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.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. Julie
Speaker 1: tell me this. If you ever just holked out something,
Speaker 1: we'll provoke you. And if you're just flying to over
Speaker 1: like a rage and you're suddenly able to tap previously
Speaker 1: inaccessible reserves of strength in order to demolish things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was so hungry. One time I was angry and
Speaker 1: there was his jar of pasta sauce, and I just
Speaker 1: and I popped it open like that. Is that what
Speaker 1: you're talking about? More or less? You know, Holking out
Speaker 1: like tends to of course imply a you've got the
Speaker 1: Incredible Hulk Bruce Bruce Banner due to get my shirt
Speaker 1: tour and everything. Yeah, Twin Green, did you okay? Was
Speaker 1: that after you ate the sauce? This wine? It was
Speaker 1: so easy to open it expired? But of course the
Speaker 1: incredible Hulk comic character, due to radiation, he gets angry.
Speaker 1: He muta into this genormous green muscle man who just
Speaker 1: goes on a rampage in destroy right, and he's usually
Speaker 1: angry or stressed. I mean, he's he's an agitated state,
Speaker 1: right right, And then of course there's Huole Cogan who
Speaker 1: also hulks out. Are you familiar with this? Yes I am, Yes,
Speaker 1: So you've seen a Whole Cogan match? I have, yeah,
Speaker 1: how on the TV and I turned it on once
Speaker 1: and I admired his his wonderful mustache and how could
Speaker 1: I not sit there and be riveted by his blonde
Speaker 1: sheen of hair. Well, the man was a consinate performer,
Speaker 1: it's true. But he would do this thing where he
Speaker 1: would get beat down at last by the bad guy,
Speaker 1: by the enemy, by the heel, and then he starts
Speaker 1: hulking out. He's he starts getting up like he's he's
Speaker 1: shakes his arms, there's a lot of shaking of the body.
Speaker 1: But but what is implied is that he has been
Speaker 1: beaten down to the point where the rage is building
Speaker 1: and he's hulking out his superhuman strength is kicking. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And that's what we're talking about, what not Whole Cogan,
Speaker 1: of course, but we're talking or like I don't know,
Speaker 1: a hundred pound moms who are lifting pound cars off
Speaker 1: of their kid who's pinned underneath. Yes, that's the yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think we've seen this motif pop up in any
Speaker 1: number things where it's the idea that the average person,
Speaker 1: you don't have to be Hulk Cogan or Bruce Banner,
Speaker 1: but the average person can somehow tap into the strength
Speaker 1: and and suddenly someone in human strength to save somebody
Speaker 1: or to get out of some sort of um bad situation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it's it's an intriguing idea because I know we've
Speaker 1: talked about this idea before about how we only use
Speaker 1: tempercent of our brain, which we know is a myth, right,
Speaker 1: but it's sort of similar like, oh, well, we only
Speaker 1: use perhaps of our muscle fibers, and that there's a
Speaker 1: super human strength available to us. And that's sort of right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, under the right circumstances, this could be a
Speaker 1: a possible condition. Now, of course, medical science doesn't actually
Speaker 1: recognize something called hysterical strength, which is what we're talking right,
Speaker 1: because for I mean, for one thing, how do you
Speaker 1: study it? Um? Yeah? Do you you'd be like, all right,
Speaker 1: we need um, you know, eighteen moms and their beloved
Speaker 1: children to participate in the study. Um. Just warning, fair warning,
Speaker 1: we may have to stick your toddler under a buick
Speaker 1: you know, fall down on the kid um, you will
Speaker 1: sign right here, right, it's not gonna fly. And in
Speaker 1: most studies so it's difficult to to to study. But
Speaker 1: we do know some I mean, we've know a lot
Speaker 1: about how the human body works, so we are able
Speaker 1: to to say, yeah, some version of this exists, and
Speaker 1: adrenaline is the key player, right, and we again, this
Speaker 1: has been observed over and over again, and and you know,
Speaker 1: we've got anecdotal evidence of it. I've got a few here.
Speaker 1: Two Lawrence Pille, Georgia. Right around the corner. Right around
Speaker 1: the corner, Angela Cavallo lifted a Chevrolet and Paula from
Speaker 1: her son Tony after it fell off the jacks that
Speaker 1: it held it up while he worked underneath the car.
Speaker 1: She lifted the car high enough and long enough for
Speaker 1: two neighbors to replace the jacks uh and pull Tony
Speaker 1: from beneath the car, but she didn't actually hold it
Speaker 1: up long enough for them to finish working on it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: here's another. In two thousand six Tuson, Arizona, Tim Boyle
Speaker 1: watched as a Chevrolet Camaro hit an eighteen year old
Speaker 1: by the name of Kyle. The car pinned tile to
Speaker 1: the ground. He's still alive right underneath it. So Boyle
Speaker 1: runs out to the scene of the accident and lifts
Speaker 1: the car up while the driver of the car pull
Speaker 1: and pulled the kid to safety. So again a situation
Speaker 1: where cars pinning somebody. Somebody sees it happen, runs out,
Speaker 1: hulks out, Yeah, you don't have to be a mom.
Speaker 1: You can be a concerned citizen, which which I kind
Speaker 1: of like because you know, we recently did the podcast
Speaker 1: about how people behave in crowds, and so I feel
Speaker 1: like this is a nice little panacea too, like, well, okay,
Speaker 1: people can be jerks sometimes, but they can also be
Speaker 1: um terribly great. And there are some there are also
Speaker 1: some phenomenal videos of of multiple people coming to the
Speaker 1: ascue of of individuals that are trapped in or under vehicles.
Speaker 1: There's one recent one who that was, you know, a
Speaker 1: huge success on YouTube. Whar It's like an entire town
Speaker 1: coming out to help. So it's pinned um and and
Speaker 1: that also was a nice counterweight to the crowd apathy
Speaker 1: we were talking about before. UM. But let's talk about
Speaker 1: why this could happen. What you know, again, medical science
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily recognize it that we don't we can't really
Speaker 1: study it, but we know in theory that it's very
Speaker 1: possible and adrenaline has a lot to do with it. Yeah. Basically,
Speaker 1: I have one thing you have to do is just
Speaker 1: think about, like the last time you were afraid or stressed,
Speaker 1: and think about how your body felt, all right, because
Speaker 1: generally what we're talking about here is adrenaline's effect on
Speaker 1: the body all part of the flight or light situation
Speaker 1: where there's some sort of danger, so you need to
Speaker 1: be able to run towards it and run away from it,
Speaker 1: run away from it, and adrenaline put your body through
Speaker 1: a number of changes to facilitate either of those, because
Speaker 1: you're gonna want to run fast or you're gonna you're
Speaker 1: gonna want to be able to hit heart. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: let's talk about the nuts and bolts about this, okay. Um. Basically,
Speaker 1: you've got stressors engaging the hypothalamus. There is the region
Speaker 1: of the brain that's responsible for maintaining the balance between
Speaker 1: stress and relaxation. Right, it's the homeostasis part. Right, keeps
Speaker 1: everything nice and calm unless it needs to to hook out. Um.
Speaker 1: And that is so when you are hooking out, that
Speaker 1: that hypothalamus then says to your adrenal glands, hey, you
Speaker 1: need to go ahead and tell the sympathetic nervous system
Speaker 1: that you've just hit defcon for you know, and adonlin
Speaker 1: and nora adrenaline are then released and they just completely
Speaker 1: flood your body. So the heart rate rises, increasing, respiration
Speaker 1: dilation with the pupils, digestion slows down, and then the
Speaker 1: most important part, it allows your muscles to contract more
Speaker 1: than normal. This is if we could, you know, underline
Speaker 1: with our voices, this is the most important part that
Speaker 1: muscles contracting. Right, Yeah, I think of it. It's kind
Speaker 1: of like the government of your nervous system is temporarily
Speaker 1: giving increased power to the muscles. It's it's like putting
Speaker 1: your body under martial law and saying, all right, armed
Speaker 1: forces of the muscles. Normally you don't have this much power.
Speaker 1: But but since we're in a pretty dire situation, I'm
Speaker 1: temporarily authorizing you the use of additional force, which I
Speaker 1: am I'm hoping you will use to run away from
Speaker 1: the enemy or leg drop it. Right, We're taking resources
Speaker 1: away from digestion and give them to you muscle fibers.
Speaker 1: The lucky ducks. Um. So yeah, they adrenal and just
Speaker 1: completely acts on the muscles. It allows them to contract more.
Speaker 1: And then when the body is in a calm um
Speaker 1: allowing them to contract more than if the body is
Speaker 1: in a calm or neutral state. And um, it allows
Speaker 1: for blood to flow more easily to your muscles and
Speaker 1: more oxygen is carried to your muscles. So that results
Speaker 1: in a muscle activation at a much higher level. And
Speaker 1: you're also converting gluck again uh into glucose, which gives
Speaker 1: muscles a sudden burst of energy. And again, this is
Speaker 1: what is happening when you're lifting a really heavy object,
Speaker 1: or you're running for your life or uh, you're running
Speaker 1: to something or if if I hope this is an
Speaker 1: up and you're electrocuted. Yeah, now this this is really
Speaker 1: mind blowing. Here is an example of how we we
Speaker 1: think this works with with the hulking out. You could
Speaker 1: in theory hulk out if if a live wire, we're struck,
Speaker 1: we're stuck to your body. Or he was struck by lightning,
Speaker 1: which explains why whole Cogan when he's walking out does
Speaker 1: kind of look like he's being shocked by He does
Speaker 1: kind of look like tesla like undergoing the currents. Yes,
Speaker 1: I mean, anyone who's ever touched a live electrical connection
Speaker 1: on on accident, of course, knows that it's quite possible
Speaker 1: to be blown clear across the room. And I cannot
Speaker 1: stress how little we want you to try this at home.
Speaker 1: Do not touch a live wire just to experience muscle.
Speaker 1: And we'll talk about why you would never want to
Speaker 1: do that in a moment um because sometimes, I mean,
Speaker 1: the best case scenarios that you get blown across the room,
Speaker 1: right to survive that. And the reason that you're blown
Speaker 1: across the room isn't because the electrical current pushed you.
Speaker 1: The force is actually coming from your own muscles. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's that's just crazy to think about, because we've
Speaker 1: seen this is one of those things that like hulking
Speaker 1: out just shows up again and again and TV shows,
Speaker 1: movies and and it's and it's generally um, you know,
Speaker 1: done with like they do the effect by attaching a
Speaker 1: wire to somebody's back and jerking them back, and so
Speaker 1: it creates this uh, this this idea that that the
Speaker 1: blast of the shock or something, you know, it's like
Speaker 1: thrown away from an explosion or something. But it's really
Speaker 1: a situation where your your limbs just suddenly just spasm
Speaker 1: out with this strength, and you it's kind of like
Speaker 1: a cat being startled and leaping off its feet step
Speaker 1: instead of just going up into the air, you're across
Speaker 1: the room and through the coffee table. And think of
Speaker 1: it this way too. It's it's the same extreme stress
Speaker 1: right like your body is just getting it instantaneously, just
Speaker 1: like it would in another instance. But you know, you
Speaker 1: just don't normally put the two together. Electrical current and
Speaker 1: child trapped under car. It's the same. Your body as
Speaker 1: undergoing the same response. And this is from a New
Speaker 1: Scientist article. It says the electric current typically flows into
Speaker 1: one arm, through the abdomen, and out one or both legs,
Speaker 1: which can cause mos to the muscles and the body
Speaker 1: to contract at once. The results are unpredictable, but given
Speaker 1: the strength of the leg and buck muscles um this
Speaker 1: can often send the victims flying across the room with
Speaker 1: no voluntary action on their part. Combined with the unexpected
Speaker 1: shock of an electrocution, this feels as if you are
Speaker 1: flung rather than flinging yourself. Wow. Now imagine that we
Speaker 1: could manipulate this, and we took all our nb NBA
Speaker 1: players and I had like some sort of electrical device
Speaker 1: and planet so that at just the right time when
Speaker 1: they're about to go put a layoup. I don't know,
Speaker 1: I'll go up, you know, when they're about to score
Speaker 1: a basketball goal on the basketball hole. Um they they yeah,
Speaker 1: the fish net on the circle. Yeah. So so like
Speaker 1: you know, the basketball player will hit a button on
Speaker 1: his wrist and then wham, he starts flying through the
Speaker 1: air and just massive slam dunk. I'm just saying that
Speaker 1: maybe we'll get there with science, yeah, yeah, or we
Speaker 1: could harness the power of lightning, yes, and just make
Speaker 1: them play into Yeah, so you just able to have
Speaker 1: random bursts of incredible strength throughout. Can you imagine Michael
Speaker 1: Jordan's like lightning, like just flying through the air and dunking. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean I'm not a big basketball person, but that
Speaker 1: is exciting. Yeah, although I wouldn't want any harm to
Speaker 1: come to them. More lightning and super strength in my
Speaker 1: team's sports place. Yes, then I'll watch. So. Yeah, being
Speaker 1: thrown across the room can save your life, you know,
Speaker 1: by breaking the electrical contact that you are holding onto. Right,
Speaker 1: So this is actually a good thing. But there are
Speaker 1: other cases, particularly where the source of the current is
Speaker 1: something that the person is holding. The victims arms and
Speaker 1: hand muscles may actually lock onto it. Yeah, and this
Speaker 1: is where it gets deadly. They're unable to let go,
Speaker 1: and if nobody intervenes, or nothing else intervenes, then they
Speaker 1: could die through heart up fibrillation or electrocution. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is where we get the whole idea of life. If
Speaker 1: somebody's being shocked, you're supposed to hit them away from
Speaker 1: it with a broom handle or something. I've never heard that,
Speaker 1: but it's good to know. Yeah, I don't know. I
Speaker 1: can't remember the origin of that. Maybe it's a story
Speaker 1: from like my family's history, like somebody who's being shocked
Speaker 1: and somebody had to hit sixty four. And yeah, sometimes
Speaker 1: it's an individual shocked and they don't fly away. They're
Speaker 1: stuck there is getting more and more electrocuted, more and
Speaker 1: more a power coursing through their body, and the only
Speaker 1: way to get them off is to knock them away
Speaker 1: with something that is not going to conduct electricity. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because again remember that this is a massive skeletal muscle contraction,
Speaker 1: and yeah, they're they're not going to be able to
Speaker 1: you know, let go of this themselves. So that's good
Speaker 1: to know in case I'll always have a broom nearby
Speaker 1: in my house. Well that's because of you're a witch. Yeah,
Speaker 1: more than that in a future episode. Yeah yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean Halloween's coming up. We can talk about that more later.
Speaker 1: Um that, I did want to mention that that I'm
Speaker 1: sure a lot of people have. You know, everybody actually
Speaker 1: has had some sort of um dalliance with adrenaline, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, whether it's you know that you picked up
Speaker 1: a thirty pound car, or you just felt fearful, you've
Speaker 1: something in the middle of the night and you know,
Speaker 1: you just your your body is just flooded with energy,
Speaker 1: or even something like an EpiPen for people who have allergies,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm talking about, or albuter all the inhaler.
Speaker 1: It's like you get that feeling like you just run
Speaker 1: a marathon. Also, if you ever go to Thailand, a
Speaker 1: tie red bull kind of feels like this. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like it's different than normal. I don't know the exactly people,
Speaker 1: because it's like back in the day when Coca Cola
Speaker 1: actually contained cocaine, that this red bull, this tie red
Speaker 1: bull has some sort of like crystalline. I wouldn't. I
Speaker 1: don't know if it actually contains um, you know, anything nefarious,
Speaker 1: but it is. It's like sweeter tasting, definitely like blows
Speaker 1: you up in terms of energy. And it also comes
Speaker 1: in like a little bottle that looks kind of like
Speaker 1: a medicine bottle. Wow, this is just getting atter. And
Speaker 1: and it's red Bull. Yeah, it's red Bull. It's branded
Speaker 1: red Bull, or at least the bottle I I purchased
Speaker 1: from a street vendor had red Bull on the side
Speaker 1: of it. So now I know what you did. The
Speaker 1: our time you're in Thailand. I only had the one,
Speaker 1: but ever since I've kind of every now and then
Speaker 1: I'll be like, I could order some thy red Bull online.
Speaker 1: That's somebody's got to be sold it on eBay. But
Speaker 1: if you've ever been if anyone listening to this has
Speaker 1: ever been to Thailand and and or lives in Thailand
Speaker 1: and uh and has access to Thai red Bull, I'm
Speaker 1: not asking you to send it to me, but do
Speaker 1: you send us I would be very curious to see
Speaker 1: if everybody else has had the same same experience. It
Speaker 1: is actually a different, different kind of chemical things and
Speaker 1: just out of nowhere, like you know, months later thinking
Speaker 1: oh I should really get some of this online. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm just here amazing because it's possibly I had an
Speaker 1: isolated incident where I'm just kind of like, oh wow,
Speaker 1: this is an amazing it's all in my head. But anyway,
Speaker 1: I'm digressing away from our hulking here. Yeah. Yeah, Actually,
Speaker 1: right after this break, we are going to talk more
Speaker 1: about adrenaline and what it has to do with cherry
Speaker 1: Trees in Washington, d C. This podcast is brought to
Speaker 1: you by Intel, the sponsors of Tomorrow and the Discovery Channel.
Speaker 1: At Intel, we believe curiosity is the spark which drives innovation.
Speaker 1: Join us at curiosity dot com and explore the answers
Speaker 1: to life's questions. All right, now we're back, and before
Speaker 1: we get back, I do want to mention that the
Speaker 1: hulking out that is experienced by UM wrestlers like Hulk
Speaker 1: Hogan in the United States in in Japanese pro wrestling, Uh,
Speaker 1: they have a very similar thing where it's like the
Speaker 1: individual summons their fighting spirit and I think it's tied
Speaker 1: very much in with like you know, old Bushito code stuff,
Speaker 1: but it's a very similar situation. Where the individual has
Speaker 1: been beaten down, he's taken damage, and suddenly he's able
Speaker 1: to tap into this warrior spirit and fight back. So
Speaker 1: I'm just throwing it up, Okay, Yeah, I mean, and
Speaker 1: I'm sure that whole Cogan was legitimately hulking out to
Speaker 1: right like it wasn't just a show. Well, the warrior
Speaker 1: spirit was shining for take it till you make it right.
Speaker 1: But speaking of of the Japanese um um, an individual
Speaker 1: of Japanese descent actually plays the crucial role in the
Speaker 1: isolation of adrenaline. Yeah, Jochici Takamini. Uh, he's a Japanese
Speaker 1: chemist who was actually in the United States, and well
Speaker 1: I believe he was between Japan and the United States
Speaker 1: of the time that he was looking into this. He
Speaker 1: actually brought it to the market. As you say, he
Speaker 1: isolated adrenaline and this was the first hormone to be
Speaker 1: obtained in pure form and called quote the blood pressure
Speaker 1: raising principle of the super renal glands. You may know
Speaker 1: it as US patent. Yes, and we're talking one made
Speaker 1: interested in that. But before then, George Oliver and Edward
Speaker 1: Shaeffer had discovered that when the secretions of adrenal plans
Speaker 1: were extracted and injected into an experimental animal that could
Speaker 1: raise blood pressure, and a lot of people took interest
Speaker 1: from that. Uh Takamini actually visited their lab at Johns
Speaker 1: Hopkins and he was welcomed there and he was shown
Speaker 1: the full scientific cur courtesy of you know how they
Speaker 1: did it, um, and then he took that knowledge with
Speaker 1: him m back to his own lab and crystallize the
Speaker 1: hormone and then filed a patent. He was incredibly savvy,
Speaker 1: and he had studied patent law, and some people would
Speaker 1: accuse him of sort of taking that technology and and
Speaker 1: and um being a bit of a scoundrel. But the
Speaker 1: fact of the matter is is that he actually was
Speaker 1: taking it to another level and he did have the smarts,
Speaker 1: the patent lost smarts. So how's it used? Back in
Speaker 1: the day? Physicians carried it in their bags, and it's
Speaker 1: said that Gene Tunney, the champion boxer, always kept some
Speaker 1: on hand when he went into the ring. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: you know, it wasn't just our our current day UH
Speaker 1: sports stars trying to bulk themselves up or hold themselves up. Now,
Speaker 1: I also know there is there is an adrenaline concoction
Speaker 1: that's used when the you know, when when they're doing
Speaker 1: the whole cut me thing with the boxer, you know,
Speaker 1: and they're they're like touching up their face. There was
Speaker 1: something Oh yeah, yeah, I'm thinking Rocky right now, exactly
Speaker 1: what you're talking about. One of the things that they
Speaker 1: smear on their faces. So like, is uh some is
Speaker 1: some sort of topical Yeah, topical thing to cut down
Speaker 1: on bleeding. Huh, but yeah, not the kind of makes
Speaker 1: that part of their face whole coat. Yeah yeah, but
Speaker 1: but I mean it's it's not not the kind of
Speaker 1: reaction we're talking about here. It's yeah, yeah, yeah. But
Speaker 1: the drug transformed surgery at that time, where it was
Speaker 1: usually used to control hemorrhages you just pointed out. Um.
Speaker 1: It also found uses in cardiology and the treatment of
Speaker 1: asthma and other allergies, and of course it was the
Speaker 1: wonder drug touted to help everything, although it could not.
Speaker 1: But it was prescribed for conditions like deafness, um in
Speaker 1: Addison's disease, which it actually didn't do anything. In the
Speaker 1: Nightmare on Elm Street remake, some kids injected to stay
Speaker 1: awake so that Freddie doesn't get them. It seems like
Speaker 1: that would just go terribly awry. Well I think it.
Speaker 1: Well it did. Yeah, that didn't really work out for
Speaker 1: everybody because now now you're you're all pumped up on
Speaker 1: adrenaline and Freddy's coming after you, so you're like, your
Speaker 1: heart's got to be bursting. Yeah, but the thing is
Speaker 1: he comes for your in your dreams. So it's like
Speaker 1: they're keeping from Yeah, but somehow, I'm gonna guess they
Speaker 1: still fell asleep even though they were pumped up with adrenaline. Right,
Speaker 1: I haven't seen it, but that's how those kids go. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just that's how the cookie crumbles. Um. So cherry Trees, Yeah,
Speaker 1: what does adrenaline have to do with cherry trees? Exactly?
Speaker 1: Tack Amine just he did great with this drug, right,
Speaker 1: He just got all sorts of riches and jewels from it,
Speaker 1: and he used the royalties from it to create diff
Speaker 1: like three new companies, and he got very interested in
Speaker 1: Japanese American relations, right yeah. So, so as a token
Speaker 1: of goodwill from the Japanese people to the United States,
Speaker 1: cherry Trees. Yeah. First, Lady Helen Herron Taft was working
Speaker 1: to beautify the title basin around the Potomac River in Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. And he gave them two thousand cherry trees, so,
Speaker 1: which I thought was fascinating because you don't mean, you
Speaker 1: know of DC is you know cherry tree blossoms. That's
Speaker 1: when the finding things physical features of Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: But but there you go. It's all has its ties
Speaker 1: back to adrenaline. Huh. Now, now do these trees hulk out?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I doubt it. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: hazard to guess. Yeah, alright, so we mentioned about before
Speaker 1: the hype of aalmus is the region of the brain
Speaker 1: that's responsible for maintaining the balance between stress and relaxation,
Speaker 1: between pulk Cogan and like the dude, between between being
Speaker 1: chill and being out of control. Um and of course
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's kind of like the yoga of
Speaker 1: the brain. It's all about like maintaining that balance because
Speaker 1: in in the the you know, extremes are bad. You
Speaker 1: don't want to be chilled out all the time because
Speaker 1: you're going to forget to eat or you know, or
Speaker 1: something I don't know, You're just gonna you're not gonna
Speaker 1: get anything done or and if you're agitated all the time, Um,
Speaker 1: you you may die. Well, we talked about this before,
Speaker 1: particularly with nightmares, right right, Um, when we talked about
Speaker 1: the ocean refugees who I think within like a four
Speaker 1: year span of eighteen of them had died in their sleep.
Speaker 1: They had sudden death. And the reason for this, we
Speaker 1: know are part of part of the reason is that
Speaker 1: they're under a great stress at that time they were
Speaker 1: they were escaping some just really brutal conditions in their
Speaker 1: home country. And uh, and yes, so they're under a
Speaker 1: lot of stress, and a lot of stress, like we're saying,
Speaker 1: produces adrenaline, and this can have a rather detrimental effect
Speaker 1: on your health. That's right. Adrenaline is toxic in large amounts.
Speaker 1: It damages the visceral internal organs such as the heart, lungs, liver,
Speaker 1: and kidneys. And it's believed that, as you know, as
Speaker 1: we talked about, that almost all sudden deaths are caused
Speaker 1: by damage to the heart. Um. There's almost no other
Speaker 1: organ that would fail so fast as to cause sudden death.
Speaker 1: Kidney failure, liver failure, those things don't kill you suddenly, right, Um.
Speaker 1: Adrenaline from the nervous system lands on receptors of cardiac
Speaker 1: misa sietes okay, and those are the heart muscle cells,
Speaker 1: and this causes calcium channels and the membranes of those
Speaker 1: cells to open, making the heart muscles contract. And if
Speaker 1: it's a massive overwhelming storm of adrenaline, calcium keeps pouring
Speaker 1: into the cells and then your muscles just can't relax.
Speaker 1: This is why we go into cardiac arrest, right, So
Speaker 1: it's really interesting. Neurologist Martin A. Samuel says that it's
Speaker 1: not just fear that can cause us. According to him,
Speaker 1: any strong positive or negative emotions such as happiness or
Speaker 1: sadness could also cause it. And he says there are
Speaker 1: people who have died in intercourse or in religious passion.
Speaker 1: And there's one case of a golfer who hit a
Speaker 1: hole in one turned to his partner and said, I
Speaker 1: can die now and then drop dead. I have to
Speaker 1: say that seems all dubious to me, but he said
Speaker 1: a study in Germany found an increase in sudden cardiac
Speaker 1: deaths on the days that the German soccer teams were
Speaker 1: playing in the world. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because they're they're
Speaker 1: getting the ideas that these individuals are kind of on
Speaker 1: the edge anyway through a really exciting soccer game at
Speaker 1: him and that's all she wrote. Boom right, So it's
Speaker 1: not just us fear sometimes it just you know, I
Speaker 1: guess it could be fair. I suppose if you're a
Speaker 1: fan and you're you're frightened that your team might not,
Speaker 1: you know, pull through, and yeah, if you have. If
Speaker 1: there's someone in your life as a sports fan who
Speaker 1: has a delicate heart, try and get them to support
Speaker 1: teams that that pretty much consistently stuck because because is
Speaker 1: gonna be the less likelihood of their team killing them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: lower the bar they are for them, do my favor.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean, prolonged state of stress can lead
Speaker 1: to complications, and it doesn't you don't have to be
Speaker 1: like a raving sports fan. It can just be that
Speaker 1: you have workplace stress, and you have it, uh for
Speaker 1: a long period of time. Your body is in constant
Speaker 1: go mode and it's misinterpreting what's a threat and what's
Speaker 1: not right false threats. As a result, your immune system
Speaker 1: suffers and your cortosol levels can shoot up. And as
Speaker 1: we know, cortosol levels are really important in regulating our
Speaker 1: sleep too. So if your levels are or nuts, at night,
Speaker 1: then you're probably not getting the kind of sleep you need.
Speaker 1: So it's unfortunately, it's just kind of um, sort of
Speaker 1: the vortex fall fall into, right, a sleep vortex or no,
Speaker 1: an awakeness vortex. I think an anxiety vortex. I'll go
Speaker 1: with that. Yeah, yeah, So it's the moral of the story.
Speaker 1: The moral of the story is that adrenaline is a
Speaker 1: precious commodity that's really powerful. Uh, and your nervous system
Speaker 1: tries to use good judgment about win and how it
Speaker 1: is used. That's right. Yeah, And that if you beat
Speaker 1: whole Cogan down enough, he is going to hulk out
Speaker 1: and probably to thee and don't make Bruce Fanner angry.
Speaker 1: I'll go with that. Yeah, you wouldn't like him, he's ancred.
Speaker 1: Um nice. But let's let's uh, let's go ahead and
Speaker 1: reach into the basket of listener mail. Here a few
Speaker 1: here to read. We continue to hear a lot from
Speaker 1: listeners about our Misophonia and Pet Peeves podcast. You dealt
Speaker 1: with the sounds that drive people crazy, um, other little
Speaker 1: perks that annoy We've heard from a listener by the
Speaker 1: name of Hunter. Hunter says, I listened to your Mesophonia
Speaker 1: podcast and I wanted to tell you this. My misophonia
Speaker 1: is the sound of a wooden pencil writing on paper.
Speaker 1: I use the mechanical pencils due to this. I'm a
Speaker 1: big fan of the show and I would love it
Speaker 1: to have one of you great podcasters would email me
Speaker 1: back smile, I face. Um, and you did email I did,
Speaker 1: You're back? Um? And am I correct? Unless you share
Speaker 1: this with Hunter, you you don't like the sound of
Speaker 1: a pencil on paper. Oh no, no, actually that Um.
Speaker 1: What I was saying to Hunter is that that we've
Speaker 1: got a couple of email from people who have a
Speaker 1: pencil paper issue. Um, similar like but but interesting really enough,
Speaker 1: some people can't stand the sound of the mechanical pencil
Speaker 1: because it's the metal hitting the paper. Just to show
Speaker 1: as you can't please everybody, yeah yeah, But then we
Speaker 1: had another person to who was like, I can't stand
Speaker 1: a mechanical so I went to the wooden So it's
Speaker 1: really interesting to see that there's there's someone of a
Speaker 1: pad and here emerging. I'm still kind of firmed by
Speaker 1: the socks though. The socks when you know, the listener
Speaker 1: who was irritated by the sound of socks on carpet, right. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: just for the sake of fun. Um socks on hardwood
Speaker 1: is the best because you get a running start and
Speaker 1: then you put it on the brakes and you can
Speaker 1: you can go like can I tell you that I
Speaker 1: did at least once a week. Oh that's awesome. It's
Speaker 1: a great joy of mine. It's why I look forward
Speaker 1: to winter yoga because I can come into the yoga
Speaker 1: room with my socks on. You skid right in like
Speaker 1: like like Tom Cruise in Brisky Business. Yeah, except with pants,
Speaker 1: you know, but pretty good test. Let's see. We also
Speaker 1: heard from Jeremy Jeremy Writston, and he was talking about
Speaker 1: the first of all the Lewis Black quote that I
Speaker 1: alluded to about in our Pet Peeves episode, talking about
Speaker 1: the annoyance of hearing like half a conversation. And he's
Speaker 1: straightened this out and says that the quote was I
Speaker 1: never would have gotten into college if it weren't for
Speaker 1: my horse. And then he goes on to say, I
Speaker 1: can attest to the winding child. I have a two
Speaker 1: point five year old and he's getting into the defiant stage.
Speaker 1: We're choosing not to call it the terrible twos, where
Speaker 1: he loves to wine. The worst part about it is
Speaker 1: knowing that it's not even real. The whinding that I've
Speaker 1: encountered fake. I'll catch him off guard at times when
Speaker 1: he's distracted by something bright and shiny and he stops,
Speaker 1: realizes that he did stop, and goes right back into
Speaker 1: winding mode. Fortunately, I have a terrible listening problem, and
Speaker 1: I'm able to drown it out with little problems. Keep
Speaker 1: up with fun podcast. Yeah, I have to say my
Speaker 1: I have a two and a half year old too,
Speaker 1: same thing. Yeahs constant winding. Yeah, but she starts laughing
Speaker 1: because she I think hicly because she's like ha ha,
Speaker 1: well kinda. I don't know what she's doing there, but
Speaker 1: but sometimes I think she knows that she's such a
Speaker 1: faker that she starts laughing because she's not really pulling
Speaker 1: at all. And we have one more email here from Mike.
Speaker 1: Mike writes in and says, I just got to finished
Speaker 1: listening to your Decision Fatigue podcast, and I have an
Speaker 1: interesting story related to this as you that you brought up.
Speaker 1: I just got married on Congratulations and was very aware
Speaker 1: that the week leading up to my wedding I was
Speaker 1: doing a very poor job at work and was for
Speaker 1: getting all sorts of things at home. I've been back
Speaker 1: to work a week now and I found things are
Speaker 1: slowly getting better. Also noted that doing our registry it
Speaker 1: was a very stressful time. At some point in this time,
Speaker 1: I zoned out and started scanning random things around the store.
Speaker 1: And this is of course of its referring to the
Speaker 1: fact that they give you a scanner these days and
Speaker 1: a lot of these stores, and they're like, here, take
Speaker 1: this scan the items that that you would like to
Speaker 1: put on your registry. And as we discussed in the podcast,
Speaker 1: picking out things through your registry, it's just one decision
Speaker 1: after another, and after a while it adds up in
Speaker 1: your your brain is just for the day. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: so so I love this example because it's like you're
Speaker 1: making careful choices early on, and by the end of
Speaker 1: the process you're just like scanning random objects just to
Speaker 1: be done with it, which is a great example of
Speaker 1: really how decision fatigue works. The problem, as we discussed
Speaker 1: in that podcast, being that instead of it just being
Speaker 1: a situation where your later decisions are just the scanning
Speaker 1: of random objects, that you end up dealing with bigger
Speaker 1: decisions and more weighty decisions with that kind of apathy, right, Like,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't want to make have to make a really
Speaker 1: important decision later on in that day, if you had
Speaker 1: to register that morning, it would be awful. Whatever choice
Speaker 1: you made would be wrong probably. So there you have it.
Speaker 1: If you have us some interesting factoids to share with us,
Speaker 1: there are multiple ways to get in touch with us,
Speaker 1: two of which are Facebook and Twitter, which are two
Speaker 1: new social media sites that people are really getting into.
Speaker 1: I think I think they're going to take off if
Speaker 1: you can find us on both of those as blow
Speaker 1: the Mind. That's one word, blows on mind, and uh,
Speaker 1: I think there's another way. Oh yeah, if you're feeling
Speaker 1: old fashioned, you can always drop us a line at
Speaker 1: blow the Mind at how stuff works dot com. Be
Speaker 1: sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from
Speaker 1: the Future. Join how Stuff Work staff as we explore
Speaker 1: the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow.