Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. Uh.
Speaker 1: This is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas and we
Speaker 1: were just talking about food prior to Jerry rushing us
Speaker 1: in here to actually record the podcast, about about how
Speaker 1: satisfying a meal can be to the to the soul,
Speaker 1: but it can also have a huge effect on the mind,
Speaker 1: as we're going to get into in this particular podcast.
Speaker 1: That's right, and what I'm thinking about specifically, are butterflies
Speaker 1: in the stomach. Have you ever felt that? I'm sure
Speaker 1: you have. Yeah, and yeah, definitely definitely, not so much recently,
Speaker 1: but certainly the earlier podcast I would always get get
Speaker 1: butterflies the old days, like a year ago. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think that when I first started, I actually
Speaker 1: mentioned to you once that my sphincter was talking to
Speaker 1: me and had a horrified look on your face, and
Speaker 1: I wanted to explain to you that I was having
Speaker 1: an emotional response manifested in my vowels, but I didn't
Speaker 1: know you well enough then we I either blocked that
Speaker 1: comment entirely or um or didn't hear you. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I think you blocked it. Yeah, yeah, But I think
Speaker 1: the reason why we're talking about this today is that
Speaker 1: there really is quite u a symbiotic thing going on
Speaker 1: between the brain and the gut that we're just now
Speaker 1: really discovering. Yeah, and when you do, when you have
Speaker 1: a satisfying meal, like the effects that can have on
Speaker 1: on the mind or or even if it's not satisfying,
Speaker 1: just like an nutritious meal, and it's the effects on
Speaker 1: the brain. We're gonna discuss some of that in this
Speaker 1: particular podcast. Now. The idea of feeling something in your gut,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is just a common phrase. I've got
Speaker 1: a got a gut feeling about this instinct, yeah, and
Speaker 1: and it goes back. It's it's it's a pretty old thing,
Speaker 1: an old concept, and it's easy to think of it
Speaker 1: into in the same same terms as like when someone
Speaker 1: says they have a feeling in their heart, because unless
Speaker 1: you're having like a heart attack, you know, there's a
Speaker 1: you're probably not really feeling anything like when you love somebody.
Speaker 1: It's that really doesn't have anything to do with your
Speaker 1: cardiovascular system, right, and yet you feel this in heartache
Speaker 1: to an unrequited love, right, Yes, I have a great
Speaker 1: quote here. That's a from a speech to the English
Speaker 1: troops um to rally them against the Spanish Armada by
Speaker 1: Queen Elizabeth the First, and she's reported to have said, quote,
Speaker 1: I know I have the body of a weak and
Speaker 1: feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of
Speaker 1: a king, and a king of England too. So well
Speaker 1: see there's a great you know example. She's like, she's like,
Speaker 1: you know, I maybe be a lady, but I've got
Speaker 1: one heck of a heart and one heck of a stomach.
Speaker 1: She was invoking gut power. And there was a right
Speaker 1: across another like really interesting thing from a Dutchman by
Speaker 1: the name of Levinus Limnius Um and L yeah, l
Speaker 1: l and uh in this is back in the He
Speaker 1: had this whole thing where he's talking about how about
Speaker 1: the stomachs of the English and the Scots, and uh
Speaker 1: he had this whole bit about how though they will
Speaker 1: quote stomach a matter of eminently and a long time
Speaker 1: lodge an inward grudge in their hearts, whereby it happeneth
Speaker 1: that when their rage is up, they will not easily
Speaker 1: be pacified. Neither can They're high and haughty stomachs is
Speaker 1: or stomach is. It's weird spelling. Lightly be conquered otherwise
Speaker 1: than by submission and yielding to their mind and appetite.
Speaker 1: So there's just more of you, you know, it's getting
Speaker 1: the stomach and the heart. You know, these these older
Speaker 1: accounts and uh, and people were identifying like that is
Speaker 1: a it's a seat of who you are, Like if
Speaker 1: you want to you want to get to the if
Speaker 1: you want to get to the you know the quote
Speaker 1: heart of the matter on on. You know what makes
Speaker 1: an Englishman or a Scotsman look at their stomach? Great
Speaker 1: stomach specimens these guys hence yes, yes, they're like you
Speaker 1: want to here it is it's actually it's not a
Speaker 1: pleae Scott's stomach. But anyway, but I think what I
Speaker 1: think they were onto something there. Yeah, yeah, I think
Speaker 1: we in recent ages we we kind of got more
Speaker 1: into that brain. You know, it's all about the brain
Speaker 1: and then you know everything else is just you know, plumbing.
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, it's just the generator to power it.
Speaker 1: But it's not the case, um I really at all. No. No.
Speaker 1: In fact, it was a Dr Michael Gershon who coined
Speaker 1: the term the second brain when referring to the gut
Speaker 1: because he actually brought in in into um into everybody's
Speaker 1: uh conscious the fact that the gut is doing so
Speaker 1: much more and has a lot more complexity to us
Speaker 1: than we ever realized. And I mean, like you said,
Speaker 1: people had an instinct maybe that their gut was pretty important.
Speaker 1: And in fact, in the eighteen hundreds, scientists and doctors
Speaker 1: began to make observations about the effects of the emotions
Speaker 1: on the brain. And in nineteen o two they actually
Speaker 1: did a study where they had a dog growl at
Speaker 1: a cat and then they watched and noticed, uh I
Speaker 1: think they used barium, and they noticed that the digestion
Speaker 1: started to slow down as the cat was growled at
Speaker 1: by the dog. And again, this is like a trackable
Speaker 1: substance in the digestive system, so they can see at
Speaker 1: what rate the cat's digestion system is moving right exactly,
Speaker 1: so they could see this happening, and they went, ah, eureka,
Speaker 1: the cats stressed and it's not it's not going to
Speaker 1: poop us soon exactly, yeah, exactly, which is which seems
Speaker 1: crazy that these scientists we even have to carry this out,
Speaker 1: because I mean, had they never been on a vacation
Speaker 1: before had they you know, they never I mean it
Speaker 1: seems like I think everybody out there can probably attest
Speaker 1: to there being some situation in their life where they
Speaker 1: were out of there, you know, out of their their
Speaker 1: comfy surroundings, and in their digestion changed in some way,
Speaker 1: shape or form. Like I've talked to two friends who
Speaker 1: like went on vacations and they're like, They're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was on my second day there and I still
Speaker 1: hadn't pooped. I don't know what was wrong with me,
Speaker 1: you know, And it's just your again, your your digestion
Speaker 1: system is altering to what may be a new rhythm,
Speaker 1: a new uh um, you know, a new level of
Speaker 1: stress coming at you right right, Yeah. And then emotionally too,
Speaker 1: I mean, things happen and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: you know, your stomach starts to turn and twist and think,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh. But the thing that scientists, specifically neuro
Speaker 1: gaster intrologists, are starting to figure out is that it's
Speaker 1: not so much that your emotions are acting on your brain.
Speaker 1: It may actually be that your gut, your second brain,
Speaker 1: is responsible for initiating these responses in the first place. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and in some of the ways that, uh, that this
Speaker 1: is happening. It it makes me think of the stomach
Speaker 1: not so much as a second brain, but kind of
Speaker 1: like a satellite office, yes, for the you know, for
Speaker 1: the brain, the brain being the home office. Um, like
Speaker 1: just some of the neural circuitry. I guess you could
Speaker 1: say that it's while death in the stomach is pretty neat. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it's a really good design if you think about it,
Speaker 1: that that neural circuitry is right next to the digestive system, right,
Speaker 1: because why would the brain expend the energy to send
Speaker 1: a hundred million neurons you know, down to do the
Speaker 1: job when it could just put it right there in
Speaker 1: that what we call the entric nervous system, which is
Speaker 1: embedded in the lining of the gastro intestinal system. So
Speaker 1: it's really smart, sort of like putting the electrical panel
Speaker 1: right where it's needed. And this this system is actually
Speaker 1: independent in that it can start digestion processes independent of
Speaker 1: the brain. It can get a lot of things going. Um.
Speaker 1: As I mentioned, there are a hundred million neurons, which
Speaker 1: is more than the spinal cord and the peripheral nervous system.
Speaker 1: There are five hundred million nerve cells and it uses
Speaker 1: thirty transmitters neurotransmitters, just like the brain does. Like back
Speaker 1: in the day, this was thought to be nuts, this
Speaker 1: whole entric nervous system, and in fact it was first
Speaker 1: described by a British physician, but he was pretty much
Speaker 1: smacked down because people thought, no, no, it's all the brain.
Speaker 1: The brain is doing it, um, and so they're actually
Speaker 1: Gershawan pointed out that that making that sort of claim
Speaker 1: that there was this entering system was like saying that
Speaker 1: New York taxi drivers never miss a showing of Tasca
Speaker 1: at the met Yeah. So, I mean obviously they didn't
Speaker 1: know how important the gut is and how much it
Speaker 1: regulates our thoughts are feelings. And that's right, that's Tusca
Speaker 1: is an opera. I was about to sing an operatic note.
Speaker 1: That's a let's not do that. Let's not talk about
Speaker 1: poop and sing opera. It's just not gonna. That's not
Speaker 1: a good pairing. Um. But so anyway, that goes back
Speaker 1: to that sensation of feeling. You do feel things in
Speaker 1: your gut because you do have all of that stuff
Speaker 1: going on. And this is another crazy fact that of
Speaker 1: the fibers and the primary visceral nerve just called the
Speaker 1: bad just carrious information from the gut to the brain,
Speaker 1: and that means that communication is mostly one way. This
Speaker 1: is a one way situation with the gut communicating the
Speaker 1: time to the brain. I mean that was a chatty,
Speaker 1: chatty gut. Yeah. You made a great analogy earlier about
Speaker 1: about the teenagers in love. Yeah, yeah, sort of like yeah,
Speaker 1: teenagers in love, you know, getting on the phone all
Speaker 1: the time. You're like, what are you doing? What do
Speaker 1: you do? Know? What are you doing? What does this mean?
Speaker 1: What does that mean? I mean, literally, the gut is
Speaker 1: doing the same sort of thing and constantly giving the
Speaker 1: brain all of this information about what's going on in
Speaker 1: the gut. Yeah, satellite office constantly checking with the home
Speaker 1: office and saying, hey, we just did this, Hey we
Speaker 1: just did that. Yeah, yeah, I'm feeling this way. I
Speaker 1: don't know, I'm a little bit anxious. What about you?
Speaker 1: And so the brain is actually getting these these messages
Speaker 1: of anxiety, and it's backwards from what we thought before. Right,
Speaker 1: we thought the braining was sending the gut messages saying hey,
Speaker 1: I'm not feeling so great. As a sci fi fan,
Speaker 1: I can't help but think of the just the many
Speaker 1: examples of you know, these like head head in and
Speaker 1: jar kind of situations or like head transplants, you know,
Speaker 1: where it's like the the human head or even just
Speaker 1: the brain you know, as the seat of who we
Speaker 1: are taken and like say attached to a robot body
Speaker 1: or put in another body, etcetera. And I And granted
Speaker 1: there's some sort of there's some grotesque aspects of that
Speaker 1: that are you know, could be troubling, but in a
Speaker 1: in a way, it's also a very kind of enlightened,
Speaker 1: kind of enlightening kind of view where it's like, I'm
Speaker 1: my brain and everything that I am really doesn't have
Speaker 1: anything to do with all this gross stuff going on
Speaker 1: in my in my stomach and elsewhere, you know, So
Speaker 1: it's kind of this like liberation from from all things
Speaker 1: related to a digestion and poop and all that. But
Speaker 1: in reality, you have to look at it from more
Speaker 1: of a holistic standpoint where you know, we're, yeah, we
Speaker 1: we are in a sense, we are just our brains.
Speaker 1: But I thought you're gonna say we are are poop.
Speaker 1: No no, no, no, no no, but no, it's like
Speaker 1: we are our brains, but we are we are, but
Speaker 1: the brains connected everything else. It's like we are this system,
Speaker 1: We're are this this, uh this organism and uh and
Speaker 1: if you start trying to cut one system from the
Speaker 1: next and trying to isolate who and what we are
Speaker 1: to one particular part of that organism, it gets kind
Speaker 1: of problem It gets rather problematic. Yeah, yeah, I know,
Speaker 1: I think we need to step away from the brain
Speaker 1: centric and look at this a gut in a more
Speaker 1: serious light. Um, especially the interplay between the gut and
Speaker 1: the brain and specifically serotonin. Yes, this is a big one.
Speaker 1: This is the the what is known as the mood neurotransmitter,
Speaker 1: and it's responsible, um when not insufficient quantity for actually
Speaker 1: they think causing depression. So so yeah, if you've ever
Speaker 1: dealt with depression or just or have ever walked into
Speaker 1: a health store and then you've probably seen serotonin sited
Speaker 1: on numerous bottles of either prescription medicine or um mysterious
Speaker 1: vitamin pills. Right, and so just so you can kind
Speaker 1: of get a better contact too of how important serotonin is.
Speaker 1: Of our forty million brain cells, most are affected by serotonin.
Speaker 1: So this includes the brain cells as we said, related
Speaker 1: to mood, but also sexual desire and function, appetite, sleep,
Speaker 1: memory and learning, uh, temper temperature regulation, and some sort
Speaker 1: of social behaviors such as you know sometimes when we
Speaker 1: get manic or aggressive, that's attributed to low serotonin levels.
Speaker 1: So the crazy thing about this is that your gut
Speaker 1: in mine houses of our serotonin available to us, which
Speaker 1: is nuts if you think about it. Yeah, and then
Speaker 1: you also look at serotonin and depression, and you look
Speaker 1: at antidepressants, and we know that with antidepressants also called
Speaker 1: ssr I selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, that those increase serotonin
Speaker 1: levels in the brain in the improved mood. Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: So we can't actually measure how much serotonin is in
Speaker 1: the brain, but we do know that if we give
Speaker 1: someone a bunch of depressants that it helps to increase
Speaker 1: the serotone and it makes us feel a lot better.
Speaker 1: So it searched to beg the question of what's going
Speaker 1: on in the gut and whether or not there are
Speaker 1: imbalances in the gut there which are causing disorders depression,
Speaker 1: um even related to Parkinson's for instance. This presentation is
Speaker 1: brought to you by Intel sponsors of tomorrow now mentioned disorders. Um,
Speaker 1: it's I think it's important to then touch on disorders
Speaker 1: that we've long attributed to is more of a gut
Speaker 1: centric thing, such as IBS. Right, irritable bowel syndrome. Uh
Speaker 1: and in in in, I don't know, can you do?
Speaker 1: Can you describe what your bow syndrome is? It's basically
Speaker 1: brought on by anxiety and depression because this is what
Speaker 1: we thought about are typically in the past, and this
Speaker 1: manifests itself with diarrhea, cramping, and it's I mean, it's awful, right,
Speaker 1: it's it's debilitating. It's not just so you know, I've
Speaker 1: got a stomach ache. It can be really horrible for people.
Speaker 1: And it's like a day by day thing. It's not like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's chronic ate something weird. No, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: And it affects of the American population, which is crazy.
Speaker 1: So the previous answer was, oh, you have IBS, Well,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's all psychosomatic. You need to cheer. Basically,
Speaker 1: you need to get your get your mind together and
Speaker 1: then your bowel will follow. That's a song, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: for your mind. Uh. But but what they're starting to
Speaker 1: figure out is that people with IBS don't have enough
Speaker 1: sert in. SERT is basically a serotonin transmitter, which, um
Speaker 1: whisks serotonin out of your digestive lining. And so let
Speaker 1: me back up a little bit. Serotonin one of its
Speaker 1: jobs is to leak it off into your gut and
Speaker 1: basically start the digested digestion process, right, So it basically signals, hey,
Speaker 1: that we need to go ahead and start breaking this down.
Speaker 1: But if you've got IBS, you you've got the serotonin
Speaker 1: floating around in your gut and you don't have enough
Speaker 1: of that set to take it all away. So what
Speaker 1: happens is that you just you've got horrible things going
Speaker 1: on your digestic system that you cannot stop. So it's
Speaker 1: an imbalance in your gut. It's not necessarily brought on
Speaker 1: by anxiety or depression. Those are actually the secondary results
Speaker 1: of that now there. But there's also the argument right
Speaker 1: that that, I mean, the whole idea of not being
Speaker 1: able to leave your toilet for an extended period of
Speaker 1: time is pretty depressing. So um, yeah, I guess there's
Speaker 1: that chicken egg question, right, Yes, Like maybe maybe I'm
Speaker 1: a mind am I you know, do I have irritable
Speaker 1: bowsing room because I'm depressed or am I depressed because
Speaker 1: I have irritable bow syndrome? Who's running this show? The
Speaker 1: brain or the gut? Right? Right? And can I ever
Speaker 1: leave this toilet anytime soon? Yeah? I can see how
Speaker 1: that would be depressing. But I think it's a really
Speaker 1: interesting piece of research that's emerged, and it tells us
Speaker 1: a lot more about how our mood is actually being
Speaker 1: regulated by our gut. And some some scientists are even saying, well,
Speaker 1: maybe it's not especially with ibs and mental disorders, maybe
Speaker 1: it's not so much that the person is, you know,
Speaker 1: having these problems because they are anxious or they're depressed,
Speaker 1: but maybe some mental illness of the gut itself. Because
Speaker 1: you can't blame someone for not having enough serat to
Speaker 1: whisk away the serotone and that just happens to be
Speaker 1: the way that their gut is, right, that's not necessarily
Speaker 1: um a primary factor of their disease. Now, this is
Speaker 1: an area of study, this the inter relation between gut
Speaker 1: and brain that that hopefully we're gonna have more and
Speaker 1: more data on in the in the years ahead. And
Speaker 1: uh and it and it's it's kind of if you
Speaker 1: look at the medicine as a as a as a whole.
Speaker 1: It's like you've seen that, you know, nutritionists playing a
Speaker 1: more of a vital role in medicine, uh in recent years.
Speaker 1: So so I you know, I'm tempted to see those
Speaker 1: as as two prongs of the same movement. You know,
Speaker 1: as we as we get to realize that that you know,
Speaker 1: more and more that we are what we eat and
Speaker 1: we are this full system and uh, you know it's
Speaker 1: it's you know, our what's what our brain, the chemicals
Speaker 1: are brain received, the chemicals are in our stomach. Deals
Speaker 1: with that, it's all a part of of who we are. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think that another interesting aspect of this is,
Speaker 1: you know, we've talked about internal versus external, but there
Speaker 1: is one study in which young rats were separated from
Speaker 1: their mothers and the layer of cells that line the
Speaker 1: gut weakened and that allowed bacteria from their intestines and
Speaker 1: it stimulated a bunch of immune cells. So basically the
Speaker 1: immune system went into full force. And so um, the
Speaker 1: person who noted this and in the rats said it's
Speaker 1: basically an adaptive response and that if they're born into
Speaker 1: a stressful, hostile environment, that nature programs them to be
Speaker 1: more vigilant and stress responsive in their future life. So
Speaker 1: this same doctor is a neurobiologist. Doctor Mayor said that
Speaker 1: sev of the patients that he treats for chronic gut
Speaker 1: disorders had experienced early childhood traumas like a parents divorce
Speaker 1: or chronic illnesses or parents death. So there is still
Speaker 1: this relationship to how we are biologically responding to our
Speaker 1: external stimuli in a sense, um, I'll raise your rats
Speaker 1: with mice because I ran across an interesting study from
Speaker 1: Yale Medical School where there's a there's this a substance
Speaker 1: called guarillin, and this is released by the stomach when
Speaker 1: it's empty and triggers hunger by by binding to the
Speaker 1: hippothalamus and that's a part of the brain that controls
Speaker 1: appetite and metabolism. However, the hormone is also known to
Speaker 1: interact with the hippocampus, which is the seat of learning
Speaker 1: and memory. So they injected mice with with with a
Speaker 1: little extra of this substance and found that the these
Speaker 1: mice consistently outperformed ordinary mice in memory and learning tests,
Speaker 1: and it was like a rate of like by like
Speaker 1: thirty or forty. And then they also um uh sapped
Speaker 1: some mice of of this particular substance and found that
Speaker 1: they underperformed on test. So their argument was in this
Speaker 1: study was that if an animal was hungry, it needs
Speaker 1: extra brain power to find that next meal. Um so, um,
Speaker 1: you know, cognitive brain is a you know, side effective
Speaker 1: hunger kind of argument, which I think is is kind
Speaker 1: of interesting and it makes me makes me think of
Speaker 1: like fasting situations, you know, where you know, especially you know,
Speaker 1: you look at like old biblical accounts that you know,
Speaker 1: someone will set out in the desert too fast and
Speaker 1: contemplate some you know, some huge problem or you know,
Speaker 1: or theological inquiry. You know. So it's kind of it's
Speaker 1: it's interesting. When I fasted, I mainly just um felt grumpy,
Speaker 1: watched a lot of Buffy the Vampires air and chip
Speaker 1: My Tooth on my coffee mug. But but in a
Speaker 1: way I could I also there was like a weird
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know, it's you definitely feel the
Speaker 1: effects in your mind when when you do something like that,
Speaker 1: which just you know, underlines again the connection between the
Speaker 1: gut and the brain. Yeah. Yeah, and this is interesting too.
Speaker 1: If if you don't sleep well, you actually the overproduced
Speaker 1: grelling right in your because your body thinks that since
Speaker 1: it didn't get enough rest, that it's in some sort
Speaker 1: of panic mode and eats more energy and you end
Speaker 1: up eating a lot the next day, which is again
Speaker 1: that whole balanced thing. And yeah, you're you're probably a
Speaker 1: little bit cranky, and uh, this is something we're going
Speaker 1: to touch on in a future podcast more. But you know,
Speaker 1: our gut is not just a part of us. It's
Speaker 1: also an environment for a number of fascinating creatures. It's
Speaker 1: not just the ones we ate trillions of bacteria that
Speaker 1: greatly outnumber our own guts cells, which kind of makes
Speaker 1: a question about whether or not we're just host for them. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if the if the contents, if the creatures in our
Speaker 1: stomach are dictating on the stomach behaves, and the stomach
Speaker 1: is talking to the brain, yeah, then maybe maybe these
Speaker 1: guys are the true masterminds of all the really stupid stuff.
Speaker 1: That's what I was thinking. It's sort of like the
Speaker 1: matrix that we're just the host. It's not the aliens though,
Speaker 1: that were the energy for it's just the bacteria in there.
Speaker 1: I was really that you blew me away with this
Speaker 1: particular fact about how the generally the Japanese in particular,
Speaker 1: have bacteria in their guts that produce enzymes that help
Speaker 1: digest seaweeds, and North Americans tend to lack this same
Speaker 1: property in their system. Yeah. Yeah, so there was some
Speaker 1: sort of exchange there between bacteria and man that found
Speaker 1: its way into the genome for for Japanese who ate
Speaker 1: sushi or eat sushi that we just don't have, which
Speaker 1: is again another indication of how crazy that gut is
Speaker 1: and what that bacteria, that wiley bacteria is doing to us. Yeah. Like,
Speaker 1: so the next time you order seaweed salad at your
Speaker 1: favorite Japanese restaurant, think about it is you know, I
Speaker 1: look around that you had the restaurant and to say
Speaker 1: that guy's gut is going to do a lot better
Speaker 1: job than this, uh, the soul gout here. So it's say, sir,
Speaker 1: I admire digestions or don't say that really. So, hey,
Speaker 1: I have some listener mail here for us. We've had
Speaker 1: a number of really cool comments about recent podcast um
Speaker 1: both sent to us via email and also on Facebook. Uh. So,
Speaker 1: here's one from a reader by the name of Thomas,
Speaker 1: and Thomas is responding to our podcast on which we
Speaker 1: probe daily in abductions. From a yeah, exactly, from a
Speaker 1: skeptics point of view, I should add for anyone who
Speaker 1: hasn't heard it and he had this to say, I've
Speaker 1: never been abducted or had any experience in which I
Speaker 1: believe I've met a little green man. But I have epilepsy. Specifically,
Speaker 1: I have nocturnal, tonic, clonic, and complex partial suit Typically,
Speaker 1: they are all controlled with medication, so don't fear. However,
Speaker 1: what I want to tell you about is my experiences
Speaker 1: with the complex partial seizures. These seizures manifest as a
Speaker 1: sudden flashing box in the corner of my eye, accompanied
Speaker 1: by tunnel vision. I mentioned this because I think your
Speaker 1: observations of the brain creating scenarios out of frightening experiences
Speaker 1: such as sleep paralysis are extremely astute and relevant to
Speaker 1: my complex partial seizures. Whine because in addition to the
Speaker 1: flashing box and tunnel vision, I become paranoid and my
Speaker 1: mind creates a scenario in which I believe someone is
Speaker 1: sneaking up on me just out of the corner of
Speaker 1: my vision. I believe this is caused by and by
Speaker 1: of vulnerability, as my mind creates a scenario. So that
Speaker 1: was really interesting because in the podcast we discussed a
Speaker 1: number of things that can go on neurologically, right that
Speaker 1: that our brain ends up creating um a scenario for
Speaker 1: and that scenario and a lot of times ends up
Speaker 1: being an alien abduction encounter or an encounter with something
Speaker 1: conspirit world or a demon or or you know, or
Speaker 1: any or any number of of paranormal experiences. Right, and
Speaker 1: all of those sort of experiences have different um palm marks.
Speaker 1: Uh that's that are similar force to right, right with
Speaker 1: the person being in the room or being spirited away. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so um, so Thomas makes for sharing that with us,
Speaker 1: And if anybody else has any experiences like that that
Speaker 1: they that they either have misinterpreted as an abi an
Speaker 1: abduction or can easily see how it could be uh
Speaker 1: interpreted by the by the first experienced it as an
Speaker 1: alien abduction, then do tell us because we're very interested
Speaker 1: to hear about that. We also heard from a listener
Speaker 1: by the amiable Elizabeth, who wanted to make a quick
Speaker 1: point regarding our podcast titled Evolutionary Hangover, and she says, quote,
Speaker 1: I'm fascinated by vestigial phrase. I'm a grad student in
Speaker 1: ecology and evolutionary biology. So it's really excited when I
Speaker 1: saw the topic pop up in my iTunes. However, I
Speaker 1: literally cringed that Robert Robert's suggestion that evolutionists somehow quote
Speaker 1: going on unquote too fastigial traits in case in cases
Speaker 1: where we need them for the future. Uh, that just
Speaker 1: isn't how evolutionary. That just isn't how evolution works. There's
Speaker 1: no way a population could experience natural selection for future conditions.
Speaker 1: Evolution by natural selection occurs because individuals with certain um
Speaker 1: properties tend to, on average, to lead greater numbers of
Speaker 1: descendants than individuals with other propertis. Uh, that's an evolution
Speaker 1: is an essentiate force. So uh, a very good point
Speaker 1: to make. I did to quote a creative writing professor
Speaker 1: of mine by the name of Alan Alan Wire. I
Speaker 1: did personify like a mad god a little bit in
Speaker 1: that podcast in order to to try and break it down.
Speaker 1: But it is yet, it is very important to realize
Speaker 1: that evolution does not does not really think about anything.
Speaker 1: It is not a independent entity. So so yes, keep
Speaker 1: that in mind as you as you listen to some
Speaker 1: of these analogies. But but definitely Elizabeth, thank you for
Speaker 1: breaking that down force. She also sent us a couple
Speaker 1: of US studies relating um the human volmar and nasal
Speaker 1: organ and specifically, she pointed to a study in which
Speaker 1: they found that smelly t shirts could conceivably turn a
Speaker 1: member of the opposite sex on because it's the whole
Speaker 1: pheromones and yeah, and and they would be sniffing out
Speaker 1: someone who had a greater comparcity in their yeah, DNA
Speaker 1: or something. So that's uh far from subtle science the
Speaker 1: whole issue of human pheromones. But anyway, Elizabeth, thanks for
Speaker 1: pointing out. We're always happy to hear feedback and uh
Speaker 1: clarifications from folks in the know, and we're lefty enough
Speaker 1: to have a number of visits as a number of
Speaker 1: listeners who fall into that category. We also received us
Speaker 1: an email back about our podcast about music in the Brain,
Speaker 1: specifically about earworms. I had asked the question of there
Speaker 1: are other people out there who only have musical ear
Speaker 1: worms without lyrics, because I've I've often found that I
Speaker 1: don't really run into people who experience it's that, but
Speaker 1: I only get like tunes caught in my head, not
Speaker 1: the lyrics for the most part. And heard back from
Speaker 1: a listener of the name of Emily, and she says, hello,
Speaker 1: I was just writing I wanted to reassure Robert that, no,
Speaker 1: you're not the only one that gets lyricalist music stuck
Speaker 1: in his head. This happens to me quite frequently, especially
Speaker 1: when it comes to musical acts such as Plaid and
Speaker 1: The Novo. And we followed up and she's actually a
Speaker 1: number a fan of a number of really cool musical
Speaker 1: choices such as Boards of Canada, so I have to
Speaker 1: get rid thumbs up to that as well. And then
Speaker 1: one more up on the music front, listener David writes,
Speaker 1: and it says, I'm in the same boat as Robert
Speaker 1: in the sense that I don't think I've ever heard
Speaker 1: a lyrical earworm. Since childhood, all of my ear worms
Speaker 1: has been instrumental, and it's one of the reasons I
Speaker 1: became a musician. I was a really late bloomer musically
Speaker 1: and didn't touch my first instrument until I was sixteen
Speaker 1: due to the complete lack of funding for childhood music
Speaker 1: programs in the area I grew up in. And he
Speaker 1: goes on to say, now that I'm in college and
Speaker 1: taking proper musical music theory classes, I have expanded my
Speaker 1: repertoire of instruments. Um, I knew we found just about
Speaker 1: the world of music that surrounds us that really redefined
Speaker 1: the way I view my life. So I found that
Speaker 1: really interesting as well. Yeah. Yeah, Actually we got a
Speaker 1: lot of feedback on that, and a lot of people
Speaker 1: uh said that they didn't have lyrics like you as well,
Speaker 1: which I thought was pretty surprising. I thought everybody has
Speaker 1: any musical yes, well yes, but yeah, but you know
Speaker 1: a good one. You know, we would uh, we would
Speaker 1: love to hear back from people about this podcast though,
Speaker 1: about the interplay between the gut and the mind. Let
Speaker 1: us know what your gut is thinking about. You can
Speaker 1: find us on Twitter and on Facebook as Blow the Mind.
Speaker 1: We're constantly updating that and uh and by all means,
Speaker 1: if you like the show, check out that Facebook page
Speaker 1: and critical like button. Uh and and also please do
Speaker 1: us a favorite going too iTunes if you like the
Speaker 1: show and leave us a little positive feedback, maybe you
Speaker 1: know some some nice generous star ratings. Indeed, and if
Speaker 1: you have any get instincts you want to share peace,
Speaker 1: email us at Blow the Mind at how to works
Speaker 1: dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
Speaker 1: Visit how stuff works dot com To learn more about
Speaker 1: the podcast. Click on the podcast icon in the upper
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