Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your mind. My name is Robert Lamb and my name
Speaker 1: is Julie Douglas. Happy New Year's everybody. This is now
Speaker 1: and and we're gonna try not to raise the volume
Speaker 1: too much because we know some of you may have
Speaker 1: some sort of adult skull regions going on right now,
Speaker 1: since uh, since you know, last night was the and
Speaker 1: early this morning was the traditional time to celebrate the
Speaker 1: coming of a new year. But now the celebration is
Speaker 1: behind you. Now you've got a whole year ahead of you.
Speaker 1: This is like the the early morning period when everything
Speaker 1: seems possible. You've got a whole year. You could you
Speaker 1: could just accomplish this about anything if you put your
Speaker 1: mind to it in the next twelve months. Or it
Speaker 1: could be the early morning in the cold dawn light
Speaker 1: and you see the errors of your way and your
Speaker 1: poor alcohol shrunken brain is screaming for change. Either way,
Speaker 1: there's an opportunity here. There's an opportunity to to rebuild,
Speaker 1: to accomplish great things. And we're not gonna get into
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of just pie in the sky um,
Speaker 1: New Years revolutions, because that's always a trap. You say,
Speaker 1: this is the year I lose two hundred pounds and
Speaker 1: learn I don't know, uh, Spanish and Hindi great American novel.
Speaker 1: You know, you just set yourself up for failure with
Speaker 1: those and um and by the time this, uh, this
Speaker 1: particular episode publishes, we should have a really cool article
Speaker 1: on housetof works dot com about ways to to make
Speaker 1: New Year's resolutions that you can actually keep some of
Speaker 1: the strategies. So along those lines, what we're gonna talk
Speaker 1: about today are some some simple life hacks, little things,
Speaker 1: ultimately little things you can do with I won't say
Speaker 1: minimal effort, but but but it's not gonna take, you know,
Speaker 1: an enormous amount of effort to apply yourself to one
Speaker 1: or some of these, but the payoffs can be huge.
Speaker 1: You can ultimately change who you are, how you're perceived,
Speaker 1: how your body functions, even just by making some minor
Speaker 1: changes in your day to day. Yeah, and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: normally we do like to go esoteric with topics, but
Speaker 1: we did try to glean from our research this year some,
Speaker 1: as you say, are these easy life hacks that are
Speaker 1: practical but they have a lot of impact. So we'll
Speaker 1: start with this the first example. And I'm trying to
Speaker 1: sit very straight as I say this, and um with
Speaker 1: arms akimbo. And because this is the first one has
Speaker 1: to do with posture. Yes, and and it's I should
Speaker 1: add when I podcast, I actually said on a stool
Speaker 1: in in this podcasting chamber, because I want to have
Speaker 1: proper posture on podcasting. You do, You're like totally engaging
Speaker 1: your core over there. Because the the go to chairs
Speaker 1: in this podcast chamber are awful. I don't know where
Speaker 1: they came from. I think they were like salvaged from
Speaker 1: like a shipwreck. And and if you actually lean back
Speaker 1: into them, they just it curves your spin into a
Speaker 1: question mark. Um. I don't know. Maybe some people can
Speaker 1: roll with that a little better, but I just I
Speaker 1: find it tortuous because even then I'm all hunchback in
Speaker 1: the chair, and I just I don't feel like I'm healthy,
Speaker 1: I don't feel confident. So if I felt outset on
Speaker 1: the stool, I feel a lot a lot better. I
Speaker 1: feel like, all right, I can actually do this. You
Speaker 1: feel large and in charge exactly. Yeah, And that is
Speaker 1: really what is at the heart of these postural changes.
Speaker 1: Because we're talking about is body language. And there's been
Speaker 1: a lot of discussion about body language, how you can
Speaker 1: ascertain certain things from people by the way that they
Speaker 1: are giving you nonverbal cues. But someone who's given us
Speaker 1: a fresh take on this is Harvard psychologist Amy Cutty,
Speaker 1: and she actually has a great Ted dot com talk
Speaker 1: which is called your body language Shapes who you are,
Speaker 1: and she says, it's not just about communicating what you're
Speaker 1: feeling your emotional states, it's really about changing your biochemistry
Speaker 1: through this physical movement. Yeah, because the I mean the
Speaker 1: idea of don't slump set up straight that that's old everyone.
Speaker 1: Everyone's heard that their entire life. They're their old video
Speaker 1: not videos even, but old like educational films. Uh. There's
Speaker 1: something called posture pals that they famously riffed on the
Speaker 1: mystery Siense Theater through thousand, where all the children are
Speaker 1: being told how to how to uh gain their posture
Speaker 1: so that they'll be better little children. I think we
Speaker 1: all know on one level that that there are certain
Speaker 1: postures that just look better, and you're just gonna look
Speaker 1: more like you know what you're doing and you're a
Speaker 1: little more more confident, but Cutty has actually applied the science.
Speaker 1: And what I mean one of the sort of really
Speaker 1: interesting things that you mentioned is that if she refers
Speaker 1: to it as non verbal expression of power and dominance,
Speaker 1: so this is taking it out of the whole, you know,
Speaker 1: your mom's saying, don't slump, set up straight, and putting
Speaker 1: it in the context of the animal kingdom at large.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's kind of an overstatement of the obvious.
Speaker 1: But the power dynamics of this, the non verbal communication
Speaker 1: of power, I mean, you see that in dogs, You
Speaker 1: see that in in cats and snakes, in insects, I mean,
Speaker 1: you you name it. That animals use their body language
Speaker 1: to show, hey, I'm the top dog right now, I'm
Speaker 1: the one in charge. You need to back down. Well,
Speaker 1: there was someone I used to work with at the
Speaker 1: zoo and he was a keeper there and he actually
Speaker 1: um worked with the gorillas, and he would tell me
Speaker 1: stories about how when he would go in to clean
Speaker 1: their cages that the male silverback gorillas would bow up
Speaker 1: at him as if to say, hey, man, I see you.
Speaker 1: You know what are you doing in my space? Which
Speaker 1: I think is really interesting because, as you say, you
Speaker 1: can see that in nature Um, So it makes sense
Speaker 1: that as humans are doing the same thing, just sometimes subconsciously,
Speaker 1: we don't realize it. And Amy Cutty saw this in
Speaker 1: the classroom. Um. She went into classrooms full of MBA students,
Speaker 1: and what she saw is that there is a gender
Speaker 1: grade gap. Men slightly outperformed women and it's really competitive.
Speaker 1: And so she started to say, Okay, we'm gonna take
Speaker 1: a closer look at this, and she noticed that the
Speaker 1: women tended to make themselves small and hold their wrists
Speaker 1: and wrap their arms around themselves, while the guys tended
Speaker 1: to make themselves bigger. They leaned back, they stretched out,
Speaker 1: they drink their arms around chairs. And she said, you know,
Speaker 1: we know from studies to facial feedback that if you smile,
Speaker 1: you fake yourself into feeling happier. So what if what if, um,
Speaker 1: you could do the same thing with body language, if
Speaker 1: you just physically spread out, would you feel more powerful?
Speaker 1: That was the thesis of these studies that she conducted.
Speaker 1: Now she's talking like actually, because at one point in
Speaker 1: this description, I'm just imagining like some dudes played out
Speaker 1: on the couch, and look, there seems like there comes
Speaker 1: a point where it's no longer I mean, I guess
Speaker 1: there is a certain communication via the body that says, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm totally totally carefree, I'm completely in charge. The dudea vibes,
Speaker 1: you know, But but it seems like there would be
Speaker 1: a cut off point to where it's like I'm just
Speaker 1: sit laying on a couch versus I'm setting up straight
Speaker 1: and in charge. You know. Well, and it's interesting to
Speaker 1: talk she does kind of talk about the best ways
Speaker 1: to use this posture. She's saying that if you want
Speaker 1: to feel large and in charge, but you're talking to
Speaker 1: your boss, it's best not to bow up and try
Speaker 1: to dominate him or her, because I would send the
Speaker 1: wrong message. Um, you would then seem sort of as
Speaker 1: though you had some sort of evil agenda right right now.
Speaker 1: Just to to to drive home just another another fact
Speaker 1: about just how key this is to who we are
Speaker 1: and just how how it's in our genes and in
Speaker 1: our design um. She points out. Cutting points out that
Speaker 1: athletes who are blind from birth who say, you know,
Speaker 1: go through the finish line, finish that race, win the race,
Speaker 1: They've never seen ore other people do like a you know,
Speaker 1: the victory arms in the air head back. They have
Speaker 1: never seen that, but they do it like it's it's
Speaker 1: just a natural response to to victory to just go
Speaker 1: on and just hands, you know, hands held high, headheld high,
Speaker 1: chest open. It's just a natural response to victory and
Speaker 1: dominance because they're assuming the power and the glory of
Speaker 1: that moment. Yeah, which is really I forgot about that
Speaker 1: point that she makes. It's really interesting. Um, yeah, there
Speaker 1: are a lot of uh different instances that you can
Speaker 1: bring up that really underscore the importance of it. Uh
Speaker 1: Nalini Ambadi is a researcher at Tufts University and showed
Speaker 1: that when people watch thirty seconds soundless clips of real
Speaker 1: physician patient interactions, their judgments of the physician's niceness i
Speaker 1: you know, say, her body language or um predicts whether
Speaker 1: or not that physician will be sued. Isn't it interesting?
Speaker 1: So it's more a questionable lickability in this instance where
Speaker 1: they're viewing these interactions as opposed to competence. So the
Speaker 1: people who are viewing that, they're not even really thinking
Speaker 1: about competence or liability or assuming this person. They're just
Speaker 1: thinking whether or not that person looks approachable, seems approachable,
Speaker 1: and predicts whether or not they're going to get sued. Uh.
Speaker 1: So let's get to what she was actually doing, though,
Speaker 1: Cutty when she was trying to do this quick little
Speaker 1: life hack with people in their postures. Yeah, of course
Speaker 1: she's she's interested in the science of this, not just oh, well,
Speaker 1: you know what's the cause and correlation here, but actually
Speaker 1: what happens in the body when someone is is puffing
Speaker 1: up into this dominant stance. And as she found that
Speaker 1: there are actual hormonal changes in the hormonal profile changes
Speaker 1: you see higher levels of testosterone and lower levels of cortisol.
Speaker 1: And she says that this ratio is really important, and
Speaker 1: that if you look at a lot of quote unquote
Speaker 1: effective leaders, that they all have this kind of cocktail
Speaker 1: of configuration, the leader cocktail. So they wondered, well, if
Speaker 1: you could have someone assumed the alpha role, could you
Speaker 1: then game they are hormones to do the very same thing,
Speaker 1: And they in fact did that. They had people assume
Speaker 1: postures of powerfulness, and they had people assume postures of
Speaker 1: what they call low power, and they found that the
Speaker 1: low power people were having a higher cortisol incidents as
Speaker 1: opposed to the people who are the powerful posturers. So
Speaker 1: so they took the alpha the alpha dogs, and they said,
Speaker 1: all right, now slump over now, just now, bring your
Speaker 1: your shoulders up around your ear. Okay, now hold your wrist,
Speaker 1: and the chemistry and then changed. The alpha chemistry faded
Speaker 1: and they took on the beta chemistry, whereas you took
Speaker 1: the the other betas and you said, all right, I
Speaker 1: want you to, you know, roll your shoulders back, open
Speaker 1: your chest, stand up straight, and then the leader cocktail
Speaker 1: bubbles up inside. Yes, um, you know with in terms
Speaker 1: of testosterone increases in some cases. And um, the testosterone
Speaker 1: of course is important because this is that uh, this
Speaker 1: is what is giving that air of confidence, right. And
Speaker 1: the cortisol levels is you know, correlating to your amount
Speaker 1: of stress. So if it drops, then that's great. You
Speaker 1: look confident, you look comfortable. And that's what she was
Speaker 1: trying to do with these people who were of different
Speaker 1: ages and genders and different positions in their own lives.
Speaker 1: She wanted to test this across the board and see
Speaker 1: if she could come up with something cohesive and low
Speaker 1: and behold. When they then tested them their hormone levels,
Speaker 1: they found that it did correspond with the postures that
Speaker 1: they assumed. And now they were only assuming these postures
Speaker 1: for two minutes, which is amazing. Beca, it's not like
Speaker 1: go around like this all the time and your your
Speaker 1: chemistry will changes. No, you can just go into this,
Speaker 1: this this dominant posture for a couple of minutes and
Speaker 1: it'll lift everything up. Yeah. And you know, she put
Speaker 1: them in a couple of different scenarios to to see
Speaker 1: how they would perform, so it wasn't just like, hey,
Speaker 1: let's look at your hormone profile. Now, let's see how
Speaker 1: you actually perform. And what they did with one group
Speaker 1: is they had them give a keynote speech and um.
Speaker 1: Once they did that in front the audience and they
Speaker 1: had assumed again the high power poses. They came across
Speaker 1: as much more confident than their peers who had the
Speaker 1: low uh posture. And then they did the same thing again,
Speaker 1: the same assuming of these postures. And they have these
Speaker 1: people go in for interviews. Now, what's interesting about this
Speaker 1: is that the interviewer wasn't giving them any sort of
Speaker 1: facial feedback, completely neutral, and she said that it didn't
Speaker 1: matter if you had assumed a low or a high posture.
Speaker 1: You all the people who participated in this hated it
Speaker 1: because interviews. You know, there's so much fun anyway, Um,
Speaker 1: if you couldn't get a clue about how the other
Speaker 1: person is perceiving you, it's that much more frustrating. But again, um,
Speaker 1: when they had someone go through coding this because they
Speaker 1: taped these interviews, coding it to see how the people performed.
Speaker 1: And again, the coder doesn't know what's going on here,
Speaker 1: doesn't know anything about the testosterone, doesn't know anything about
Speaker 1: the cortisol or the postures. The code ers time and
Speaker 1: agamp would say this person is doing great, and invariably
Speaker 1: that person was the person who was arms at kimbo.
Speaker 1: You know, chest outward looking powerful. You know, it's interesting
Speaker 1: to think about the I guess like I tend to
Speaker 1: focus more on the chest outward thing. And and part
Speaker 1: of that is comes from yoga because that's that's one
Speaker 1: of the things that's stressed a lot in yoga is
Speaker 1: to to you know, to open your chest, open your heart. Uh,
Speaker 1: not only when you're just setting that in various other
Speaker 1: poses as well. And my my yoga instructors often brings
Speaker 1: up examples of this in the say superheroes, because what
Speaker 1: is the superhero they have that emblem on their chest
Speaker 1: as if in a way, well, like a superhero with
Speaker 1: an emblem on their on their chest, but it's Superman
Speaker 1: or Batman or whatever. It's kind of a body dominance
Speaker 1: cod piece of sorts. You know. It's kind of like
Speaker 1: they're saying, not only is my chest open, it's got
Speaker 1: this symbol on, it's got a bad on it. Um.
Speaker 1: It brings to mind han him On, the monkey god
Speaker 1: out of Hindu legend, who at one point proves his
Speaker 1: devot ocean to Ram by by ripping open his chest
Speaker 1: and there's like a he had shows his fiery heart
Speaker 1: and there's like a miniature Ram and Sita inside there.
Speaker 1: So that's another example of the the open fiery chest
Speaker 1: that's just kind of adorable too. Yeah, yeah, is great.
Speaker 1: But I'm also can't help but be reminded of a
Speaker 1: conversation we had with Holly Frey last week, who is
Speaker 1: of course the co host of Pop Stuff, Pop Stuff Fabulous,
Speaker 1: how sto Works podcast about all sorts of cool, geeky
Speaker 1: and pop culture things. But she was talking about getting
Speaker 1: her photo taken and how like the photographer at first
Speaker 1: was like, all right, open your chest, you know, don't swump,
Speaker 1: and then they were telling her don't open your chest.
Speaker 1: So too, I wondered, to what extent, because we're talking
Speaker 1: about the gender dynamics here, to what extent does that
Speaker 1: play into it? Okay, So I'm glad you brought that up,
Speaker 1: because I was gonna say, one of the problems here
Speaker 1: is that just the physicality of it, I think for women,
Speaker 1: because sometimes if you are to put your shoulders back, well,
Speaker 1: obviously your breasts are gonna be pushed out much more.
Speaker 1: And you know it's going around like that, it looks
Speaker 1: a bit odd because it seems as though you're trying
Speaker 1: to um put that forward as the agenda, as opposed
Speaker 1: to being like, hey, look how powerful I am. So
Speaker 1: it may be one of the reasons that women do
Speaker 1: sort of sometimes crouch in. Okay, I was wondering about that. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it's obviously not true for all women because obviously
Speaker 1: everybody has different body types. But it was interesting that
Speaker 1: Holly brought that up, and then I was certainly thinking
Speaker 1: about that. Now. One of the iconic poses that Amy
Speaker 1: Cutty talks about is called the super Woman post that
Speaker 1: they had everyone do, and in particular, she was interested
Speaker 1: in doing it with the females because she wanted to
Speaker 1: see how that would work. But the super Woman pose
Speaker 1: is you've got your hands on your hips, and you've
Speaker 1: got your shoulders back, and you've got your feet you
Speaker 1: know about I don't know, maybe like two ft apart
Speaker 1: from each other. Okay, so you see wonder One and
Speaker 1: in this pose and promotional skills from the old TV show. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: with a cape floating in the wind behind her um.
Speaker 1: And so this is what she's talking about. She's talking
Speaker 1: about assuming a powerful pose. Now it's kind of hard
Speaker 1: to do this in your real life, but now she's
Speaker 1: just that can't that doesn't won't stop you from going
Speaker 1: into the bathroom before an interview, right, doing it for
Speaker 1: two minutes, and then coming out and at least having
Speaker 1: that energy and confidence inside you, even if you're not
Speaker 1: completely you know, storming into your boss's office with you
Speaker 1: acting like your supergirl, right, which, hey, I don't know
Speaker 1: where you work, but that might that might work. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean she's saying you might return to the waiting room,
Speaker 1: but now you're going to return to the waiting room,
Speaker 1: and you're going to be assuming a powerful pose as
Speaker 1: you sit down and wait, as opposed to crouching together,
Speaker 1: so very very easy life hack to do. Um and
Speaker 1: a very interesting talk by her on ted dot com.
Speaker 1: All right, so there's one little thing that you can
Speaker 1: do just tweak your life in the year ahead. Um.
Speaker 1: But we have a few more to mention, and one
Speaker 1: that certainly comes to mind, especially in the light of
Speaker 1: some recent podcasts, is how we deal with what is
Speaker 1: called the default mode network. Yeah, default mode network, just
Speaker 1: as a refresher, is a sort of a configuration of
Speaker 1: the medial prefrontal cortex, the medial parietal cortex in the
Speaker 1: medial temporal lobes, and these cortical associations between another are
Speaker 1: really helping to shape, um, this concept of ourselves. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's basically the neuroscientific understanding of vehgoic mind, of
Speaker 1: that of that meani me voice inside our heads about
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's that it's that voice. When you
Speaker 1: you're you're not busy with something, your mind busies itself
Speaker 1: by thinking about the past and worrying about the future
Speaker 1: and and just gnawing on itself like a like a
Speaker 1: dog dealing with an each on its butt. Yes, as
Speaker 1: you have pointed out before, looking it to the point
Speaker 1: where it's now making a wound out of it. I
Speaker 1: mean when you stop to think about it, when you
Speaker 1: actually stop and become conscious of this, this the cycle
Speaker 1: in your head. I mean, it's it's ridiculous, sympathetic as
Speaker 1: a dog chewing its own thought because you're you're stop
Speaker 1: and you think this is doing no good, absolutely doing
Speaker 1: no good. Well, the point of this whole um cortical
Speaker 1: association is to maintain a balanced sense of consciousness and
Speaker 1: your ego. But as you say, sometimes you can chew
Speaker 1: on those thoughts a bit too much. And uh, it's
Speaker 1: this sort of hyperactivity in this region that you see
Speaker 1: in people who are clinically depressed. All right, so that's
Speaker 1: where the problems come online. And you know, we should
Speaker 1: say this is kind of obvious, but everybody deals with
Speaker 1: depression at some point in their life, either throughout their
Speaker 1: life or different spots. So no doubt you guys listening
Speaker 1: out there know what that feels like to be over
Speaker 1: consumed in that part of your mind. So, uh, what
Speaker 1: is important to hear about this is that, as we
Speaker 1: pointed out before, we spend half of our life day dreaming.
Speaker 1: And when we're day dreaming, no doubt we are thinking
Speaker 1: about ourselves and all of our problems and what we're
Speaker 1: going to do about those, um So in order to
Speaker 1: try to quiet this part of the mind, meditation, it
Speaker 1: turns out, is one of the most effective things that
Speaker 1: you can do. Uh. Dr Jasin Brewer, who is the
Speaker 1: medical director of the Yale Therapeutic Neuroscience Clinic and his
Speaker 1: colleagues as ten experienced meditators and thirteen people with no
Speaker 1: meditation experience to practice meditation techniques. And he found out
Speaker 1: a lot of interesting things about this by using fm
Speaker 1: R I to look at their brains, and uh, the
Speaker 1: experienced meditators had decreased activity in that default mode network.
Speaker 1: And even when the meditators weren't meditating, this region of
Speaker 1: their brain was much quieter than the inexperienced counterparts. So
Speaker 1: what's this telling us? Is telling us that a practice
Speaker 1: of I mean something, even like I think that was
Speaker 1: a twelve minute practice or a fifteen minute practice a day,
Speaker 1: can actually change your brain. It can sort of uh
Speaker 1: tamp down all the wildness of the mind, uh to
Speaker 1: the point where you know someone may suffer from that wildness. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you may be thinking, well, how do I how
Speaker 1: do I start meditating? Right? I mean, you may think, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't even know if there's a place in my
Speaker 1: area that has meditation, and my schedule so busy, But
Speaker 1: it's as simple as when you wake up in the morning,
Speaker 1: before you do anything, or after you're taking a shower.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm not gonna play in your day
Speaker 1: for you, but it is best to do it right
Speaker 1: then because that you get it done right right right. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: So let's say, first thing, you get up, go to
Speaker 1: a room in your house where there's not a TV on,
Speaker 1: where there's not another person stirring, whether there's not a
Speaker 1: cat or a dog, you know, playing for your affections.
Speaker 1: Take your phone with you, set the timer for ten minutes,
Speaker 1: twelve minutes, something like that, and then just set there
Speaker 1: and just and and think about your breath, you know,
Speaker 1: think of like put yourself in your breath, breathing in,
Speaker 1: breathing out. Doing a alternate nostril breathing is a great
Speaker 1: way to do this too, where you're closing closing one
Speaker 1: nostril and then the other, breathing in through one side
Speaker 1: and out through the other. You end up focusing on
Speaker 1: that and then and then instead of worrying about what
Speaker 1: the rest of your day is going to consist of
Speaker 1: what you need to be doing at this moment. You're
Speaker 1: just in that moment, experiencing that moment for say, ten minutes,
Speaker 1: without even thinking. Like certainly don't have the clock out
Speaker 1: where you can watch it tick either, just because the
Speaker 1: idea too is not to be worried about how much
Speaker 1: time is passing. And am I through with this meditation yet? Okay,
Speaker 1: so I'm a lazy meditator and I've been doing it
Speaker 1: the last couple of weeks. So that's really something I
Speaker 1: want to do in this coming year is to have
Speaker 1: a regular practice. And I will tell you that I
Speaker 1: don't even get out of bed. I just sit in
Speaker 1: an upright position and then I meditate and then when
Speaker 1: I thought comes in, I call it. I call it
Speaker 1: a thought, and I let it go. And so for me,
Speaker 1: the goal is just to get a quiet moment, even
Speaker 1: if that quiet moment is as short as five seconds,
Speaker 1: and I do it for as long as I can,
Speaker 1: meaning either the cat comes in and starts to harass
Speaker 1: me or my daughter comes in the room. And sometimes
Speaker 1: that's ten minutes and sometimes that's thirty minutes. But um,
Speaker 1: the point is is that making it as easy as
Speaker 1: it can be for you is a way to accomplish it,
Speaker 1: at least for me. Um, I really, I mean I
Speaker 1: roll over and I start meditating. Yeah. And even if you,
Speaker 1: as we mentioned the previous podcast about this, even if
Speaker 1: you're not actually bringing the fight to the default mode
Speaker 1: network with meditation or what have you, just being conscious
Speaker 1: of it can be a huge victory on just a
Speaker 1: daily basis if you can actually stop and realize, WHOA,
Speaker 1: this is just my default mode network gnawing a little
Speaker 1: bit too much. I'm behind her. I let this go.
Speaker 1: Or one method that Akartole brings up is if you're
Speaker 1: having some sort of thought that you don't like in
Speaker 1: your head, you know, they saying, ah, you suck or
Speaker 1: oh you're really screwed up last night, think to yourself,
Speaker 1: I wonder what my next thought will be. And it's
Speaker 1: it's it's almost magical in the way that it sort
Speaker 1: of clears the deck. Well, and that's that that's interrupting
Speaker 1: that feedback loop. Right. We've talked about this before, and um,
Speaker 1: when we've talked about different instances when you're trying to
Speaker 1: acknowledge anger, which we'll talk about two Um, it's important
Speaker 1: to be able to get to that space. And here's
Speaker 1: the thing about meditation is that the more you do it,
Speaker 1: the more when you're not meditating, he'll be able to
Speaker 1: interrupt those thoughts or observe your own thoughts. And doing
Speaker 1: that makes you sort of like, uh, I don't know
Speaker 1: how to say this the programmer of the matrix, because
Speaker 1: all of a sudden you're standing outside of your own
Speaker 1: brain and you're deciding what the next move is going
Speaker 1: to be as opposed to your automated self. Um. Now,
Speaker 1: if that's not enough of a reason to meditate, we
Speaker 1: should probably also mentioned that you can actually increase your telomerase.
Speaker 1: Now telmo raise is an enzyme and it's really important,
Speaker 1: um for something called telomeres, which are sequences of DNA
Speaker 1: at the end of chromosomes that tend to get shorter
Speaker 1: every time a cell divides. So we talked about telomeres. Um.
Speaker 1: I think we've talked about probably in the context of
Speaker 1: the Fountain of Youth before. They're kind of the shoe
Speaker 1: strings that are unraveling on our life. Yeah, and so
Speaker 1: you know when when they unraveled to a certain point,
Speaker 1: then you begin to see disease introduced and so on
Speaker 1: and so forth. So it really is important to try
Speaker 1: to build for them as much as possible, and the
Speaker 1: way to do that is with telomerase, this enzyme that
Speaker 1: can rebuild in lengthen telomeres. Now. Tanya Jacob, she's a
Speaker 1: scientist at you see David Center for Mind and Brain,
Speaker 1: reported in the journal psycho neuroendo Chronology that meditators show
Speaker 1: improved psychological well being and that these improvements lead to
Speaker 1: biochemical changes associated to resistance to aging at the cellular level.
Speaker 1: So what she is talking about here is that these
Speaker 1: meditators white blood showed a thirty percent increase in telomerase,
Speaker 1: which is um is pretty significant in here because again
Speaker 1: we're talking about this enzyme that is essential to long
Speaker 1: term health of the body's chromosomes and cells and not
Speaker 1: to get to uh steady heavy. But I did want
Speaker 1: to mention one other aspect of meditation and the genetic
Speaker 1: level here, and I'm talking about Helen Lavretsky. She's a
Speaker 1: professor of psychiatry at u c L, a semial Institute
Speaker 1: for neuroscience and Human behavior, and she used dementia caregivers
Speaker 1: as her subjects in order to test meditation and stress
Speaker 1: and the reason why she used them is because they
Speaker 1: have very high stressed jobs and there's a high incidence
Speaker 1: of clinical depression among those caregivers. And she had forty
Speaker 1: five caregivers, half of whom were given a daily twelve
Speaker 1: minute meditation routine that they practiced for eight weeks. The
Speaker 1: other half were given a twelve minute place to sit
Speaker 1: and be quiet and listen to soothing music and again
Speaker 1: they did this for eight weeks UM. They took blood
Speaker 1: stain pulse before an effort after in each group to
Speaker 1: examine their gene expression and the results were that those
Speaker 1: who had been doing the meditation exercises had modified gene expressions.
Speaker 1: So what they found is that sixty eight genes were
Speaker 1: found to be different after the meditation, and the modified
Speaker 1: genes involved the body's inflammation response and the ability to
Speaker 1: fight off bacterial and viral infections. So the story here
Speaker 1: is that at this genetic level, they're gaming the body
Speaker 1: to have less inflammation, um less illness, and again in
Speaker 1: people who are having pretty stressful days, a lot of
Speaker 1: stress responses and by simply doing this twelve minute meditation
Speaker 1: they're able to vanquish the UH stress genes here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's getting down to the epigenetic change is actually shutting
Speaker 1: off harmful genes. So it's it's and again and all
Speaker 1: comes down to meditation. Another aspect of meditation is pretty
Speaker 1: cool tension. I feel like most of us feel like
Speaker 1: we could maybe be a little more attentive in our lives. Uh.
Speaker 1: And indeed, there's another study from University of California at Davis,
Speaker 1: the Samantha Project, enrolled sixty experienced meditators in a three
Speaker 1: month study. Half of these they selected to receive intensive
Speaker 1: training and practice in meditation over the spring months of
Speaker 1: two thousand seven. So they carried this out and at
Speaker 1: the end of it, they found that those who intensively
Speaker 1: practiced meditation got better at visual perception and as a result,
Speaker 1: experienced also improved attention. That's so cool because we always
Speaker 1: talk about how much we don't see in our daily
Speaker 1: lives that surround us, that you can't take in all
Speaker 1: the data, but this seems to suggest that you could
Speaker 1: take in more data if you just couldn't um sending
Speaker 1: yourself a little bit more. Yeah, I mean, it reminds
Speaker 1: us again of the whole, the whole idea that that
Speaker 1: adults see the world with flashlight vision, and children see
Speaker 1: it with lantern vision. And to a certain extent, meditation
Speaker 1: is about taking your flashlight vision UH and dimming it
Speaker 1: out and expanding it into more of a lamp vision
Speaker 1: of at least your immediate surroundings. And it made immediate
Speaker 1: experience of the world, So attention increases. Obviously, we're taking
Speaker 1: that's that's a little higher up on the tree for picking,
Speaker 1: because this is intense meditation, but again low pickings easily obtainable. UH.
Speaker 1: Is the idea that just ten, twelve, twenty minutes a
Speaker 1: day can actually improve your life, so right at at
Speaker 1: the genetic level and various other levels. So it's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: It's definitely a return on investment. UH. Should we take
Speaker 1: a break here, We should take a break. We'll take
Speaker 1: a quick break, and when we come back, we have
Speaker 1: a few more little life packs you can throw at
Speaker 1: your and better yourselves without breaking the back. All right,
Speaker 1: we're back. We've talked about how little meditation can make
Speaker 1: a big difference in your life. We've talked a little
Speaker 1: bit too, about how just a little more awareness of
Speaker 1: your posture can make a big difference in how you feel,
Speaker 1: how confident you feel and how confident you seem to
Speaker 1: those around you, and both of these are again things.
Speaker 1: So it's just twenty minutes here, twenty minutes there with
Speaker 1: huge effects. So next on the list, we're gonna talk
Speaker 1: about an old friend of IRUs here from another topic
Speaker 1: we've covered before in the past, and I've had a
Speaker 1: lot of fun with that being decision fatigue. Now decision fatigue,
Speaker 1: just to refresh everyone's mind is it's the the concept
Speaker 1: that the more little decisions you make during the day,
Speaker 1: or even big decisions, but the more decisions your brain
Speaker 1: has to make, um it has a toll, there's a
Speaker 1: there's a limit. It ultimately ends up an ego depletion.
Speaker 1: So if you wake up in the morning and you
Speaker 1: and the first thing you have to do, you have
Speaker 1: to decide what you're having for breakfast. Then you have
Speaker 1: to decide how are you're gonna get to work or
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take the train? Am I gonna drive? And
Speaker 1: I do I dare take the interstate? Or should I
Speaker 1: take one of the back ways secret routes that I
Speaker 1: know to get there? And then when I when I
Speaker 1: actually get to work, should I have some of the
Speaker 1: cake that's out there for Anne's birthday, or should I
Speaker 1: abstain from it? And then you're worrying about, oh, we
Speaker 1: should I work on this project or this one? And
Speaker 1: what am I gonna do for lunch? And then by
Speaker 1: the time mid afternoon rolls around, you're done. You have like,
Speaker 1: you have no more decision making process. So someone comes
Speaker 1: up and ask you something really important. You know, your
Speaker 1: wife that calls up and says, hey, should we buy
Speaker 1: this house? And you just have no clue. You can't
Speaker 1: say yeah, absolutely, yeah, let's let's do it, okay, And
Speaker 1: then later on you're like, how did that happen? I
Speaker 1: didn't even ask how much it was? Um, so yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, what it points to is that we have
Speaker 1: a finite store of mental energy for exercising self control.
Speaker 1: And this was found out by a number of social psychologists,
Speaker 1: but one in particular by the name of Roy Baumeister,
Speaker 1: and uh he says, this is the reason why otherwise
Speaker 1: reasonable people do illogical things is because of this constant
Speaker 1: niddling all these sorts of little, tiny decisions that we
Speaker 1: have to make. And they found this out through a
Speaker 1: series of studies, but one of my favorite ones, I
Speaker 1: believe It was a graduate student under Baumleinster who was
Speaker 1: getting married and had to go and what do you
Speaker 1: call it? When you go and you register for gifts,
Speaker 1: give you a little gun and you shoot, you shoot,
Speaker 1: you try to figure out And she realized that she
Speaker 1: was completely um sacked by the whole process. I mean,
Speaker 1: she was just it took all of her mental stores
Speaker 1: of energy. And so she did something very similar with
Speaker 1: a group. And I won't go into that um into
Speaker 1: that study. You can if you were interested, and you
Speaker 1: can check out our Decision Fatigue podcast. But the point
Speaker 1: is is that it underscored that there's just only so
Speaker 1: much attention that we can give to every little thing
Speaker 1: in our lives. But here's the cool thing about it.
Speaker 1: It is food, in particular glucose that can help us
Speaker 1: with this mental state. Yeah. It turns out even even
Speaker 1: the smartest people, even like just the sharpest tools and drawer,
Speaker 1: if they don't have enough gluecose in the system, if
Speaker 1: they're not well rested as well, they will not make
Speaker 1: those good decisions. Yeah. Baumeister looked at judges on an
Speaker 1: Israel parole board, and uh, these judges and all their
Speaker 1: decisions were studied to see if there was any pattern
Speaker 1: of granting parole. Now, after looking at something like eleven
Speaker 1: hundred decisions with the researchers found as the day war
Speaker 1: on is that inmates were denied parole more often. So
Speaker 1: prisoners who appeared early in the morning received parole about
Speaker 1: seventy percent of the time, while those who appeared late
Speaker 1: in the day were paroled less than ten percent at
Speaker 1: the time. UM, and what they see here is that
Speaker 1: those judges were having a mid morning snack, usually a
Speaker 1: little bit before ten thirty, and then they would take
Speaker 1: a break, they'd have their snack, and then they'd come back,
Speaker 1: and then those prisoners who appeared just before the break
Speaker 1: had only about a chance of getting parole, but right
Speaker 1: after their break they had a sixty five percent chance.
Speaker 1: So they're looking at this data again, these eleven d decisions,
Speaker 1: and they're correlating it with when the judges are getting
Speaker 1: these hits of glucose to their brains via food and
Speaker 1: figuring out that what the judges are doing when they're
Speaker 1: hungry or when they're when they've got a glucose depletion
Speaker 1: in their system is that they're taking shortcuts and decision making. UM.
Speaker 1: The reason why they're denying parole is because that's just
Speaker 1: deferring the decision that they have to make. So they're saying, okay, fine,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying yes or no. Here, Um, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: bear on the side of not yea, of not granting
Speaker 1: parole because you know in six months, three months, eight months,
Speaker 1: this is going to come back and we'll review it
Speaker 1: again then. Because the mind actually knows when it is
Speaker 1: running out of energy, it will begin to batten down
Speaker 1: the hatches in these ways in which we'll try to
Speaker 1: avoid decision making. So basically, the people in the study,
Speaker 1: they were just unfortunate enough to have their earl here
Speaker 1: and take place during naptime and during snack time. These
Speaker 1: judges basically needed a nap and a muffin, but to
Speaker 1: actually think about the and actually um actually study the
Speaker 1: case before them. So yeah, and bal Muster has said,
Speaker 1: your brain does not stopped working when glucose is low.
Speaker 1: It stopped doing some things and starts doing others. It
Speaker 1: responds more strongly to immediate rewards and pays less attention
Speaker 1: to long term prospects. And granting parole is a long
Speaker 1: term prospect, right, because you really have to think about
Speaker 1: how that's a long term impact on that individual. So
Speaker 1: what is that? What's the takeaway for us? You need
Speaker 1: to eat the little snacks. I mean that sounds ridiculous.
Speaker 1: It sounds like like we're all just a bunch of
Speaker 1: toddlers sitting around, But that is what it boils down to.
Speaker 1: I mean, think about it. When when you're in a
Speaker 1: state when you're feeling tired or confused, Um, it's usually
Speaker 1: correlated with having to eat something and get a little
Speaker 1: shot of glucose to your brain. Yeah, I mean basically,
Speaker 1: have some granola bars around, or some snack mix or
Speaker 1: something or or or an apple or two, and you
Speaker 1: might be wondering, well, how do I how do I
Speaker 1: actually use this to gain my life? You know, what
Speaker 1: little rules can I make for myself? In Like one
Speaker 1: concept that comes to mind is do not go onto
Speaker 1: Amazon or whatever your shopping side happens to be, or
Speaker 1: do not go shopping unless you have had a granola bar.
Speaker 1: You know, make sure that you're going because otherwise you're
Speaker 1: going into a decision making. There are a series of
Speaker 1: decisions with without the mental faculties to really think about it,
Speaker 1: and you're gonna you're just gonna bomb it. Eventually you're like,
Speaker 1: I've got to get my mom a birthday gift. I'll
Speaker 1: just get her some perfume, you know, don't you Just
Speaker 1: you just point at something and shoot just to get
Speaker 1: it done. I'm glad that you bring that up, because
Speaker 1: I think it's important to you, um, underscore that the
Speaker 1: sort of life that we're leading now, where in by
Speaker 1: nine o'clock in the morning, if you get up stay
Speaker 1: at seven, you have already made hundreds of choices, particularly
Speaker 1: if you're working on the computer and you're using the Internet,
Speaker 1: and you're just not thinking of them as choices, right. Um,
Speaker 1: But in even the pop up at that come up,
Speaker 1: all these sorts of things are choices. Um, you know
Speaker 1: something that you have to do and respond to all
Speaker 1: that stimuli. Yeah, Like I really like a persuasive ad.
Speaker 1: You see it and you're like, oh, I wonder, I
Speaker 1: wonder if I should buy that. No, of course they
Speaker 1: shouldn't buy that. That's a decision right there. You just
Speaker 1: use a little juice on that. Or um, you see
Speaker 1: a sign, um, you know at the train station that
Speaker 1: says don't get too close to the train when it's moving,
Speaker 1: or you know whatever, even that you might think yourself, Oh,
Speaker 1: I wonder if I get too close to the train
Speaker 1: when I when it's moving, and then bam, I've used
Speaker 1: some more mental energy. So this is another case where
Speaker 1: just mere awareness is good. Just knowing that you only
Speaker 1: have so many choices and so much choice juice in
Speaker 1: that brain of yours, so limit where you squander it
Speaker 1: and know when to when to schedule your big decisions,
Speaker 1: like if you're gonna if you're gonna have to go
Speaker 1: in and meet with contractors for a house or something,
Speaker 1: you know, some some work to your house or what
Speaker 1: have you. If you're going in to get legal advice,
Speaker 1: do it in the morning, or do it after you've
Speaker 1: had a granola bar. Just just try and push the
Speaker 1: advantage back in your favorite. If you're going to buy
Speaker 1: a car, do it the first thing in the morning,
Speaker 1: because the sales strategy that all of UM the salesforce
Speaker 1: has been trained in is to wear you down with choices.
Speaker 1: That's why they begin to ask you a million different
Speaker 1: questions about what kind of the car do you have,
Speaker 1: and they start giving you so many different choices that
Speaker 1: by the time that you're actually signing the paperwork, UM,
Speaker 1: you have been worn down so that you began to
Speaker 1: accept whatever thing they put in front of you, like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be eight hundred dollars to have windshield wiper,
Speaker 1: but dazzling done? Is that good? Yeah? Okay? Great? Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you've got a lot of choices to do, Also,
Speaker 1: know what sandwich you're getting and don't go to a
Speaker 1: place where we have to build your own. Know what
Speaker 1: your coffee drink is? Better yet, go to a place
Speaker 1: be a regular so they know what your coffee drink is.
Speaker 1: So even if you you were thinking about changing your
Speaker 1: ways and wondering, is this the day that I get
Speaker 1: a cappuccino instead of of an Americana, No, it's not
Speaker 1: going to be in the realm of possibility because they've
Speaker 1: already made it the second you walk in. All right,
Speaker 1: So I think that gives you, guys a good idea
Speaker 1: of a couple of things you can do to um
Speaker 1: life hack a little bit easy life hacks to try out,
Speaker 1: and we'll take you out with a couple of other
Speaker 1: ideas here. One is to bolster your creativity thought experiments.
Speaker 1: We've talked about this before. Try to figure out a
Speaker 1: problem or some sort of scenario and don't try to
Speaker 1: solve it, just try to come up with as many
Speaker 1: crazy lines of thinking as possible. Um. This is actually
Speaker 1: known as good duncan experiment. Okay in German of course. Um,
Speaker 1: And it is really important. A lot of really important
Speaker 1: thinkers have have done this and had breakthroughs, creative breakthroughs.
Speaker 1: Another one is anger. Yeah, this one was really surprising
Speaker 1: because you brought this up just yesterday and it basically
Speaker 1: boils down to a certain amount of anger, when used properly,
Speaker 1: is good for creativity and leads to positive creative output.
Speaker 1: And initially I just completely rebelled against this idea because
Speaker 1: for the most part of my own experience, I think
Speaker 1: of times where I've been angry at someone or something
Speaker 1: or situation, and I tend to end up end up
Speaker 1: going into that agoic mind area where I'm just brooding
Speaker 1: over that that thing that made me angry and not
Speaker 1: getting anything done because I'm just setting there going, oh
Speaker 1: oh boy, that person was a jerk to me, and
Speaker 1: I really wish this wasn't the case. Why is it
Speaker 1: raining and and all that, and so it just becomes
Speaker 1: this inner dialoge. But but as as as you discovered,
Speaker 1: when you utilize just right when to take a play
Speaker 1: from the The Emperor Palpatine playbook, When you use your anger, Um,
Speaker 1: you can actually achieve great things. Yeah, I mean if
Speaker 1: you know that you're angry and you can try to
Speaker 1: take that moment again. This is where meditation comes into play.
Speaker 1: Or it doesn't have to, but it's helpful because it
Speaker 1: allows you to observe your thoughts. One of the things
Speaker 1: you can do in that moment of anger is figure
Speaker 1: out why you're really angry, because oftentimes it's not really
Speaker 1: the reason you think it is. The second thing is
Speaker 1: it's motivating. It's a motivating factor for you to find
Speaker 1: solutions for that thing not to happen again. Right. Um,
Speaker 1: And this has been seen. Uh, This, this anger and
Speaker 1: this utilizing of anger has been seen in several studies
Speaker 1: and it really is a key hallmark of creative brainstorming. Uh.
Speaker 1: This was found by researchers Mathish Boss Carson did throw
Speaker 1: and Bernard and stad and Uh, the participants were actually
Speaker 1: made you feel angry and we're able to do some
Speaker 1: novel thinking as a result. So you can actually use
Speaker 1: this for good, this anger, if you know how to
Speaker 1: game it, it's long, it doesn't become rage because if
Speaker 1: you some people might other know what happens if you
Speaker 1: put up the dishes, if you unload the dishwasher while angry,
Speaker 1: what happens You end breaking a dish, or you chip
Speaker 1: a dish, or you stab yourself on some forks when
Speaker 1: you're going after the the utensils. Uh. And then also
Speaker 1: you don't want it to turn into sullenness where you're
Speaker 1: just you get so you're just so angry and wound up,
Speaker 1: it just turns into depression. But if you were able
Speaker 1: to calmly utilize it and say, hey, why am I?
Speaker 1: Why am I angry? And what can where can I
Speaker 1: focus this anger in a constructive way, then you you
Speaker 1: can achieve really cool stuff. The more I thought about this,
Speaker 1: I did think of a few cases where I had
Speaker 1: a certain amount of anger over I think in both
Speaker 1: cases it was something it was like a very broad anger,
Speaker 1: like I was I was angry at trends that I
Speaker 1: saw in in in culture, or or or something disturbing
Speaker 1: in history that was really bothering me. There's more like
Speaker 1: humanity at the large scale. Yeah, Like in one case
Speaker 1: that we had to do with insogyny. In another case
Speaker 1: it had to do with with with racism, and it's
Speaker 1: just kind of stuff where if I just sit there
Speaker 1: and I just brood over and I'm like, oh man,
Speaker 1: people are really awful and and you know, then you
Speaker 1: end up you're angry and then you're selling about it.
Speaker 1: So instead I'm like, all right, well, what can I
Speaker 1: do creatively? Well, you know, let me there's gotta be
Speaker 1: a short story here or something. So in both cases
Speaker 1: I was able to write on it and try to
Speaker 1: create something, uh in fiction that use that anger in
Speaker 1: a creative direction. And then after I finished those they
Speaker 1: the sullenness and the anger inside me had resided. So yeah,
Speaker 1: because it really can be a catalyst anger for something again,
Speaker 1: as long as you don't you know, start doing something
Speaker 1: crazy like just going out in the streets and being
Speaker 1: a general marauder. But again control. Yeah, and now also
Speaker 1: sometimes it boils down to food. Again, we've talked about
Speaker 1: being hungry um and I won't go into detail, but
Speaker 1: there's a study about tripp to fan in serotonin and
Speaker 1: anger and the way that serotonin regulates parts of your
Speaker 1: brain in the prefrontal cortex, which is the seat of
Speaker 1: reason with you magdala, which is where we process um
Speaker 1: emotions like anger. And it turns out that people who
Speaker 1: had been induced to have low levels of tripp to
Speaker 1: fan in a study in in the brain, they had
Speaker 1: a harder time with serotonin since tripped fan is a
Speaker 1: building block of serotonin and regulating their anger. So sometimes
Speaker 1: it just spoils down to diet. Right, Yeah, So I
Speaker 1: would challenge everyone if you find yourself in those moments
Speaker 1: where you're feeling angry, first of all, try breathing a
Speaker 1: little bit, just breathing and out for you know, ten
Speaker 1: fifteen counts. Consider having a granola bar, and then ask yourself,
Speaker 1: if it's a persistent thing where you just keep feeling
Speaker 1: angry about something, ask yourself, what can I do with
Speaker 1: this anger? Is there something in my life, in my
Speaker 1: my hobby, my my work, or something that I just
Speaker 1: haven't even tried my hand out. Is there something I
Speaker 1: can I can level, I can fuel this anger into
Speaker 1: that can actually, if not actually make a difference, Because
Speaker 1: certainly there are cases where if you're angry about an
Speaker 1: injustice in the world, there are often ways that you
Speaker 1: can utilize that energy to address those problems. Well, and
Speaker 1: this is this is then the point where you dawn
Speaker 1: your superwoman's stance and put on your cape. Yeah, get confident,
Speaker 1: feel confident in mind and body, and uh go out
Speaker 1: there and see if you can make it. Difference is
Speaker 1: the year it can happen in your cap here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, well, there you go. There are some uh,
Speaker 1: some excellent suggestions on ways that you can tweak your
Speaker 1: and sort of game it a little more in your
Speaker 1: favor in minded body. If you would like to reach
Speaker 1: out to us throughout the new year with your thoughts
Speaker 1: on these tactics, with your experiences trying to use them,
Speaker 1: your success stories, your your your failures, even we'd love
Speaker 1: to hear about hear from you. You can find us
Speaker 1: on Facebook, and you can find us on Twitter, and
Speaker 1: you can find us on tumbler. On Facebook and Tumbler,
Speaker 1: we are stuff to blow your mind. On Twitter, we
Speaker 1: go by the handle blow the Mind and you can
Speaker 1: always drop us a line at blow the Mind at
Speaker 1: discovery dot com for more on this and thousands of
Speaker 1: other topics. Is that how Stuff Works dot com