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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. This is

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Speaker 1: Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday time

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Speaker 1: for the Vault. This episode originally aired December eight. It

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Speaker 1: was part one of our series about spinning around in circles. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: these were a lot of fun. We get into sort

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Speaker 1: of the you know, what happens in the body when

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Speaker 1: you spin around in circles? So what happens in the mind,

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Speaker 1: or what can happen in the mind, What kind of

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Speaker 1: practices do we have to deal with these changes? And

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Speaker 1: then also what kind of cultural traditions are there? All right,

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Speaker 1: let's spiral out. Welcome just about to Blow your Mind

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Speaker 1: production of My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to

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Speaker 1: Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm

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Speaker 1: Joe McCormick. And today we're gonna be talking about spinning

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Speaker 1: around in circles. That's right, This is this is probably

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Speaker 1: gonna be a two partter. Sometimes we figured this out

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Speaker 1: as we go, but I believe this will be a

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Speaker 1: part one in a part two, and we're gonna be

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Speaker 1: We're gonna be looking at at humans spinning around in

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Speaker 1: circles from several different vantage points. So you know what

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Speaker 1: is it doing? Uh at a at a biological level, Uh,

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Speaker 1: you know a psychological level. Um, how does it factor

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Speaker 1: into various traditions and games, etcetera. Um, this is what

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Speaker 1: I'm pretty excited to do. And the genesis for this

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Speaker 1: one was a listener email who wrote in about about

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Speaker 1: spinning uh in um in ballet and we were we

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Speaker 1: we had a brief back and forth in a listener

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Speaker 1: mail of where we talked about then we're like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: we should totally do an episode. So here we are.

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Speaker 1: But to start off, I want to I want to

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Speaker 1: start off somewhere where at least my mind went to,

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Speaker 1: if not first, then maybe second or third. And that

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Speaker 1: is the world of of of fantasy. Combat has found

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Speaker 1: in science fiction and fantasy films, but also especially in

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Speaker 1: video games. Because when I think of people spinning, uh,

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Speaker 1: I have to say, I instantly think of im Bison

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Speaker 1: from Street Fighter doing his Psycho Crusher attack. Do you

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Speaker 1: remember this one, Joe? I didn't know what was called

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Speaker 1: the psycho Crusher, but I remember m Bison. So if

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Speaker 1: you ever played Street Fighter, he's like the big guy

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Speaker 1: in the hat. He's like the final Boss or something.

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Speaker 1: Isn't he. Yeah, yeah, or he tends to be. I

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Speaker 1: think sometimes they you know, later in incarnations they introduce

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Speaker 1: new bosses, but he's he's the boss. He's this boss

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Speaker 1: of street fighter. Yeah. And I think he's supposed to

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Speaker 1: be some kind of dictator or something. He's dressed up

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Speaker 1: in in I don't know, off brand military regalia. He's

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Speaker 1: wearing like a like a captain's hat that's read in

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Speaker 1: some kind of uniform. But he's also got the magic powers,

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Speaker 1: and so he can attack you by flying at you

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Speaker 1: kind of like the raid in like horizontal dive towards you.

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Speaker 1: But he's spinning around in circles, yeah, isn't And he's

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Speaker 1: flaming of course. And also it's it's a cool attack. Um.

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Speaker 1: And you'll see various versions of that particular attack in

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Speaker 1: various games. But there's also the version that you see

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Speaker 1: in the Mortal Kombat games as his character Nam Kong

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Speaker 1: Lao he's the guy with the razor blade hat uh.

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Speaker 1: And you also see something similar with Baraka. But but

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Speaker 1: they both have attacks in some of the games where

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Speaker 1: they spin around like a top and either either it's

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Speaker 1: offensive like they're they're spinning like a top and coming

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Speaker 1: towards you with their blades or they're spinning like a

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Speaker 1: top Kung Mile does this where he he's deflecting you,

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Speaker 1: like so if you jump at him, he starts spinning

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Speaker 1: and then bam, your injury. Well, it's very much child

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Speaker 1: brain self defense logic, where you think, like if I

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Speaker 1: spin my arms around in circles, nobody could come anywhere

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Speaker 1: near me, right right, It's like that Simpsons been I'm

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Speaker 1: gonna move my arms like this, I'm gonna move my

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Speaker 1: feet like this, and if you get in the way,

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Speaker 1: you're gonna get hit. Uh. I think there's also a

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Speaker 1: Loony Tunes Tasmanian Devil vibe to a certainly the the

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Speaker 1: the Kung Lal style attack, you know, where you're just

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Speaker 1: spinning in one spot and you're just spinning so fast

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Speaker 1: that you become a little tornado. Right, So there's at

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Speaker 1: least an intuition people have that, you know, you could

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Speaker 1: really do some damage to somebody by spinning at them

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Speaker 1: in one way or another. Yeah, I have to say

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Speaker 1: in Star Wars, Darth City is busts out a cool

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Speaker 1: psycho crusher style. I'm not sure if it's actually an attack,

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Speaker 1: but more of like an advance, like a way to

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Speaker 1: quickly get at your opponents. But he uses this in

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Speaker 1: both the Revenge of the Sith and the Clone Wars series.

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Speaker 1: Oh okay, you know, I gotta say, I I hate

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Speaker 1: I know you're more of a fan of the prequels

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Speaker 1: than I am, and I'm not trying to start a fight,

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Speaker 1: but I gotta say one of my least favorite things

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Speaker 1: about the prequels is there's just way too much spinning

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Speaker 1: in the lightsaber battles, and the prequels way too much

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Speaker 1: like jumping and flipping around the the lightsaber battles become

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Speaker 1: less dramatic and more frantic. I like the lightsaber battle

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Speaker 1: in the Empire Strikes Back, you know that that's got

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Speaker 1: like classic sword fight drama. The ones where like Yoda

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Speaker 1: is just doing like fourteen somersaults in the air and

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Speaker 1: these three sixty jumps and and they're they're doing the

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Speaker 1: Psycho crusher and twirling around like a screw. I don't

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Speaker 1: know it kind of it kind of takes me out

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Speaker 1: of the Star Wars mindset. Well, Yoda shortened statue, I mean,

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Speaker 1: he's gotta he's gotta do those flips in order to

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Speaker 1: combat a tower opponent. Um. I see what you're saying.

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Speaker 1: But I do think that the City of Spin works

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Speaker 1: really well because it's like it comes out of nowhere,

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Speaker 1: and then he instantly uses more traditional attacks to to

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Speaker 1: kill like three different Jedi masters. So it seems it

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Speaker 1: seems to work well for him. You can't argue with success, Joe.

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Speaker 1: I correct there. And also I admit my ignorance because

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Speaker 1: when you shared this clip from the movie, I thought

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Speaker 1: for a second it was Christopher Lee, and I was like, oh,

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Speaker 1: Christopher Lee, okay, but it shows what I know. Well.

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Speaker 1: It does raise the question, though, do we see that

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Speaker 1: many full spins in actual combat, because I suppose even

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Speaker 1: with something like a spin kick, you have to be careful, right,

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Speaker 1: like you don't want to throw off your your own

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Speaker 1: balance or present your back to your opponent. Um. Without

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Speaker 1: even getting into the magical effects that are often associated

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Speaker 1: with these attacks and movies and video games. UM. Now,

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Speaker 1: I have to say, I'm not a real fight officionado.

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Speaker 1: I'm not like in the M M A or boxing

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Speaker 1: ing or you know any any of these. I tend

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Speaker 1: to like my my combat fictional and worked. Um, and

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Speaker 1: and in those contacts, I love a good spinning kick.

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Speaker 1: I love a nice roaring elbow in Japanese pro wrestling. Um.

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Speaker 1: But but I was initially unsure, like does it make

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Speaker 1: sense to spin or is that just a risky flourish. Well,

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Speaker 1: it's funny. I remember asking this myself from the first

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Speaker 1: person perspective, because when I was a kid, I took

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Speaker 1: I'm doing air quotes here, tae kwond I guess I

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Speaker 1: took whatever like severely watered down version of this martial

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Speaker 1: art was being taught to young children in Tennessee in

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Speaker 1: the ninety nineties. You know, it's like, uh, I'm not

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Speaker 1: sure what exactly I was learning, but I took taekwondo classes,

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Speaker 1: and I remember thinking, even then as a child, having

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Speaker 1: questions about the practicality of the spinning kick moves, because

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Speaker 1: there would be a type of kick you do where

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Speaker 1: you would turn around, you turn all the way around

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Speaker 1: and perform a kick, And I was like, why couldn't

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Speaker 1: you just kick without turning? Does this do some kind

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Speaker 1: of advantage? Would this ever be applicable in a real

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Speaker 1: self defense situation? Uh? Like, even as a kid, I

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Speaker 1: remember having the thought, this feels more like a dance

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Speaker 1: move than a useful fighting technique, which I think is

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Speaker 1: kind of applicable because at least the way I learned taekwondo,

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Speaker 1: it was in many ways indistinguishable from a dance class,

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Speaker 1: like you were learning routines, like patterns of movement that

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Speaker 1: were you know, they were exercise. It was aerobic exercise,

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Speaker 1: and it was I guess supposed to look good, look

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Speaker 1: cool from the outside. I don't know, well, I mean,

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Speaker 1: there is a lot of crossover between dance and exercise

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Speaker 1: and martial art. Uh you find you can find these

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Speaker 1: these intermingled uh to to a large extent. And I

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Speaker 1: guess also there's the psychological aspect to fight too, right,

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Speaker 1: something might be more about confusing an opponent. So I

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Speaker 1: wasn't just wasn't trre on this either, but I did

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Speaker 1: a quick glance around on YouTube to say, okay, are

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Speaker 1: legit n n A fights um ending with beIN kicks,

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Speaker 1: and I did find this this amazing clip from I

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Speaker 1: think earlier in the summer and apparently went viral. So

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Speaker 1: if you're at all in an m m A out there,

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Speaker 1: I'm sure you've seen this, but it's uh. Hakeen Buckley

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Speaker 1: is the m m A fighter and he busts out

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Speaker 1: this spin kick, uh in the middle of this match,

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Speaker 1: and it's just a complete knockout. I'm usually not one

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Speaker 1: to find a lot of joy in um in clips

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Speaker 1: of like legitimate knockout blows, but this one was pretty impressive.

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Speaker 1: I always fun they make me. They look kind of sickening,

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Speaker 1: like watching somebody's head snap back and then they fall

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Speaker 1: to the ground. It's like, yeah, this one is a

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Speaker 1: bit sickening, So don't don't don't look at it, look

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Speaker 1: for it unless you you want to see this sort

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Speaker 1: of action. But it did answer my question, like, well,

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Speaker 1: that's a spin kick. He certainly did a complete spin

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Speaker 1: on that and just knocked a guy out, so um so,

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Speaker 1: so that initially answered my question. And I started looking

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Speaker 1: around a little bit more on that, and I found

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Speaker 1: an interesting post about taekwondo spinning kicks at turtle press

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Speaker 1: dot com by sang h Kim and the author points

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Speaker 1: out that this apparently what spin kicks weren't a were

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Speaker 1: not a viable tactic in taekwondo until the nineteen eighties

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Speaker 1: uh and and the author explains that this is due

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Speaker 1: to advances in footwork and changes in fighting stance preferences

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Speaker 1: that made it more of a viable option. Also, less

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Speaker 1: restrictive protective gear made it more of an option, as

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Speaker 1: did sort of a broadening of style to include different

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Speaker 1: weight classes and sort of added creativity to the style.

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Speaker 1: So I found that interesting. Okay, well, I'll have to

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Speaker 1: take their word for it on that one. I cannot

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Speaker 1: claim to have thoughts on this. Well, I'd be interested

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Speaker 1: to hear what any and martial arts practitioners out there

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Speaker 1: listening to this episode have to say. Certainly right in

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Speaker 1: and let us know, you know, within your style or

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Speaker 1: within you know, martial arts in general. So one of

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Speaker 1: the things that gets going in my brain when I

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Speaker 1: think about spinning is that, uh and and I'll have

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Speaker 1: an example to talk about a little bit later on.

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Speaker 1: Spinning around in circles as an adult is not fun,

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Speaker 1: and in fact it's it's not fun for like significant

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Speaker 1: periods of time after you're done doing it. But I

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Speaker 1: remember as a child I loved spinning around in circles

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Speaker 1: and I would just like do it. I'd just be

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Speaker 1: out in the yard and be like, yea, I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: spin around until I fall over. This is great. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think a lot of adults, and if not, most

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Speaker 1: adults can can can relate to this. Yeah, because you

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Speaker 1: think back on the fun, spinny things you did as

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Speaker 1: a kid, like remember Mary go out rounds. They still

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Speaker 1: have these occasionally at playgrounds, but it was a standard

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Speaker 1: playgrounds when when we were kids, and it would just

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Speaker 1: be kids just getting this thing going to as fast

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Speaker 1: as possible, just incredible speeds and just write it. We

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Speaker 1: had this. There was a playground near my grandmother's house

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Speaker 1: that had the spinning aluminum death machine that I think

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Speaker 1: they originally I think they eventually had to take out

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Speaker 1: because it was just injury city. Every time children got

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Speaker 1: on it, they'd end up having to go to the hospital.

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Speaker 1: And I loved this thing because you could spin it

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Speaker 1: so fast, uh like it was it was human powered,

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Speaker 1: you know. It was one of those where you push it,

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Speaker 1: you'd get it going like Conan the Barbarian pushing the

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Speaker 1: mill wheel. But then you build up a lot of

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Speaker 1: speed and then you just grab hold and hang on.

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Speaker 1: I can't imagine what kind of horrific injuries came off

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Speaker 1: of this thing, but but it was great when I

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Speaker 1: was a kid. And now now that sounds like torture

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Speaker 1: to me. I mean the idea of spinning around like

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Speaker 1: I did as a child for fun. Now that sounds

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Speaker 1: about as appealing as a kick to the groy and

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Speaker 1: it's just like, why would you want to do that? Also,

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Speaker 1: add that the remember the playground mary uh, spinning things,

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Speaker 1: the merrygrounds and whatnot. They would often have that, you know,

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Speaker 1: the foot trail beat into the dirt around it, which

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Speaker 1: of course would become just a complete circular mud pit

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Speaker 1: after a rain, right exactly. Another big one is is,

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Speaker 1: of course, when you're a kid rolling down a hill,

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Speaker 1: like you know where you you lay down and then

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Speaker 1: you just roll down the hill like I remember that

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Speaker 1: being a lot of fun, and I remember, you know,

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Speaker 1: I encouraged that with with my own son at a

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Speaker 1: hill near our our house in a park. But as

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Speaker 1: an adult you're like, oh my goodness, there's a there's

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Speaker 1: a weird rock here, there's some sort of a pipe here,

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Speaker 1: all right, here's a fire ant nest, here's another fire

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Speaker 1: ant nest. And that's not even getting into the fact that, yeah,

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Speaker 1: as an adult, the idea of spinning that much, you

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Speaker 1: would just you'd never get up once you got to

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Speaker 1: the bottom of the hill. Yeah, And I think these, uh,

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Speaker 1: these changes in experience are not unique to us. It

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Speaker 1: seems like there's something going on where like spinning, spinning

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Speaker 1: is highly attractive to children then and it loses its

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Speaker 1: luster as the body ages. Yeah, so let's let's start

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Speaker 1: with the kids. Why did the kids love to spin? Well?

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Speaker 1: I was looking around the for information on this, and

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Speaker 1: I found a wonderful post on this at the pin

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Speaker 1: State Extensions Better Kid Care page, and they point out

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Speaker 1: that spinning, rolling, and swinging are crucial sensory and motor

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Speaker 1: skill inputs to help children's nervous systems mature and organize.

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Speaker 1: So they really need these sorts of big body movements

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Speaker 1: in ways they really make our tendency to isolate them

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Speaker 1: in deaths or in front of teleschool computers and so forth,

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Speaker 1: you know, more than a bit ridiculous. I think maybe

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Speaker 1: there's less of that now. I I know that education

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Speaker 1: has has has evolved somewhat, and they understand the need

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Speaker 1: for big body movements and and and so forth. And

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Speaker 1: then they understood it to a certain extent when I

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Speaker 1: was a kid. You know, you would still have p

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Speaker 1: and whatnot. But yeah, kids need to spin around. You

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Speaker 1: you know, when a child spins in circles, it's because

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Speaker 1: their body craves it. And the same goes for rolling

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Speaker 1: around on the floor, standing on their heads rhythmically swaying. Uh.

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Speaker 1: So they need a space to do these things. I

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Speaker 1: mean it seems in a way it's information gathering. You're

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Speaker 1: you're you're calibrating the system, like you have to do

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Speaker 1: with your phone. When the gyroscope or whatever gets you know,

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Speaker 1: out of whack, you've got to do some exercises to

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Speaker 1: get it back on track. Yeah. So in this extension article,

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Speaker 1: the Penn State Extension article that they point out there

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Speaker 1: are some very specific ways that spinning helps children. So,

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Speaker 1: first of all, it gives them a sense of body awareness,

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Speaker 1: establishing their center for improved coordinated movement, a cross both

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Speaker 1: sides of their bodies. Uh. It also improves shore sure footedness,

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Speaker 1: which is something that might seem counterintuitive sometimes you think, oh,

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Speaker 1: this kid's just spinning around in circles. You know, they're

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Speaker 1: falling all over the place, they're gonna run into things.

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Speaker 1: But it's actually helping them become more short surefooted. Uh.

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Speaker 1: It has also been shown to improve concentration in the classroom,

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Speaker 1: and they point out that a two thousand five study

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Speaker 1: from Choir, Frick and Frick, two different fricks UH found

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Speaker 1: that the centrifugal force of many spinning activities and experiences

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Speaker 1: activate the fluid filled cavities in the inner ear. And

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Speaker 1: these are sensors that help the brain orient the head

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Speaker 1: quote which develops grounding and sustaining attention to task. And

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Speaker 1: then overall it's a boost to the vestibular system, which

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Speaker 1: controls balance, posture, gaze stabilization, and spatial orientation. And and

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Speaker 1: there's also apparently a link to impulse control. Fun fact,

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Speaker 1: right after I finished researching this section, I went off

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Speaker 1: to get some coffee and was immediately attack by my

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Speaker 1: son with imaginary lightsabers. And oh yeah, yeah, he has

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Speaker 1: he has a pair that he he he really likes

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Speaker 1: a sookatano and she has two, uh two lightsabers, so

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Speaker 1: he's made two of them out of uh tinfoil um

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Speaker 1: cardboard tubes and uh So, anyway, he was attacking me,

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Speaker 1: and I observed quite a bit of spinning in his attacks,

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Speaker 1: and I tried to do one spin and I nearly

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Speaker 1: fell down, uh and then he cut my head off.

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Speaker 1: But but but I I looked around and I've noticed

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Speaker 1: that that there are actually lightsaber exercise classes for kids

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Speaker 1: out there that they can do like virtually, and I'm

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Speaker 1: tempted to sign him up for one, especially after learning

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Speaker 1: more about the importance of spinning around in circles. That's genius.

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Speaker 1: I would have done that as a kid. You have exercise,

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Speaker 1: get that energy out. You just pretend to have a lightsaber.

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Speaker 1: How has nobody thought of this before? Yeah, yeah, that's brilliant.

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Speaker 1: I mean my my only hesitation is, uh, is, what

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Speaker 1: what is it going to mean for the lamps and

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Speaker 1: the televisions in your house? You gotta have a good

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Speaker 1: space for that, I imagine. So let's come back to

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Speaker 1: the adults. For for most of us, why does spinning

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Speaker 1: around in circles make us dizzy? Why when a yoga

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Speaker 1: instructor on a yoga video asked me to spin around

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Speaker 1: just like three or five times, why did I have

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Speaker 1: to lay down for like ten minutes after that? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: This is funny because this is a question that I

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Speaker 1: expected to have just a single, totally straightforward physiological answer,

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Speaker 1: and instead I found a strange variety of answers to

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Speaker 1: this question without a lot of acknowledgement that that there

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Speaker 1: was variety in the ways people are answering this, so

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure if I've stumbled on something that's actually

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Speaker 1: controversial or different uh different sources, or just emphasizing different

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Speaker 1: aspects of vertigo induced by spinning. But in any case,

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Speaker 1: the answer to this question definitely ended up taking a

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Speaker 1: shape that I wouldn't expect. But before we get to

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Speaker 1: the direct answer of like why spinning in circles makes

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Speaker 1: you dizzy? I think we have to meet a fascinating

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Speaker 1: and important element in this discussion. When you just mentioned

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Speaker 1: a mintigo, which is the human vestibular system. Uh so interesting.

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Speaker 1: Fact number one. We've talked about this on the show

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Speaker 1: many times before, but maybe you're new the show. Humans

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Speaker 1: actually have way more than five senses. I think it's

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Speaker 1: funny when when people end up talking about the five senses.

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Speaker 1: I guess you could maybe call them the big five senses.

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Speaker 1: They're the most obvious as senses, you know, site, hearing, taste, smell, touch,

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Speaker 1: But we have other ways of getting information from the

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Speaker 1: outside world and coordinating that within the brain. And one

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Speaker 1: of my favorite examples of a lesser known but extremely

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Speaker 1: important sense distinct from the big five is appropriate reception.

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Speaker 1: It's the sense that informs you where the different parts

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Speaker 1: of your body are. So, how is it that you

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Speaker 1: can type without looking at the keys? How is it

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Speaker 1: that you can close your eyes and you still know

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Speaker 1: where your hands are, You know whether they're at your

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Speaker 1: sides or over your head, even if you're blindfolded. We

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Speaker 1: have a sense that's constantly updating the brain with information

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Speaker 1: about the position and orientation of the rest of the body. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's one that I can't help but feel that it's

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Speaker 1: it's so invisible to us because it is so constant,

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Speaker 1: it's not as easily disruptible, you know, in the sense

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Speaker 1: that we can close our eyes, we can sort of

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Speaker 1: stopper our ears and so forth. But but in terms

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Speaker 1: of turning off appropriate reception, UM, not so easily done.

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Speaker 1: And then also it's just so it's so close to us.

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Speaker 1: It's you know, this is very much you can't see

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Speaker 1: the forest for the trees situation. Yeah, uh yeah, that

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Speaker 1: is very interesting. That's harder to turn that one off

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Speaker 1: than it is some of the other senses. But in

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Speaker 1: a way, I feel like that's part of the um.

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Speaker 1: When people go for sort of like a sense deprivation

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Speaker 1: or certain types of meditation that are that try to

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Speaker 1: ignore sensory stimuli or just focus on one particular sensory stimuli.

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Speaker 1: I think one of the difficult things is ignoring that

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Speaker 1: feeling of where your body is, and that I think

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Speaker 1: that's one of the important reasons why meditation often requires

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Speaker 1: you to be in a position of rest, because it's

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Speaker 1: easier to ignore the position of your body if you're

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Speaker 1: not really doing anything active with your body. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and definitely it's the case with float tanks where if

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Speaker 1: it's calibrated correctly, you're you're floating in water that's about

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Speaker 1: the same temperature as your own body. And yeah, it's

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Speaker 1: it's about sort of losing a sense of of your

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Speaker 1: physical self. Yeah, thank But they're all kinds of senses,

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Speaker 1: some some bleed more easily into others, or you can

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Speaker 1: make the argument that they do, like you can make

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Speaker 1: arguments that they're different types of touch sensations, you know,

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Speaker 1: feeling of tactile pressure versus feeling of heat. You know,

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Speaker 1: you can talk about that. Another interesting one is chronoception,

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Speaker 1: the sensation of the passing of time and judgment of duration.

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Speaker 1: That actually is a sense of the external world, and

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Speaker 1: there are types of nervous system conditions that can affect

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Speaker 1: your chronoception. In fact, not just conditions as in diseases,

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Speaker 1: but chronoception changes as you age, for example. But here's

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Speaker 1: where things get even weirder. The ear is not only

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Speaker 1: responsible for the sense of hearing. There are other senses

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Speaker 1: that are located within the ear. Organs in the human

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Speaker 1: inner ear are also responsible for one major component of equilibrioception,

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Speaker 1: or the sense of balance, and these organs together in

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Speaker 1: the inner ear, are known as the vestibular system. If

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Speaker 1: you get a chance, you should look up an illustration

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Speaker 1: of the human vestibular system. It is like a chambered

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Speaker 1: nautilus or an alien squid snail. It's got one section

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Speaker 1: which curls, and this is less related to the equilibrioception.

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Speaker 1: That's the cochlea, the swirling snail shell part. But then

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Speaker 1: coming out of the head of the swirling snail shell

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Speaker 1: of the cochlea, there are these strange tentacle things, these

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Speaker 1: three looping canals, each one like a semicircular tube snaking

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Speaker 1: back on itself. And then you've also got these two

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Speaker 1: tiny organs below the position down below the bases of

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Speaker 1: these three semicircular canals. These two tiny organs are known

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Speaker 1: as the utricle and the saccule, and together the utricle

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Speaker 1: and the saccule are what's known as the odo lith organs,

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Speaker 1: which literally means ear stones or ear rocks uh. Also

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Speaker 1: in the realm of cool names. This whole complex of

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Speaker 1: organs here is known as the labyrinth or the vestibular labyrinth,

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Speaker 1: the bony labyrinth. You have one labyrinth in each ear. Now,

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Speaker 1: if you go back to these hammer loop snake tentacles,

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Speaker 1: the three semicircular canals, which each sort of loop in

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Speaker 1: a different orientation, these things are hollow, partially filled with fluid,

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Speaker 1: fluid and gel uh the gel known as cupula and

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Speaker 1: the fluid known as indo lymph. And they include interior

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Speaker 1: spaces with these little hair cells, these little follicles that

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Speaker 1: are sensitive and connected to nerve tissue that runs out

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Speaker 1: to the rest of the brain. So when you move

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Speaker 1: your head, so you turn your head to the right

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Speaker 1: or the left, or you tilt your head from side

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Speaker 1: to side, or you tilt your head forward or back.

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Speaker 1: Inside these loops, the fluid moves around in the canals

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Speaker 1: in the inner spaces and it comes into contact with

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Speaker 1: the different hair cells, and the hair cells since the

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Speaker 1: movement of this fluid, and this can give you information

427
00:22:43,840 --> 00:22:46,800
Speaker 1: about the orientation of your head. And the hair cells

428
00:22:46,840 --> 00:22:49,920
Speaker 1: are connected to the brain via a nerve fiber called

429
00:22:49,960 --> 00:22:54,280
Speaker 1: the vestibular nerve, and then the brain interprets the stimulation

430
00:22:54,400 --> 00:22:58,359
Speaker 1: data from those hair cells into sense information about the

431
00:22:58,359 --> 00:23:00,520
Speaker 1: orientation of the head. And the main part of the

432
00:23:00,560 --> 00:23:04,520
Speaker 1: brain involved in processing coordinating information about balance and movement

433
00:23:05,000 --> 00:23:07,600
Speaker 1: is the cerebellum, which, if you've seen an illustration of

434
00:23:07,600 --> 00:23:10,480
Speaker 1: the brain, is that little meaty lump position on the

435
00:23:10,560 --> 00:23:12,920
Speaker 1: rear underside of the brain is kind of the brains,

436
00:23:13,000 --> 00:23:15,240
Speaker 1: but it's sort of right at the top of the

437
00:23:15,520 --> 00:23:19,840
Speaker 1: spinal column. So everybody feel your brain and and and

438
00:23:20,000 --> 00:23:22,840
Speaker 1: you'll you'll feel it. Get your get your hand right

439
00:23:22,840 --> 00:23:28,080
Speaker 1: in there. Now. About these canals in the labyrinth, one

440
00:23:28,119 --> 00:23:30,600
Speaker 1: thing that I think is really cool is that, Okay,

441
00:23:30,600 --> 00:23:33,800
Speaker 1: so there's one canal that is devoted to sensing the

442
00:23:33,840 --> 00:23:37,879
Speaker 1: tilting of the head forward or backward. There is another

443
00:23:37,920 --> 00:23:41,160
Speaker 1: canal that's devoted to sensing the turning of the head

444
00:23:41,359 --> 00:23:45,159
Speaker 1: from side to side, and then there's another that is

445
00:23:45,760 --> 00:23:49,520
Speaker 1: dedicated to sensing the tilting of the head toward each shoulder.

446
00:23:50,000 --> 00:23:52,800
Speaker 1: And so what you can realize is that these three

447
00:23:52,800 --> 00:23:57,479
Speaker 1: canals represent the three different dimensions of space. So if

448
00:23:57,520 --> 00:24:00,920
Speaker 1: I'm understanding correctly, I think I am. These three canals

449
00:24:01,000 --> 00:24:06,160
Speaker 1: also correspond to the three attitude variables of aircraft and submarines,

450
00:24:06,240 --> 00:24:10,640
Speaker 1: which are role, pitch, and yaw. So what mammal heads

451
00:24:11,000 --> 00:24:14,000
Speaker 1: and B fifty twos have in common is that they

452
00:24:14,040 --> 00:24:16,240
Speaker 1: live in three dimensional space. And if you're going to

453
00:24:16,359 --> 00:24:20,200
Speaker 1: adjust movements through three dimensional space, and since uh all

454
00:24:20,240 --> 00:24:22,760
Speaker 1: the different ways that you can change your attitude or

455
00:24:22,840 --> 00:24:25,920
Speaker 1: change the vector along which you're moving, then you need

456
00:24:25,960 --> 00:24:30,360
Speaker 1: a sensor for one of each of these three dimensions. Interesting, Rob,

457
00:24:30,400 --> 00:24:33,040
Speaker 1: I know you're a big fan of of airplanes. Do

458
00:24:33,040 --> 00:24:35,240
Speaker 1: do you ever think about your body in terms of role,

459
00:24:35,320 --> 00:24:38,280
Speaker 1: pitch and y'all? Uh No, you know, I don't think

460
00:24:38,320 --> 00:24:40,439
Speaker 1: I have, though, it's it's certainly now that you may

461
00:24:40,520 --> 00:24:42,240
Speaker 1: bring it up here. It's it's making me think back

462
00:24:42,280 --> 00:24:44,800
Speaker 1: to like flight simulator games, you know, where you you

463
00:24:44,920 --> 00:24:48,480
Speaker 1: definitely have visual displays of role, pitch and y'all, But

464
00:24:48,560 --> 00:24:50,760
Speaker 1: we don't think about that in terms of our own

465
00:24:51,080 --> 00:24:54,480
Speaker 1: personal experience of physical reality. I mean, we are babies

466
00:24:54,480 --> 00:24:57,560
Speaker 1: of the three D space, so it governs man and

467
00:24:57,680 --> 00:25:02,480
Speaker 1: machine alike. Now, earlier I also mentioned these otolith organs.

468
00:25:02,520 --> 00:25:05,320
Speaker 1: They also have sensitive hair cells, but the sensitive hair

469
00:25:05,359 --> 00:25:10,640
Speaker 1: cells here are arrayed with strange mineral formations made out

470
00:25:10,640 --> 00:25:15,280
Speaker 1: of calcium carbonate again, hence otolith the name ear stones

471
00:25:15,480 --> 00:25:19,560
Speaker 1: or ear rocks, and calcium carbonate is the same compound

472
00:25:19,600 --> 00:25:22,080
Speaker 1: that makes up the bulk of the shells of sea

473
00:25:22,119 --> 00:25:26,959
Speaker 1: creatures and pearls, but also chalk. It's a very widespread,

474
00:25:27,040 --> 00:25:31,120
Speaker 1: widely found mineral. Uh. It's used in tons of human technology.

475
00:25:31,160 --> 00:25:35,160
Speaker 1: It's used in for example, agricultural lime, uh to make

476
00:25:35,240 --> 00:25:38,800
Speaker 1: chalk for a blackboard, all kinds of things. But I

477
00:25:38,920 --> 00:25:42,480
Speaker 1: also found one totally off topic connection that I couldn't

478
00:25:42,520 --> 00:25:45,000
Speaker 1: bear not to mention, and that is that there's one

479
00:25:45,119 --> 00:25:49,560
Speaker 1: common stable crystal form of calcium carbonate known as calcite,

480
00:25:49,880 --> 00:25:52,439
Speaker 1: and there is one very strange and beautiful form of

481
00:25:52,520 --> 00:25:57,880
Speaker 1: calcite known as iceland spar, which is a transparent rock.

482
00:25:58,480 --> 00:26:01,680
Speaker 1: It's a mineral that is clear like ice or like

483
00:26:02,240 --> 00:26:07,520
Speaker 1: slightly you know, uh, slightly jacked up glass. And it's

484
00:26:07,520 --> 00:26:12,280
Speaker 1: been speculated that this transparent crystal Iceland. Spar was actually

485
00:26:12,320 --> 00:26:16,240
Speaker 1: the historical reference point for an object that is recorded

486
00:26:16,240 --> 00:26:20,000
Speaker 1: in medieval histories known as the sunstone, and their references

487
00:26:20,040 --> 00:26:23,480
Speaker 1: to this in medieval Norse texts. I think we're talking

488
00:26:23,480 --> 00:26:28,360
Speaker 1: about Iceland because this crystal can be used to detect

489
00:26:28,440 --> 00:26:31,359
Speaker 1: the direction of the sun when you're sailing in the

490
00:26:31,480 --> 00:26:34,919
Speaker 1: Arctic and the sun is totally obscured by clouds, so

491
00:26:34,960 --> 00:26:37,040
Speaker 1: you're out, it's a gray day. You can't see where

492
00:26:37,040 --> 00:26:38,639
Speaker 1: the sun is at all, but you need to know

493
00:26:38,680 --> 00:26:40,879
Speaker 1: where the sun is in order to navigate your boat.

494
00:26:41,440 --> 00:26:45,480
Speaker 1: You can apparently use a chunk of this transparent crystal

495
00:26:45,920 --> 00:26:49,040
Speaker 1: to find the location of the sun by by the

496
00:26:49,040 --> 00:26:52,080
Speaker 1: crystal's effect on the polarized light coming from the sun

497
00:26:52,080 --> 00:26:55,160
Speaker 1: through the clouds. Oh fascinating, Yeah, because I think we've

498
00:26:55,160 --> 00:26:58,320
Speaker 1: all been saying out on the beach perhaps on one

499
00:26:58,359 --> 00:27:00,399
Speaker 1: of these days where it's overcast, you know the sun's

500
00:27:00,480 --> 00:27:04,000
Speaker 1: up there, but you're not exactly sure what position it's in. Yeah.

501
00:27:04,000 --> 00:27:08,000
Speaker 1: So calcium carbonate itself is just a very versatile and

502
00:27:08,040 --> 00:27:11,800
Speaker 1: mini splendored mineral uh on on its own. In fact,

503
00:27:12,200 --> 00:27:14,800
Speaker 1: it's the subject of a of a great classic talk

504
00:27:14,840 --> 00:27:17,919
Speaker 1: in science, the talk about a piece of chalk that

505
00:27:18,000 --> 00:27:21,399
Speaker 1: was given by by T. H. Huxley. But but I

506
00:27:21,640 --> 00:27:24,000
Speaker 1: also included a picture for you to look at here, rob,

507
00:27:24,080 --> 00:27:27,159
Speaker 1: which is a scanning electron micrograph that I found of

508
00:27:27,280 --> 00:27:32,560
Speaker 1: calcium carbonate crystals from the from the utricle of a cat.

509
00:27:33,240 --> 00:27:36,720
Speaker 1: And so it's showing these tiny crystals. Each one is

510
00:27:36,800 --> 00:27:42,159
Speaker 1: microscopically small, but yeah, they these rocks. Basically, these crystals

511
00:27:42,520 --> 00:27:45,520
Speaker 1: play a role in the physiology and function of the

512
00:27:45,560 --> 00:27:48,960
Speaker 1: inner ear. Now, what these odo lith organs do that's

513
00:27:49,040 --> 00:27:55,440
Speaker 1: different from the semicircular canals is that the odoliths detect

514
00:27:55,840 --> 00:28:00,439
Speaker 1: vectors of acceleration horizontal and vertical. And so this is

515
00:28:00,440 --> 00:28:03,600
Speaker 1: why you can feel whether you are going up or

516
00:28:03,680 --> 00:28:06,600
Speaker 1: down in an elevator even though you can't see out

517
00:28:06,600 --> 00:28:09,080
Speaker 1: of it. So in an elevator, you're not changing the

518
00:28:09,119 --> 00:28:11,679
Speaker 1: orientation of your head. You know, you're not bending it

519
00:28:11,720 --> 00:28:15,719
Speaker 1: forward or whatever. The head is staying fixed relative to

520
00:28:15,720 --> 00:28:18,719
Speaker 1: to gravity basically, but you are moving, You're going up

521
00:28:18,720 --> 00:28:22,240
Speaker 1: and down, and so the saccula in there can detect that.

522
00:28:22,720 --> 00:28:25,760
Speaker 1: So we're left with this really strange fact inside your

523
00:28:25,800 --> 00:28:29,359
Speaker 1: ears you have tiny organs lined with crystals of the

524
00:28:29,400 --> 00:28:33,400
Speaker 1: material that makes oyster shells and pearls, and they detect

525
00:28:33,440 --> 00:28:36,879
Speaker 1: which directions you're accelerating in even if you can't see,

526
00:28:37,359 --> 00:28:41,120
Speaker 1: which I thought was just a beautiful connection. The crystalline

527
00:28:41,200 --> 00:28:45,920
Speaker 1: new a genus of the inner ear. Oh, that'd be great.

528
00:28:45,920 --> 00:28:47,600
Speaker 1: I've never heard of that one. And people who like

529
00:28:47,880 --> 00:28:51,240
Speaker 1: give their friends crystals for like certain healing powers or something.

530
00:28:51,280 --> 00:28:53,400
Speaker 1: What are the crystals of the human inner ear do

531
00:28:53,880 --> 00:28:56,160
Speaker 1: if you like slay your enemies and take the crystals

532
00:28:56,160 --> 00:28:58,760
Speaker 1: out of their ears. Oh, man, that would be a

533
00:28:58,760 --> 00:29:01,600
Speaker 1: great Uh. That would be a great function of some

534
00:29:01,640 --> 00:29:04,720
Speaker 1: sort of like alien invasion story where the alien has

535
00:29:04,760 --> 00:29:08,520
Speaker 1: to feed on on on these crystals, you know. I

536
00:29:08,560 --> 00:29:10,600
Speaker 1: was also I didn't get super deep into this because

537
00:29:10,640 --> 00:29:12,240
Speaker 1: it's kind of a tangent, But I was also just

538
00:29:12,320 --> 00:29:17,719
Speaker 1: looking at studies indicating the many faces of of a

539
00:29:17,720 --> 00:29:20,000
Speaker 1: healthy odo lith and what it does for the body.

540
00:29:20,120 --> 00:29:22,240
Speaker 1: For example, one study I was looking at mission the

541
00:29:22,280 --> 00:29:27,240
Speaker 1: possibility that auto liths are possibly important for the formation

542
00:29:27,320 --> 00:29:31,600
Speaker 1: of spatial memories, and that the degradation of the effectiveness

543
00:29:31,600 --> 00:29:35,800
Speaker 1: of the odo lith oysters may account for the decline

544
00:29:35,840 --> 00:29:38,760
Speaker 1: of spatial memory with age. So as you get older

545
00:29:39,120 --> 00:29:41,760
Speaker 1: and the oyster shells in your ears, the odo liths

546
00:29:41,840 --> 00:29:43,920
Speaker 1: become a little bit less good at what they do,

547
00:29:44,400 --> 00:29:48,000
Speaker 1: and this actually could be related to people being less

548
00:29:48,000 --> 00:29:51,640
Speaker 1: accurate at forming spatial memories as they get older. Interesting, Yeah,

549
00:29:51,680 --> 00:29:54,760
Speaker 1: because there's certainly there's the brain itself, but the brain

550
00:29:54,840 --> 00:29:58,160
Speaker 1: has to make use of sensory information. Yeah, and this

551
00:29:58,280 --> 00:30:01,400
Speaker 1: ties into stuff we've talked about before in how um.

552
00:30:01,880 --> 00:30:06,560
Speaker 1: In some ways the brain remembers spaces by simulating movement

553
00:30:06,720 --> 00:30:10,160
Speaker 1: but through them. But the vestibular system is also, it

554
00:30:10,160 --> 00:30:13,640
Speaker 1: should be mentioned, a team player. So these canals and

555
00:30:13,720 --> 00:30:17,080
Speaker 1: the odoliths, they don't have much use alone, but rather

556
00:30:17,120 --> 00:30:20,840
Speaker 1: they coordinate information in the brain with other sensory systems,

557
00:30:20,840 --> 00:30:24,960
Speaker 1: such as the visual system appropriate receptive faculties to form

558
00:30:25,000 --> 00:30:29,560
Speaker 1: a comprehensive movement detection and feedback and adjustment system. And

559
00:30:29,600 --> 00:30:32,000
Speaker 1: there's all kinds of stuff that has to happen like uh,

560
00:30:32,160 --> 00:30:37,680
Speaker 1: For example, your visual system adjusts itself to account for

561
00:30:38,160 --> 00:30:41,200
Speaker 1: changes in the movement and orientation of your body that

562
00:30:41,240 --> 00:30:45,400
Speaker 1: are sensed by the vestibular system, and so the eyes

563
00:30:45,440 --> 00:30:48,560
Speaker 1: can see your orientation with respect to the environment. The

564
00:30:48,680 --> 00:30:52,239
Speaker 1: vestibular system, since it is the head's orientation, movement with

565
00:30:52,280 --> 00:30:56,640
Speaker 1: respect to gravity and to inertia. The appropriate receptive system

566
00:30:56,720 --> 00:30:59,040
Speaker 1: feels where the rest of the body is in relation

567
00:30:59,080 --> 00:31:01,240
Speaker 1: to the head. These systems, I'll kind of have to

568
00:31:01,280 --> 00:31:04,480
Speaker 1: work together to to give you a picture of here's

569
00:31:04,480 --> 00:31:07,240
Speaker 1: where your body is and how it's moving. And so

570
00:31:07,280 --> 00:31:12,000
Speaker 1: when we come back to the question of dizziness and vertigo, uh,

571
00:31:12,440 --> 00:31:16,400
Speaker 1: I guess that's addressing what happens when these systems get

572
00:31:16,440 --> 00:31:19,000
Speaker 1: out of synchronization with each other, or when one of

573
00:31:19,000 --> 00:31:23,280
Speaker 1: the systems begins to fail or have problems. And so

574
00:31:23,600 --> 00:31:26,400
Speaker 1: to ask the question like what is dizziness, that's also

575
00:31:26,480 --> 00:31:28,920
Speaker 1: kind of an interesting question because there are a range

576
00:31:28,920 --> 00:31:33,120
Speaker 1: of different sensations that people call dizziness that they're all

577
00:31:33,160 --> 00:31:36,440
Speaker 1: kind of associated with one another. So, for example, I

578
00:31:36,520 --> 00:31:41,840
Speaker 1: was reading a paper called Dizziness and Vertigo Syndromes Viewed

579
00:31:41,840 --> 00:31:45,560
Speaker 1: with a Historical Eye by Dorin Hoopert and Thomas Brandt

580
00:31:45,560 --> 00:31:49,680
Speaker 1: in the Journal of Neurology published in and they cite

581
00:31:50,080 --> 00:31:55,080
Speaker 1: a definition of dizziness and vertigo from the International Barani

582
00:31:55,240 --> 00:31:59,280
Speaker 1: Society of neuro Autology, and they say, quote, vertigo is

583
00:31:59,320 --> 00:32:02,640
Speaker 1: the sensation of self motion when no self motion is

584
00:32:02,680 --> 00:32:07,360
Speaker 1: occurring dizziness is the sensation of disturbed or impaired spatial

585
00:32:07,440 --> 00:32:12,120
Speaker 1: orientation without a false or distorted sense of motion. And

586
00:32:12,320 --> 00:32:16,960
Speaker 1: imbalance or unsteadiness is the feeling of being unstable while sitting, standing,

587
00:32:17,040 --> 00:32:21,520
Speaker 1: or walking without a particular directional preference. But I gotta

588
00:32:21,520 --> 00:32:24,680
Speaker 1: say so, so that may be applied at the clinical

589
00:32:24,760 --> 00:32:27,760
Speaker 1: level or in the in the literature, but it's clear

590
00:32:27,800 --> 00:32:30,560
Speaker 1: that when people talk about dizziness, a lot of times

591
00:32:30,560 --> 00:32:33,719
Speaker 1: what they're talking about here is vertigo. Right, It is

592
00:32:33,760 --> 00:32:37,800
Speaker 1: the sense that you are spinning or moving when you're not.

593
00:32:38,080 --> 00:32:40,640
Speaker 1: And though a lot of sources I was reading said

594
00:32:41,040 --> 00:32:43,640
Speaker 1: the sense that you're moving when you're not, to be pedantic,

595
00:32:43,680 --> 00:32:45,840
Speaker 1: I think technically what you'd really have to say is

596
00:32:46,120 --> 00:32:48,880
Speaker 1: it's the sense that you're accelerating, not the sense that

597
00:32:48,920 --> 00:32:51,640
Speaker 1: you're moving, because once you're moving at a constant speed

598
00:32:51,680 --> 00:32:56,280
Speaker 1: and direction, movement is imperceptible. It's only changes in speed

599
00:32:56,360 --> 00:32:59,000
Speaker 1: or direction that that are sensed in the inner ear.

600
00:32:59,400 --> 00:33:00,840
Speaker 1: But I think you have to correct about how we

601
00:33:00,880 --> 00:33:03,320
Speaker 1: just we we tend to refer to things as dizziness

602
00:33:03,400 --> 00:33:06,840
Speaker 1: or feeling dizzy, even if we're talking about vertico, etcetera. Right, So,

603
00:33:06,880 --> 00:33:09,120
Speaker 1: I think a more you know, street level definition that

604
00:33:09,120 --> 00:33:12,200
Speaker 1: people would use I found on the Mayo Clinic website. Uh.

605
00:33:12,640 --> 00:33:14,840
Speaker 1: They say, dizziness is a term used to describe a

606
00:33:14,960 --> 00:33:19,480
Speaker 1: range of sensations such as feeling faint, woozy, weak, or unsteady.

607
00:33:19,520 --> 00:33:22,400
Speaker 1: Dizziness that creates the false sense that you or your

608
00:33:22,440 --> 00:33:26,280
Speaker 1: surroundings are spinning or moving is called vertigo. Uh. So

609
00:33:26,800 --> 00:33:29,800
Speaker 1: these terms might be used differently in the literature sometimes,

610
00:33:29,880 --> 00:33:32,719
Speaker 1: but I think we can basically say, you know, dizziness vertigo.

611
00:33:32,800 --> 00:33:34,800
Speaker 1: We're we're sort of talking about the same thing and

612
00:33:34,920 --> 00:33:38,360
Speaker 1: related things. Now, that same paper I just mentioned, the

613
00:33:38,360 --> 00:33:41,000
Speaker 1: one by Dorian Hoopert and Thomas Brandt in the Journal

614
00:33:41,000 --> 00:33:45,880
Speaker 1: of Neurology, Uh, it has a section where it looked into,

615
00:33:46,320 --> 00:33:51,120
Speaker 1: uh the etymology of terms used for dizziness, which which

616
00:33:51,160 --> 00:33:55,120
Speaker 1: I thought was actually extremely interesting and revealing. So in

617
00:33:55,160 --> 00:33:58,400
Speaker 1: this part of their paper they say, uh quote Latin

618
00:33:58,560 --> 00:34:02,160
Speaker 1: for example, has it lee two source words to describe

619
00:34:02,160 --> 00:34:07,960
Speaker 1: the condition vertigo. Vertigo in Latin refers to turning, spinning, rotating,

620
00:34:08,280 --> 00:34:11,480
Speaker 1: and is derived from the verb vertere, meaning to turn.

621
00:34:12,160 --> 00:34:18,400
Speaker 1: Another word, caligo means darkening of the eyes, funereal crape,

622
00:34:18,440 --> 00:34:20,360
Speaker 1: and I think that's a cloth that would be placed

623
00:34:20,400 --> 00:34:25,040
Speaker 1: over a over a body at a funeral and and dizziness,

624
00:34:25,040 --> 00:34:28,080
Speaker 1: So strange, darkening of the eyes, the cloth over the

625
00:34:28,320 --> 00:34:31,879
Speaker 1: over the body at a funeral, and dizziness. And they

626
00:34:31,880 --> 00:34:35,400
Speaker 1: say that this word caligo and not the word vertigo,

627
00:34:35,560 --> 00:34:40,120
Speaker 1: appears in ancient text passages referring to heights and the

628
00:34:40,200 --> 00:34:42,920
Speaker 1: symptoms of a fear of heights. So you know, often

629
00:34:42,920 --> 00:34:45,360
Speaker 1: people will feel vertigo or dizziness if they've got a

630
00:34:45,360 --> 00:34:47,000
Speaker 1: fear of heights and they you know, look off of

631
00:34:47,040 --> 00:34:50,040
Speaker 1: a cliff for something. But they say that collego was

632
00:34:50,160 --> 00:34:54,560
Speaker 1: also used quote metaphorically for dizziness arising from feelings of

633
00:34:54,680 --> 00:34:59,480
Speaker 1: exultation or for being overwhelmed and losing one's grip on reality.

634
00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:04,359
Speaker 1: For example, Tacitus in his work History A describes how

635
00:35:04,480 --> 00:35:09,359
Speaker 1: Vespasian wanted to become an emperor himself after Nero's suicide.

636
00:35:09,719 --> 00:35:12,360
Speaker 1: He is said to have felt dizzy when the soldiers

637
00:35:12,400 --> 00:35:17,799
Speaker 1: addressed him as emperor and used other high ranking titles. Interesting.

638
00:35:18,040 --> 00:35:20,279
Speaker 1: But then this next piece of etymology I thought was

639
00:35:20,320 --> 00:35:24,560
Speaker 1: also really interesting. They say the word giddy is believed

640
00:35:24,600 --> 00:35:27,880
Speaker 1: to be derived from the Old English word giddig, meaning

641
00:35:27,960 --> 00:35:32,920
Speaker 1: insane or literally possessed by a god. The Oxford English

642
00:35:32,920 --> 00:35:36,239
Speaker 1: Dictionary defines the word dizzy as having or involving a

643
00:35:36,280 --> 00:35:40,080
Speaker 1: sensation of spinning around and losing one's balance. It is

644
00:35:40,080 --> 00:35:44,600
Speaker 1: said to originate from the Old English word disig, meaning foolish,

645
00:35:44,680 --> 00:35:46,960
Speaker 1: and is thought to be related to the Low German

646
00:35:47,040 --> 00:35:51,239
Speaker 1: do sig, meaning giddy, and the old High German tusig,

647
00:35:51,280 --> 00:35:55,719
Speaker 1: which relates, which translates as foolish or weak. So really

648
00:35:55,760 --> 00:36:01,120
Speaker 1: interesting this this ancient um historical association between insanity and

649
00:36:01,160 --> 00:36:04,920
Speaker 1: being possessed by a god with the with the feeling

650
00:36:04,960 --> 00:36:10,360
Speaker 1: of dizziness. But okay, anyway to look at the question

651
00:36:10,400 --> 00:36:12,439
Speaker 1: of what's actually happening in the body when you spin

652
00:36:12,520 --> 00:36:16,319
Speaker 1: around in circles and become dizzy? Uh So, first of all,

653
00:36:16,360 --> 00:36:18,280
Speaker 1: I have to say I could not find a single

654
00:36:18,320 --> 00:36:23,360
Speaker 1: authoritative scientific paper that really looks directly at this question.

655
00:36:23,400 --> 00:36:27,440
Speaker 1: There are some studies that, uh look at dizziness from

656
00:36:27,600 --> 00:36:29,600
Speaker 1: a question of like things that can be done to

657
00:36:29,680 --> 00:36:32,120
Speaker 1: alleviate it. But if there's a paper that just looks

658
00:36:32,160 --> 00:36:35,000
Speaker 1: at what causes dizziness and spinning, I was not able

659
00:36:35,040 --> 00:36:37,360
Speaker 1: to find that. Yet, maybe maybe it's out there somewhere

660
00:36:37,360 --> 00:36:39,439
Speaker 1: and somebody can find it and send it our way.

661
00:36:39,880 --> 00:36:43,360
Speaker 1: I did find a number of articles on popular scientific websites,

662
00:36:43,440 --> 00:36:47,759
Speaker 1: but again these articles were somewhat in disagreement with each other,

663
00:36:47,840 --> 00:36:52,880
Speaker 1: without any acknowledgement that they were citing different explanations. So

664
00:36:52,960 --> 00:36:55,080
Speaker 1: one example that I found in a number of articles

665
00:36:55,520 --> 00:36:58,839
Speaker 1: had to do with the effects of inertia on the

666
00:36:58,920 --> 00:37:01,640
Speaker 1: fluid in the can owls in the inner ear. Now,

667
00:37:01,680 --> 00:37:03,480
Speaker 1: this is an article. This is from an article on

668
00:37:03,560 --> 00:37:07,760
Speaker 1: Live Science by Natalie Wolkover, and the author here writes

669
00:37:07,840 --> 00:37:11,160
Speaker 1: that quote when you spin in a circle, inertia initially

670
00:37:11,200 --> 00:37:14,759
Speaker 1: causes the indo lymph. Remember that's the fluid in the

671
00:37:14,760 --> 00:37:19,000
Speaker 1: inner ears that moves around to stimulate those hair cells,

672
00:37:19,040 --> 00:37:21,880
Speaker 1: and that allows your body to detect orientation of the

673
00:37:21,880 --> 00:37:26,480
Speaker 1: head and motion. Uh. She says, Inertia initially causes the

674
00:37:26,560 --> 00:37:30,359
Speaker 1: indo lymph to slosh in the direction opposite of your

675
00:37:30,360 --> 00:37:34,640
Speaker 1: head's motion. It resists the movement of your head dragging

676
00:37:34,680 --> 00:37:38,799
Speaker 1: the cupula. And again that's the slower moving gel that's

677
00:37:38,800 --> 00:37:42,480
Speaker 1: in there backwards with it and thus causing the sensory

678
00:37:42,480 --> 00:37:46,120
Speaker 1: hair suspended inside the cupula to bend against the direction

679
00:37:46,200 --> 00:37:49,960
Speaker 1: in which you're spinning. However, within moments, the indo lymph

680
00:37:50,040 --> 00:37:53,600
Speaker 1: and thus the more gelatinous cupula, adjust to the movement

681
00:37:53,600 --> 00:37:56,600
Speaker 1: of your head and start going with the flow. This

682
00:37:56,680 --> 00:37:59,239
Speaker 1: causes the hair cells to straighten, and your brain no

683
00:37:59,320 --> 00:38:02,879
Speaker 1: longer receives the message that you're spinning. Your perception has

684
00:38:02,920 --> 00:38:06,239
Speaker 1: become normalized, the rotation of your head, giving you the

685
00:38:06,280 --> 00:38:08,920
Speaker 1: sense that you are still and the world is rotating

686
00:38:08,960 --> 00:38:12,120
Speaker 1: around you. Okay, So that would sort of pair up

687
00:38:12,160 --> 00:38:15,120
Speaker 1: with the understanding of dizziness that it is the sensation

688
00:38:15,200 --> 00:38:19,200
Speaker 1: of motion even when you are not moving right, Like,

689
00:38:19,239 --> 00:38:22,120
Speaker 1: I'm no longer spinning around in circles. I've stopped, but

690
00:38:22,200 --> 00:38:25,360
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm spinning around in circles and therefore

691
00:38:25,400 --> 00:38:27,600
Speaker 1: I have to lay down. Yeah, and from a first

692
00:38:27,600 --> 00:38:29,960
Speaker 1: person perspective, I would say that is part of the

693
00:38:30,000 --> 00:38:33,600
Speaker 1: sensation of dizziness. Uh, though dizziness might also be more

694
00:38:33,680 --> 00:38:36,319
Speaker 1: than that. Um. But but of course, then when you

695
00:38:36,360 --> 00:38:39,799
Speaker 1: stop spinning wulkover rights, you have halted the rotation of

696
00:38:39,840 --> 00:38:44,400
Speaker 1: your semicircular canals, and because of inertia, the indo lymph

697
00:38:44,560 --> 00:38:46,600
Speaker 1: keeps spinning, and so it's kind of the way that

698
00:38:46,640 --> 00:38:48,960
Speaker 1: you know you can spin a bucket around. But then

699
00:38:49,000 --> 00:38:51,080
Speaker 1: if you stop spinning the bucket, the water in the

700
00:38:51,120 --> 00:38:54,919
Speaker 1: bucket will keep spinning, it will keep slashing um, she writes.

701
00:38:54,960 --> 00:38:58,600
Speaker 1: Because of inertia, the indo lymph keeps spinning, resisting change.

702
00:38:58,680 --> 00:39:02,440
Speaker 1: Yet again, as fluid continues to move, it once again

703
00:39:02,560 --> 00:39:06,080
Speaker 1: deflects the cupula, this time in the direction in which

704
00:39:06,120 --> 00:39:09,400
Speaker 1: you were spinning moments before. And as the using cupula

705
00:39:09,520 --> 00:39:12,879
Speaker 1: bends those hair cells, a signal of movement is transmitted

706
00:39:12,920 --> 00:39:15,480
Speaker 1: to the brain you since you are moving but you're not,

707
00:39:15,880 --> 00:39:19,600
Speaker 1: And that's dizziness. Okay, So you know, based on the

708
00:39:19,600 --> 00:39:22,319
Speaker 1: other things I've been reading, that explanation would make some

709
00:39:22,400 --> 00:39:24,960
Speaker 1: amount of sense. It's saying that the effects of inertia

710
00:39:25,040 --> 00:39:27,279
Speaker 1: on the fluid in the canals in the inner ear

711
00:39:27,760 --> 00:39:31,839
Speaker 1: after you stop spinning, causes some kind of you know, uh,

712
00:39:32,360 --> 00:39:36,160
Speaker 1: causes some false signals in the brain. And this is disorienting,

713
00:39:36,560 --> 00:39:39,280
Speaker 1: especially when paired with your other senses, like your eyes

714
00:39:39,320 --> 00:39:41,520
Speaker 1: and everything are telling you you're not spinning anymore, but

715
00:39:41,560 --> 00:39:45,080
Speaker 1: your inner ear feels like you are. Yeah, the slough

716
00:39:45,160 --> 00:39:47,680
Speaker 1: bladders in our in our head and are all sloshed

717
00:39:47,760 --> 00:39:50,759
Speaker 1: up basically, and this is mirrored in another article I

718
00:39:50,800 --> 00:39:53,520
Speaker 1: was I found on the subject, one in Popular Science

719
00:39:53,600 --> 00:39:57,879
Speaker 1: by Claire Muldarelli, again referencing the movement of the indo

720
00:39:57,960 --> 00:40:01,760
Speaker 1: lymph in the cupula. Uh Multirelli writes, quote, the problem

721
00:40:01,840 --> 00:40:04,720
Speaker 1: comes when you stop. Your muscles are able to start

722
00:40:04,719 --> 00:40:07,680
Speaker 1: and stop really quickly without any issues, but that fluid

723
00:40:07,760 --> 00:40:10,880
Speaker 1: doesn't work as fast. Even though you stopped, the fluid

724
00:40:10,920 --> 00:40:13,040
Speaker 1: is still moving and it takes some time for it

725
00:40:13,080 --> 00:40:16,359
Speaker 1: to finally stop. While it's still moving, those hairs are

726
00:40:16,360 --> 00:40:19,040
Speaker 1: still picking up on the motion and sending signals saying

727
00:40:19,120 --> 00:40:22,320
Speaker 1: I'm moving to the brain. The brain receives the signal,

728
00:40:22,600 --> 00:40:25,600
Speaker 1: but at the same time knows the body is perfectly still.

729
00:40:26,040 --> 00:40:29,560
Speaker 1: And the same explanation about the the inertial effects of

730
00:40:29,600 --> 00:40:31,960
Speaker 1: the moving indo lymph within the canals in the brain

731
00:40:32,760 --> 00:40:34,920
Speaker 1: or in the in the in the interear. This is

732
00:40:35,000 --> 00:40:37,759
Speaker 1: also mirrored in the House Stuff Works article that I

733
00:40:37,760 --> 00:40:40,720
Speaker 1: found on the subject. Is basically, the indo lymph keeps

734
00:40:40,760 --> 00:40:45,720
Speaker 1: moving after you stop spinning. This confuses the brain. While

735
00:40:45,840 --> 00:40:48,960
Speaker 1: these explanations so I found this across multiple sources, it

736
00:40:49,040 --> 00:40:51,080
Speaker 1: does seem to sort of make sense. But if this

737
00:40:51,200 --> 00:40:54,120
Speaker 1: is true, one thing I wonder about is why is

738
00:40:54,160 --> 00:40:58,359
Speaker 1: it that spinning in particular is liable to make you dizzy?

739
00:40:58,560 --> 00:41:02,000
Speaker 1: And why not other type of movement couldn't other types

740
00:41:02,000 --> 00:41:06,120
Speaker 1: of movement apart from spinning also cause you know, inertial

741
00:41:06,200 --> 00:41:08,680
Speaker 1: drag in the fluids in your inner ears, and that

742
00:41:09,040 --> 00:41:13,040
Speaker 1: your body would stop moving before the fluid stops moving. Yeah,

743
00:41:13,120 --> 00:41:15,520
Speaker 1: that's a good question, I am, you know, based on

744
00:41:15,719 --> 00:41:18,200
Speaker 1: some of the stuff will discuss I think mostly in

745
00:41:18,200 --> 00:41:20,440
Speaker 1: the next episode. It does make me think about the

746
00:41:20,880 --> 00:41:26,200
Speaker 1: frequency of of use when it comes to spins, you know, um,

747
00:41:26,520 --> 00:41:31,399
Speaker 1: like in terms of just straight up acceleration and deceleration, uh,

748
00:41:31,400 --> 00:41:33,960
Speaker 1: in our daily lives, Like we might not be running

749
00:41:34,080 --> 00:41:37,920
Speaker 1: marathons and passing batons all that much, but we are

750
00:41:37,960 --> 00:41:45,320
Speaker 1: still accelerating and decelerating fairly regularly. Whereas the spin especially

751
00:41:45,400 --> 00:41:47,240
Speaker 1: you know, the sort of spins that we think about,

752
00:41:47,680 --> 00:41:51,160
Speaker 1: uh and and experience related to dizziness, those are not

753
00:41:51,200 --> 00:41:54,520
Speaker 1: going to necessarily be a regular part of your daily life,

754
00:41:55,040 --> 00:41:56,920
Speaker 1: That's true. Yeah, it could be a it could be

755
00:41:57,000 --> 00:41:59,440
Speaker 1: a conditioning thing, and the conditioning thing would actually tie

756
00:41:59,440 --> 00:42:01,000
Speaker 1: into something that we're going to talk about in a

757
00:42:01,040 --> 00:42:04,160
Speaker 1: bit when we get into how like dancers and and

758
00:42:04,320 --> 00:42:07,520
Speaker 1: ice skaters supposedly deal with this. But before we get

759
00:42:07,560 --> 00:42:10,319
Speaker 1: into that, I wanted to mention the other explanations I

760
00:42:10,400 --> 00:42:13,399
Speaker 1: came across um for for why we get dizzy when

761
00:42:13,400 --> 00:42:17,520
Speaker 1: we spin in circles, and specifically, these other explanations are

762
00:42:17,520 --> 00:42:21,560
Speaker 1: based in the brain's constant attempt to coordinate vestibular information

763
00:42:21,600 --> 00:42:25,360
Speaker 1: with visual information from the eyes specifically, So this is

764
00:42:25,400 --> 00:42:28,480
Speaker 1: from an explainer I found written in Scientific American written

765
00:42:28,480 --> 00:42:33,360
Speaker 1: by Amir Karadmond, who is a neurologist with Johns Hopkins Medicine,

766
00:42:34,239 --> 00:42:38,640
Speaker 1: and Kadmond has has this different explanation. He says, quote,

767
00:42:38,680 --> 00:42:40,960
Speaker 1: if we rotate our head to the right while our

768
00:42:40,960 --> 00:42:44,720
Speaker 1: eyes remain focused on an object straight ahead, our eyes

769
00:42:44,840 --> 00:42:48,080
Speaker 1: naturally moved to the left at the same speed. This

770
00:42:48,160 --> 00:42:53,000
Speaker 1: involuntary response allows us to stay focused on a stationary object.

771
00:42:53,480 --> 00:42:56,440
Speaker 1: And this is really physiologically important, right, Like, for the

772
00:42:56,480 --> 00:42:58,680
Speaker 1: body to function, you need to be able to keep

773
00:42:58,719 --> 00:43:02,520
Speaker 1: focused on something while you're moving around, you know, otherwise

774
00:43:02,520 --> 00:43:05,279
Speaker 1: it would be really difficult to like hunt or fight

775
00:43:05,400 --> 00:43:08,239
Speaker 1: or you know, do anything like that if you can't

776
00:43:08,280 --> 00:43:10,560
Speaker 1: stay focused even while your body is moving. So the

777
00:43:10,640 --> 00:43:16,080
Speaker 1: eyes adjust as as the body moves um, but Karadmon

778
00:43:16,200 --> 00:43:20,080
Speaker 1: continues quote. Spinning is more complicated. When we move our

779
00:43:20,120 --> 00:43:22,880
Speaker 1: head during a spin, our eyes start to move in

780
00:43:22,920 --> 00:43:26,560
Speaker 1: the opposite direction, but reach their limit before our head

781
00:43:26,600 --> 00:43:30,160
Speaker 1: completes a full three and sixty degree turn, So our

782
00:43:30,320 --> 00:43:33,920
Speaker 1: eyes flick back to a new starting position mid spin,

783
00:43:34,320 --> 00:43:37,279
Speaker 1: and the motion repeats as we rotate. When our head

784
00:43:37,360 --> 00:43:42,640
Speaker 1: rotation triggers this automatic repetitive eye movement called nastagmus, we

785
00:43:42,760 --> 00:43:47,359
Speaker 1: get dizzy. Uh so nastagmus again. Yeah, it's this repetitive

786
00:43:47,560 --> 00:43:51,520
Speaker 1: jerking around of the eyes UM and nastagmus can be

787
00:43:51,560 --> 00:43:54,000
Speaker 1: triggered by certain kinds of stimuli, Like if you show

788
00:43:54,040 --> 00:43:58,319
Speaker 1: people a rotating drum that has stripes painted on it,

789
00:43:58,600 --> 00:44:01,040
Speaker 1: you can trigger na stagmas as the eye tries to

790
00:44:01,120 --> 00:44:05,960
Speaker 1: track the fast moving stripes as as they go past. Um.

791
00:44:06,000 --> 00:44:09,440
Speaker 1: But another interesting fact I found is that nastagmus plays

792
00:44:09,440 --> 00:44:12,960
Speaker 1: an important role in the arsenal of field sobriety tests

793
00:44:13,080 --> 00:44:16,799
Speaker 1: used by law enforcement. So the normal procedure for this

794
00:44:16,920 --> 00:44:19,759
Speaker 1: is if you know a police officers trying to do

795
00:44:20,080 --> 00:44:22,880
Speaker 1: a field sobriety test on somebody they've pulled over, they

796
00:44:22,880 --> 00:44:25,640
Speaker 1: will ask them to hold their heads still, and then

797
00:44:25,680 --> 00:44:29,040
Speaker 1: they will ask the subject to follow a moving stimulus

798
00:44:29,080 --> 00:44:32,759
Speaker 1: with their eyes without moving their head. And then you

799
00:44:32,800 --> 00:44:35,600
Speaker 1: move the stimulus steadily, sort of in an arc around

800
00:44:35,680 --> 00:44:38,319
Speaker 1: towards the person's side, and as they follow it with

801
00:44:38,360 --> 00:44:42,239
Speaker 1: their eyes. Supposedly there are types of nastagmus, or these

802
00:44:42,280 --> 00:44:46,520
Speaker 1: repetitive jerking movements of the eyes that are usually indicative

803
00:44:46,680 --> 00:44:50,640
Speaker 1: of intoxication. Though I should note that just in poking

804
00:44:50,640 --> 00:44:52,840
Speaker 1: around a little bit, it looks like there's some controversy

805
00:44:52,960 --> 00:44:56,600
Speaker 1: over the reliability of this test. And it's used by police. Yeah,

806
00:44:56,640 --> 00:44:58,799
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not like you have a tricorder type

807
00:44:58,800 --> 00:45:01,520
Speaker 1: device that you hold up and and scan the eyes.

808
00:45:01,560 --> 00:45:06,040
Speaker 1: It's based on what the police officer is observing and

809
00:45:06,040 --> 00:45:09,920
Speaker 1: then reporting regarding the movement the the the slight movements

810
00:45:09,920 --> 00:45:12,720
Speaker 1: of the individual's eyes. Right. And so this is interesting

811
00:45:12,760 --> 00:45:15,200
Speaker 1: because I feel like now we've got at least two

812
00:45:15,400 --> 00:45:18,640
Speaker 1: different explanations. In fact, this would be getting into a

813
00:45:18,640 --> 00:45:21,359
Speaker 1: whole other cannon worms. I found another explanation in a

814
00:45:21,480 --> 00:45:25,440
Speaker 1: very short explainer article uh for the BBC by a

815
00:45:25,880 --> 00:45:30,439
Speaker 1: by a zoologist and science communicator who who framed their

816
00:45:30,480 --> 00:45:34,759
Speaker 1: explanation more in terms of the brain getting desensitized to

817
00:45:34,960 --> 00:45:38,200
Speaker 1: spinning input and then deciding to ignore it. And then

818
00:45:38,200 --> 00:45:40,960
Speaker 1: when you stop spinning, the canceling out it has had

819
00:45:41,000 --> 00:45:44,360
Speaker 1: to do of the spinning input is uh is suddenly

820
00:45:44,360 --> 00:45:47,000
Speaker 1: counterproductive and makes you think the body is still moving.

821
00:45:47,400 --> 00:45:49,960
Speaker 1: I'm going to ignore that one for now and look

822
00:45:50,000 --> 00:45:52,520
Speaker 1: at these other main two explanations. So one is about

823
00:45:52,600 --> 00:45:55,359
Speaker 1: the inertia of the fluids in the canals in the

824
00:45:55,360 --> 00:45:58,440
Speaker 1: inner ear as as you spin around, and and that

825
00:45:58,560 --> 00:46:01,960
Speaker 1: inertia calling a feeling of spinning even after the body

826
00:46:01,960 --> 00:46:06,040
Speaker 1: has stopped spinning. The other is UH is about this

827
00:46:06,160 --> 00:46:09,239
Speaker 1: very different thing about what's happening with the eyes when

828
00:46:09,320 --> 00:46:12,360
Speaker 1: you spin around. And so I actually I was like,

829
00:46:12,560 --> 00:46:14,719
Speaker 1: maybe I can get some insight onto which of these

830
00:46:14,800 --> 00:46:17,840
Speaker 1: is correct uh. Though though I guess one thing I

831
00:46:17,840 --> 00:46:22,800
Speaker 1: should say is that these explanations are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

832
00:46:22,880 --> 00:46:24,960
Speaker 1: I mean, it could be that both of these things

833
00:46:25,400 --> 00:46:28,759
Speaker 1: contribute to dizziness. UM. But I wanted to get some

834
00:46:28,840 --> 00:46:31,680
Speaker 1: insight on this by experimenting on myself. I was actually

835
00:46:31,760 --> 00:46:34,360
Speaker 1: lying in bed last night thinking about this, trying to

836
00:46:34,400 --> 00:46:37,440
Speaker 1: sort out like why these two different explanations have come across,

837
00:46:38,480 --> 00:46:41,520
Speaker 1: which one could be correct or more correct, and I

838
00:46:41,560 --> 00:46:43,440
Speaker 1: decided I had to get up out of bed and

839
00:46:43,520 --> 00:46:47,319
Speaker 1: spin around to test this out. So um so I

840
00:46:47,360 --> 00:46:50,040
Speaker 1: recognized this experiment is just on me. I just did

841
00:46:50,040 --> 00:46:52,080
Speaker 1: it once. This is not going to pass peer review.

842
00:46:52,200 --> 00:46:54,799
Speaker 1: This is not scientifically rigorous, but it was at least

843
00:46:54,800 --> 00:46:58,160
Speaker 1: interesting to me. So what what I did was I

844
00:46:58,200 --> 00:47:02,799
Speaker 1: tried spinning around for twelve revolutions uh boat in two

845
00:47:02,800 --> 00:47:05,640
Speaker 1: different conditions, one with my eyes closed so i'd be

846
00:47:05,719 --> 00:47:09,320
Speaker 1: unlikely to experience na stagmas, and one with my eyes

847
00:47:09,400 --> 00:47:11,560
Speaker 1: open so I would be and I was trying to

848
00:47:11,560 --> 00:47:14,680
Speaker 1: go to constant speed. I tried to keep the number

849
00:47:15,120 --> 00:47:19,400
Speaker 1: of revolutions the same for for each test condition um

850
00:47:19,520 --> 00:47:21,719
Speaker 1: and and have the only thing different being whether my

851
00:47:21,760 --> 00:47:24,400
Speaker 1: eyes were open or closed. So I will say I

852
00:47:24,440 --> 00:47:29,680
Speaker 1: felt dizzy after both spinning sessions, but I felt significantly

853
00:47:29,800 --> 00:47:33,640
Speaker 1: worse significantly dizzy or after the one with my eyes open.

854
00:47:34,200 --> 00:47:38,279
Speaker 1: Though it's complicated because that was the second one I did,

855
00:47:38,440 --> 00:47:41,120
Speaker 1: so there could also be cumulative effects. I tried to

856
00:47:41,160 --> 00:47:44,000
Speaker 1: rest in between them, but I didn't rest that long,

857
00:47:44,320 --> 00:47:47,040
Speaker 1: and so there could have been cumulative effects where it

858
00:47:47,080 --> 00:47:49,520
Speaker 1: wasn't necessarily that spinning with the eyes open is worse,

859
00:47:49,600 --> 00:47:51,959
Speaker 1: but just that I spun around in circles twenty four

860
00:47:52,000 --> 00:47:55,600
Speaker 1: times recently instead of twelve times after that one. So

861
00:47:56,160 --> 00:47:59,120
Speaker 1: the other thing is I really really do not recommend

862
00:47:59,200 --> 00:48:01,759
Speaker 1: spinning in circle twenty four times before bed I was

863
00:48:02,120 --> 00:48:06,640
Speaker 1: lying there feeling pretty gross. Yeah, yeah, definitely. As you

864
00:48:06,680 --> 00:48:09,080
Speaker 1: listen to these episodes, you're going to want to try

865
00:48:09,080 --> 00:48:12,839
Speaker 1: a little bit of spinning. That's understandable, and we encouraged that.

866
00:48:13,000 --> 00:48:16,920
Speaker 1: But please be careful, Please be careful spinning. Uh and

867
00:48:17,000 --> 00:48:20,239
Speaker 1: you know, realize that you will probably become dizzy and you,

868
00:48:20,360 --> 00:48:22,200
Speaker 1: I mean, you don't want to suffer a fall or

869
00:48:22,200 --> 00:48:25,200
Speaker 1: anything like that. Yeah. Uh So I don't think my

870
00:48:25,200 --> 00:48:28,359
Speaker 1: my personal experiment really settled the question, and it could

871
00:48:28,400 --> 00:48:31,919
Speaker 1: be their confounding varials variables. But I did find that

872
00:48:33,040 --> 00:48:36,280
Speaker 1: at least seemed possible to me that having your eyes

873
00:48:36,320 --> 00:48:40,560
Speaker 1: open during spinning makes the dizziness issue significantly worse than

874
00:48:40,960 --> 00:48:43,680
Speaker 1: than spinning with the eyes closed, which would seem to

875
00:48:43,760 --> 00:48:47,080
Speaker 1: lend some credence to the explanation offered by Karadmond that

876
00:48:47,160 --> 00:48:50,640
Speaker 1: it has something to do with the movement of the eyes.

877
00:48:52,040 --> 00:48:54,000
Speaker 1: But like I said, it could be the case that

878
00:48:54,040 --> 00:48:57,520
Speaker 1: actually both of these things contribute to dizziness, and they

879
00:48:57,520 --> 00:49:00,720
Speaker 1: were just emphasizing different aspects of why we get dizzy

880
00:49:00,800 --> 00:49:03,759
Speaker 1: from spinning. Though, there's another idea that I that I got.

881
00:49:03,800 --> 00:49:07,040
Speaker 1: I guess maybe a hypothesis that my experiment brought up,

882
00:49:07,560 --> 00:49:11,600
Speaker 1: which is, what if dizziness from spinning is strongly influenced

883
00:49:11,640 --> 00:49:15,680
Speaker 1: by the amount of time spent spinning as opposed to

884
00:49:15,840 --> 00:49:18,799
Speaker 1: just the number of rotations. So if we're, you know,

885
00:49:18,840 --> 00:49:20,920
Speaker 1: in a minute, we're going to talk about like ballerinas

886
00:49:20,920 --> 00:49:23,400
Speaker 1: and skaters, you would have to think that if a

887
00:49:23,440 --> 00:49:27,520
Speaker 1: skater does ten turns really fast, as as opposed to

888
00:49:27,520 --> 00:49:30,520
Speaker 1: me doing you know, ten or twelve turns pretty slow

889
00:49:30,800 --> 00:49:34,640
Speaker 1: standing in my bedroom. Uh, is that you know that

890
00:49:34,719 --> 00:49:37,440
Speaker 1: the skater would have it worse. But but maybe it's

891
00:49:37,440 --> 00:49:40,120
Speaker 1: actually worse to be spinning for a longer period of

892
00:49:40,160 --> 00:49:43,760
Speaker 1: time slower than a shorter period of time really fast.

893
00:49:48,440 --> 00:49:52,120
Speaker 1: Thank well, all right, let's let's talk a little bit

894
00:49:52,160 --> 00:49:55,560
Speaker 1: about the art of spinning, particularly as it relates to

895
00:49:56,160 --> 00:50:01,439
Speaker 1: ballet dancers and figure skaters. So certainly both of these

896
00:50:01,480 --> 00:50:03,799
Speaker 1: involve a fair amount of spinning around in circles. They

897
00:50:04,160 --> 00:50:08,760
Speaker 1: are the most amazing examples figure skaters, ballerinas balot ballet

898
00:50:08,840 --> 00:50:12,239
Speaker 1: dancers whose feats of spinning athletics are certainly enough to

899
00:50:12,280 --> 00:50:16,680
Speaker 1: cause feelings of a vertigo in the viewer, you know. Uh,

900
00:50:16,719 --> 00:50:20,960
Speaker 1: and yet we don't see these individuals tremendously affected. You know,

901
00:50:21,320 --> 00:50:24,360
Speaker 1: like like if of a dancer, does you know a

902
00:50:24,440 --> 00:50:29,600
Speaker 1: really impressive pirouette, Uh, they don't immediately fall onto the floor,

903
00:50:29,719 --> 00:50:32,719
Speaker 1: or at least that's not supposed to happen. Um. The

904
00:50:32,760 --> 00:50:35,640
Speaker 1: same goes for figure skaters, Right, they do some phenomenal

905
00:50:35,680 --> 00:50:39,279
Speaker 1: spin and then they're out informed to continue their routine, right,

906
00:50:39,320 --> 00:50:44,440
Speaker 1: I mean so if I spinning around slowly like twelve times,

907
00:50:44,960 --> 00:50:48,640
Speaker 1: have to stumble to my bed afterwards? Yeah? What how

908
00:50:48,680 --> 00:50:52,320
Speaker 1: do how do you continue a a really difficult intricate

909
00:50:52,400 --> 00:50:57,120
Speaker 1: you know, executing dance moves or or or continuing to skate?

910
00:50:57,160 --> 00:51:00,759
Speaker 1: I mean skating alone is difficult enough, right with your

911
00:51:00,800 --> 00:51:03,160
Speaker 1: balance thrown off like it like you would think it

912
00:51:03,200 --> 00:51:05,880
Speaker 1: should be after one of those spinning moves. Yeah, And

913
00:51:05,880 --> 00:51:08,880
Speaker 1: and yet they're not. And what it basically seems to

914
00:51:08,880 --> 00:51:11,600
Speaker 1: come down to is that they've essentially trained their brains

915
00:51:12,000 --> 00:51:14,520
Speaker 1: not to pay as much attention to the input from

916
00:51:14,600 --> 00:51:17,640
Speaker 1: from the vestibular system, so not to be thrown off

917
00:51:17,680 --> 00:51:20,560
Speaker 1: by the signals coming in. And this is something that

918
00:51:20,560 --> 00:51:24,120
Speaker 1: that comes through just continual practice and the ratcheting up

919
00:51:24,120 --> 00:51:26,600
Speaker 1: of your sort of spinning tolerance. Yeah, this seems to

920
00:51:26,600 --> 00:51:28,880
Speaker 1: be what I was reading as well. It's it seems

921
00:51:28,880 --> 00:51:31,680
Speaker 1: to be one of the main explanations is just conditioning.

922
00:51:31,800 --> 00:51:35,279
Speaker 1: It's like practice and conditioning of the brain to not

923
00:51:35,480 --> 00:51:40,759
Speaker 1: get as thrown off by the vestibular system's response to spinning. Right,

924
00:51:41,080 --> 00:51:43,160
Speaker 1: And it's and and that's not to discount it. It's

925
00:51:43,160 --> 00:51:45,920
Speaker 1: like it's really impressive. I was looking at a paper

926
00:51:45,920 --> 00:51:49,920
Speaker 1: about this two thousand thirteen Imperial College London study published

927
00:51:49,960 --> 00:51:54,680
Speaker 1: in the journal Cerebrial Cortex by the by Nigga Enigma

928
00:51:54,800 --> 00:51:58,200
Speaker 1: Tolina at All, and it was looking at why dancers

929
00:51:58,239 --> 00:52:00,560
Speaker 1: don't get dizzy. So what they did is they looked

930
00:52:00,600 --> 00:52:04,600
Speaker 1: at twenty nine female dancers and twenty female age matched

931
00:52:04,680 --> 00:52:08,439
Speaker 1: controls with no dancing experience. And this is we see

932
00:52:08,440 --> 00:52:10,320
Speaker 1: this in another study we'll talk about in the second episode,

933
00:52:10,320 --> 00:52:13,040
Speaker 1: where basically you have your expert spinners and your control

934
00:52:13,040 --> 00:52:15,600
Speaker 1: group is gonna consist of people who are more or

935
00:52:15,680 --> 00:52:20,520
Speaker 1: less comparable individuals just without that spinning experience, without that

936
00:52:20,640 --> 00:52:24,080
Speaker 1: dancing experience in this case. So they took these individuals

937
00:52:24,120 --> 00:52:26,120
Speaker 1: and they put them through a series of spinning tests

938
00:52:26,160 --> 00:52:29,759
Speaker 1: in a chair in a dark room. Um. Then they

939
00:52:29,800 --> 00:52:32,719
Speaker 1: measured the brains of the two groups and how the

940
00:52:32,800 --> 00:52:35,839
Speaker 1: volunteers reacted to the spinning, and they found that the

941
00:52:35,960 --> 00:52:40,040
Speaker 1: dancers recovered faster than the non dancers. Basically, the dancers

942
00:52:40,080 --> 00:52:43,000
Speaker 1: brains have adapted over years of training to suppress the

943
00:52:43,040 --> 00:52:46,560
Speaker 1: input that causes dizziness. It's a case of training related

944
00:52:46,680 --> 00:52:49,880
Speaker 1: brain plasticity. It's the sort of thing that uh, you know,

945
00:52:49,880 --> 00:52:52,040
Speaker 1: could one day be used to actually treat other conditions.

946
00:52:52,080 --> 00:52:53,880
Speaker 1: Knowledge of this could be used to treat other conditions

947
00:52:54,280 --> 00:52:57,719
Speaker 1: and enhance our understanding of how the brain heals itself. Now,

948
00:52:57,760 --> 00:53:00,239
Speaker 1: many ballet dancers, including those used in the study, use

949
00:53:00,320 --> 00:53:03,880
Speaker 1: something called spotting in their training. Yeah, that explained by

950
00:53:03,920 --> 00:53:07,680
Speaker 1: Karadmond mentions this that uh I think more so for

951
00:53:07,760 --> 00:53:12,200
Speaker 1: ballet dancers than for ice skaters. Uh Yes, having to

952
00:53:12,239 --> 00:53:14,920
Speaker 1: do with the speed of the rotation. But the ballet

953
00:53:15,000 --> 00:53:18,160
Speaker 1: dancers use this trick of how they move the head

954
00:53:18,200 --> 00:53:22,080
Speaker 1: and focus the vision to prevent them being overwhelmed by

955
00:53:22,680 --> 00:53:25,680
Speaker 1: nastagmus was the reason he cited for it, right. I

956
00:53:25,760 --> 00:53:28,239
Speaker 1: believe this is pretty well presented in I mean you

957
00:53:28,280 --> 00:53:30,680
Speaker 1: can you can see it in dance and if you

958
00:53:30,840 --> 00:53:32,759
Speaker 1: are like me and most of your ballet experience these

959
00:53:32,800 --> 00:53:35,919
Speaker 1: days comes from watching ballet horror movies like The Two

960
00:53:35,960 --> 00:53:39,000
Speaker 1: Suspirias and Black Swan, and then you know what I'm

961
00:53:39,000 --> 00:53:42,040
Speaker 1: talking about, Like, it's really, you know, interesting to watch

962
00:53:42,040 --> 00:53:44,640
Speaker 1: the way their head seems to like swing back around

963
00:53:44,640 --> 00:53:47,600
Speaker 1: to the same position as their body spins. You focus

964
00:53:47,680 --> 00:53:50,040
Speaker 1: as the dancer, you focus your eyes on one area

965
00:53:50,040 --> 00:53:51,960
Speaker 1: in front of you as you spin around over and

966
00:53:52,040 --> 00:53:55,080
Speaker 1: over again, and this helps you stay steady. You keep

967
00:53:55,120 --> 00:53:57,319
Speaker 1: moving your head around to the same point while the

968
00:53:57,360 --> 00:54:00,960
Speaker 1: body spins. But the authors in this particular studies say

969
00:54:01,000 --> 00:54:05,880
Speaker 1: that that spotting alone isn't enough to account for the ability.

970
00:54:05,920 --> 00:54:09,680
Speaker 1: And likewise, as you mentioned, figure skaters don't really do spotting,

971
00:54:09,680 --> 00:54:13,520
Speaker 1: not exactly. So basically there's figure skaters are spinning way

972
00:54:13,520 --> 00:54:16,480
Speaker 1: too fast for one thing. So I've read that some

973
00:54:16,600 --> 00:54:20,320
Speaker 1: figure skaters do use a form of spotting to count

974
00:54:20,320 --> 00:54:23,200
Speaker 1: their revolutions. So just just counting how many times a

975
00:54:23,200 --> 00:54:26,879
Speaker 1: particular spot on the ice passes you buy uh. They

976
00:54:26,920 --> 00:54:30,080
Speaker 1: may also instantly focus on something as they come out

977
00:54:30,120 --> 00:54:33,000
Speaker 1: of an intense spin in order to get their bearing straight.

978
00:54:33,320 --> 00:54:36,600
Speaker 1: But as with ballet dancers, figure skaters simply get used

979
00:54:36,640 --> 00:54:38,920
Speaker 1: to the spin. I was reading that they they only

980
00:54:39,000 --> 00:54:41,920
Speaker 1: really feel dizzy when they start upping their spin levels

981
00:54:41,920 --> 00:54:46,320
Speaker 1: and training, but then their their bodies their minds adjust

982
00:54:46,360 --> 00:54:49,000
Speaker 1: to that as well. Okay, so it sounds like it's

983
00:54:49,040 --> 00:54:52,240
Speaker 1: not just like there is a trick to not feeling

984
00:54:52,280 --> 00:54:55,600
Speaker 1: dizzy from spinning. It's there are tricks like spotting, but

985
00:54:55,680 --> 00:54:58,240
Speaker 1: that doesn't fully explain it. A lot of it's probably

986
00:54:58,320 --> 00:55:02,080
Speaker 1: just conditioning. It's just this, right, the more you spin,

987
00:55:02,239 --> 00:55:05,880
Speaker 1: the more your your brain becomes a customed to this

988
00:55:06,000 --> 00:55:08,959
Speaker 1: input and realizes, yeah, the spinning is what we do.

989
00:55:09,320 --> 00:55:12,360
Speaker 1: This is we can. We can. It basically acclimatizes to

990
00:55:12,600 --> 00:55:15,600
Speaker 1: the spinning reality. It makes me wonder if you could,

991
00:55:15,840 --> 00:55:19,239
Speaker 1: you know, create a generation of like super ballerinas or

992
00:55:19,320 --> 00:55:23,520
Speaker 1: super skaters by by bringing them up from from infancy

993
00:55:23,960 --> 00:55:27,720
Speaker 1: in an environment where they're deeply desensitized to like different

994
00:55:27,719 --> 00:55:30,960
Speaker 1: types of vestibular disorientation, like if you maybe if you

995
00:55:31,040 --> 00:55:35,080
Speaker 1: raise them in space or something. Um well, I mean,

996
00:55:35,120 --> 00:55:36,760
Speaker 1: on one hand, I feel like what you just described

997
00:55:36,760 --> 00:55:39,000
Speaker 1: it and seem that far from like the really hardcore

998
00:55:39,120 --> 00:55:42,520
Speaker 1: world of of professional dance, right, like just start conditioning

999
00:55:42,560 --> 00:55:45,680
Speaker 1: them very young. But on the space question, uh, I

1000
00:55:45,960 --> 00:55:48,000
Speaker 1: looked that up as well. You know, can you get

1001
00:55:48,000 --> 00:55:50,440
Speaker 1: Disney and Space? I mean, what does dizziness and space

1002
00:55:50,440 --> 00:55:53,000
Speaker 1: consists of? And I found an Avery Thompson piece and

1003
00:55:53,080 --> 00:55:57,400
Speaker 1: popular Mechanics. They discussed this citing personal experiments, um you

1004
00:55:57,400 --> 00:56:00,799
Speaker 1: know personal um, you know, informal experien moments performed by

1005
00:56:00,800 --> 00:56:04,759
Speaker 1: astronaut Tim Peak. And basically it's a case again of

1006
00:56:04,760 --> 00:56:06,799
Speaker 1: of of the brain adapting. In this case, the brain

1007
00:56:06,840 --> 00:56:09,600
Speaker 1: adapting to the initial feeling of spinning that one experiences

1008
00:56:09,640 --> 00:56:12,640
Speaker 1: in low gravity, and the brain adapts to this change,

1009
00:56:12,880 --> 00:56:16,280
Speaker 1: and then it's very difficult to feel dizzy, um Peak says,

1010
00:56:16,520 --> 00:56:20,320
Speaker 1: unless sudden acceleration is involved. I think this was the

1011
00:56:20,400 --> 00:56:23,520
Speaker 1: ultimate plan of that guy from Moonraker. He wanted to

1012
00:56:23,640 --> 00:56:25,840
Speaker 1: let you know what he was like going to sterilize

1013
00:56:25,880 --> 00:56:27,840
Speaker 1: the Earth or kill all the humans, and he's like

1014
00:56:28,080 --> 00:56:30,759
Speaker 1: moved all of his beloved people up to the to

1015
00:56:30,880 --> 00:56:33,960
Speaker 1: the space station. Clearly he's trying to create a generation

1016
00:56:34,000 --> 00:56:38,480
Speaker 1: of super ballerinas to rule the post apocalyptic earth. Oh man, Yeah,

1017
00:56:38,520 --> 00:56:42,480
Speaker 1: Moonraker so good. I feel like Moonraker is probably good. Uh,

1018
00:56:42,840 --> 00:56:46,120
Speaker 1: the one Bond film we could do for weird house cinema,

1019
00:56:46,200 --> 00:56:49,560
Speaker 1: like it's the it's the weirdest. Yeah, I think you're right. Well, well,

1020
00:56:49,600 --> 00:56:52,080
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe that last pierced Bras in the

1021
00:56:52,160 --> 00:56:55,080
Speaker 1: movie with the Invisible car and the castle made of ice,

1022
00:56:55,280 --> 00:56:58,000
Speaker 1: that that's Oh I never saw that one, but I yeah,

1023
00:56:58,000 --> 00:57:00,680
Speaker 1: I have heard it has some pretty bonker elements to it.

1024
00:57:00,680 --> 00:57:03,239
Speaker 1: It's up there with Moonraker for for weirdness. Those are

1025
00:57:03,320 --> 00:57:07,719
Speaker 1: the two goodest ones. All right, Well, again, this was

1026
00:57:07,760 --> 00:57:10,239
Speaker 1: part one. We're gonna come back for part two, and

1027
00:57:10,239 --> 00:57:12,680
Speaker 1: in part two we're going to discuss, among other things,

1028
00:57:13,200 --> 00:57:16,600
Speaker 1: um meditative states in spinning. We're gonna we're gonna discuss

1029
00:57:18,040 --> 00:57:22,040
Speaker 1: the Sufi whirling uh Sufi mysticism and uh and the

1030
00:57:22,520 --> 00:57:24,960
Speaker 1: spinning that is involved in that and in a particular

1031
00:57:25,000 --> 00:57:28,360
Speaker 1: study that looks at at it. Uh. So we hope

1032
00:57:28,360 --> 00:57:31,440
Speaker 1: that you will come back for that episode. In the meantime,

1033
00:57:31,840 --> 00:57:33,480
Speaker 1: if you want to check out other episodes of Stuff

1034
00:57:33,480 --> 00:57:35,600
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind, you can find us wherever you

1035
00:57:35,640 --> 00:57:37,720
Speaker 1: get your podcasts and wherever that happens to be. We

1036
00:57:37,840 --> 00:57:41,600
Speaker 1: just ask that you rate, review and subscribe. If you

1037
00:57:41,600 --> 00:57:43,080
Speaker 1: want to find us really quickly, you can go to

1038
00:57:43,080 --> 00:57:44,720
Speaker 1: stuff to Blow your Mind dot com and that will

1039
00:57:44,760 --> 00:57:48,160
Speaker 1: shoot you over to uh uh to what are I

1040
00:57:48,360 --> 00:57:50,880
Speaker 1: Heart listing, and there's a place on there you can

1041
00:57:50,880 --> 00:57:52,520
Speaker 1: click for our store that I'll take you to our

1042
00:57:52,560 --> 00:57:54,240
Speaker 1: T shirt store and if you know, just for fun,

1043
00:57:54,280 --> 00:57:56,120
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1044
00:57:56,200 --> 00:57:59,560
Speaker 1: our logo on at a sticker, tote bag, whatever you

1045
00:57:59,600 --> 00:58:02,160
Speaker 1: can find did there. Huge thanks as always to our

1046
00:58:02,200 --> 00:58:05,360
Speaker 1: excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like

1047
00:58:05,400 --> 00:58:07,280
Speaker 1: to get in touch with us with feedback on this

1048
00:58:07,320 --> 00:58:09,720
Speaker 1: episode or any other to suggest topic for the future,

1049
00:58:09,880 --> 00:58:12,360
Speaker 1: just to say hello, you can email us at contact

1050
00:58:12,400 --> 00:58:22,240
Speaker 1: at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to

1051
00:58:22,280 --> 00:58:24,800
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00:58:24,920 --> 00:58:27,080
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