Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick.
Speaker 1: And we are entering into winter, are we. Yeah, well
Speaker 1: today it feels more like winter. I would say in Atlanta,
Speaker 1: we enter into winter sometime around mid March, and then
Speaker 1: we exit it sometime around mid March, and then it's
Speaker 1: summer again until December when fall begins. Yeah, that's the
Speaker 1: way it was this last year. It's it basically stayed fall,
Speaker 1: then it became spring just enough for my fig tree
Speaker 1: to begin to to emerge, and then it was winter
Speaker 1: again for like three days. This is enough to kill it.
Speaker 1: This is really disrupting, I think, because you want to
Speaker 1: be able to have seasonal traditions, and you want them
Speaker 1: to be able to to be re enacted with some
Speaker 1: kind of reliability. Every year I see an old traditions
Speaker 1: or something that I think gives a lot of anchoring
Speaker 1: meaning to our lives. When you're a little kid and
Speaker 1: you have that recognition that like, oh, Christmas is coming
Speaker 1: or something like that. Whatever your traditions, maybe if you
Speaker 1: don't celebrate Christmas, you probably have something like that sometime
Speaker 1: in the year that sort of like marks a seasonal
Speaker 1: transition and and that another part of a season is
Speaker 1: based around. So like here in America, for kids who
Speaker 1: celebrate Christmas, winter is not just a cold time. It's
Speaker 1: Christmas time. Yeah, yeah, it's it's almost impossible to escape
Speaker 1: the trappings of essentially Northern European winter survival traditions. They've
Speaker 1: been you know, they've been neutered and altered and and
Speaker 1: and changed into a different uh form altogether, but the
Speaker 1: shape is still there, Like the deep mythic importance of
Speaker 1: Santa Claus and and Ulogus and all the all these
Speaker 1: various trappings like their their their mythic purpose is still
Speaker 1: present if you if you just look hard enough. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you can also see that there's something kind of
Speaker 1: wrong with the way we practice Christmas here in Atlanta, Georgia,
Speaker 1: because when I see all of the traditional aesthetic stuff
Speaker 1: that's associated with Christmas, it's all got snow on it.
Speaker 1: There's just snow on everything. Santa's walk around in the snow,
Speaker 1: He's got snow on him. He kind of looks like
Speaker 1: he's sort of made of snow. There is snow on
Speaker 1: all the Christmas trees you see in all the pictures
Speaker 1: and children playing in the snow, and it never snows
Speaker 1: on Christmas down here. It's usually in the seventies. I
Speaker 1: think we gotta we got a white Christmas at some
Speaker 1: point in the last few years. But yeah, for the
Speaker 1: most part, you're right. The only way you're going to
Speaker 1: have snow on Christmas is if you import it or
Speaker 1: you you have your tree flocked. But yeah, to come
Speaker 1: back to the point I was making earlier, I think
Speaker 1: one reason this variable weather and the unreliability of it
Speaker 1: actually feeling like wintertime at Christmas is so troubling is
Speaker 1: that we really want to have dependable seasonal cycles that
Speaker 1: correspond to our ceremonies, because our ceremonies make the seasons
Speaker 1: mean something, and it almost feels encoded into our bodies
Speaker 1: that the seasons should mean something. It shouldn't just be
Speaker 1: a time where the weather is a little different outside.
Speaker 1: It feels like seasons should mark something important in our existence. Yeah,
Speaker 1: though it is hard. It is hard to backtrack because
Speaker 1: you can't just suddenly say I'm sorry, kids, but a
Speaker 1: Christian saint is going to climb out of the hearth
Speaker 1: tonight and starts. You know, if he's actually supposed to
Speaker 1: be based on St. Nicholas, you should you should do
Speaker 1: yourself a favor and go look up some of the
Speaker 1: legends about the actual St. Nicholas. He's fantastic. There's a
Speaker 1: great story where St. Nicholas goes into an inn where
Speaker 1: there's an evil innkeeper who has uh. I guess he
Speaker 1: just didn't like children. So he took some boys and
Speaker 1: he killed them, and he chopped them up, and he
Speaker 1: pickled them in a big pot. And then St. Nicholas
Speaker 1: resurrects the chopped up, pickled children. Oh man, that's wonderful.
Speaker 1: That's the best resurrection story ever heard. But it does
Speaker 1: drive home the inherent darkness of Christmas when we talk
Speaker 1: about the like the commercialization and the modernization of holiday
Speaker 1: traditions were generally squeezing the darkness out of it. And
Speaker 1: that's why I feel like so many people have taken
Speaker 1: to say Crampus and other traditional yet dark elements of
Speaker 1: holiday and pagan tradition because they represent the darkness that
Speaker 1: we're trying to get away from. And it ultimately is
Speaker 1: a dark time. It is about surviving the winter is
Speaker 1: it is about the cold moving in about life, draining
Speaker 1: from all of our vegetation, and we have to somehow
Speaker 1: stay warm and stay fed and live to see the spring. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it feels very possible that this could be something
Speaker 1: that's like, I don't know, almost kind of a young
Speaker 1: Gian archetype kind of thing, a thing that's coded deep
Speaker 1: into the unconscious, that's some kind of received memory from biohistory,
Speaker 1: because you look at how a lot of other animals
Speaker 1: deal with the winter, deal with the cold months, and
Speaker 1: it is they go. They undergo profound changes beyond just
Speaker 1: the changes in how humans practice their culture when it
Speaker 1: gets cold. Oh yeah, I mean one of the most
Speaker 1: iconic examples is, of course, the bear. And I was
Speaker 1: recently listening to Roaming Imagination What the stories we tell
Speaker 1: about bears say about us? On CBC Radio's Ideas with
Speaker 1: Paul Kennedy, one of my favorite podcast slash radio programs.
Speaker 1: Folks out there, you didn't get to hear it, but
Speaker 1: before we started, Robert was trying to do with Paul Kennedy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I sadly I can't. I can. I can nail a
Speaker 1: few impersonations, but I just can't quite capture Paul Kennedy's
Speaker 1: lovely voice. You sound kind of like Optimist Prime when
Speaker 1: it Yeah, he's like a Canadian Optimist Prime, I would guess.
Speaker 1: But in this episode they point out the mythic power
Speaker 1: of bears in many ancient Northern traditions, traditions that gave
Speaker 1: the bear place of honor as a boundary walker between
Speaker 1: the human and the divine, because when the cruel winter
Speaker 1: rolls in, threatening our survival and even our very sanity,
Speaker 1: the bear ventures into the earth, only to emerge again
Speaker 1: in the spring. So it's it's it's like a resurrection really.
Speaker 1: Uh So this is why you see shamans have in
Speaker 1: ancient societies taking on the guys of the holy bear.
Speaker 1: Norwegian traditions, for example, uh entailed grave shrouds of bear hide,
Speaker 1: appropriating the magical power of this animal that seeks and
Speaker 1: returns from the winter grave. In Finland you have pre
Speaker 1: Christian traditions that hold that bears can reincarnate, and the
Speaker 1: indigenous reincarnate as other bears or reincarnate as other types
Speaker 1: of creatures as bears. Yeah, so there's like that, there
Speaker 1: is this h this cycle of the bear. So like
Speaker 1: the bear is following a different set of rules for
Speaker 1: life and death. And then there's the indigenous I knew
Speaker 1: people of Japan that holds the bear is a god
Speaker 1: but in an in an interesting twist, a god made
Speaker 1: flesh for their consumption and use. Uh so, so these
Speaker 1: are bear eating people's Well yeah, yeah, they they eat
Speaker 1: the bear, they use the bears hide, and they make
Speaker 1: products out of the bear. But there's this idea that
Speaker 1: the god that becomes the bear has become the bear
Speaker 1: so that they can use its flesh, oh like like
Speaker 1: a sacrificial like this is my bare body, take and
Speaker 1: eat exactly. Yeah. And then afterwards they hold a ceremony
Speaker 1: to return the bear god's spirit to the spirit realm.
Speaker 1: And of course, even today, bear hibernation, which which is
Speaker 1: not a true hibernation, remains of interest to scientists, even
Speaker 1: in the consideration of future space travel. Now you say
Speaker 1: it's not a true hibernation, what would actually be the
Speaker 1: difference between this pseudo hibernation we see in bears and
Speaker 1: a true hibernation. Well, what bears do is certainly incredible
Speaker 1: and and we'll get to the details of that in
Speaker 1: a second, but but true hibernation is even crazier. The
Speaker 1: Arctic ground squirrel, for instance, drops its body temperature below freezing,
Speaker 1: which is cold enough that neurons in the brain's cortex
Speaker 1: are physically incapable of firing, so basically it can put
Speaker 1: its brain on pause. Yeah, basically. Uh. In Jason Biddle's
Speaker 1: Slate article The Great do Bear hibernate Debate, he points
Speaker 1: to a wonderful two experiment with torpid marmots, and it
Speaker 1: found that you could place these hibernating creatures in a
Speaker 1: glass container full of noxious gas and they were unharmed
Speaker 1: so long as their body temperature didn't rise enough for
Speaker 1: them to emerge from hibernation, so they could sort of freeze.
Speaker 1: And it's almost like they just cut themselves off from
Speaker 1: outside influence and some unless something like squishes them. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: as long as nothing comes in and messes with them
Speaker 1: during the hibernation, right, I guess you're always going to
Speaker 1: be vulnerable to getting squished. Yeah, that's I mean, that's
Speaker 1: that's the risk of being a marmot. Uh No. But
Speaker 1: in the case of hibernating bears, I mean this. They
Speaker 1: fascinate us for a number of reasons, and a lot
Speaker 1: of it comes down to the fact that you have
Speaker 1: this rugged apex omnivore. So it's it's a be steal
Speaker 1: reflection of us in many respects. I mean, you can
Speaker 1: even walk on two legs when it needs to. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was just thinking about that, all the ways that
Speaker 1: the bare mirrors the human. It can walk on two legs,
Speaker 1: it does eat both you know. It's it's a total
Speaker 1: opportunist in terms of diet, can eat both plants and animals,
Speaker 1: and when it decides to eat animals, it is a
Speaker 1: formidable predator, just like humans. Um. It almost it seems
Speaker 1: like it's like the other thing like us out there.
Speaker 1: If you don't have great apes to compare yourself to, Like,
Speaker 1: if you're not in a place where there are chimpanzees
Speaker 1: or orangutangs or guerrillas, what's the closest thing to a
Speaker 1: human seems like it might be a bear. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: I was running class across various folkloric beliefs and myths
Speaker 1: and involved people turning to bears, bears turning into people.
Speaker 1: The idea that bears are people who have wandered too
Speaker 1: far into the wilderness and they've been transformed by the
Speaker 1: magic of the wilderness. So it feels almost like Grendel.
Speaker 1: It's like the earth rim roamer becomes a bear. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And indeed, and this is an earth rim roamer in
Speaker 1: many of these traditions. It is it is ranging between
Speaker 1: life and death because it can it can essentially leap
Speaker 1: frog over the coldest and cruelest months of the year.
Speaker 1: They quote unquote hibernate. They cut their metabolic rate in half.
Speaker 1: So tell me about the pseudo hibernation. Okay, Well, according
Speaker 1: to Edgar Folk of the University of Iowa, a late
Speaker 1: fall bears heart beats forty to fifty times a minute
Speaker 1: during sleep, but during deep hibernation it slows to as
Speaker 1: few as eight beats a minute. So they during this
Speaker 1: time they don't eat. Their body is stored up enough
Speaker 1: to provide them up to four thousand calories a day
Speaker 1: during the winter, and the bear's body even takes uriah
Speaker 1: in urine and builds new nitrogen from the protein. They
Speaker 1: don't defecate, they don't drink, and yet when they waken
Speaker 1: the spring, there they're they're hydrated. They have a balance
Speaker 1: of of water in their bodies, and they also avoid
Speaker 1: muscle cramping in degenerative bone loss during this time, despite
Speaker 1: being just crammed up in a tiny space the whole time.
Speaker 1: I feel like humans often use the metaphor of hibernation,
Speaker 1: like we think, Okay, it's winter time, I'm going to
Speaker 1: spend a lot of time indoors with my loved ones.
Speaker 1: We're gonna cuttle up. I'm gonna be under a blanket
Speaker 1: most of the time. But we don't really have anything
Speaker 1: like this to to compare this experience to. This is
Speaker 1: just a different type of existence where you can go
Speaker 1: into this sub metabolic state where you really do It's
Speaker 1: not like you die and come back. I mean metaphorically,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like that, but it is as if
Speaker 1: you become a different kind of organism for for a
Speaker 1: significant part of the year. It's like you it's almost
Speaker 1: like an animal sort of becomes a plant for this
Speaker 1: amount of time. Yeah, becomes this sort of fleshy rock
Speaker 1: in the earth. And then and and you can see
Speaker 1: why it capture the imaginations of people. Um though, it
Speaker 1: is interesting to try and imagine ancient people following the
Speaker 1: bear and finding out where the bear goes and what
Speaker 1: that discovery was like, like how they came to this
Speaker 1: realization that the that this formidable creature is climbing into
Speaker 1: the earth and just not emerging for months on end.
Speaker 1: You can easily see, especially given what we've already said
Speaker 1: about it being in some cases kind of similar to
Speaker 1: a human, why this would take on a magical aspect
Speaker 1: to people. Yeah, So in this episode, we're gonna look
Speaker 1: at what we humans become during the winter. So obviously
Speaker 1: we don't experience anything like the bear or true hibernators,
Speaker 1: but the winter does have an effect on our bodies,
Speaker 1: on our minds, on our personality, and our culture. And
Speaker 1: through culture, I think we have sometimes found ways to
Speaker 1: mirror the bear. Now, obviously there are plenty of examples
Speaker 1: we could turn to for winter survival culture, but one
Speaker 1: of the most amazing is that of the qua qua
Speaker 1: Kyuuk people. Yeah. So the qua qua Quuk is the
Speaker 1: name of a group of First Nations tribes that speak
Speaker 1: the Qua Kuala language and that this is uh basically,
Speaker 1: their home is the Pacific northwest around Vancouver Island and stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and in these various tribes have different names for themselves,
Speaker 1: but this is just the this is the catch off
Speaker 1: for their their their cultural system. Yeah, the language group. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and interestingly enough, the Field Museum in Chicago. They have
Speaker 1: an excellent section on the art and culture of various
Speaker 1: Native American tribes, including this one. And Joe, you and
Speaker 1: I both visited this during a two thousand seventeen visit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that is a fantastic collection and these artworks and uh
Speaker 1: ceremonial artifacts are just beautiful if you ever get a
Speaker 1: chance to see it. But also if you get a chance,
Speaker 1: you should check out the u Missta Cultural Center of
Speaker 1: British Columbia, which is run by the Umistic Cultural Society.
Speaker 1: And and that's a qua Qua kubuk uh run center
Speaker 1: dedicated to preserving the cultural heritage and the h and
Speaker 1: the traditional artifacts of the Quakua Keuuck people. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I'll include a link to that organization on the landing
Speaker 1: page for this episode. It's stuff to Blew your Mind
Speaker 1: dot com. So, for the quaku Ku people, summer is
Speaker 1: a time of travel, gathering of foods, preservation of foods
Speaker 1: for the winter because when winter comes, which runs November
Speaker 1: through March, it is a harsh time, but it's also
Speaker 1: a sacred time. And during this time the people are
Speaker 1: visited by supernatural spirits. Everyone takes different names and are
Speaker 1: defined more by their membership in these different dance societies,
Speaker 1: each based on a different supernatural entity, and so these
Speaker 1: societies they even take presidents over clan affiliation. It basically
Speaker 1: divides their world up into two phases. You have the summer,
Speaker 1: which is uh box us, and then there's winter, which
Speaker 1: is uh sets qua which which has been translated as secrets.
Speaker 1: This is a really fascinating aspect of this culture because
Speaker 1: it takes something that, as we were saying earlier, in
Speaker 1: some ways as kind of subtly or implicitly present in
Speaker 1: in many other cultures, like the way we sort of
Speaker 1: change according to the seasons, but it makes it more
Speaker 1: explicit and and sort of commits the people within the
Speaker 1: culture to say, us, we are different beings when the
Speaker 1: cold months arrive. Yeah, Because it's one thing to think, well,
Speaker 1: you know, Joe is a slightly different person during the winter.
Speaker 1: But if you were to actually change your name, if
Speaker 1: you were to distinguish between summer Joe and winter Joe
Speaker 1: and like sign things as winter Joe and you know
Speaker 1: that would be that would be a different case altogether
Speaker 1: and have different intra society association. So, in other words,
Speaker 1: for the qua qua Uk people, all cultural energy shifts
Speaker 1: from harvesting food to a four month ritual cycle aimed
Speaker 1: at taming cosmos threatening supernatural forces, while the rule of
Speaker 1: summer is a hierarchy based on mythical founding ancestors. Uh
Speaker 1: said say, qua is all about the dance groups. And
Speaker 1: I have a wonderful quote here I want to read
Speaker 1: that I think underlines a lot of this. This is
Speaker 1: from a paper titled it is a strict law that
Speaker 1: bids us dance Uh. Cosmologies, colonialism, death, and ritual authority
Speaker 1: in the Quawa pot Latch eight nine two by Joseph Moscow,
Speaker 1: published in Comparative Studies in Society and History. In total,
Speaker 1: the seasons present a ritual cycle which deconstructs and reinvents
Speaker 1: the social order. The barren winter months, in which the
Speaker 1: collective spiritual energy of all the tribes must be focused
Speaker 1: on regenerating the natural world, are turned into a fecundity
Speaker 1: of the summer months, when the animal world, placated by
Speaker 1: continuing ritual, offers itself up for human consumption. Thus, the
Speaker 1: Quuucks saw themselves as participants in a universal ecology requiring
Speaker 1: continuous maintenance. Its root metaphor was that of hunter and hunted,
Speaker 1: to live means to kill. Now to give you an
Speaker 1: example of some of the the dance groups, the the
Speaker 1: affiliations that one UH is associated with during the winter. UH.
Speaker 1: There is the Hamasta or Cannibal Society, and they're defined
Speaker 1: by the myth of four brothers who ventured into the
Speaker 1: home of the cannibal spirit at the quote north end
Speaker 1: of the world, which I can't help but think of
Speaker 1: Santa h. Wait, we're touched on that, but UH here
Speaker 1: the cannibal spirit lived with a man eating raven called
Speaker 1: Crooked Beak of Heaven and a giant bird who cracked
Speaker 1: open human skulls with its beak and ate the brains. Uh.
Speaker 1: The brothers end up defeating all of these creatures and
Speaker 1: they gained special powers. So to join the society, you
Speaker 1: had to undergo an ordeal in which the cannibal spirit
Speaker 1: kidnaps you, takes you into the woods, and when you
Speaker 1: return to the tribe, you're possessed like a wild man.
Speaker 1: You're dressed only in scraps of hemlock, you're dancing about
Speaker 1: in a squatting position, and the others have to entice
Speaker 1: you to venture close to the fire with either a
Speaker 1: corpse or a corpse like figure. Yeah, so you lune,
Speaker 1: you're lunging at people, you're biding at people, you're even
Speaker 1: actually biting pre selected people. So this is like a
Speaker 1: choreographed thing. Yeah, well, I wonder to what extent it's
Speaker 1: it's like choreographed, maybe with a bit of improv, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's theater. It's essentially well, just call it theater.
Speaker 1: Is is probably not giving it enough depth because it
Speaker 1: is a most potent form of theater. It's not necessarily
Speaker 1: a performance for an audience, but it's an enactment, yes,
Speaker 1: an enactment for the people and for the cosmos. It is.
Speaker 1: It is a magical ceremony. Finally, an attendant leads you
Speaker 1: around the fire by a neck ring, pacifying you with music.
Speaker 1: Four times around the fire, and then you climb through
Speaker 1: a hole in a ceremonial screen and you reappear in
Speaker 1: the mask of the man eating raven. Then you reappear maskless,
Speaker 1: and then as the crooked beak of Heaven, and finally
Speaker 1: you return for a fifth dance, fully tamed, and dance
Speaker 1: in an upright position. So we see this like this transformation,
Speaker 1: this taming of the wild um and and and it
Speaker 1: also touches on this idea of the cannibal spirit. Would
Speaker 1: you see president in a number of different Native people's
Speaker 1: folk beliefs, probably most famous and typified in the Windy go.
Speaker 1: In addition to this, you have the Grizzly Bear society
Speaker 1: that keeps ordered during the ceremony, sometimes eaven even punishing
Speaker 1: transgressions with death. And during some of the dances you
Speaker 1: see them wearing full bear skins and behaving as bears.
Speaker 1: You have full fool dancers who run around causing chaos.
Speaker 1: And then you have the wild Women of the Woods.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, because this one. She appears as a person
Speaker 1: clad in bear skins and a horrid mask, and she
Speaker 1: carries a basket which she uses to to crate away
Speaker 1: children who have wandered into the woods so that she
Speaker 1: can eat them. I detect some parallels to cramp Us. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean both of these are the the wild child
Speaker 1: eating creature that that serves as a warning to naughty children,
Speaker 1: uh during during the winter. So on one hand, I
Speaker 1: my reaction to this is strong in that I not
Speaker 1: only find this very like esthetically pleasing and beautiful, but
Speaker 1: also I I detect a kind of deep genius in it,
Speaker 1: if that makes any sense. There's something profound that the
Speaker 1: practitioners of these ceremonies have tapped into about our nature
Speaker 1: as human beings that a lot of us have not
Speaker 1: quite figured out how to properly animate. Yeah. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: love how revealing this example feels. Even for denizens of
Speaker 1: the modern world. You know, we're so technologically aided in
Speaker 1: our battle against winter. We we have heated homes, we
Speaker 1: have we have you know, all the electricity we can
Speaker 1: use we have, we have fresh water we have, we
Speaker 1: can even have fresh vegetables delivered right to our door. Uh.
Speaker 1: And yet this still strikes a court of truth for us. Yeah. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: because no matter how many space heaters you surround yourself with,
Speaker 1: and no matter how much you have access to unholy
Speaker 1: summer foods out of season in the winter. And folks,
Speaker 1: I should just say, don't buy tomatoes in the winter.
Speaker 1: Just don't do it. Don't encourage that. But what if
Speaker 1: you need spaghetti? Spaghetti is such a use canned tomatoes.
Speaker 1: They were canned in the summer. That's okay, that's right.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the spirit of surviving the winter is
Speaker 1: use the canned goods, use the survival foods. Eat the
Speaker 1: pickles as long as they're not made from children. And
Speaker 1: obviously wait where was I going with that? Well, no, anyway,
Speaker 1: so um no, you know, no matter, just like you say,
Speaker 1: no matter how much we can use technology to ward
Speaker 1: off some of the worst effects of seasonal changes, whether
Speaker 1: it's actually winter or hot summer months, or if you
Speaker 1: live in tropical areas, whether it's the rainy season, you
Speaker 1: might be able to technologically put yourself into a state
Speaker 1: of stability, you know, indoors with all of this electrical equipment.
Speaker 1: But we sort of can't write seasonal changes out of
Speaker 1: our DNA, things like the winter, the rainy season, you know,
Speaker 1: whatever these seasonal changes are that are relevant wherever you live.
Speaker 1: There are a deep part of us that is not
Speaker 1: going to dissipate just because we've got climate control. That's right.
Speaker 1: On that note, We're gonna take a quick break, and
Speaker 1: when we come back, we will begin to explore the
Speaker 1: winter changes to the human body. All right, we're back,
Speaker 1: all right. So we've talked about rituals that reimagine the
Speaker 1: person is sort of a different type of being living
Speaker 1: in a different type of cosmic significance regime with within
Speaker 1: the seasonal changes, like within the winter versus the summer.
Speaker 1: But there are many ways in which our bodies are very,
Speaker 1: uh you might say, very finely and delicately sensitive too,
Speaker 1: seasonal changes. Right, yeah, And this is in this area
Speaker 1: of the discussion. We're going to get into some areas
Speaker 1: here where there's no question that the winter has an
Speaker 1: effect on the body. So, for starters were creatures who
Speaker 1: evolved to thrive in the sun. So you can expect
Speaker 1: some firm biological reasons that you would need to say,
Speaker 1: catch a few rays, right, even as the rays become
Speaker 1: rarer in the colder months. Now, Robert, I know you
Speaker 1: can tell me good reasons we shouldn't extinguish the sun.
Speaker 1: There there are some days, especially here in our office,
Speaker 1: where in the wintertime, in the afternoon, the sun comes
Speaker 1: around and comes just through the window in such a
Speaker 1: way that I am an aunt under a magnifying glass
Speaker 1: at my desk and like my screens just turned into
Speaker 1: a tunnel of white light into death where I can't
Speaker 1: see anything for the glare. And I have at those
Speaker 1: times said I want to extinguish the sun. Can we
Speaker 1: find a way to do it? Just put it out?
Speaker 1: But that's probably a bad idea, right, Probably, yeah, I would,
Speaker 1: I would advise against that. You know, for starters, that
Speaker 1: it does light and heat and sustain the world. But
Speaker 1: but then there's also a vitamin D to consider. So
Speaker 1: vitamin D this is a fat soluble nutrient that our
Speaker 1: bodies need to absorb calcium and phosphorus, both of which
Speaker 1: are central to the development of strong bones. Now we
Speaker 1: can get vitamin D from oily fish, from fortified milk,
Speaker 1: but for the most part, you're gonna need the sun
Speaker 1: to get your vitamin D or supplements. But when we
Speaker 1: get into the subject of supplements, that's that's where things
Speaker 1: get surprisingly sticky, and I have to admit I really
Speaker 1: was not up on all of this to I read
Speaker 1: an article by A. Gina Colada in The New York
Speaker 1: Times titled why are so many people popping Vitamin D
Speaker 1: because it tastes so good? Well? Uh nabe. But but
Speaker 1: basically the situation here is that about a decade ago,
Speaker 1: some doctors became concerned about potential vitamin D deficiency in
Speaker 1: people enduring far northern climates. Uh. People such as Dr
Speaker 1: Michael F. Holick, a professor of medicines, physiology and biophysics
Speaker 1: at Boston University School of Medicine advocated the importance of
Speaker 1: vitamin D supplements based on what seemed to be an
Speaker 1: association between low vitamin D levels and higher rates of
Speaker 1: various diseases. The idea was that vitamin D levels were
Speaker 1: that were lower that considered normal back in early two
Speaker 1: thousands might be linked to multiple sclerosis and mental illness,
Speaker 1: as well as cancer risk and bone health. I mean
Speaker 1: those are some wide ranging effects. Yeah, So they recommended
Speaker 1: daily allowance uh IS is currently said at six hundred
Speaker 1: international units up to age seventy and eight hundred international
Speaker 1: units for people who are older. And as Colot points how,
Speaker 1: this would require near constant exposure to sunlight. Well, that
Speaker 1: doesn't sound practical, especially during the winter right where there
Speaker 1: is literally less sunlight to go around. And you can
Speaker 1: couple that with the possibility that you're huddling inside of
Speaker 1: a cave or you know, or or or at least
Speaker 1: a very nice heated apartment or home. Now, one thing,
Speaker 1: I guess we should go ahead and say right here,
Speaker 1: it probably would have come up at some point, but
Speaker 1: we also we don't want to encourage northern hemisphere bias,
Speaker 1: so we should mention that the winter is not just
Speaker 1: say December, January, February. The winter is affected by what
Speaker 1: hemisphere you dwell in, right, So it's about the tilt
Speaker 1: of the earth and the amount of direct sunlight that
Speaker 1: you're receiving your latitude on the earth. So the winter
Speaker 1: months for the northern hemisphere, the summer months for the
Speaker 1: southern hemisphere, and vice versa. Both both hemispheres will get
Speaker 1: a summer in a winter unless you're near the equator. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so there you go. It's Colota explorers. Small
Speaker 1: studies in even larger ones, however, have failed to support
Speaker 1: a link between vitamin D and the prevention of heart attacks, cancer,
Speaker 1: and strokes. Uh. Yet, Vitamin D supplements remain big business,
Speaker 1: but there's been some pushback against the notion that they
Speaker 1: provide a true measurable medical boost. Uh. Nor they say,
Speaker 1: is there a good reason for people without osteoporosis or
Speaker 1: vitamin D absorption interfering conditions to undergo regular tests for
Speaker 1: vitamin D. Now that's not to say vitamin D deficiency
Speaker 1: isn't a problem, especially in utero enduring early childhood. It
Speaker 1: can result in rickets, which is a defective mineralization or
Speaker 1: calcification of bones and growing bodies, and this is still
Speaker 1: a problem in the developing world. Can cause skeletal growth, retardation,
Speaker 1: skeletal deformities, and increase the risk of hip fractures in
Speaker 1: later life. Uh. This this last bit according to Dr
Speaker 1: Michael F. Hollock, who I referenced earlier. Hallock is a
Speaker 1: is an author that comes up time and time again
Speaker 1: in these various studies about vitamin d efficiency. Man, I
Speaker 1: feel like vitamin supplements is one of those incredibly controversial
Speaker 1: issues that I can never really get a settled opinion on.
Speaker 1: And it's something I've read about multiple times. But I
Speaker 1: you know, I read people saying, yeah, take them, No,
Speaker 1: don't take them. Yeah, no you should take them. No,
Speaker 1: they don't do anything. Yeah. I feel like, especially for
Speaker 1: a lot of us who grew up, you know, being
Speaker 1: preached at sometimes by whole Cogan himself on the importance
Speaker 1: of taking her vitamins. Uh, it's it's this weird revelation
Speaker 1: to to realize that, well, actually the science isn't isn't
Speaker 1: solid on the necessity of some of these vitamins. Well,
Speaker 1: it's not. I think it's not the vitamins themselves, right,
Speaker 1: But yes, the supplement supplement for because there's no denying
Speaker 1: that vitamin D is important to the human body. What
Speaker 1: what the sticking point is, to what extent do we
Speaker 1: need to be taking supplements or does the average person
Speaker 1: need to take supplements to make up for what you're
Speaker 1: perhaps not getting from the sun. Now, there's still a
Speaker 1: lot of research out there on the degree to which
Speaker 1: vitamin D via supplements, supplements and fortification is important to
Speaker 1: human health. And I mean, there's a lot of research
Speaker 1: in this area, and and perhaps it's something will have
Speaker 1: to circle back around to in the future. But here's
Speaker 1: just a taste of some of the recent studies. Uh
Speaker 1: two thousand seventeen, Here are just a few Vitamin D
Speaker 1: linked with better live birth rates in women undergoing assisted reproduction.
Speaker 1: Vitamin D maybe simple treatment to enhance burn healing. Vitamin
Speaker 1: D supplements could help pain management. Vitamin D deficiency increases
Speaker 1: risk of chronic headache. And then here's the two thousand
Speaker 1: sixteen when increasing nursing mother's vitamin D levels made benefit babies.
Speaker 1: As I said earlier, apparently wide ranging effects. I'm always
Speaker 1: kind of curious about stuff that that seems to have
Speaker 1: effects so broad. Not to say I doubt the research.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure there's a lot to be learned
Speaker 1: about how how important nutrients like this are now. Interestingly enough,
Speaker 1: a number of the studies have come out of Finland,
Speaker 1: northern Europe, in country known for its cold winters. And
Speaker 1: of course it's sauna dependency. You know, that doesn't surprise me.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you've got a deficiency of sunlight, this
Speaker 1: seems like a thing very much worth studying. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: this among the studies, there was a large scale two
Speaker 1: thousand seventeen study published in Neurology that finds women with
Speaker 1: low levels of vitamin D in their blood are more
Speaker 1: likely to develop multiple sclerosis later in life. Still, as
Speaker 1: Gina Colada drives home in a New York Times article,
Speaker 1: there has never been widely accepted evidence that vitamin D
Speaker 1: is helpful in preventing or treating depression, fatigue, muscle weakness,
Speaker 1: or even heart disease or cancer. Huh, sounds like we
Speaker 1: got a lot of question marks. Yeah, so yeah again,
Speaker 1: you you kind of I feel like you kind of
Speaker 1: leave this section perhaps with more questions than answers. I
Speaker 1: feel like that happens almost any time we get into nutrition.
Speaker 1: Nutrition is just one of the thorniest subjects out there,
Speaker 1: and whenever it comes down to what nutrient really does
Speaker 1: for event x Y or Z or cause x Y
Speaker 1: or Z, you think you know something, but then there
Speaker 1: are a lot more question marks, but still undeniably we
Speaker 1: can say we need vitamin D. We get a lot
Speaker 1: of it from the sun, and there is less sunlight
Speaker 1: in the winter. Yes, so do with that information what
Speaker 1: you will. All right, on that note, we're going to
Speaker 1: take a quick break, but we'll be right back. Than alright,
Speaker 1: we're back now. Another area of consideration is the effect
Speaker 1: of sunlight on melatonin. And I'm sure everyone has at
Speaker 1: least some familiarity with what we're talking about here, seasonal
Speaker 1: effective disorder. Oh really, So, I've actually wondered about this
Speaker 1: before because I've wondered if I have some mild form
Speaker 1: of this. But that also led me to do a
Speaker 1: little reading on it, and I know some people would
Speaker 1: allege that this is not really a real or distinct condition. Now,
Speaker 1: of course, there are mood disorders, and some people might
Speaker 1: experience them more often in winter months, but it is
Speaker 1: this a distinct disorder of its own. Yeah, this is
Speaker 1: this is another area with a fair amount of conflict
Speaker 1: in it. And yet at the same time, I'm like you,
Speaker 1: I can't help but think about the winter, especially when
Speaker 1: I'm in the winter, and ask myself, well, am I
Speaker 1: feeling a bit blue today because because it's it's cold out?
Speaker 1: Is it? Is? It? Is it? Do I have some
Speaker 1: level of seasonal effective disorder? Yeah? Then again, I mean
Speaker 1: when you do that, you run the risk of of
Speaker 1: blowing out of proportion or self medicalizing sort of basically
Speaker 1: normal levels of mood fluctuation, like I might feel a
Speaker 1: lot more down in the winter. Especially it does seem
Speaker 1: to be somewhat seasonally related because I feel it especially
Speaker 1: in the afternoon when I noticed the sun is very low,
Speaker 1: very early in the afternoon, and that's sort of the
Speaker 1: visual and and uh sensory trigger for it. I start
Speaker 1: to feel the doom creeping in. But I don't want
Speaker 1: to get carried away and and start thinking, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I've got I've got a disorder, I've got a mood disorder. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: but one of the interesting things is that on one level,
Speaker 1: you can say, oh, well, Joe is Josie's the the
Speaker 1: approaching darkness and uh and and is frightened by the
Speaker 1: terror of night. It may just be that I suddenly
Speaker 1: have insight in the truth is that doom is always
Speaker 1: creeping in well. But the other side of it is
Speaker 1: your body has insight. Is is we're going to discuss here,
Speaker 1: Like the perception of of of darkness and light is
Speaker 1: taking place at you know, at a far subconscious level,
Speaker 1: at a bodily level. So the pennial gland secretes melotonin.
Speaker 1: This is a hormone that communicates information about environmental lighting
Speaker 1: to various parts of the body. It's especially key to
Speaker 1: biological rhythms, and the duration of melotonin secretion each day
Speaker 1: is directly proportional to the length of the night. Okay,
Speaker 1: so this, for just one thing among many, probably helps
Speaker 1: to deal with our sleep cycles. Our body needs to
Speaker 1: know when it's time to sleep right exactly. So naturally,
Speaker 1: shorter days meanless melotonin, and this kind of decrease in
Speaker 1: melotonin is often linked to seasonal effective disorder, which to
Speaker 1: just to to define it more clearly, is seen as
Speaker 1: a mood disorder subset that sees otherwise mentally healthy individuals
Speaker 1: experience a mood dip during the winter. It affects women
Speaker 1: more than men, and theories regarding its cause also include
Speaker 1: dropping serotonin levels due to reduce sunlight, as well as
Speaker 1: disrupted UH circadian rhythm. At any rate, rates of seasonal
Speaker 1: effective disorder do seem to increase the farther you move
Speaker 1: away from the equator, so this this is how the
Speaker 1: National Institutes of Mental Health currently defines it. Seasonal effective
Speaker 1: disorder is not considered as a separate disorder. It is
Speaker 1: a type of depression displaying a recurring seasonal pattern. To
Speaker 1: be diagnosed with with seasonal effective disorder, people must meet
Speaker 1: full criteria from major depression conciding with specific seasons, appearing
Speaker 1: in the winter or summer months, interestingly enough, for at
Speaker 1: least two years. Seasonal depressions must be much more frequent
Speaker 1: than any non seasonal depressions and UH. The full range
Speaker 1: of symptoms include low energy, hypersomnia, over eating, weight gain,
Speaker 1: craving for carbohydrates, and of course social withdrawal, which some
Speaker 1: people say feels like hibernating. Now, I'm sure some people
Speaker 1: would just say rather cheekily like, well, you just describe
Speaker 1: my personality, that is who I am. But I think
Speaker 1: what we're talking about here is like these symptoms to
Speaker 1: a level that it causes problems in your life. Now,
Speaker 1: seasonal effective disorder has always been somewhat divisive. It's it's
Speaker 1: only been recognized as a condition since the late nineteen nineties,
Speaker 1: and not everyone degree agrees that it's a full fledged disorder.
Speaker 1: A two thousand sixteen study headed up by Dr Stephen Lobello,
Speaker 1: professor of psychology at Auburn University at Montgomery, found that quote,
Speaker 1: the prevalence of depression is very stable across different latitudes,
Speaker 1: seasons of the year, and sunlight exposures. And in getting
Speaker 1: to to this point, the researchers examined data from UH
Speaker 1: thirty four thousand, two hundred four participants age eighteen to
Speaker 1: ninety nine who took part in a phone survey about
Speaker 1: their health through two thousand and six. Okay, so this
Speaker 1: would seem to contrast with what you said earlier, which
Speaker 1: was that at least it had been alleged that the
Speaker 1: rates of seasonal effective disorder type symptoms were reported more
Speaker 1: at higher latitudes, Right, Yeah, this would seem to fly
Speaker 1: in the face of that. On the other hand, however,
Speaker 1: at recent Northwestern Medicine study found that daily exposure to
Speaker 1: bright white light and midday significantly decreased symptoms of depression
Speaker 1: and increased functioning in people with bipolar disorder, and previous
Speaker 1: studies have found morning bright light therapy reduced symptoms of
Speaker 1: depression in patients with seasonal effective disorder. You know once,
Speaker 1: So one thing I'm taking away from this is this
Speaker 1: is yet another situation where once you try to aild
Speaker 1: down exactly what this condition is, and you know, you
Speaker 1: medicalize it and you put it in scientific terminology, it
Speaker 1: does seem to get a little fuzzy maybe um, but
Speaker 1: there's no denying that there's something people are experiencing, what
Speaker 1: whether or not, whether or not it fits the medical
Speaker 1: definition of the disorder as established. People anecdotally report things
Speaker 1: like this enough that you know, at least people are
Speaker 1: feeling something, right. I think it's it's undeniable that winter
Speaker 1: can impact one's existing emotional state, and sometimes that impact
Speaker 1: is sufficient enough to where it it's it seems to
Speaker 1: be an actual, uh psychological condition. Now here's another weird
Speaker 1: thing about the way our bodies changed with the seasons.
Speaker 1: It is not just vitamin D deficiency or mood changes
Speaker 1: that can be caused by the winter months, but you
Speaker 1: actually see a pretty stark increase in the risk of
Speaker 1: mortality from certain diseases during winter. That's right, there's something
Speaker 1: that's referred to as winter cardiovascular disease is phenomenon because
Speaker 1: there does seem to be a seasonal trend of cardiovascular diseases,
Speaker 1: and these range from venous thrombosis to sudden cardiac death,
Speaker 1: with the highest incidences occurring during the cold or winter months. Now,
Speaker 1: there could be a lot of reasons for that, right,
Speaker 1: That's one of those things where you you say, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're correlating two variables here. You know, this cardiovascular disease
Speaker 1: death and the winter months, and it might not necessarily
Speaker 1: be the winter conditions itself that causes it, but they
Speaker 1: do appear to be correlated. Yes. Now, in a lighter note,
Speaker 1: there is something that's also referred to as cuffing season. Now,
Speaker 1: were you familiar with this? No? I wasn't. I went
Speaker 1: and read the article. I mean, I think this is
Speaker 1: pretty funny. Why do they call it cuffing? I don't
Speaker 1: know where's that term come from. It comes from It's
Speaker 1: it's handcuffing. So there's a house stuff Works article about
Speaker 1: this that came out last year. I understand it's from
Speaker 1: a handcuffing, yes, but you want to handcuff yourself to
Speaker 1: another person. It's like, it is cold, I am lonely.
Speaker 1: I need to find somebody to shackle myself too, so
Speaker 1: that we may survive the winter together. It's the season
Speaker 1: of that movie Fled. Yeah, it's it's kind of like Fled. Uh. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The idea here is that to get through the winter,
Speaker 1: you you need to find somebody um and uh you
Speaker 1: want into a warming relationship. And there may be a
Speaker 1: biological reason behind it all. According to biochemists Dr Jennifer Stagg,
Speaker 1: it may be coded into our DNA, so in the fall,
Speaker 1: jeanes get turned on. That results and changes in both
Speaker 1: hormones and neurotransmitters that may be responsible for driving us
Speaker 1: to pair up. Plus, you have testosterone levels and men uh.
Speaker 1: They appear to be lowest during times of warmer weather
Speaker 1: in longer daylight. Peak testosterone occurs around October November, but
Speaker 1: elevation is seen throughout the winter. So there seems to
Speaker 1: be a a winter drive to pair up, a winter
Speaker 1: drive to mate. Yeah, and this apparently is not just
Speaker 1: a tiny uptick like as measured by dating apps and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. One of the figures was that apparently, okay,
Speaker 1: Cupid reports about a thirty percent increase in love seeking
Speaker 1: activity during winter. I mean, you can't deny almost a
Speaker 1: third more leven. Yeah, that that is a lot more
Speaker 1: love and winter leven. Now, one of the things you
Speaker 1: mentioned is a possible symptom outlined by NIM for seasonal
Speaker 1: effective disorder is cravings for carbohydrates. Yes, that immediately made
Speaker 1: me think of our Thanksgiving and Christmas feasting traditions. Yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly what what do we all inevitably do around Thanksgiving?
Speaker 1: But like just just stuff ourselves with all of these
Speaker 1: fatty rich foods. Uh. And it also, like anecdotally makes
Speaker 1: me think of teleworking working from home during the fall
Speaker 1: or winter, where I seem to just inevitably just turn
Speaker 1: the house upside down to find various things to to
Speaker 1: spread peanut butter on. Like I feel like my work
Speaker 1: is disrupted by this constant rummaging for food. Okay, now
Speaker 1: I gotta put you on the spot. What's the weirdest
Speaker 1: thing you've ever put peanut butter on? Oh? Um, lego, spaceship, nothing,
Speaker 1: nothing so um exotic? Probably something salty like potato chip
Speaker 1: or something you know, or done peanut butter on beef turkey.
Speaker 1: Oh gosh, that's that's that's that's pretty bad. Have you know,
Speaker 1: how about peanut butter on a lemon? Oh no, no,
Speaker 1: I haven't done that. Uh yeah, but you almost get
Speaker 1: to that point, Like luckily, you reach the point where
Speaker 1: you just eat it off a spoon. I think before
Speaker 1: you get to the point where you're you're spreading it
Speaker 1: on things that are too horrible. But if you might
Speaker 1: expect that. There have been some studies that have looked
Speaker 1: at at this at the idea of of there being
Speaker 1: a slightly different winter diet for humans. Some studies have
Speaker 1: observed seasonal rhythms to human diet, which which shouldn't come
Speaker 1: as so. Prize study in Physiology and Behavior marked to
Speaker 1: quote an increased total caloric intake, especially of carbohydrate in
Speaker 1: the fall, associated with an increase in meal size, in
Speaker 1: a greater rate of eating, rate of eating. It's like
Speaker 1: a D and D stat. Yeah, tem percent boost in
Speaker 1: in eating. You can boost your eating stat for the month. Now. Specifically,
Speaker 1: the researchers found that subjects were hungrier at the end
Speaker 1: of their meals, perhaps due to a suppression of statiation mechanisms. Okay,
Speaker 1: so it's not necessarily that you want to eat more
Speaker 1: at the beginning, but you start eating and it's a
Speaker 1: longer time before you actually feel full. Yeah, it just
Speaker 1: takes longer to reach that point where you are full
Speaker 1: or stuffed. Um. They argue that this could be an
Speaker 1: evolved adaptation that remains with us even in this you know,
Speaker 1: ultimately evolutionarily brief age of artificial heating and light. Right. Well,
Speaker 1: we obviously think about the bear who feasts before going
Speaker 1: into hibernation, so they can have that that stored up
Speaker 1: fat for the four thousand calories a day even while hibernating. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it does seem to be the sort of the shadow
Speaker 1: of the bear, doesn't it, where we're kind of mirroring
Speaker 1: its behavior. Eat as much as you you can while
Speaker 1: the food still remains plentiful in order to to to
Speaker 1: shore up for the months of winter ahead. Oh and
Speaker 1: by the way, there was there was actually a recent
Speaker 1: two thousand seventeen study published in the American Journal of
Speaker 1: Clinical Nutrition, and they explore the idea that obesity as
Speaker 1: an epidemic might also be due in large part to
Speaker 1: a circadian disorder. I think I've heard hints of this before,
Speaker 1: like that that stuff about metabolic disorders could be related
Speaker 1: to uh to like sleep schedules and things like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess through through all of this, I'm I'm reminded
Speaker 1: that humans, like all animals, are not just creatures that
Speaker 1: live within summer or live within winter, but they live
Speaker 1: ultimately in some sort of sink with their natural environments.
Speaker 1: You know, we're not We're not immune to changes in um,
Speaker 1: in the degree of some light that we're receiving in
Speaker 1: the warmth of the world, or the availability of resources,
Speaker 1: and we've evolved to thrive amid this uh this the
Speaker 1: this seasonal flow. Okay, so we're gonna have to wrap
Speaker 1: it up there for the first part of our discussion
Speaker 1: about the seasonal changes that warp and command our lives.
Speaker 1: But we had a lot to say about this, So
Speaker 1: we're gonna be back next time with part two of
Speaker 1: this conversation, when we'll discuss more about the winter beings
Speaker 1: we become. In the meantime, you can find all the
Speaker 1: episodes of the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast at
Speaker 1: stuff to Blow your Mind dot com, along with blog post,
Speaker 1: videos and links out to our various social media accounts
Speaker 1: such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler, Instagram and so forth. And hey,
Speaker 1: if you do seek us out on Facebook, well then
Speaker 1: look for our Facebook group, the Stuff to Blow your
Speaker 1: Mind discussion module. That's a wonderful place where you if
Speaker 1: you sign up and you can discuss episodes or things
Speaker 1: you would like to become episodes with other listeners to
Speaker 1: the show, as well as Joe and and I as well.
Speaker 1: It's a great place. It gets weird in there, but
Speaker 1: it's always so nice, indeed, And if you want to
Speaker 1: get in touch with us directly, as always, you can
Speaker 1: email us at Blow the Mind at how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
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