November 22, 2012 • 38 mins
What does comfort mean to you? Thanksgiving dinner? A cup of tomato soup and a warm blanket? In this episode, Julie and Robert examine the particulars of comfort, why we crave it and what happens when we have too much of a good thing.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how stuff
Works dot com. Hey, welcome to stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamp and I'm Julie Douglas, and
we're coming at you around Thanksgiving if you're listening to
this as it publishes. But we're talking about comfort, and
this is certainly a season of comfort, but comfort food,
(00:26):
the feeling of comfort is something that we we crave,
that we seek out at various times throughout the year.
So so don't run away if you're listening to this
in July, that's right, because you never know. In July
you might need a bit of comfort, cold comfort at
that point from your air conditioner. But um, yeah, I
mean what I think about comfort. I think about quilts,
(00:46):
I think about how Coco, and I think that some
people are drawing more to comfort than other people. M
M yeah, I'm probably about, you know, halfway there. It
doesn't you know. Sure I'll take some comfort, but I
don't need it. I mean, I really like comfort. I
mean I'm pro comfort because for me, I probably think,
you know, and like a nice warm blanket, that's good
(01:08):
cat on your lap, that's good hot beverage of some kind.
I guess the comfort I do tend to think of it,
especially something I seek out during colder months. Um. Yeah,
which which also brings to mind like like chicken soup,
something that I don't Actually nobody really likes chicken soup.
I mean, my wife makes delicious chicken soup, but for
the most part, you're coming at chicken soup out of
(01:30):
a sense of more than just wanting to taste, but
you want all the emotions that come with it and
all the all all the ideas about chicken soup that
exists culturally. You know. So already we've talked about several
different aspects of comfort, because really you've got the tactile
part of it, and then you've got the food part
of it, and then the psychology that sort of jells
all of it together. Yeah, because what does it ultimately
(01:52):
break down to? Um Asking neuroscientists, and they'll say it
all comes down to it being the opposite of stress,
which is for pretty broad but yeah, I think of
a thing of time you've been stressed, thing of the
time when you've been comfortable. They're pretty much polar opposites.
Nobody's sitting around biting their nails and guzzling chicken soup
with a blanket wrapped around them while they watched Gilmore
Girls Marathon on TV or something, right. I mean, it's
(02:13):
it's all about very specific and that's another aspect because
I I know somebody who's Who's who that remember that
was their comfort thing, And certainly that's another aspect of
comfort is media. You know, it's like there'll be certain
certain albums you might put on it. It It was like, yeah,
I'm gonna put on some Boards of Canada and that's
for me a very that's a very comfort minded soundtrack
(02:34):
to plug into. Or for some people it is a
Gilmore's Girl Marathon, you know, something that they that really
serves as kind of a replacement social engagements. Well for me,
little House from the Prairie. Yeah, yeah, Michael Landon, all
the schmaltz Michael Landon it could ever want, because when
the world seems cruel and unfair, Michael Landon is there
(02:55):
for you. So what we're talking about are three principles
of comfort, security, ward and connectedness. So we're feeling connected
to your fellow man, which might have something to do
with Michael Landon right, um, And each of these principles
of comfort activate different parts of our brains. So it
would make sense that you have this sort of big
(03:17):
idea of comfort having to do with the tactile, having
to do with food, having to do with music, media, um,
all being rolled up into this one big thing that
comes at the end of November, you know, into our
living rooms and Thanksgiving. And that's really why we wanted
to cover this topic, because you think about Thanksgiving and
(03:39):
ultimately you think about not just family conflict and uncomfortable
silence around the table, but comfort foods to help ameliorate
all of those feelings of tension with your family. Yes,
uh and comfort food It's it's interesting we start really
thinking about not only what it means to you, because
everyone's got their comfort foods, you know, and certainly there
are some comfort foods that you think of a lot
(03:59):
of you think of things like fried chicken as a
comfort food or various uh you know, or a casse
role or what have you. Um. So, a lot of
times it's something that your mom made or whoever raised you,
something you grew up with, where when you eat it,
it takes you back to that feeling of safety that
you had as a child being provided for but then
also a lot of it is cultural to uh you
(04:21):
say you're of Italian heritage, then your comfort food might
be uh not not only your mother's food, but your
mother's spaghetti or than anybody's uh particular spaghetti recipe, or
if you're of German heritage, and maybe it's that particular
schnitzel that really does it for you. It really takes
you back and and and it might be, I mean,
God help you, of schnitzel is what you eat every day.
So it's so it's something that is also a treat.
(04:42):
It's something you don't normally have, and then when you
do have it, it comes in with all this cultural
and personal resonance. It's true if you are reaching out
for a blood sausage and your German heritage, this might
be just the fix that you need to pick up
your day. Um. Psychologists call comfort food a social surrogates,
as you already pointed out in different ways. And it's
(05:03):
interesting because if you look at studies concerning food and
comfort you will find a bevy of them. And one
of the ones that I thought was really interesting is
a study that had to do with people feeling less
lonely after just writing about food. Okay, they didn't consume anything,
and it was specific to comfort food. All right. This
is a two thousand and eleven University of Buffalo study.
(05:25):
And so they bring in a bunch of people, so
set them down and said, hey, I want you to
write a little bit about a fight that you had
with with somebody that the relationship with you. I imagine
that most of these are gonna involve like previous relationships
or current spouses that kind of thing, uh, current girlfriend's boyfriends, etcetera.
So they write about this painful, awkward or traumatic episode
(05:48):
and then put your pencils down. Now. Six minutes later,
six minutes later, and now let's flip over the page,
and I want you to write to start writing about
about some some comfort foods and about the fried chicken
or the blood sauces or whatever it may be. Write
about some food. Yeah, that's right. Some people were asked
to write about comfort food, while other people were asked
to write about a new food experience. Right, So obviously
(06:08):
you see right there, the new food experience doesn't have
all the sorts of emotional attachments to it because it's
a new experience. It's not related back to mom or childhood.
So of course, what do you think the results were. Uh,
the results are probably going to be that the comfort
food is the one that really makes the difference in
most of these Yeah, that's right. What they did is
they took all of the participants took a test after
(06:29):
they wrote about food, when they filled out this questionnaire
about loneliness. It was found that the comfort food, just
thinking about it and writing about it helped those people
to self adjust their moods. Now, there's an important caveat here,
and that is that, Uh, generally the individuals who were
aided by the food, they were in a more or
less good relationship that they just had some some either
(06:51):
fighting in the past or or just a little you know,
fighting in the present. So it's not a situation where
you're going through like you just murdered your spouse to
night before and then some reason you came in to
do this study and you thought about mashed potatoes and
it fixed everything. No, not not quiet, It's not that powerful.
But certainly if you're like, oh, I really love my wife,
but we we just we keep fighting over what color
(07:12):
of the carpet should be. I think it should be
hot pink, she thinks it should be Neon Green. We
can't come to a decision. We keep fighting mashed potatoes.
Oh what was I? What was I upset about? Well?
And I think it's just interesting because we've talked about
this before, but how just thinking about things can really
change your brain. And we talked about this before, even
in writers who are writing about their characters and people
(07:33):
who are reading of novels that they are mirror neurons
began to activate as though they were throwing the ball
or they were running to to escape someone. So um,
what I started to think about is that's really powerful
because a lot of these comfort foods involve fat. And
there's another study that actually looks at fatty foods and
(07:54):
moods and this was in the Netherlands, and what they
were doing is they were taking twelve healthy individuals and
they all underwent four forty minute fmr I tests while
listening to music or viewing pictures that induced sad emotions. Now,
at the same time, all of these participants received an
(08:15):
infusion of either sailing or fatty acids directly into their stomachs.
This is where that the experiment really goes off the
rails because the other one, it's like, oh, you're writing
something and thinking about food, or or I can imagine
signing up for the study and thinking, oh, or they're
just gonna show at me like a large ventreer film
and then feed me some mashed potatoes. But no, they're
going to pump something directly into my stomach after I
watch it. That's in addition to the large one treier.
(08:38):
Yeah yeah, but what kind of movie theaters that Yeah, yeah,
I wonder if they did show Melancolia through them, because
that would be a really great film to try to
induce sadness. I have to say, um, but all all
of the participants had um completed a twelve hour fast,
so they came with empty stomachs and they had no
idea what it was that was being put into their stomachs. Okay,
(08:59):
So there was alts indicated that subjects who received the
fatty infusion were less sad when viewing sad pictures or
listening to sad music. And then the fmm f m
r I tests confirmed fewer neural responses to sadness in
several areas of the brain in this group. Wow. Again,
I'm still overwhelmed just by the weirdness of the experiment.
(09:19):
But but I guess it was important because they wanted
to cut out the actual eating of the food, and
I don't know, maybe they just really wanted to pump
stuff directly into the gut. Well, what they were also
trying to do is to say, hey, there's it's not
just the mind body link, it is the body mind link.
And we've talked about this before in our podcast about
whether or not our guts are really our second brains, right,
(09:40):
And then of course when we're they really wanted to
look at the nutritional intake and when you eat food.
I mean, it's a no brainer, but there's a lot
going on. It's about it's about smelling the food that
you're eating. It's about the texture. I mentioned mashed potatoes,
and it's true a lot of a lot of the
comfort foods you encounter, it's like a creamy kind of
consistency to it. Um. I mean, some people may have
beef jerky as a comfort food. That's great, but a
(10:01):
lot of comfort foods are kind of like a smooth,
easy to eat kind of a thing. And again, just
having a story about that food as well, you can
circumvent that by just pumping stuff directly into the stomach.
It's also worth noting on that two thousand eleven University
of Buffalo study, they also had another experiment where they
found that eating chicken soup in the lab made people
think more about relationships if they consider chicken soup to
(10:23):
be a comfort food, which again comes down to my
argument that chicken soup, even when it's really good, isn't
really great because it's chicken soup if it's all about
the idea of it, Because like when I think of
chicken soup, I think of I'm I was, I'm feeling bad,
I'm feeling I mean there, you know, I'm under the weather,
and like my mom makes me chicken soup. It's like
it's the you can taste the love, right, It's somebody
(10:43):
making the time, taking the time to make this dish
that is all about, please get better and feel better
because someone loves you. And I feel the same way,
like when my wife makes it for me when I
whenever i'm ill. You know it's funny about that is
that my mom doesn't cook, never really has cooked, so
but I have the same feelings about chicken soup even
though I don't consume it now, because no, I was
(11:04):
gonna say I could look at a can of Campbell's
and feel a little warm cockles in the heart there.
Well yeah, well, you know, I think my mom I
could be wrong in this, and I'm sure she'll correct
me when she hears this, but I think it would
like she would do like canned chicken soup as well,
because I mean she was busy as she did. I'm
trying to make a bunch of you know, who has
time to make like chicken stock from scratch in this
day in war and day and age. But I'm pretty
(11:24):
sure that was canned as well. But still it was
this was a thing that you had when you were sick,
and if you had it and then somebody loved you
enough to at least open a can, and that was
the truth. If not boiled down the chicken carcass for
hours and create fresh chicken stock, hey man, she she
did many other things I would say to help me
feel better. And I should also mention that, all right.
(11:44):
The eleven University of Bubble study, you mentioned the distinction
between people writing about new food experiences and people writing
about food experiences that they had all this comfort and
all these associations for but in some cases you do
encounter people's comfort foods that are associated with new discoveries
because ultimately, like food is his very personal and also
(12:06):
kind of selfish thing, you know, so in some cases
it will be something that that we see as a
personal discovery. One of the articles I was looking at,
I think it was a psychology today, they mentioned, um,
the writer's husband went crazy for Sharaka, Like sharaka and
anything it was a comfort food. Um. And certainly you
get some spicy and some sweet in there, and sharak
is amazing, But it's his whole thing was that this
(12:26):
was something he had discovered. This was something that was
totally totally him and didn't necessarily have a connection with
with his upbringing or his past. No, he just discovered
that it was making the reward part of his brain
go ding ding ding, really because he was getting a
little bit euphoric with a spice there. Um. And I
also think that too with new experiences and food, you know,
you'll pin that a lot of times to travel. So
(12:48):
you know, sometimes I'll think about things that I've eaten
and I will elevate them to the highest level because
I think, oh, that I had that in Italy or whatever,
and it may not even actually be that great. Yeah,
but you still Again, it comes down to why I
pump this stuff directly into the test subject stomach, Because again,
food comes to us with a story, food comes as
to us with a smell, with a texture on all
(13:09):
of these things that go beyond near nutrition. And what
we're talking about here too is really gaming a sense
of comfort. Of course, there is the food industry which
is really interesting in this idea of tweaking moods through food.
At the national meeting of the American Chemical Society, Karina
Martinez Mayorga presented the latest findings from her ongoing study
(13:32):
of the effect of various food flavors on mood. And
it turns out that molecules in chocolate, a variety of berries,
and then foods containing omega free fatty acids positively affect mood.
Um it was found, and this is really interesting. It
was found that the chemical components of these food flavors
are structurally similar to something called valporic acid, and this
(13:54):
is the primary ingredient in several pharmaceutical mood stabilizers. Of course,
the research was supported in part by a food flavor
company France based uh Roberte UH Flavors, and the scientists
say that food industry companies are joining pharmaceutical companies in
the quest for natural mood boosters. So they're not intending
(14:18):
this as a replacement for you know, for for treating
clinical depression, but they are saying like, maybe this could
give you a little extra pep in your step, right,
I mean, well, certainly there are a lot of fine
arguments out there that that a lot of problems with
health and even mental health um to a certain degree,
can be treated through a proper diet and an informed diet.
(14:40):
But again, yeah, I think of what comfort foods tend
to be. They can't be soft. They can be sweet, smooth, salty,
and uh like we mentioned sugar and starch. They spur serotonin,
your transmitter known to increase the sense of well being
like prozac. Um. Salty foods spur oxytocin, the cuttle chemical
that we talk about a lot that we also get
from hugs an orgasm, So you know, that's that's that
(15:03):
explains the saltiness there. Um fat is a good bomb
for the fear of starvation. So again you think back
to our naked caveman running through the Serengetti chase by
savor tooth tigers, a scenario that may or may not
actually pan out. Actually me on that too much, but
but still the idea that on a very primal level,
(15:23):
we are creatures that are having to run fast to
get away from something or run fast to catch something.
We need the energy, We need the fat. So that's
why the fat is such a bomb for fear we're
not gonna starve, if we're not going to be eaten
on a very primitive level. You know that drives home well.
And you know, it's interesting that you mentioned the fat
because it takes me back to the podcast that we
did on gluttony and all of that research about how
(15:44):
when we lose weight, our body actually begins to game
the body to to try to get back at the
old level because of this fear of losing fat. And
in fact, people who lose I think it was something
of their body weight have to exercise even harder than
their counterpart who didn't lose weight, but they weigh the
(16:05):
same amount um simply because the body won't burn as
many calories because again, it wants to get back to
that set weight that it knows, and it also begins
to crave more fatty foods. Yeah, and we, as we
discussed before, and as it and as countless food documentaries
point out, we live in an age now where all
the fat you want just walk down to the storm
(16:26):
by it. All of salty you want, I'll sweet you want. Generally,
all these things are actually available in one bag at
your local fast food restaurant. But of course we didn't
evolve into that scenario. You know, that's not that's not
the natural availability of these various elements. Yeah. Actually saw
something the other day. It was it was about weight
loss and a group of people who had had lost weight,
(16:46):
and it said, we'll work for less food. And I thought, well,
if that's not a commentary on the abundance of food
in the world right now, as well as a commentary
and some other stuff I don't know what is um.
Then again, we're talking about this concept of gaming comfort,
and you guys out there are probably familiar with this
study because I think it got a lot of play.
(17:08):
But this idea that comfort also comes externally so and
actually affects our moods in ways that we might just
make favorable decisions about others and what I'm talking about
is um the warm mug of liquid study. Do you
know which when I'm talking about where the participants were
given a warm mug of coffee, I believe to hold
(17:32):
just for a few moments and to think about someone
that they may not have particularly had warm feelings about,
but talk about them as they were holding the warm cup.
And then participants were given uh an iced coffee to hold. Okay,
(17:52):
so now they were holding something that's cold. And so
it turns out that those people who held the mugs
of hot Joe, we're much more likely to perceive others
as having warmer personality traits. Well, this is basically this
is the hot coco phenomenon here because with hot cocoa, well,
first of all, are getting that chocolate that's sweet, so
you're you're turning on some various new transmitters there. Uh.
(18:14):
Some people like like their their hot chocolate little salty,
so you've got that going on, uh, giving you a
little little oxytocin. And then of course it is a
warm mug of goodness that you're having generally with friends
or family or loved ones while you're interacting with them.
So it tends to uh to color an even warmer
uh interpersonal relationship. Well, and you know it could be
(18:36):
anybody then this this study which is really interesting. They
could to be talking about co worker, they could be
talking about their neighbor, or they could be talking about
a family member. And this is one of those examples
that neuroscientists David Eagleman talks about um when he's questions
whether or not we actually have free will. And what
I mean is that if a warm mug of coffee
(18:56):
subconsciously makes you feel better about the person you're talking
into while you're holding the coffee, um, then what sort
of decisions might follow after that interaction or during that interaction. Well,
this this reminds me, actually reminds me of times where
we've dragged our recorder Matt in here, our editor, producer,
director general, a man of our times, and sometimes we
(19:21):
drag him in a ridiculous hours to try and get
an episode recorded. And sometimes you'll you'll give him coffee
and I thought you were just being nice, but you
were manipulating him by giving him this warm beverage so
that he can't help but think will warm thoughts then
about us and not hate us for dragging him in
it like five in the morning. Thanks for taking that down. No, really,
(19:42):
it was. It's all coming from my heart, my warm,
warm heart. But still this is a good This is
a good trick that we should all exploit in our lives.
You're going in for a tough meeting, or you want
to just go for a job interview, you bring some
hot coffee, some hot coco something, some hot tea, anything
that'll that'll get the room warm, and do not let
that job interview take place outside on a November day. Okay,
(20:04):
So if you doubt this idea that a warm beverage
or even just the warmth itself, it doesn't affect how
we feel. Um. Consider a study by Harry Harlow involving primates.
Oh yes, this is the great one where they it
was with maccaques, I believe, and uh and you've seen
the photos because there terrifying, depressing, depressing where they have
(20:26):
the baby macaques and they're they're they're given the choice
of two or they tested out in two different environments.
One there's this metal framework mother that that is there
to distribute milk through a nipple, right, and it's just
this metal framework, and then there's nothing monkey is about it. Ye,
vaguely monkey shaped, I guess if you really want to
(20:47):
get creative. But for the most part it's like metal
thing with a nipple that feeds baby monkey. But then
then the other part of the test is cover that
with fur and you have a sort of fake monkey
with a nipple. It's it's soft, it's agly monkey ish,
but it's covered in fur. And which one do you
think the macaques prefer? Now? This one that had the fur.
The cloth was heated with a light bulb as well. Yes, yes,
(21:10):
so it's soft and furry but warm. So the surrogate
that gets the most play is of course the one
that has the light bulb in it, because it turns
out that the baby maccaux, although they would run and
they would get the milk from the other surrogate when
they were really hungry, they prefer to spend time with
the warm surrogate and cling to it, which tells you
(21:32):
that there's there's something just inherent to this, this feeling
of warmth and comfort in our ability to survive. And
it reminds me of a of a study you sent
me as we were looking into this podcast as well
about the whole cold hands, warm heart thing which have tomit.
I've never heard that saying, but apparently it's a saying
cold hands, warm heart. There's a song too, really but
(21:53):
I can't remember, but it comes on the system every
once in a while. Okay, Well, but the idea is
that if I guess, if you shake hands with somebody
as a really cold hand, it's okay because it means
their heart is so warm, they're so full of warmth
in their heart they can love for their fellow man.
That is actually affecting blood flow to their out to
their limbs, apparently, which I've never heard because because it
(22:14):
sounds ridiculous to me, because it sounds like people with
cold fish hands. This is like propaganda they put out,
you know, like like C e O S and whatnot,
where they're like, oh, people think I'm horrible just because
my hand is a piece of impersonal ice that I
shove it people. Uh, maybe we should get some some
some data out there that the opposite. We don't normally
(22:34):
um shake, but I think we should right now. So
everything you just describe my friend is me, and I
will tell you that even before I knew him, at
the song cold heart, cold heart, Warm hands, I used
to say to my husband, cold heart, warm hands. Um.
So it turns out you were wrong in science? Is there?
Because because because in the study they actually looked into
(22:55):
a two thousand and eight researchers Lawrence Williams and John
bra they actually debunked this and then found that the
physical warmth activates concepts of interpersonal warmth. And it's very
much in keeping with the whole iron mother fury warm
mother scenario. I know, I know, so it boils down
to actually pour circulation from me. Um. But but I
(23:15):
thought it was interesting because I think that in the article,
the question was whether or not people would perceive your handshake,
your your cold dead handshake as is in a negative
light and then inform their feelings about you that way,
much in the way that the mug of warm coffee
made people feel friendlier. Couldn't do the opposite. So here's
(23:36):
another idea to gain the system. Next time you go
into a job interview or whatnot, if you know that
you have the cold hands, or even just to be
on the safe side, do a little palm rubbing there,
get it all warmed up, and then then impress them
with your loving handshake. That's what I do before I
hugged my daughter so that she doesn't run in terror
from me. All Right, we should probably take a break.
(23:57):
When we get back, we're going to talk about automating company.
All right, we're back. So we were talking about the
about the experiment with maccaques, about the the iron mother
that's cold and loveless, and the the lightbulb powered furry
mother that all the little maccaques go crazy for. And
(24:19):
of course we've discussed this a little bit in the
past when we've talked about robots. Yeah, we've talked about
robots hugging you. And the reason is is because hugging
is obviously very comforting. And in fact, one study showed
that when people engage in a hug for twenty seconds
or longer, that actually reduces their cortisol levels their stress
(24:40):
levels pretty significantly. And this is why you you said
you always hold your husband in for twenty seconds, like
count to twenty and don't let him escape until you
hit twenty. Yeah, which he kind of tries to wriggle from,
but then he lovingly submitted to my embrace. But yeah,
this is a really quick life hack. So of course,
what do we do whenever we are trying to figure
(25:01):
out something that we do human wise, we look to
the robots to see if we can do something similar.
And there's something called the hug shirt, which I believe
we've talked about before. This is a Bluetooth enabled shirt
made by the UK's Cute Circuit and it uses embedded
sensors and actuators to simulate a hug. Yes, so you
could get the same effect. Um. There is the Hug Machine,
(25:25):
which was designed by Temple Grandin and um, that is
a deep pressure device designed to calm hyper sensitive people. Yes,
and that's, by the way, the Temple grand In movie.
Great movie. I highly recommend that. Yeah, that is really great.
I can who's the actress who played that? Um, Claire Danes, right,
who a lot of you know from Homeland. She's yeah, yeah,
(25:46):
she did a phenomenal job in that. Um. So there
are these different ways that we have tried to create
the hug. But what do you do if you're beyond
the hug, If you're in a situation where you are
actually taking the last breaths of life and you need comfort. Well,
a few of possibilities come to mind. Self hug, which
(26:07):
may not be possible, and that might not actually work
because generally the self hug is something you do just
to convince other people that you're making out with somebody
when you're kent right. Uh. And then I guess you
could if you had like say, you could if you
had a pet python, you could unleash the python on
you in those final moments because get a combination of
(26:29):
things there, embrace quick demise and uh. And then you
also ultimately feed a giant snake. But but you're probably
but what you're getting at here, I'm sure is that
we should have a robot that that enters into the scenario,
that enters the room of our dying and actually tends
to our final emotional needs. Yep. This is the Last
(26:50):
Moment Bought or the end of life care Machine, which
was made by artists and designer Dan chen Uh. He
made this because he wanted to try to present in
an extreme example of a world where machines fill in
for humans. And now keep in mind too that we've
talked about caregiving robots, so that art this is his
(27:10):
idea is is I'm going to create some art that's
going to generate discussion. It's still very much in keeping
with stuff that's going on today, because we've talked about
robots that are being designed to help elderly people around
to help them use the restroom. Not only the elder really,
but injured individuals as well, to care for them in
a hospital environment. So it's art, but it's it's like
all great art. It has a lot of ties into
(27:32):
our real current position and our near future reality. Um
it is Uh, I think the robot in the art
installation is incredibly depressing. Yes, well that's your argument. I
I interpreted it differently. Um, and we should we should describe. Um.
(27:54):
So you're dying, all right, You're in this hospital room
by yourself. That's important to note here. You're in this
room by yourself. And then uh, in your your your
signs are being monitored by this machine. And suddenly it
realizes that you or your death is imminent. So what happens.
It turns on the last moment robot and it wheels
itself over to you there and you're you're soon to
(28:15):
be deathbed and and what does it do? Well, first
of all, it actually embraces you a little bit. There
are some hug mechanics that go on. It kind of
looks like it's rolling dough out of your arm. But
the idea is that it's supposed to feel like like
an embrace, like somebody's roping your arm. But now we're
talking about this plastic kind of arm thing that it doesn't.
There's nothing very human looking about it. It's all about
(28:37):
the sensation. And then the robot actually speaks to you.
The robots says, I am the Last Moment Robot. I
am here to help you and guide you through your
last moment on Earth. I am sorry that your family
and friends can't be with you right now, but don't
be afraid. I am here to comfort you. You are
not alone. You are with me. Your family and friends
(29:00):
love you very much. They will remember you after you
are gone. Sucker. No, it actually kind of sounded like how.
For a second, I was going for a little bit
of how, a little bit of David. Yeah, I was
gonna say, Okay, so what what do you find comforting
about that? Okay? So I actually like just reading that.
(29:20):
I feel my heart strings. Kind of not reading it
out loud because it makes it sounds like I really
love the son of my own voice, but just reading
it on the page. When I first read the article
about this piece. It connected with me, you know, because
I'm because it actually reminds me. I mentioned Boards of
Canada earlier. The UK Electronic Doo do a lot of
very nostalgic, ethereal sounding electronic idem soundscapes. They have a
(29:43):
track called an Eagle in Your Mind off the album
Music Has the Right Has the Right to Children, and
it's it's kind of a kind of a somber piece
at first, and then it and then it picks up
and there's a voice sample in there where it's kind
of a computer e voice. It says I love you.
And every time I hear that, even though I know
it's just a sample, there's something about it where I'm like, oh,
somebody loves me, you know, it like it It's still
(30:05):
connects with you. And I got that same feeling from
from reading and in the video hearing the last moment
robots final words to the dying. Even though it's just
some sort of speech to text kind of scenario going
on there, it's still I feel like it's still resonates
with you, you know. Okay, I understand that abstractly, but
I still feel like it's such a personal thing and
(30:28):
you want to feel connected, right, Because if you're drawing
your last breaths here on earth, wouldn't you want to
feel as though you were somehow pinned to the center
of it in some way through another person, through someone's eyes.
To see the light go out in someone's eyes is
just incredibly personal thing. So I can't I mean, you
make it sound like it's it's to be like it
needs to like find a dying person today and go
(30:50):
look into their eyes when they die. Oh no, no, no, no,
I don't breathing their soul. And it's wonderful. Know what
I mean is for the person who is dying and
for the person or persons who are losing this person.
It's uh to me, my mind would be preferable to
have the human connection. Okay, well, I would imagine the
human connection is ideal. Certainly, if I were given the
choice between saying goodbye or being or having a loved
(31:14):
one tell me goodbye and a robot, I would probably
go with the human Uh. Though it should be said
at least the robots keeping it together here, the robots
like a saint, the robots like a like a priest
giving you last riots. That's done this many times before.
And can at least fake beings sincere about it while
also not losing it because you know you don't want
you also don't want the robot. There's probably not a
(31:35):
setting for the for the last moment robot where it
just loses it and it's like, oh, please don't die.
And well maybe there is, because you know, if that were,
if that were to actually come to fruition, they would
obviously the people who created the robot would want to
try to simulate the experience so that you could draw
as much comfort from And some people might draw comfort
from the field because the message of the robot it's
(31:56):
pretty straight. But it's like, hey, you're dying. It's cool.
Everyone does this. You had a good life, everyone loved you,
and now it's time to turn it off. Yeah, I'm
just saying I would feel jipped. I'd be like, really,
you're the last thing that I see. But but if
the alternative though, Think if the alternative though is dying
in a room by yourself or being vaguely attended to
(32:19):
by an overworked caregiver who may or may not be
able to muster some thake enthusiasm or legitimate enthusiasm and
enthusiasm isn't the right word, um, compassion for for your
last moments. Then I can see that the robot is
being the preferred method. Okay, true, true. UM. Here's one
situation that I will get behind though, and this is
(32:40):
this idea that you could seek a virtual psychologist. And
we've actually mentioned this before, but NASA in their program
called the Virtual Space Station Psychologist just came out of
It's for Your Pilot program to try to UM have
some of their participants really reach out to this virtual
(33:00):
psychologist and gained some self help care. Yeah, it's UM.
It's essentially the idea we're talking about here is you're
on a long distance space journey, or you're in space
for a while. You may or may not. Maybe you're alone,
maybe you're dealing with a small group of people, but
as we've discussed before, that's a very intimate environment, and
also you're dealing with a lot of biological funk that's
gonna be going on. It is your body adjust a
(33:21):
life in a semi waitless environment, and the best case
is being locked away with a group of people is
gonna get old. But then throw in a lot of
vomit and it's just gonna get worse. So maybe you
have a laptop in a room. It's kind of like
the confessional room you know in the reality shows where
you go in and you uh, either you talk to
this thing and you actually have some back and forth interaction,
(33:43):
or perhaps it's more like a questionnaire multiple choice like
how are you doing today? A for great, B for okay,
or C four I want to launch Carl out of
the airlock and uh, and then the the machine will
ask you, well, why do you want to launch Carl
out of the airlock, and you're like, well, he's been
I feel like he's just been kind of cold recently,
and I'm reaching out to you know. A part of
(34:04):
it is like let's get the astronaut actually processing some
of this and setting it stead they're just brooding inside you.
And then also it could consuverably launch some some tips
grounded in actual psychology at you give you some text
to read about what you're feeling or what you should
be feeling. Yeah. The idea is that these virtual psychologists
provide a problem solving treatment. And so I'm not discounting
(34:27):
you know, um flesh psychologist, because I think there are
many many talented ones, but some of the success that
I think that happens in UM therapy is that it's
the talking here. It's a lot of people sort of
talking through the problems and in doing so finding areas
that they need to work on or areas that they
can find solutions for. Because if you've ever been, if
(34:50):
you've been to a therapist and UM and I highly
recommend it if you if you're even considering it, if
you think, oh, maybe I should go up to a
therapist for this, then do seriously consider because it can
be very helpful. But there's certainly there are times where
you might find yourself thinking, hey, this isn't like on TV.
This person is not telling me how to solve my problems.
A lot of this is me talking through it and
someone nodding and writing something down and interjecting a little bit.
(35:12):
It's easy for people to make fun of that and
belittle it and say like it was just me doing
all the work, but that's kind of what happening. It
facilitates you actually working through what you're feeling. Well, and
ideally these this program would have the sort of UM
great sophisticated feedback that you might get from from a
human psychologist. UM in the works. You know, hopefully this
(35:35):
will be something that will come online later. But I
did want to mention that twenty nine current and former
astronauts have been consulted for the project and the trial
has shown pretty good results in treating depression. And this
is according to James Cartrione. He's a clinical psychologist at
Harvard Medical School. And uh, future tests with firefighters and
e m t s could help launch a more widespread
(35:56):
use of the self help software and eventually bring it
to the public. Yeah, and just a quick example from
real life of actual interpersonal tension causing problems for space flights.
A mission on Russia's Solute seven space station was scrapped
after colleagues noticed the commander seemed uninterested in his work
and spent hours looking out of the window on the ship.
(36:19):
And in three years earlier, a mission on the same
station was somewhat hampered by tension between two astronauts. So
also maybe it was haunted. I don't know that that
could be a possible as well, but no, I mean,
I guess the underscores the reason why you need to
have people feel as good as they can up there
on their missions, because obviously a lot of things could
(36:40):
go wrong, all right. So there you go a little,
a little insight into comfort and what it is. Is
it certainly as you're seeking out comfort this holiday season
or the next, or just after a tough day at
the office or a breakup or whatever. Because we didn't
even mention ice cream after a breakup, right, I mean,
that's another motif that you write. You never did that.
I don't understand that because cold, it is cold, yeah,
(37:04):
but it's but it's also fatty and sweet cold comfort. Yeah, okay.
So I want to leave out with just a couple
of quotes here about comfort and about our our search
for comfort in life. First of all, here's a little
bit from C. S. Lewis. He said, if you look
for truth, you may find comfort. In the end, if
you look for comfort, you will not get either comfort
or truth, only soft soap and wichful thinking to begin,
(37:26):
and in the end despair. And then our good buddy
Aristotle said, we live in deeds, not years, in thoughts,
not breaths, in feelings, not in figures on a dial.
We should not count time by heart throbs. He most lives,
who thinks, most feels, the noblest, acts the best. Also
wanted to thank Mike See for writing in and asking
(37:46):
us to do a program about the science of comfort.
So take all that with you as you eat some
comforting foods and do some comforting things. And we would
love to hear from you guys if you want to
write in about things that you could comfort from, and
more importantly your analysis on on what is comforting and
why is it comforting? What memories, what personal history is
(38:09):
wrapped up in that particular item, thing or experience, and
then uh, what about the science of it? Is there
is there's something salty? Is this is something sweet? Is
it releasing oxytocin into you? Let us know about all
of that. We love to hear from people. You can
find us on Facebook and you can find us on tumbler.
We are stuff to blow your mind on both of
those and on Facebook game certainly give us a like.
We can always use a little more support, and if
(38:31):
you want to find us on Twitter, we're on there
as well, and our handle is blow the Mind. Also,
if you have any thoughts on the last moment thought,
you can always drop us a line at below the
Mind at Discovery dot com. For more on this and
thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works. Dot
(38:52):
com
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how stuff
Works dot com. Hey, welcome to stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamp and I'm Julie Douglas, and
we're coming at you around Thanksgiving if you're listening to
this as it publishes. But we're talking about comfort, and
this is certainly a season of comfort, but comfort food,
(00:26):
the feeling of comfort is something that we we crave,
that we seek out at various times throughout the year.
So so don't run away if you're listening to this
in July, that's right, because you never know. In July
you might need a bit of comfort, cold comfort at
that point from your air conditioner. But um, yeah, I
mean what I think about comfort. I think about quilts,
(00:46):
I think about how Coco, and I think that some
people are drawing more to comfort than other people. M
M yeah, I'm probably about, you know, halfway there. It
doesn't you know. Sure I'll take some comfort, but I
don't need it. I mean, I really like comfort. I
mean I'm pro comfort because for me, I probably think,
you know, and like a nice warm blanket, that's good
(01:08):
cat on your lap, that's good hot beverage of some kind.
I guess the comfort I do tend to think of it,
especially something I seek out during colder months. Um. Yeah,
which which also brings to mind like like chicken soup,
something that I don't Actually nobody really likes chicken soup.
I mean, my wife makes delicious chicken soup, but for
the most part, you're coming at chicken soup out of
(01:30):
a sense of more than just wanting to taste, but
you want all the emotions that come with it and
all the all all the ideas about chicken soup that
exists culturally. You know. So already we've talked about several
different aspects of comfort, because really you've got the tactile
part of it, and then you've got the food part
of it, and then the psychology that sort of jells
all of it together. Yeah, because what does it ultimately
(01:52):
break down to? Um Asking neuroscientists, and they'll say it
all comes down to it being the opposite of stress,
which is for pretty broad but yeah, I think of
a thing of time you've been stressed, thing of the
time when you've been comfortable. They're pretty much polar opposites.
Nobody's sitting around biting their nails and guzzling chicken soup
with a blanket wrapped around them while they watched Gilmore
Girls Marathon on TV or something, right. I mean, it's
(02:13):
it's all about very specific and that's another aspect because
I I know somebody who's Who's who that remember that
was their comfort thing, And certainly that's another aspect of
comfort is media. You know, it's like there'll be certain
certain albums you might put on it. It It was like, yeah,
I'm gonna put on some Boards of Canada and that's
for me a very that's a very comfort minded soundtrack
(02:34):
to plug into. Or for some people it is a
Gilmore's Girl Marathon, you know, something that they that really
serves as kind of a replacement social engagements. Well for me,
little House from the Prairie. Yeah, yeah, Michael Landon, all
the schmaltz Michael Landon it could ever want, because when
the world seems cruel and unfair, Michael Landon is there
(02:55):
for you. So what we're talking about are three principles
of comfort, security, ward and connectedness. So we're feeling connected
to your fellow man, which might have something to do
with Michael Landon right, um, And each of these principles
of comfort activate different parts of our brains. So it
would make sense that you have this sort of big
(03:17):
idea of comfort having to do with the tactile, having
to do with food, having to do with music, media, um,
all being rolled up into this one big thing that
comes at the end of November, you know, into our
living rooms and Thanksgiving. And that's really why we wanted
to cover this topic, because you think about Thanksgiving and
(03:39):
ultimately you think about not just family conflict and uncomfortable
silence around the table, but comfort foods to help ameliorate
all of those feelings of tension with your family. Yes,
uh and comfort food It's it's interesting we start really
thinking about not only what it means to you, because
everyone's got their comfort foods, you know, and certainly there
are some comfort foods that you think of a lot
(03:59):
of you think of things like fried chicken as a
comfort food or various uh you know, or a casse
role or what have you. Um. So, a lot of
times it's something that your mom made or whoever raised you,
something you grew up with, where when you eat it,
it takes you back to that feeling of safety that
you had as a child being provided for but then
also a lot of it is cultural to uh you
(04:21):
say you're of Italian heritage, then your comfort food might
be uh not not only your mother's food, but your
mother's spaghetti or than anybody's uh particular spaghetti recipe, or
if you're of German heritage, and maybe it's that particular
schnitzel that really does it for you. It really takes
you back and and and it might be, I mean,
God help you, of schnitzel is what you eat every day.
So it's so it's something that is also a treat.
(04:42):
It's something you don't normally have, and then when you
do have it, it comes in with all this cultural
and personal resonance. It's true if you are reaching out
for a blood sausage and your German heritage, this might
be just the fix that you need to pick up
your day. Um. Psychologists call comfort food a social surrogates,
as you already pointed out in different ways. And it's
(05:03):
interesting because if you look at studies concerning food and
comfort you will find a bevy of them. And one
of the ones that I thought was really interesting is
a study that had to do with people feeling less
lonely after just writing about food. Okay, they didn't consume anything,
and it was specific to comfort food. All right. This
is a two thousand and eleven University of Buffalo study.
(05:25):
And so they bring in a bunch of people, so
set them down and said, hey, I want you to
write a little bit about a fight that you had
with with somebody that the relationship with you. I imagine
that most of these are gonna involve like previous relationships
or current spouses that kind of thing, uh, current girlfriend's boyfriends, etcetera.
So they write about this painful, awkward or traumatic episode
(05:48):
and then put your pencils down. Now. Six minutes later,
six minutes later, and now let's flip over the page,
and I want you to write to start writing about
about some some comfort foods and about the fried chicken
or the blood sauces or whatever it may be. Write
about some food. Yeah, that's right. Some people were asked
to write about comfort food, while other people were asked
to write about a new food experience. Right, So obviously
(06:08):
you see right there, the new food experience doesn't have
all the sorts of emotional attachments to it because it's
a new experience. It's not related back to mom or childhood.
So of course, what do you think the results were. Uh,
the results are probably going to be that the comfort
food is the one that really makes the difference in
most of these Yeah, that's right. What they did is
they took all of the participants took a test after
(06:29):
they wrote about food, when they filled out this questionnaire
about loneliness. It was found that the comfort food, just
thinking about it and writing about it helped those people
to self adjust their moods. Now, there's an important caveat here,
and that is that, Uh, generally the individuals who were
aided by the food, they were in a more or
less good relationship that they just had some some either
(06:51):
fighting in the past or or just a little you know,
fighting in the present. So it's not a situation where
you're going through like you just murdered your spouse to
night before and then some reason you came in to
do this study and you thought about mashed potatoes and
it fixed everything. No, not not quiet, It's not that powerful.
But certainly if you're like, oh, I really love my wife,
but we we just we keep fighting over what color
(07:12):
of the carpet should be. I think it should be
hot pink, she thinks it should be Neon Green. We
can't come to a decision. We keep fighting mashed potatoes.
Oh what was I? What was I upset about? Well?
And I think it's just interesting because we've talked about
this before, but how just thinking about things can really
change your brain. And we talked about this before, even
in writers who are writing about their characters and people
(07:33):
who are reading of novels that they are mirror neurons
began to activate as though they were throwing the ball
or they were running to to escape someone. So um,
what I started to think about is that's really powerful
because a lot of these comfort foods involve fat. And
there's another study that actually looks at fatty foods and
(07:54):
moods and this was in the Netherlands, and what they
were doing is they were taking twelve healthy individuals and
they all underwent four forty minute fmr I tests while
listening to music or viewing pictures that induced sad emotions. Now,
at the same time, all of these participants received an
(08:15):
infusion of either sailing or fatty acids directly into their stomachs.
This is where that the experiment really goes off the
rails because the other one, it's like, oh, you're writing
something and thinking about food, or or I can imagine
signing up for the study and thinking, oh, or they're
just gonna show at me like a large ventreer film
and then feed me some mashed potatoes. But no, they're
going to pump something directly into my stomach after I
watch it. That's in addition to the large one treier.
(08:38):
Yeah yeah, but what kind of movie theaters that Yeah, yeah,
I wonder if they did show Melancolia through them, because
that would be a really great film to try to
induce sadness. I have to say, um, but all all
of the participants had um completed a twelve hour fast,
so they came with empty stomachs and they had no
idea what it was that was being put into their stomachs. Okay,
(08:59):
So there was alts indicated that subjects who received the
fatty infusion were less sad when viewing sad pictures or
listening to sad music. And then the fmm f m
r I tests confirmed fewer neural responses to sadness in
several areas of the brain in this group. Wow. Again,
I'm still overwhelmed just by the weirdness of the experiment.
(09:19):
But but I guess it was important because they wanted
to cut out the actual eating of the food, and
I don't know, maybe they just really wanted to pump
stuff directly into the gut. Well, what they were also
trying to do is to say, hey, there's it's not
just the mind body link, it is the body mind link.
And we've talked about this before in our podcast about
whether or not our guts are really our second brains, right,
(09:40):
And then of course when we're they really wanted to
look at the nutritional intake and when you eat food.
I mean, it's a no brainer, but there's a lot
going on. It's about it's about smelling the food that
you're eating. It's about the texture. I mentioned mashed potatoes,
and it's true a lot of a lot of the
comfort foods you encounter, it's like a creamy kind of
consistency to it. Um. I mean, some people may have
beef jerky as a comfort food. That's great, but a
(10:01):
lot of comfort foods are kind of like a smooth,
easy to eat kind of a thing. And again, just
having a story about that food as well, you can
circumvent that by just pumping stuff directly into the stomach.
It's also worth noting on that two thousand eleven University
of Buffalo study, they also had another experiment where they
found that eating chicken soup in the lab made people
think more about relationships if they consider chicken soup to
(10:23):
be a comfort food, which again comes down to my
argument that chicken soup, even when it's really good, isn't
really great because it's chicken soup if it's all about
the idea of it, Because like when I think of
chicken soup, I think of I'm I was, I'm feeling bad,
I'm feeling I mean there, you know, I'm under the weather,
and like my mom makes me chicken soup. It's like
it's the you can taste the love, right, It's somebody
(10:43):
making the time, taking the time to make this dish
that is all about, please get better and feel better
because someone loves you. And I feel the same way,
like when my wife makes it for me when I
whenever i'm ill. You know it's funny about that is
that my mom doesn't cook, never really has cooked, so
but I have the same feelings about chicken soup even
though I don't consume it now, because no, I was
(11:04):
gonna say I could look at a can of Campbell's
and feel a little warm cockles in the heart there.
Well yeah, well, you know, I think my mom I
could be wrong in this, and I'm sure she'll correct
me when she hears this, but I think it would
like she would do like canned chicken soup as well,
because I mean she was busy as she did. I'm
trying to make a bunch of you know, who has
time to make like chicken stock from scratch in this
day in war and day and age. But I'm pretty
(11:24):
sure that was canned as well. But still it was
this was a thing that you had when you were sick,
and if you had it and then somebody loved you
enough to at least open a can, and that was
the truth. If not boiled down the chicken carcass for
hours and create fresh chicken stock, hey man, she she
did many other things I would say to help me
feel better. And I should also mention that, all right.
(11:44):
The eleven University of Bubble study, you mentioned the distinction
between people writing about new food experiences and people writing
about food experiences that they had all this comfort and
all these associations for but in some cases you do
encounter people's comfort foods that are associated with new discoveries
because ultimately, like food is his very personal and also
(12:06):
kind of selfish thing, you know, so in some cases
it will be something that that we see as a
personal discovery. One of the articles I was looking at,
I think it was a psychology today, they mentioned, um,
the writer's husband went crazy for Sharaka, Like sharaka and
anything it was a comfort food. Um. And certainly you
get some spicy and some sweet in there, and sharak
is amazing, But it's his whole thing was that this
(12:26):
was something he had discovered. This was something that was
totally totally him and didn't necessarily have a connection with
with his upbringing or his past. No, he just discovered
that it was making the reward part of his brain
go ding ding ding, really because he was getting a
little bit euphoric with a spice there. Um. And I
also think that too with new experiences and food, you know,
you'll pin that a lot of times to travel. So
(12:48):
you know, sometimes I'll think about things that I've eaten
and I will elevate them to the highest level because
I think, oh, that I had that in Italy or whatever,
and it may not even actually be that great. Yeah,
but you still Again, it comes down to why I
pump this stuff directly into the test subject stomach, Because again,
food comes to us with a story, food comes as
to us with a smell, with a texture on all
(13:09):
of these things that go beyond near nutrition. And what
we're talking about here too is really gaming a sense
of comfort. Of course, there is the food industry which
is really interesting in this idea of tweaking moods through food.
At the national meeting of the American Chemical Society, Karina
Martinez Mayorga presented the latest findings from her ongoing study
(13:32):
of the effect of various food flavors on mood. And
it turns out that molecules in chocolate, a variety of berries,
and then foods containing omega free fatty acids positively affect mood.
Um it was found, and this is really interesting. It
was found that the chemical components of these food flavors
are structurally similar to something called valporic acid, and this
(13:54):
is the primary ingredient in several pharmaceutical mood stabilizers. Of course,
the research was supported in part by a food flavor
company France based uh Roberte UH Flavors, and the scientists
say that food industry companies are joining pharmaceutical companies in
the quest for natural mood boosters. So they're not intending
(14:18):
this as a replacement for you know, for for treating
clinical depression, but they are saying like, maybe this could
give you a little extra pep in your step, right,
I mean, well, certainly there are a lot of fine
arguments out there that that a lot of problems with
health and even mental health um to a certain degree,
can be treated through a proper diet and an informed diet.
(14:40):
But again, yeah, I think of what comfort foods tend
to be. They can't be soft. They can be sweet, smooth, salty,
and uh like we mentioned sugar and starch. They spur serotonin,
your transmitter known to increase the sense of well being
like prozac. Um. Salty foods spur oxytocin, the cuttle chemical
that we talk about a lot that we also get
from hugs an orgasm, So you know, that's that's that
(15:03):
explains the saltiness there. Um fat is a good bomb
for the fear of starvation. So again you think back
to our naked caveman running through the Serengetti chase by
savor tooth tigers, a scenario that may or may not
actually pan out. Actually me on that too much, but
but still the idea that on a very primal level,
(15:23):
we are creatures that are having to run fast to
get away from something or run fast to catch something.
We need the energy, We need the fat. So that's
why the fat is such a bomb for fear we're
not gonna starve, if we're not going to be eaten
on a very primitive level. You know that drives home well.
And you know, it's interesting that you mentioned the fat
because it takes me back to the podcast that we
did on gluttony and all of that research about how
(15:44):
when we lose weight, our body actually begins to game
the body to to try to get back at the
old level because of this fear of losing fat. And
in fact, people who lose I think it was something
of their body weight have to exercise even harder than
their counterpart who didn't lose weight, but they weigh the
(16:05):
same amount um simply because the body won't burn as
many calories because again, it wants to get back to
that set weight that it knows, and it also begins
to crave more fatty foods. Yeah, and we, as we
discussed before, and as it and as countless food documentaries
point out, we live in an age now where all
the fat you want just walk down to the storm
(16:26):
by it. All of salty you want, I'll sweet you want. Generally,
all these things are actually available in one bag at
your local fast food restaurant. But of course we didn't
evolve into that scenario. You know, that's not that's not
the natural availability of these various elements. Yeah. Actually saw
something the other day. It was it was about weight
loss and a group of people who had had lost weight,
(16:46):
and it said, we'll work for less food. And I thought, well,
if that's not a commentary on the abundance of food
in the world right now, as well as a commentary
and some other stuff I don't know what is um.
Then again, we're talking about this concept of gaming comfort,
and you guys out there are probably familiar with this
study because I think it got a lot of play.
(17:08):
But this idea that comfort also comes externally so and
actually affects our moods in ways that we might just
make favorable decisions about others and what I'm talking about
is um the warm mug of liquid study. Do you
know which when I'm talking about where the participants were
given a warm mug of coffee, I believe to hold
(17:32):
just for a few moments and to think about someone
that they may not have particularly had warm feelings about,
but talk about them as they were holding the warm cup.
And then participants were given uh an iced coffee to hold. Okay,
(17:52):
so now they were holding something that's cold. And so
it turns out that those people who held the mugs
of hot Joe, we're much more likely to perceive others
as having warmer personality traits. Well, this is basically this
is the hot coco phenomenon here because with hot cocoa, well,
first of all, are getting that chocolate that's sweet, so
you're you're turning on some various new transmitters there. Uh.
(18:14):
Some people like like their their hot chocolate little salty,
so you've got that going on, uh, giving you a
little little oxytocin. And then of course it is a
warm mug of goodness that you're having generally with friends
or family or loved ones while you're interacting with them.
So it tends to uh to color an even warmer
uh interpersonal relationship. Well, and you know it could be
(18:36):
anybody then this this study which is really interesting. They
could to be talking about co worker, they could be
talking about their neighbor, or they could be talking about
a family member. And this is one of those examples
that neuroscientists David Eagleman talks about um when he's questions
whether or not we actually have free will. And what
I mean is that if a warm mug of coffee
(18:56):
subconsciously makes you feel better about the person you're talking
into while you're holding the coffee, um, then what sort
of decisions might follow after that interaction or during that interaction. Well,
this this reminds me, actually reminds me of times where
we've dragged our recorder Matt in here, our editor, producer,
director general, a man of our times, and sometimes we
(19:21):
drag him in a ridiculous hours to try and get
an episode recorded. And sometimes you'll you'll give him coffee
and I thought you were just being nice, but you
were manipulating him by giving him this warm beverage so
that he can't help but think will warm thoughts then
about us and not hate us for dragging him in
it like five in the morning. Thanks for taking that down. No, really,
(19:42):
it was. It's all coming from my heart, my warm,
warm heart. But still this is a good This is
a good trick that we should all exploit in our lives.
You're going in for a tough meeting, or you want
to just go for a job interview, you bring some
hot coffee, some hot coco something, some hot tea, anything
that'll that'll get the room warm, and do not let
that job interview take place outside on a November day. Okay,
(20:04):
So if you doubt this idea that a warm beverage
or even just the warmth itself, it doesn't affect how
we feel. Um. Consider a study by Harry Harlow involving primates.
Oh yes, this is the great one where they it
was with maccaques, I believe, and uh and you've seen
the photos because there terrifying, depressing, depressing where they have
(20:26):
the baby macaques and they're they're they're given the choice
of two or they tested out in two different environments.
One there's this metal framework mother that that is there
to distribute milk through a nipple, right, and it's just
this metal framework, and then there's nothing monkey is about it. Ye,
vaguely monkey shaped, I guess if you really want to
(20:47):
get creative. But for the most part it's like metal
thing with a nipple that feeds baby monkey. But then
then the other part of the test is cover that
with fur and you have a sort of fake monkey
with a nipple. It's it's soft, it's agly monkey ish,
but it's covered in fur. And which one do you
think the macaques prefer? Now? This one that had the fur.
The cloth was heated with a light bulb as well. Yes, yes,
(21:10):
so it's soft and furry but warm. So the surrogate
that gets the most play is of course the one
that has the light bulb in it, because it turns
out that the baby maccaux, although they would run and
they would get the milk from the other surrogate when
they were really hungry, they prefer to spend time with
the warm surrogate and cling to it, which tells you
(21:32):
that there's there's something just inherent to this, this feeling
of warmth and comfort in our ability to survive. And
it reminds me of a of a study you sent
me as we were looking into this podcast as well
about the whole cold hands, warm heart thing which have tomit.
I've never heard that saying, but apparently it's a saying
cold hands, warm heart. There's a song too, really but
(21:53):
I can't remember, but it comes on the system every
once in a while. Okay, Well, but the idea is
that if I guess, if you shake hands with somebody
as a really cold hand, it's okay because it means
their heart is so warm, they're so full of warmth
in their heart they can love for their fellow man.
That is actually affecting blood flow to their out to
their limbs, apparently, which I've never heard because because it
(22:14):
sounds ridiculous to me, because it sounds like people with
cold fish hands. This is like propaganda they put out,
you know, like like C e O S and whatnot,
where they're like, oh, people think I'm horrible just because
my hand is a piece of impersonal ice that I
shove it people. Uh, maybe we should get some some
some data out there that the opposite. We don't normally
(22:34):
um shake, but I think we should right now. So
everything you just describe my friend is me, and I
will tell you that even before I knew him, at
the song cold heart, cold heart, Warm hands, I used
to say to my husband, cold heart, warm hands. Um.
So it turns out you were wrong in science? Is there?
Because because because in the study they actually looked into
(22:55):
a two thousand and eight researchers Lawrence Williams and John
bra they actually debunked this and then found that the
physical warmth activates concepts of interpersonal warmth. And it's very
much in keeping with the whole iron mother fury warm
mother scenario. I know, I know, so it boils down
to actually pour circulation from me. Um. But but I
(23:15):
thought it was interesting because I think that in the article,
the question was whether or not people would perceive your handshake,
your your cold dead handshake as is in a negative
light and then inform their feelings about you that way,
much in the way that the mug of warm coffee
made people feel friendlier. Couldn't do the opposite. So here's
(23:36):
another idea to gain the system. Next time you go
into a job interview or whatnot, if you know that
you have the cold hands, or even just to be
on the safe side, do a little palm rubbing there,
get it all warmed up, and then then impress them
with your loving handshake. That's what I do before I
hugged my daughter so that she doesn't run in terror
from me. All Right, we should probably take a break.
(23:57):
When we get back, we're going to talk about automating company.
All right, we're back. So we were talking about the
about the experiment with maccaques, about the the iron mother
that's cold and loveless, and the the lightbulb powered furry
mother that all the little maccaques go crazy for. And
(24:19):
of course we've discussed this a little bit in the
past when we've talked about robots. Yeah, we've talked about
robots hugging you. And the reason is is because hugging
is obviously very comforting. And in fact, one study showed
that when people engage in a hug for twenty seconds
or longer, that actually reduces their cortisol levels their stress
(24:40):
levels pretty significantly. And this is why you you said
you always hold your husband in for twenty seconds, like
count to twenty and don't let him escape until you
hit twenty. Yeah, which he kind of tries to wriggle from,
but then he lovingly submitted to my embrace. But yeah,
this is a really quick life hack. So of course,
what do we do whenever we are trying to figure
(25:01):
out something that we do human wise, we look to
the robots to see if we can do something similar.
And there's something called the hug shirt, which I believe
we've talked about before. This is a Bluetooth enabled shirt
made by the UK's Cute Circuit and it uses embedded
sensors and actuators to simulate a hug. Yes, so you
could get the same effect. Um. There is the Hug Machine,
(25:25):
which was designed by Temple Grandin and um, that is
a deep pressure device designed to calm hyper sensitive people. Yes,
and that's, by the way, the Temple grand In movie.
Great movie. I highly recommend that. Yeah, that is really great.
I can who's the actress who played that? Um, Claire Danes, right,
who a lot of you know from Homeland. She's yeah, yeah,
(25:46):
she did a phenomenal job in that. Um. So there
are these different ways that we have tried to create
the hug. But what do you do if you're beyond
the hug, If you're in a situation where you are
actually taking the last breaths of life and you need comfort. Well,
a few of possibilities come to mind. Self hug, which
(26:07):
may not be possible, and that might not actually work
because generally the self hug is something you do just
to convince other people that you're making out with somebody
when you're kent right. Uh. And then I guess you
could if you had like say, you could if you
had a pet python, you could unleash the python on
you in those final moments because get a combination of
(26:29):
things there, embrace quick demise and uh. And then you
also ultimately feed a giant snake. But but you're probably
but what you're getting at here, I'm sure is that
we should have a robot that that enters into the scenario,
that enters the room of our dying and actually tends
to our final emotional needs. Yep. This is the Last
(26:50):
Moment Bought or the end of life care Machine, which
was made by artists and designer Dan chen Uh. He
made this because he wanted to try to present in
an extreme example of a world where machines fill in
for humans. And now keep in mind too that we've
talked about caregiving robots, so that art this is his
(27:10):
idea is is I'm going to create some art that's
going to generate discussion. It's still very much in keeping
with stuff that's going on today, because we've talked about
robots that are being designed to help elderly people around
to help them use the restroom. Not only the elder really,
but injured individuals as well, to care for them in
a hospital environment. So it's art, but it's it's like
all great art. It has a lot of ties into
(27:32):
our real current position and our near future reality. Um
it is Uh, I think the robot in the art
installation is incredibly depressing. Yes, well that's your argument. I
I interpreted it differently. Um, and we should we should describe. Um.
(27:54):
So you're dying, all right, You're in this hospital room
by yourself. That's important to note here. You're in this
room by yourself. And then uh, in your your your
signs are being monitored by this machine. And suddenly it
realizes that you or your death is imminent. So what happens.
It turns on the last moment robot and it wheels
itself over to you there and you're you're soon to
(28:15):
be deathbed and and what does it do? Well, first
of all, it actually embraces you a little bit. There
are some hug mechanics that go on. It kind of
looks like it's rolling dough out of your arm. But
the idea is that it's supposed to feel like like
an embrace, like somebody's roping your arm. But now we're
talking about this plastic kind of arm thing that it doesn't.
There's nothing very human looking about it. It's all about
(28:37):
the sensation. And then the robot actually speaks to you.
The robots says, I am the Last Moment Robot. I
am here to help you and guide you through your
last moment on Earth. I am sorry that your family
and friends can't be with you right now, but don't
be afraid. I am here to comfort you. You are
not alone. You are with me. Your family and friends
(29:00):
love you very much. They will remember you after you
are gone. Sucker. No, it actually kind of sounded like how.
For a second, I was going for a little bit
of how, a little bit of David. Yeah, I was
gonna say, Okay, so what what do you find comforting
about that? Okay? So I actually like just reading that.
(29:20):
I feel my heart strings. Kind of not reading it
out loud because it makes it sounds like I really
love the son of my own voice, but just reading
it on the page. When I first read the article
about this piece. It connected with me, you know, because
I'm because it actually reminds me. I mentioned Boards of
Canada earlier. The UK Electronic Doo do a lot of
very nostalgic, ethereal sounding electronic idem soundscapes. They have a
(29:43):
track called an Eagle in Your Mind off the album
Music Has the Right Has the Right to Children, and
it's it's kind of a kind of a somber piece
at first, and then it and then it picks up
and there's a voice sample in there where it's kind
of a computer e voice. It says I love you.
And every time I hear that, even though I know
it's just a sample, there's something about it where I'm like, oh,
somebody loves me, you know, it like it It's still
(30:05):
connects with you. And I got that same feeling from
from reading and in the video hearing the last moment
robots final words to the dying. Even though it's just
some sort of speech to text kind of scenario going
on there, it's still I feel like it's still resonates
with you, you know. Okay, I understand that abstractly, but
I still feel like it's such a personal thing and
(30:28):
you want to feel connected, right, Because if you're drawing
your last breaths here on earth, wouldn't you want to
feel as though you were somehow pinned to the center
of it in some way through another person, through someone's eyes.
To see the light go out in someone's eyes is
just incredibly personal thing. So I can't I mean, you
make it sound like it's it's to be like it
needs to like find a dying person today and go
(30:50):
look into their eyes when they die. Oh no, no, no, no,
I don't breathing their soul. And it's wonderful. Know what
I mean is for the person who is dying and
for the person or persons who are losing this person.
It's uh to me, my mind would be preferable to
have the human connection. Okay, well, I would imagine the
human connection is ideal. Certainly, if I were given the
choice between saying goodbye or being or having a loved
(31:14):
one tell me goodbye and a robot, I would probably
go with the human Uh. Though it should be said
at least the robots keeping it together here, the robots
like a saint, the robots like a like a priest
giving you last riots. That's done this many times before.
And can at least fake beings sincere about it while
also not losing it because you know you don't want
you also don't want the robot. There's probably not a
(31:35):
setting for the for the last moment robot where it
just loses it and it's like, oh, please don't die.
And well maybe there is, because you know, if that were,
if that were to actually come to fruition, they would
obviously the people who created the robot would want to
try to simulate the experience so that you could draw
as much comfort from And some people might draw comfort
from the field because the message of the robot it's
(31:56):
pretty straight. But it's like, hey, you're dying. It's cool.
Everyone does this. You had a good life, everyone loved you,
and now it's time to turn it off. Yeah, I'm
just saying I would feel jipped. I'd be like, really,
you're the last thing that I see. But but if
the alternative though, Think if the alternative though is dying
in a room by yourself or being vaguely attended to
(32:19):
by an overworked caregiver who may or may not be
able to muster some thake enthusiasm or legitimate enthusiasm and
enthusiasm isn't the right word, um, compassion for for your
last moments. Then I can see that the robot is
being the preferred method. Okay, true, true. UM. Here's one
situation that I will get behind though, and this is
(32:40):
this idea that you could seek a virtual psychologist. And
we've actually mentioned this before, but NASA in their program
called the Virtual Space Station Psychologist just came out of
It's for Your Pilot program to try to UM have
some of their participants really reach out to this virtual
(33:00):
psychologist and gained some self help care. Yeah, it's UM.
It's essentially the idea we're talking about here is you're
on a long distance space journey, or you're in space
for a while. You may or may not. Maybe you're alone,
maybe you're dealing with a small group of people, but
as we've discussed before, that's a very intimate environment, and
also you're dealing with a lot of biological funk that's
gonna be going on. It is your body adjust a
(33:21):
life in a semi waitless environment, and the best case
is being locked away with a group of people is
gonna get old. But then throw in a lot of
vomit and it's just gonna get worse. So maybe you
have a laptop in a room. It's kind of like
the confessional room you know in the reality shows where
you go in and you uh, either you talk to
this thing and you actually have some back and forth interaction,
(33:43):
or perhaps it's more like a questionnaire multiple choice like
how are you doing today? A for great, B for okay,
or C four I want to launch Carl out of
the airlock and uh, and then the the machine will
ask you, well, why do you want to launch Carl
out of the airlock, and you're like, well, he's been
I feel like he's just been kind of cold recently,
and I'm reaching out to you know. A part of
(34:04):
it is like let's get the astronaut actually processing some
of this and setting it stead they're just brooding inside you.
And then also it could consuverably launch some some tips
grounded in actual psychology at you give you some text
to read about what you're feeling or what you should
be feeling. Yeah. The idea is that these virtual psychologists
provide a problem solving treatment. And so I'm not discounting
(34:27):
you know, um flesh psychologist, because I think there are
many many talented ones, but some of the success that
I think that happens in UM therapy is that it's
the talking here. It's a lot of people sort of
talking through the problems and in doing so finding areas
that they need to work on or areas that they
can find solutions for. Because if you've ever been, if
(34:50):
you've been to a therapist and UM and I highly
recommend it if you if you're even considering it, if
you think, oh, maybe I should go up to a
therapist for this, then do seriously consider because it can
be very helpful. But there's certainly there are times where
you might find yourself thinking, hey, this isn't like on TV.
This person is not telling me how to solve my problems.
A lot of this is me talking through it and
someone nodding and writing something down and interjecting a little bit.
(35:12):
It's easy for people to make fun of that and
belittle it and say like it was just me doing
all the work, but that's kind of what happening. It
facilitates you actually working through what you're feeling. Well, and
ideally these this program would have the sort of UM
great sophisticated feedback that you might get from from a
human psychologist. UM in the works. You know, hopefully this
(35:35):
will be something that will come online later. But I
did want to mention that twenty nine current and former
astronauts have been consulted for the project and the trial
has shown pretty good results in treating depression. And this
is according to James Cartrione. He's a clinical psychologist at
Harvard Medical School. And uh, future tests with firefighters and
e m t s could help launch a more widespread
(35:56):
use of the self help software and eventually bring it
to the public. Yeah, and just a quick example from
real life of actual interpersonal tension causing problems for space flights.
A mission on Russia's Solute seven space station was scrapped
after colleagues noticed the commander seemed uninterested in his work
and spent hours looking out of the window on the ship.
(36:19):
And in three years earlier, a mission on the same
station was somewhat hampered by tension between two astronauts. So
also maybe it was haunted. I don't know that that
could be a possible as well, but no, I mean,
I guess the underscores the reason why you need to
have people feel as good as they can up there
on their missions, because obviously a lot of things could
(36:40):
go wrong, all right. So there you go a little,
a little insight into comfort and what it is. Is
it certainly as you're seeking out comfort this holiday season
or the next, or just after a tough day at
the office or a breakup or whatever. Because we didn't
even mention ice cream after a breakup, right, I mean,
that's another motif that you write. You never did that.
I don't understand that because cold, it is cold, yeah,
(37:04):
but it's but it's also fatty and sweet cold comfort. Yeah, okay.
So I want to leave out with just a couple
of quotes here about comfort and about our our search
for comfort in life. First of all, here's a little
bit from C. S. Lewis. He said, if you look
for truth, you may find comfort. In the end, if
you look for comfort, you will not get either comfort
or truth, only soft soap and wichful thinking to begin,
(37:26):
and in the end despair. And then our good buddy
Aristotle said, we live in deeds, not years, in thoughts,
not breaths, in feelings, not in figures on a dial.
We should not count time by heart throbs. He most lives,
who thinks, most feels, the noblest, acts the best. Also
wanted to thank Mike See for writing in and asking
(37:46):
us to do a program about the science of comfort.
So take all that with you as you eat some
comforting foods and do some comforting things. And we would
love to hear from you guys if you want to
write in about things that you could comfort from, and
more importantly your analysis on on what is comforting and
why is it comforting? What memories, what personal history is
(38:09):
wrapped up in that particular item, thing or experience, and
then uh, what about the science of it? Is there
is there's something salty? Is this is something sweet? Is
it releasing oxytocin into you? Let us know about all
of that. We love to hear from people. You can
find us on Facebook and you can find us on tumbler.
We are stuff to blow your mind on both of
those and on Facebook game certainly give us a like.
We can always use a little more support, and if
(38:31):
you want to find us on Twitter, we're on there
as well, and our handle is blow the Mind. Also,
if you have any thoughts on the last moment thought,
you can always drop us a line at below the
Mind at Discovery dot com. For more on this and
thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works. Dot
(38:52):
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