us we go
through our lives and we don't necessarily think of it
in those terms, like we're not keeping a precise diary
of how much time we spend outside dear Diary. I
mean I feel a little more in touch with it
these days, with the with the toddler, because taking the
toddler outside the park is huge. And so when like
(04:38):
suddenly not being able to go outside for a few
days or a week is is very noticeable because it starts,
you know, clawing at eufanity. Yeah. Well, according to the
Environmental Protection Agency, Americans spent about eighty seven percent of
their time indoors and another six percent in their vehicles.
And as you say, you probably you don't really unless
(05:00):
you are, you know, putting it down in your die,
or you don't realize because you think, well, I went
outside to go to the grocery store, I went outside
to do the other errand and you feel like you've
had outside experiences when in fact you have been inside
sort of cloistered, especially if you work in an office, right,
and and you see, you know, different surveys make that
(05:20):
percentage a little higher to like I've seen seen nine
for Americans on a two thousand nine e p A study.
I've seen for people in industrialized countries on another study.
So it's a talking percentage to to really think about. Yeah,
social you take that plus that six percent. You get
(05:42):
that really inside a location, right, that's sealed in, right,
And that's key because we we did a whole episode
talking about how artificial indoor environments, how those are really
alien environments that we've we've created like not only just structurally,
but also the uh, the the micro biology of those structures,
(06:02):
the things that we're breathing in. We've created these strange
realities that are separate from the natural environment with well
we've evolved to thrive in. That's right. We did. We
looked at that study with hospitals opening their windows to
let fresh air and their fresh microbes, I guess you
could say, and that being exceedingly beneficial to the patients. Um. Now,
also consider that when you are inside, you are most
(06:25):
likely sitting down or lying down in the ladder. Of
course is necessary for sleep, but the former, as we know,
is associated with a smartgese board of physical ailments, including
an increased risk of type two diabetes. So all of
this sedentary inside stuff not so great force, and of
course it would play out in many different ways. Yeah.
I also want to point out that according to the
(06:46):
e p A, indoor levels of pollutants maybe two to
five times higher and occasionally more than a hundred times
higher than outdoor levels, which is important to think about,
especially here in Atlantic where occasionally we received these alert
saying that if you're very young, are very old, please
don't go outside today because the air might destroy you. Um.
But then you have to start stop and think, well,
(07:07):
what what kind of air am I fleeing to? You know? Yeah,
but let's let's get toned to the more like rainbows
and kitten farts here thinking about it. I know, I know,
but let's take out the sun and look at it,
because she'll shine upon us and take away all of
our ailments. The power of the sun is immense. When
you step out into the sun, those rays or about
(07:28):
a hundred and forty nine million kilometers away, and when
they hit your skin, they unleash a chemical chain reaction
that benefits us. For instance, vitamin D is produced yes,
which most of us do not get enough of no,
and that helps to absorb calcium and foods and which
of course that helps to grow bone and and uh
maintain bone health. And it also helps to bolster the
(07:52):
immune system. So it makes sense that when you go
out into the sun, wonderful thing has happened. You should
wear some screen of course, yes, yeah, is that there's
too much light makes the baby go blind, as they say.
Now a more quantitative look at this is a two
thousand and eight study published in the journal Psychological Science
which looked at the cognitive benefits of spending some time
(08:13):
interacting with old nature. University of Michigan psychologist Mac Berman
took a sample group of thirty six people, broke them
into two groups, and then put them through a series
of rigorous cognitive test He then let each group take breaks,
one group walking around the city street and the other
through a secluded wooded park. Now, of course, who do
(08:34):
you think performed better on the cognitive tests later on?
And and of course memory being one of those things
the nature group, Because the idea is that strolling in
a city forces the brain to constantly remain vigilant as
you navigate cars and people, and you sets out the
relevant information from from irrelevant information. Um, so for instance, relevant,
(08:59):
oh don't say up in that poop? Irrelevant there's a
sale on bras right, Um. The end result is that
those those city walkers are having a less restorative scenario
for their brains. In your prefrontal cortex is very occupied,
so your cognitive functioning in terms of learning is not
going to be as great. So it kind of takes
(09:21):
our sort of everyday myopic view of the world that
the flashlight view, and maybe opens it up a little
bit a little more lamp like where're actually absorbing sense
data a little more openly. Yeah, because you're in a
calm environment, Um, you don't have to worry about what's
coming next so much. And of course it's fascinating too
when you you start then asking the question, well, how
(09:42):
much time do when you spend out of the day,
I'm spending this enormous like like hovering near nine of
my life is spent indoors, So how much of that
do I have to give back? Like some impossible amount
do I have to give back? Well, studies show that
just five minutes a day can give you that boost
in mental health. Just five minutes, Like that's that's not
(10:04):
even that's not even all of your lunch break, you know,
that's just that's just a leaving work five minutes early
or something. Yeah, that's from two thousand and ten research
published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, and they
looked at self esteem and nature. And they found that
just that the five minutes of people who were engaged
in exercise, cycling, walking, running, gardening, farming. Um, if you
(10:28):
had that amount of time, then your self esteem and
your mood would be elevated. And of course they measured
this using standard psychological tests before and after the activities.
Now smoke breaks don't count though, right, uh, I don't
recall that being covered. We depend, I guess on the
nature of your smoke break, but probably not so. Of course,
(10:48):
the idea begins to emerge. We should frolic outdoors daily
for at least five minutes more if possible. But is
there something to spring itself? Are these day ease of
sunshine really special in that sense of of re emergence?
Is that well founded? Is that not just symbolic? Do
(11:09):
you should we just take off spring some work. Well
there's spring break, of course, which you know, to a
certain extent, just one week. Yeah, but the whole season? Yes? Okay,
well yeah, this gets into the whole question. Is there
not only link between spring and mood, but is there
a link between weather and mood, between climate and modd Like,
(11:29):
how much of what's going on in the environment is
affecting my mental state to begin with. Right, all right,
we're gonna take a quick break and when we come back,
we're gonna answer that very question. Alright, we're back, and
we're discussing this question. Does the weather, does the climate?
Does this everything going on outside the window? Does it
(11:50):
affect affect our mood? And we often fall into the
trap of thinking that it just universally does. We've all
seen the cartoon image of the depressed person with their
own personal rain cloud hovering over their head, right, uh,
and so, and it's easy to fall into that trap
of say thinking that, well, everyone in Seattle must be
depressed because it's raining all the time. Or I really
want to boost my mood. I want to move somewhere
(12:12):
where the weather is nicer, and therefore my internal weather
will be nicer as well. But when you actually analyze it,
this doesn't really hold up. No. Matthew Keller, a lead
researcher of the meta study at Warm Heart and a
Clear Head the Contingent Effects of weather on mood and cognition, says, quote,
everyone thinks weather effects mood, But the biggest test of
(12:34):
this theory in two thousand. In the year two thousand
found no relationships. So we went back and found that
there are two important variables, how much time you spend
outside and what the season is. If you go from
winter to spring and spend enough time outside, there is
a noticeable change. So it's this change that's key. This
this emergence from the dark into the light, from the
(12:55):
cold into the warm, and actually getting out there and
experiencing it. That's what can actually make a difference on
your cognitive state. Yeah, and it is a certain degree
of temperature that will actually make the biggest impact on
your state of mind. And we'll talk a little bit
more about Keller's research, but I just wanted to mention
(13:16):
that all of this has to do with spring, because
a peak mood occurred at sixty seven point four degrees fahrenheiten.
This is kind of the goldilocks of temperature and not
too cold, not too hot that you see in spring.
So when we talk about some of these different aspects
of the research, to keep in mind that that's the
perfect spring day weather right where you've got the blue
(13:36):
skies and um, you know, you're just as comfortable as
you can be. It's almost like the metaphor of being
in the womb and floating around and in your you know,
the edges of your body just melting into everything else
around you. Maybe you don't have the exact feeling of
that when you go out your front door in that weather,
(13:57):
but there is a feeling of comfort. Well yeah, I think,
but I think we often do have that that feeling. Again,
it comes back to that whole realization, Hey, the weather
is nice enough outside. I don't have to turn on
the heat. I don't have to turn the air conditioning.
I can open a window. Or you walk outside in
the spring day and you say, hey, it's nicer outside
than it is indoors, which is such an insane thing
(14:17):
to say, but but but it's true. And then you
feel the edges of your body melting around you, and
you think, ah, I felt this before somewhere. All right,
let's talk about these studies. There was one in which
nineties seven people reported their mood and how much time
they spent outside. Then they were asked to remember a
series of numbers. They were also given a short favorable
description of a fake employee, and then they were given
(14:39):
additional unfavorable information about that same person and asked to
assess the employee's competence in performance on the days with
high pressure, that's the clear, sunny days when you have
high barometric pressure. People who spent more than thirty minutes
outside saw an increase in memory, mood, and flexible thinking styles.
(15:00):
Those who spent the time indoors, though, they saw a decrease.
So when they talk about flexible thinking styles, we're talking
about a sense of openness. So they were regarding that
employee and some of the more unsavory details about that
person in a more open minded way and kind of
giving them a pass on those days that there was
(15:20):
beautiful weather and they were spending a good chunk of
it outside. Interesting. Interesting, Now the second experiment that has
a D twenty one people spend time outside, of course,
or inside on a warm, clear, beautiful day. Have you
ever had that experience where you you both have been
outside just frolicking, or you've been inside chained to your
(15:42):
computer looking longingly outside. Yeah, kind of think. I had
one of those days last week where it was inside
here the office all day doing stuff, and then I
went outside at the end of the day to go
home and realize it was beautiful, and I felt this
this deep sadness because I knew that one of the
few uh nice days that we have in the city
was lost to me. Well, that is exactly what happened
(16:04):
in this experiment. Of course, people who went outside their
moves were lifted. Uh, they felt great, they had some
pep in their step. But the people who were changed
to their desks and made to stay inside were angry
about it. Now, they weren't physically chained in the experiment,
it's worth noting just just to be clear. No, there's
a rope. There's a rope. Yeah, we don't want it
to rub too much, exactly. Yeah. And then the third study,
(16:26):
the researchers collected data through a website from three eight
seven respondents who lived in various climates, because what they
wanted to do here is to try to get out
of the northern climates that they are already in and
make sure that they had some other representations of climates
throughout the world. And they correlated the submissions with the
weather in each city for that day, and they found
that participants who spent more time outside during the spring
(16:48):
but not during any other season had better moods overall.
So again, everyone is coming outside everythone is emerging. It's
like that that the flower is opening to the warmth
of a world, society is is coming alive again. Everyone's
creeping outside of the cave. But it turns out there's
a dark side to this as well, and to understand it,
(17:09):
we have to first back up a little bit to
Christmas time. Now. Now, Christmas, the holidays, whatever you want
to call them, whatever they are to you, they are
essentially the around the darkest times of the winter, when
things are at their at their their their blackest, things
are at their coldest, And a lot of what's going
on there at a deeper level, is about the hope
(17:31):
that spring will come again, that if we do right
by nature, by the God, by God's by ourselves, whatever,
we can survive the rest of this night and emerge
into springtime. And there's this myth that has just stayed
with us, largely because it's repeated over and over again
in the media that suicide rates are hired during the holidays.
And it's an easy one to buy, because, yeah, people
(17:52):
get down sometimes in the holidays. They can be a
little sad. You know, suddenly you're having the holidays and
someone that you've lost isn't there with you anymore, or
you're you know, you're experiencing some degree of seasonal effective disorder.
The world's dark, everything's colder. Maybe that's getting you down
as well. But according to the Anneburg Public Policy Center,
it's the idea that to suicide rates peaked during the
(18:13):
holidays is complete, complete bunk, and the media should stop
repeating it and driving home this falsehood. Yeah, Brian Palmer,
writing for Sleep magazine, says it's a convenient narrative that
would keep picking up lonely people becoming despondent around Christmas time. Um,
the real information here is that suicide actually peaks in
(18:35):
the spring and summer, and if you start to try
to sess out all of the reasons why, it becomes
very difficult. Now. Um, when Palmer was writing this article
for Sleep magazine about suicide upticks in spring and summer,
he went through some various theories about it. But I
just wanted to say that there's no one like unified
(18:56):
theory here, and a lot of it has to do
with that person's particular circumstances, not just because this person
happened to work in this kind of job in Uruguay
at the time, but we should probably run through it
because it is really interesting. The one that seems to
during the most with the most truth for me is
the is the sociodemographic factor. And this is the idea
(19:19):
that during winter, what are you doing. You're surviving the winter.
You're kind of hibernating in some way, shape or form.
You know, you're you're buckling down, You're you're you're just
about get through the holidays, get through the new year.
You know, throw in you know, weird work schedules and
trips and more time with the family. You know, it's
gonna very case to case, obviously, but for the most part,
(19:40):
you can say that throughout this this winter you are
you're keeping it close. You know, you're shutting off, you're
not really dealing with as many people, uh in the
outside world. But then when spring comes, everyone's getting out
and about uh there, you know, suddenly everyone has new
projects that you're launching at work. It's not about just
let's get through all the weird works I all the holidays.
It's suddenly like, let's have meetings and get things done.
(20:03):
Let's start building things together. Oh and then oh and
then taxes are here. We have to pay the taxes
as well. Uh, Suddenly the socio demographics of the world
around you are erupting and coming together, and things that
say that, you know, problems in your life that you
might have been able to to dodge by hiding from them,
Suddenly you're not able to hide from them as well,
(20:23):
you know, or plans that you had made, Uh suddenly
have to come together in a different way. I mean
it's you're suddenly exposed to more frustration, more conflict in
your life, and if, if, and and that can spill
over into self destruction. Yeah. A good example of this
is the paper is Occupation Relevant and Suicide and this
(20:44):
studied suicides in Finland during the years of nine and
what it found is that the spring suicide peak is
more pronounced among people employed on farms or in factories,
who experience greater seasonal variation in the intense of work
and social interactions. In addition, developing countries with a higher
(21:04):
proportion of agriculture workers see more seasonal changes in the
stuff in the suicide rate than you developed countries, and
Palmer says that the magnitude of seasonal changes in suicide
rate is more than ten times higher in Uruguay, for example,
than in Belgium, because suddenly the pressure is on let's
get it, let's grow things. We have to plant things.
The cycle is is is heating up at the farm,
(21:27):
and therefore the pressure is on you. There's more frustration
and and that can spill over. Now there are just
there's a raft of controversial studies linking something like allergens
or even temperature spikes to suicide rates. But there's really
no one weather pattern or one variable that you can
point to when it comes to those studies. So I'm
(21:49):
not going to spend much time other than to just
mentioned that they are out there. Yeah, because you start
breaking and they're like with a lot of things, especially
things that involve human behavior and its interaction with other factors.
You start looking for that unified theory and things start
breaking down. Uh, there's no there's no single argument for
why people are going to you know, be more suicide
(22:12):
prone in the spring or summer that matches up with
one particular variable, right, Because there's another subset of people
who have committed suicide and they happen to be cubical workers,
and this their uptick is in September, So you can't
just say across the board it's spring and summer and
it's just agriculture workers. There's all sorts of factors going
on here. But I think the real point here is
(22:32):
that the darkest days for humans is not you know,
in December and the holidays. This it's just this myth
that we perpetuate that this idea of moods and chemicals
that create our moods are far more nuanced than just
saying boom, this is what happens. Yeah. Spring is about
the world coming to life again, the world that you
(22:54):
live in, and that can be a really happy thing,
that can also be a really depressing thing, are very
RESTful thing. Yeah, So it depends on your individual circumstance
really in a number of ways. So Robert, now that
you know about the International Pillow Fight that we've got
a couple of days to prepare here, will you be participating? No,
(23:16):
because I'd probably have to bring my son there and
I don't really want him to see a bunch of
grown people hitting each other with pillows and sleeping. No.
Pillows are for expressing your love and your angst. And um,
the fact that he's as you said, that we we
uh we survived it, We survived the wintertime. Let's get
(23:36):
out there and just whack each other silly. Okay, Well
maybe next year, maybe next year. All right, that's not
gonna happen. You're just saying that, we'll see, we'll see.
All right. Uh, we should do a little bit of mail. Yeah,
let me call over the robot and let's see what
we have, all right. This one comes to us from Adam.
(23:56):
Adam says, Hi, Robert and Julie just found your podcast
on my long road trip from Texas, Illinois, and heard
your show a musical time machine for the brain, and
wanted to share my driving music with you. Pretty much
any track by the techno band The Prodigy, but namely Breathe. Also.
Another favorite for adournaline pumping, fist fighting, body moving, head bopping,
vampire sucking nights in a Cede, Russian nightclub would be
(24:19):
the track Confusion by New World, featured in the Wesley
Snipe vampire Hunter movie Blade. Thanks for asking, Adam of Texas.
This one comes to us from Lena. Lena says, Dear
Robert and Julie, I really enjoyed your podcast, The Illusion
of Continuity because I'm in ap psychology and we just
finished our unit on sensory and perception. It was incredibly interesting.
(24:40):
I had never realized the extent to which my senses
cannot be trusted. However, the brain is also extraordinary and
its ability to fill in gaps, filter out on necessary stimuli,
and make sense of complex images. It seems like the
more science figures out the human brain, the more questions
one could ask about it. The dance and Spider Man
gift really cracked me up by the way. I played
K pop and some other songs and it worked, although
(25:01):
I could see some discontinuity, but maybe that was my
years of music lessons kicking in. I love your podcast.
Keep up the amazing work, Lena. All right, we've got
one more here, and this is from Iona and in
the subject line it says this one has a really
cute cat gift. And indeed she did attach a gift
of a cat on hind length hind legs a kittie.
(25:23):
Was that a trick that she played on this to
to try and make sure that we read this particular
email and I didn't get lost. I don't know, but
it worked. If it was, it worked, um, says Hi.
Robert and Julian needed to let you know that Stuff
to Blow Your Mind is my favorite podcast and makes
my daily commute on the Northern Line, known to Londoners
as the most oppressing of all the two blinds, bearable.
(25:43):
So thank you so much for all your hard work.
Your podcast about the Night Janitor reminded me of the
short story The Sweeper of Dreams by Neil Diamond, which
runs with the same analogy. It's super short, so it
doesn't take long to read, and you can see it
here or there's a video of Diamond reading it. Allowed
I managed to listen to your musical time Machine for
the Brain podcast. On the same day I read this
(26:03):
essay on why we love repetition and music by the
director of the Music Cognition Lab at Arkansas University, and yes,
my mind was blown. This one isn't a super short read,
but it is really interesting and even has audio clips
where you can see how looping words make them seem
as if they are being sung. That's about it again,
Please never stop. Thank you Iona. Awesome. It's always comforting
(26:26):
to know that people are listening to us on the
Tube Because I I have a thing for trains and
underground trains especially so I fondly remember all the time
I got to spend on the London too when I visited,
so I I love the idea that we're reaching people
in those underground spaces. I feel like you need to
hook up with Robin Hitchcock someday. Yeah, the the the
(26:49):
singer songwriter, because he has an obsession with trains and uh.
In fact, he has an album called I Often Dream
of Trains. I will have to check that out, yes,
but I do love that she was reading that essay
at the same time that she was checking out the
podcast about music and how it works on the brain.
Very cool. One final bed here, I do want to
point out we uh we We did the episode on
(27:11):
on the Verry Wide Effect and why Barry White's voice
resonated with us so much, and we asked the question,
who is the new Berry White? Are there any voices
out there in the current world that are filling the
same space you know, for us that are it's able
to be you know, alluring but also safe. Uh. Some
people pointed out Neil de grass Tyson, which is an
interesting choice. I love Neil de grass Tyson. I think
(27:34):
sometimes when he's an argumentative mode, which is awesome because
there are things that Neil de grass and Tyson needs
to argue about, and only he can argue about them.
Especially only he can. Yeah, only he can. He has
the probaged position of doing it and has all the
tools to win the argument. But you know, maybe I
think maybe he's a little less Verry White in that
particular mode. Wow, I was just thinking the opposite. I
(27:57):
was thinking in Cosmos he's a little too soft, he's
a little too reassuring, and that when he's fired up,
you get a little bit more of the kind of breathiness. Well,
I guess, yeah, I guess it comes down to what
do you want out of your Neil deGrasse. Tyson's kind
of like two two flavors there. Other people mentioned Bennedict Cumberbatch, who,
(28:19):
of course, uh this in addition to looking kind of
like an honor, which we discussed in an upcoming video,
also has a phenomenal voice that's nice and deep and
British and uh, you can't help but to fall under
its spell. So I think that's a decent suggestion as well,
if you want to fall under our spell a little
bit more. I'm kidding, I'm winking. I'm nudging. Uh, there
(28:41):
are a couple of places you can do that. You
can go to Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Yes,
that's the mothership. That's where you'll find all our videos,
our podcast, all our blog links out to our social
media accounts including Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler, Google Plus, as well
as our YouTube channel, which you'll find on YouTube as
mind Stuff Show. UH be gonna keep an eye on that.
(29:01):
We have some some cool video products coming out, including
a series that uh that I just shot titled Monster
Science that's going to have a nice sort of daytime
horror monstery vibe while also remaining very steeped in real
world biology. Indeed, and in the meantime, if you would
(29:22):
like to send us a note, please do so, and
you can do that that Blow the Mind at Discovery
dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
Say isn't how stuff Works? Dot com
Stuff To Blow Your Mind News
Hosts And Creators
Robert Lamb
Joe McCormick
Popular Podcasts
Are You A Charlotte?
In 1997, actress Kristin Davis’ life was forever changed when she took on the role of Charlotte York in Sex and the City. As we watched Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte navigate relationships in NYC, the show helped push once unacceptable conversation topics out of the shadows and altered the narrative around women and sex. We all saw ourselves in them as they searched for fulfillment in life, sex and friendships. Now, Kristin Davis wants to connect with you, the fans, and share untold stories and all the behind the scenes. Together, with Kristin and special guests, what will begin with Sex and the City will evolve into talks about themes that are still so relevant today. "Are you a Charlotte?" is much more than just rewatching this beloved show, it brings the past and the present together as we talk with heart, humor and of course some optimism.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com