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 Douglass. And
Speaker 1: if we're rolling into the Thanksgiving season here once again
Speaker 1: for those of you celebrate Thanksgiving, we thought we would
Speaker 1: roll out an old favorite here that deals with the
Speaker 1: science of something that we're supposedly in the midstop here Thanksgiving,
Speaker 1: and that is comfort and mainly comfort food, right, although
Speaker 1: some of us will have some comfort from our family
Speaker 1: members and friends and some of us won't. And you
Speaker 1: are submitting yourself to this tradition, and we thought, well, heck,
Speaker 1: why don't you share this a little bit that we found.
Speaker 1: And it's all about leftover turkey and lasik surgery. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: the amazing connection between the origins of lasic surgery and
Speaker 1: your Thanksgiving turkey. Well, let's travel back to the day
Speaker 1: after Thanksgiving and Rangoswami Shri Shrine of Boston, who is
Speaker 1: a researcher at IBMS, Thomas J. Watson. J. Watson, we
Speaker 1: know that research center in New York had brought some
Speaker 1: turkey with him to work the next day, right, right,
Speaker 1: So he's looking for the the just the right tissue
Speaker 1: to experiment on. And then lo and behold, there it is. Yes,
Speaker 1: he and his fellow researchers, they found this turkey to
Speaker 1: be the absolute perfect tissue to try out a new tool,
Speaker 1: which was an argon fluoride or a r f X
Speaker 1: nim Er laser. So what did he do. He blasted
Speaker 1: his leftover turkey with ten nanosecond pulses of light from
Speaker 1: this laser. And and they all had that big Eureka
Speaker 1: moment because they realized that it could deliver a clean
Speaker 1: incision mark and and the rest is really lasik surgery history.
Speaker 1: There you go. So you think about that at the
Speaker 1: thanks even dinner table or the next time you go
Speaker 1: under the uh the laser for a little lasic surgery yourself.
Speaker 1: I was, I was just thinking, I don't know, maybe
Speaker 1: this is something that would be uncomfortable at the dinner table.
Speaker 1: You know, you're tucking into your turkey and someone's all like, yeah,
Speaker 1: lasic eye surgery, the correct incision, and then every incision
Speaker 1: into the turkey becomes on some level insertion into an eyeball.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, do that share this story? All? Right? So
Speaker 1: here we go. We're talking about comfort, and this is
Speaker 1: certainly a season of comfort, but comfort food, the feeling
Speaker 1: of comfort is something that we we crave, that we
Speaker 1: seek out at various times throughout the years. So so
Speaker 1: don't run away. If you were listening to this in July,
Speaker 1: that's right, because you never know, in Jela you might
Speaker 1: need a bit of comfort, cold comfort at that point
Speaker 1: from your air conditioner. But um yeah, I mean what
Speaker 1: I think about comfort. I think about quilts, I think
Speaker 1: about hot cocoa, and I think that some people are
Speaker 1: drawn more to comfort than other people. M yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: probably about you know, halfway there, doesn't you know. Sure,
Speaker 1: I'll take some comfort, but I don't need it. I
Speaker 1: mean I really like comfort. I mean I'm pro comfort
Speaker 1: because for me, I probably think, you know, and like
Speaker 1: a nice warm blanket, that's good, cat on your lap,
Speaker 1: that's good hot beverage of some kind. I guess the
Speaker 1: comfort I do tend to think of it especially something
Speaker 1: I seek out during colder months. Um yeah, which which
Speaker 1: also brings to mind, like like chicken soup, something that
Speaker 1: I don't actually nobody really likes chicken soup. I mean,
Speaker 1: my wife makes delicious chicken soup, but for the most part.
Speaker 1: You're coming at chicken soup out of a sense of
Speaker 1: more than just wanting to taste, but you want all
Speaker 1: the emotions that come with it and all the all
Speaker 1: the ideas about chicken soup that exists culturally. You know.
Speaker 1: So already we've talked about several different aspects of comfort,
Speaker 1: because really you've got the tactile part of it, and
Speaker 1: then you've got the food part of it, and then
Speaker 1: the psychology that sort of jells all of it together. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because what does it ultimately breakdown to? Um afkan neuroscientists
Speaker 1: and they'll say it all comes down to it being
Speaker 1: the opposite of stress, which is pretty broad. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I think of a thing of time you've been stressed,
Speaker 1: thing of the time when you've been comfortable. They're pretty
Speaker 1: much polar opposites. Nobody's sitting around biting their nails and
Speaker 1: guzzling chicken soup with a blanket wrapped around them while
Speaker 1: they watched Gilmore Girls Marathon on TV or something, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's all about very specific and there's
Speaker 1: another aspect because I I know somebody who's who's who
Speaker 1: that remember that was their comfort thing, and certainly that's
Speaker 1: another aspect of comfort is is media. You know, It's
Speaker 1: like there'll be certain certain albums you might put on.
Speaker 1: There was like, Yeah, I'm gonna put on some Boards
Speaker 1: of Canada and that's for me a very that's a
Speaker 1: very comfort minded soundtrack to plug into. Or for some
Speaker 1: people it is a Gilmore's Girl Marathon, you know, something
Speaker 1: that they that really serves as kind of a replacement
Speaker 1: social engagements. Well, for me, Little House from the Prairie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Michael Landon, all the schmaltz, Michael Landon it could ever want,
Speaker 1: because when the world seems cruel and unfair, Michael Landon
Speaker 1: is there for you. So what we're talking about are
Speaker 1: three principles of comfort, security, reward and connectedness. So I'm
Speaker 1: just feeling connected to your fellow man, which might have
Speaker 1: something to do with Michael Landon right. Um, And each
Speaker 1: of these principles of comfort activate different parts of our brains.
Speaker 1: So it would make sense that you have this sort
Speaker 1: of big idea of comfort having to do with the tactile,
Speaker 1: having to do with food, having to do with music, media, um,
Speaker 1: all being rolled up into this one big thing that
Speaker 1: comes at the end of November, you know, into our
Speaker 1: living rooms. And Thanksgiving. And that's really why we wanted
Speaker 1: to cover this topic, because you think about Thanksgiving and
Speaker 1: ultimately you think about not just family conflict and uncomfortable
Speaker 1: silence around the table, but comfort foods to help ameliorate
Speaker 1: all of those feelings of tension with your family. Yes,
Speaker 1: uh and comfort food It's it's interesting when you start
Speaker 1: really thinking about not only what it means to you,
Speaker 1: because everyone's got their comfort foods, you know, and and
Speaker 1: certainly there are some comfort foods that you think of
Speaker 1: a lot. And you think of things like fried chickens
Speaker 1: a comfort food or various uh you know, or a
Speaker 1: casserole or what have you. Um, So a lot of
Speaker 1: times it's something that your mom made or whoever raised you,
Speaker 1: something you grew up with, where when you eat it,
Speaker 1: it takes you back to that feeling of safety that
Speaker 1: you had as a child being provided for. But then
Speaker 1: also a lot of it is cultural to uh. You
Speaker 1: say you're of Italian heritage, then your comfort food might
Speaker 1: be uh, not not only your mother's food, but your
Speaker 1: mother's spaghetti or than anybody's uh particular spaghetti recipe, or
Speaker 1: if you're of German heritage, and maybe it's that particular
Speaker 1: schnitzel that really does it for you. It really takes
Speaker 1: you back and and and and it might be I mean,
Speaker 1: God help you. Of schnitzel is what you eat every day.
Speaker 1: So it's so it's something that is also a treat.
Speaker 1: It's something you don't normally have, and then when you
Speaker 1: do have it, it comes in with all this cultural
Speaker 1: and personal resonance. It's true if you are reaching out
Speaker 1: for a blood sausage and you're German heritage, this might
Speaker 1: be just the fix that you need to pick up
Speaker 1: your day. Um. Psychologists call comfort food a social surrogate,
Speaker 1: as as you've already pointed out in different ways. And
Speaker 1: it's interesting because if you look at studies concerning food
Speaker 1: and comfort you will find a bevy of them. And
Speaker 1: one of the ones that I thought was really interesting
Speaker 1: is a study that had to do with people feeling
Speaker 1: less lonely after just writing about food. Okay, they didn't
Speaker 1: consume anything, and it was specific to comfort food. All right,
Speaker 1: This is the two thousand eleven University of Buffalo study.
Speaker 1: And so they bring in a bunch of people, set
Speaker 1: them down and said, hey, I want you to write
Speaker 1: a little bit about a fight that you had with
Speaker 1: with somebody that the relationship with you. I imagine that
Speaker 1: most of these are gonna involve like previous relationships or
Speaker 1: current spouses that kind of thing, uh, current girlfriend's boyfriends, etcetera.
Speaker 1: So they write about this painful, awkward, or traumatic episode
Speaker 1: and then put your pencils down now six minutes later,
Speaker 1: six minutes later, and now let's flip over the page,
Speaker 1: and I want you to write to start right about
Speaker 1: about some some comfort foods and about the fried chicken
Speaker 1: or the blood sauzage or whatever it may be, right
Speaker 1: about some food. Yeah, that's right. Some people were asked
Speaker 1: to write about comfort food while other people were asked
Speaker 1: to write about a new food experience. Right. So obviously
Speaker 1: you see right there, the new food experience doesn't have
Speaker 1: all the sorts of emotional attachments to it because it's
Speaker 1: a new experience that's not related back to mom or childhood. So,
Speaker 1: of course, what do you think the results were? Uh,
Speaker 1: the results are probably going to be the comfort food
Speaker 1: is the one that really makes the difference in most
Speaker 1: of these. Yeah, that's right. What they did is they
Speaker 1: took all of the participants took a test after they
Speaker 1: wrote about food when they filled out this questionnaire about loneliness.
Speaker 1: It was found that the comfort food, just thinking about
Speaker 1: it and writing about it helped those people to self
Speaker 1: adjust their moods. Now, there's an important caveat here, and
Speaker 1: that is that, uh, generally, the individuals who were aided
Speaker 1: by the food, they were in a more or less
Speaker 1: good relationship that they just had some some either fighting
Speaker 1: in the past or or just a little you know,
Speaker 1: fighting in the present. So it's not a situation where
Speaker 1: you're going through like you just murdered your spouse the
Speaker 1: night before and then for some reason you came in
Speaker 1: to do this study and you thought about mashed potatoes
Speaker 1: and it fixed everything. No, not not quite. It's not
Speaker 1: that powerful. But certainly if you're like, oh, I really
Speaker 1: love my wife, but we we just we keep fighting
Speaker 1: over what color of the carpet should be. I think
Speaker 1: it should be hot pink. She thinks it should be
Speaker 1: neon green. We can't come to a decision. We keep
Speaker 1: fighting mashed potatoes. Oh what was I What was I
Speaker 1: upset about? Well, and I think it's just interesting because
Speaker 1: we've talked about this before, but how just thinking about
Speaker 1: things can really change your brain. And we talked about
Speaker 1: this before, even in writers who are writing about their
Speaker 1: characters and people who are reading of novels that they're
Speaker 1: mirror neurons began to activate as though they were throwing
Speaker 1: the ball or they were running to to escape someone. So, UM,
Speaker 1: what I started to think about is that's really powerful
Speaker 1: because a lot of these comfort foods involve fat. And
Speaker 1: there's another study that actually looks at fatty foods and
Speaker 1: moods and this was UH in the Netherlands, and what
Speaker 1: they were doing is they were taking twelve healthy individuals
Speaker 1: and they all underwent four forty minute fmr I tests
Speaker 1: while listening to music or viewing pictures that induced sad emotions. Now,
Speaker 1: at the same time, all of these participants received an
Speaker 1: infusion of either sailing or fatty acids directly into their stomachs.
Speaker 1: This is where that the experiment really goes off the rails,
Speaker 1: because the other one it's like, Oh, you're writing something
Speaker 1: and thinking about food or or I can imagine signing
Speaker 1: up for the study and thinking, oh, or they're just
Speaker 1: gonna show at me like a large Vontarier film and
Speaker 1: then feed me some mashur tases. But no, they're going
Speaker 1: to pump something directly into my stomach after I watch it.
Speaker 1: That's in addition to the large Montreier. Yeah yeah, but
Speaker 1: what kind of movie theater is that? Yeah? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: wonder if they did show Melancolio through them, because that
Speaker 1: would be a really great film to try to and
Speaker 1: induce sadness. I have to say, um, but all all
Speaker 1: of the participants had completed a twelve hour fast, so
Speaker 1: they came with empty stomachs, and they had no idea
Speaker 1: what it was that was being put into their stomachs. Okay,
Speaker 1: So the results indicated that subjects who received the fatty
Speaker 1: infusion were less sad when viewing sad pictures or listening
Speaker 1: to sad music. And then the fmm f m r
Speaker 1: I tests confirmed fewer neural responses to sadness in several
Speaker 1: areas of the brain in this group. Wow. Again, I'm
Speaker 1: still overwhelmed just by the weirdness of the experiment though.
Speaker 1: But but I guess it was important because they wanted
Speaker 1: to cut out the actual eating of the food, and
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe they just really wanted to pump
Speaker 1: stuff directly into the gut. Well, and what they were
Speaker 1: also trying to do is to say, hey, there's it's
Speaker 1: not just the mind body link. It is the body
Speaker 1: mind link. And we've talked about this before in our
Speaker 1: podcast about whether or not our guts are really our
Speaker 1: second brains, right, And then of course when we're they
Speaker 1: really wanted to look at the nutritional intake and when
Speaker 1: you eat food. I mean, it's a no brainer, but
Speaker 1: there's a lot going on. It's about it's about smelling
Speaker 1: the food that you're eating. It's about the texture. I
Speaker 1: mentioned mashed potatoes, and it's true a lot of a
Speaker 1: lot of the comfort foods you encounter, it's like a
Speaker 1: cream me kind of consistency to it. Um. I mean,
Speaker 1: some people may have beef jerky as a comfort food,
Speaker 1: that's great, but a lot of comfort foods are kind
Speaker 1: of like a smooth, easy to eat kind of a thing.
Speaker 1: And again just having a story about that food as well.
Speaker 1: You can circumvent that by just pumping stuff directly into
Speaker 1: the stomach. It's also worth noting on that two thousand
Speaker 1: eleven University of Buffalo study, they also had another experiment
Speaker 1: where they found that eating chicken soup in the lab
Speaker 1: made people think more about relationships. If they consider chicken
Speaker 1: soup to be a comfort food, which again comes down
Speaker 1: to my argument that chicken soup, even when it's really good,
Speaker 1: isn't really great because it's chicken soup. That's all about
Speaker 1: the idea of it. Because like when I think of
Speaker 1: chicken soup, I think of I'm I was, I'm feeling bad,
Speaker 1: I'm feeling I mean, you know, I'm under the weather,
Speaker 1: and like my mom makes me chicken soup. It's like
Speaker 1: it's the you can taste the love, right, It's somebody
Speaker 1: making the time, taking the time to make this dish.
Speaker 1: That is all about please get better and feel better
Speaker 1: because someone loves you. And I feel the same way,
Speaker 1: like when my wife makes it for me when I
Speaker 1: whenever i'm ill. You know what's funny about that is
Speaker 1: my mom doesn't cook, never really has cooked. So but
Speaker 1: I have the same feelings about chicken soup even though
Speaker 1: I don't consume it now because she make it. No,
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, I can look at a can
Speaker 1: of Campbell's, I feel a little warm cockles in the
Speaker 1: heart there. Well yeah, well, you know I think my
Speaker 1: mom I could be wrong in this, and I'm sure
Speaker 1: she'll correct me when she hears this, But I think
Speaker 1: it would like she would do like canned chicken soup
Speaker 1: as well, because I mean she was busy as you did.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to make a bunch of you know, who
Speaker 1: has time to make like chicken stock from scratch in
Speaker 1: this day in war and day and age. But I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure that was canned as well. But still it
Speaker 1: was this was a thing that you had when you
Speaker 1: were sick, and if you had it and then somebody
Speaker 1: loved you enough to at least open a can. And
Speaker 1: that was the truth, not boiled down the chicken carcass
Speaker 1: for hours and create fresh chicken stock. Hey man, she
Speaker 1: she did many other things, I would say to help
Speaker 1: me feel better. And I should also mention that, alright.
Speaker 1: The eleven University of Bubble study, you mentioned the distinction
Speaker 1: between people writing about new food experiences and people writing
Speaker 1: about food experiences that they had all this comfort and
Speaker 1: all these creations for. But in some cases you do
Speaker 1: encounter people's comfort foods that are associated with new discoveries,
Speaker 1: because ultimately, like food is his very personal and also
Speaker 1: kind of selfish thing, you know, So in some cases
Speaker 1: it will be something that that we see as a
Speaker 1: personal discovery. One of the articles I was looking at.
Speaker 1: I think it was a psychology today they mentioned, um,
Speaker 1: the writer's husband went crazy for Sharako, like Sharaka on anything,
Speaker 1: it was a comfort food. Um. And certainly you get
Speaker 1: some spicy and some sweet in there, and sharak is amazing.
Speaker 1: But it's his whole thing was that this was something
Speaker 1: he had discovered, This was something that was totally totally
Speaker 1: him and didn't necessarily have a connection with with his
Speaker 1: upbringing or his past. No, he just discovered that it
Speaker 1: was making the reward part of his brain go ding
Speaker 1: ding ding, really because he was getting a little bit
Speaker 1: euphoric with a spice there. Um. And I also think
Speaker 1: that too with new experiences and food. You know, you'll
Speaker 1: pin that a lot of times to travel. So you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes I'll think about things that I've eaten and I
Speaker 1: will elevate them to the highest level because I think, oh,
Speaker 1: that have that in Italy or whatever, and it may
Speaker 1: not even actually be that great. Yeah, but you still,
Speaker 1: again it comes down to why pump this stuff directly
Speaker 1: into the the test subject stomach, Because again, food comes
Speaker 1: to us with a story, food comes as to us
Speaker 1: with a smell, with a texture, and all of these
Speaker 1: things that go beyond near nutrition, and what we're talking
Speaker 1: about here too is really gaming a sense of comfort.
Speaker 1: Of course, there is the food industry which is really
Speaker 1: interesting in this idea of tweaking moods through food. At
Speaker 1: the national meeting of the American Chemical Society, Karina Martinez
Speaker 1: Majorga presented the latest findings from her ongoing study of
Speaker 1: the effect of various food flavors on mood. And it
Speaker 1: turns out that molecules in chocolate, a variety of berries,
Speaker 1: and then foods containing Omega three fatty acids positively affect mood.
Speaker 1: Um it was found, and this is really interesting. It
Speaker 1: was found that the chemical components of these food flavors
Speaker 1: are structurally similar to something called valporic acid, and this
Speaker 1: is the primary ingredient. It's several pharmaceutical mood stabilizers. Of course.
Speaker 1: The research was supported in part by a food flavor company,
Speaker 1: France based uh Roberte uh Flavors, and the scientists say
Speaker 1: that food industry companies are joining pharmaceutical companies in the
Speaker 1: quest for natural mood boosters. So they're not intending this
Speaker 1: as a replacement for you know, for treating clinical depression,
Speaker 1: but they are saying like, maybe this could give you
Speaker 1: a little extra pep in your step, right, I mean, well,
Speaker 1: certainly there are a lot of fine arguments out there
Speaker 1: that that a lot of problems with health and even
Speaker 1: mental health um to a certain degree, can be treated
Speaker 1: through a proper diet and an informed diet. But again, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think of what comfort foods tend to be. They
Speaker 1: didn't be soft, They can't be sweet, smooth, salty, and
Speaker 1: uh like we mentioned sugar and starch. They spur serotonin,
Speaker 1: your transmitter known to increase a sense of well being,
Speaker 1: like prozac. Um Salty foods for oxytocin, the cuttle chemical
Speaker 1: that we talk about a lot that we also get
Speaker 1: from hugs and orgasm. So you know that's that's that
Speaker 1: explains the saltiness there. Um fat is a good bomb
Speaker 1: for the fear of starvation. So again we think back
Speaker 1: to our naked caveman running through the Sengetti chase by
Speaker 1: savor tooth tigers, the scenario that may or may not
Speaker 1: actually pan out. Actually I mean on that too much,
Speaker 1: but but still the idea that on a very primal level,
Speaker 1: we are creatures that are having to run fast to
Speaker 1: get away from something or run fast to catch something.
Speaker 1: We need the energy, we need the fat. So that's
Speaker 1: why the fat is such a bomb for fear we're
Speaker 1: not gonna starve, if we're not going to be eaten
Speaker 1: on a very primitive level. You know that drives home well.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's interesting that you mentioned the fat
Speaker 1: because it takes me back to the podcast that we
Speaker 1: did on gluttony and all of that research about how
Speaker 1: when we lose weight, our body actually begins to game
Speaker 1: the body to to try to get back at the
Speaker 1: old level because of this fear of losing fat. And
Speaker 1: in fact, people who lose I think it was something
Speaker 1: like of their body weight have to exercise even harder
Speaker 1: than their counterpart who didn't lose weight, but they weigh
Speaker 1: the same amount um simply because the body won't burn
Speaker 1: as many calories because again it wants to get back
Speaker 1: to that set weight that it knows, and it also
Speaker 1: begins to crave more fatty foods. Yeah, and we've, as
Speaker 1: we've discussed before and as a and as countless food
Speaker 1: documentaries point out, we live in an age now where
Speaker 1: all the fat you want just walk down to the
Speaker 1: storm by all of the salty you want i'll sweet
Speaker 1: you want. Generally, all these things are actually available in
Speaker 1: one bag at your local fast food restaurant. But of
Speaker 1: course we didn't evolve into that scenario. You know, that's
Speaker 1: not that's not the natural availability of these various elements. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I actually saw something the other day. It was it
Speaker 1: was about weight loss and a group of people who
Speaker 1: had lost weight, and it said we'll work for less food.
Speaker 1: And I thought, well, if that's not a commentary on
Speaker 1: the abundance of food in the world right now, as
Speaker 1: well as a commentaryans mother stuff, I don't know what
Speaker 1: is um. Then again, we're talking about this concept of
Speaker 1: gaming comfort, and you guys out there are probably familiar
Speaker 1: with this study because I think it got a lot
Speaker 1: of play, But this idea that comfort also comes externally
Speaker 1: so and actually affects our moods in ways that we
Speaker 1: might just make favorable decisions about others. And what I'm
Speaker 1: talking about is um the warm Mug of liquid study.
Speaker 1: Do you know when I'm talking about where the participants
Speaker 1: were given a warm mug of coffee, I believe to
Speaker 1: hold just for a few moments and to think about
Speaker 1: someone that they may not have particularly have warm feelings
Speaker 1: about but talk about them as they were holding the
Speaker 1: warm cup. And then participants were given uh an iced
Speaker 1: coffee to hold. Okay, so now they were holding something
Speaker 1: that's cold. And so turns out that those people who
Speaker 1: held the months of hot Joe, we're much more likely
Speaker 1: to perceive others as having warmer personality traits. Well, this
Speaker 1: is it. Basically, this is the hot coco phenomenon here
Speaker 1: because with hot cocoa, well, first of all, you getting
Speaker 1: that chocolate that's sweets, so you're you're turning on some
Speaker 1: various neuro transmitters there. Uh. Some people like like their
Speaker 1: their hot chocolate little salty, so you've got that going on, uh,
Speaker 1: giving you a little little oxy cocin. And then of
Speaker 1: course it is a warm mug of goodness that you're
Speaker 1: having generally with friends or family or loved ones while
Speaker 1: you're interacting with them. So it tends to uh to
Speaker 1: color an even warmer interpersonal relationship. Well, and you know,
Speaker 1: it could be anybody that in this this study, which
Speaker 1: is really interesting, they got to be talking about co worker,
Speaker 1: They could be talking about their neighbor, or they could
Speaker 1: be talking about a family member. And this is one
Speaker 1: of those examples that neuroscientists David Eagleman talks about when
Speaker 1: he questions whether or not we actually have free will.
Speaker 1: And what I mean is that if a warm mug
Speaker 1: of coffee subconsciously makes you feel better about the person
Speaker 1: you're talking to while you're holding the coffee, um, than
Speaker 1: what sort of decisions might follow after that interaction or
Speaker 1: during that interaction. Well, this, this reminds me, actually reminds
Speaker 1: me of times where we've dragged our recorder Matt in here,
Speaker 1: our editor, producer, director general, awesome m a man of
Speaker 1: our times, and sometimes we drag him in a a ridiculous
Speaker 1: hours to try and get an episode recorded. And sometimes
Speaker 1: you'll you'll give him coffee and I thought you were
Speaker 1: just being nice, but you were manipulating him by giving
Speaker 1: him this warm beverage so that he can't help but
Speaker 1: think will warm thoughts than about us and not hate
Speaker 1: us for dragging him in it like five in the morning.
Speaker 1: Thanks for taking that down, man, No, really it was.
Speaker 1: It's all coming from my heart, my warm, warm heart.
Speaker 1: But still, this is a good This is a good
Speaker 1: trick that we should all exploit in our lives. You're
Speaker 1: going in for a tough meeting or you want to
Speaker 1: just go for a job interview, bring some hot coffee,
Speaker 1: some hot coco something and some hot tea, anything that'll
Speaker 1: that'll get the room warm. And do not let that
Speaker 1: job interview take place outside on a November day. Okay.
Speaker 1: So if you doubt this idea that a warm beverage
Speaker 1: or even just the warmth itself doesn't affect how we feel, um,
Speaker 1: consider a study by Harry Harlow involving primates. Oh yes,
Speaker 1: this is the great one where they it was with maccaques,
Speaker 1: I believe, and and you've seen the photos because there terrifying, depressing,
Speaker 1: depressing where they have the baby macaques and they're they're
Speaker 1: they're given the choice of two or they tested out
Speaker 1: in two different environments. One there's this metal framework mother
Speaker 1: that that is there to distribute milk through a nipple, right,
Speaker 1: and it's just this metal framework. And then there there's
Speaker 1: nothing monkey is about it. Ye vaguely monkey shaped, I
Speaker 1: guess if you really want to get creative. But for
Speaker 1: the most part it's like metal thing with a nipple
Speaker 1: that feeds baby monkey. But then then the other part
Speaker 1: of the test is cover that with fur and you
Speaker 1: have a sort of fake monkey with a nipple. It's
Speaker 1: it's soft, it's vaguely monkey ish, but it's covered in fur.
Speaker 1: And which one do you think the macaques prefer? Now?
Speaker 1: This one that had the fur. The cloth was heated
Speaker 1: with a light bulb as well. Yes, yes, so it's
Speaker 1: not soft and furry but warm. So the surrogate that
Speaker 1: gets the most play is, of course the one that
Speaker 1: has the light bulb in it. Yeah, because it turns
Speaker 1: out that the baby maccaques, although they would run and
Speaker 1: they would get the milk from the other surrogate when
Speaker 1: they were really hungry, they prefer to spend time with
Speaker 1: the warm surrogate and cling to it, which tells you
Speaker 1: that there's there's something just inherent to this feeling of
Speaker 1: warmth and comfort and our ability to survive. And it
Speaker 1: reminds me of of a study you sent me as
Speaker 1: we were looking into this podcast as well about the
Speaker 1: whole cold hands warm heart thing, which I commit I'd
Speaker 1: never heard that saying, but apparently it's a saying cold hands,
Speaker 1: warm heart. There's a song too, really, but I can't remember,
Speaker 1: but it comes on her system every once in a while. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: but the idea is, if if I guess if you
Speaker 1: shake hands with somebody has a really cold hand, it's
Speaker 1: okay because it means their heart is so warm, they're
Speaker 1: so full of warmth in their heart they can love
Speaker 1: for their fellow man. That is actually affecting blood flow
Speaker 1: to their to their limbs apparently, which I've never heard
Speaker 1: because because it sounds ridiculous to me, because it sounds
Speaker 1: like people with cold fish hands. This is like propaganda
Speaker 1: they put out, you know, like like C. E. O
Speaker 1: S and whatnot, where they're like, oh, people think I'm
Speaker 1: I'm horrible just because my hand is a piece of
Speaker 1: impersonal ice that I shove it people. Uh, maybe we
Speaker 1: should get some some some data out there that the opposite.
Speaker 1: We don't normally, um shake, but I think we should
Speaker 1: right now. The hand is cold. So everything you just
Speaker 1: describe my friend is me. And I will tell you
Speaker 1: that even before I knew him, at the song cold heart,
Speaker 1: cold heart, warm hands, I used to say to my husband,
Speaker 1: cold heart, warm hands. Um. So it turns out you
Speaker 1: were wrong in science, is there because because because in
Speaker 1: the study they actually looked into it too. I was
Speaker 1: in an eight researchers, Lawrence Williams and John bra They
Speaker 1: actually debunked this and then found that that physical warmth
Speaker 1: activates concepts of interpersonal warmth. And it's very much in
Speaker 1: keeping with the whole iron mother fury warm mother scenario.
Speaker 1: I know, I know, so it boils down to actually
Speaker 1: pour circulation for me um. But but I thought it
Speaker 1: was interesting because I think that in the article, the
Speaker 1: question was whether or not people would perceive your handshake,
Speaker 1: your your cold, dead handshake as is in a negative
Speaker 1: light and then inform their feelings about you that way,
Speaker 1: much in the way that the mug of warm coffee
Speaker 1: made people feel friendlier. Couldn't do the opposite. So here's
Speaker 1: another idea to game the system. Next time you go
Speaker 1: into a job interview or whatnot, if you know that
Speaker 1: you have the cold hands, or even just to be
Speaker 1: on the safe side, do a little palm rubbing there,
Speaker 1: get it all warmed up, and then then impress them
Speaker 1: with your loving handshake. That's what I do before I
Speaker 1: hugged my daughter so that she doesn't run in terror
Speaker 1: from me. We should probably take a break when we
Speaker 1: get back. We're going to talk about automating comfort. All right,
Speaker 1: we're back. So we were talking about about the experiment
Speaker 1: with maccaques about the the iron mother that's cold and
Speaker 1: loveless and the the lightbulb powered furry mother that all
Speaker 1: the little maccaques go crazy for. And of course we've
Speaker 1: discussed this a little bit in the past. We've talked
Speaker 1: about robots. Yeah, we've talked about robots hugging you. And
Speaker 1: the reason is is because hugging is obviously very comforting.
Speaker 1: In fact, one study showed that when people engage in
Speaker 1: a hug for twenty seconds or longer, that actually reduces
Speaker 1: their courters all levels, their stress levels pretty significantly. And
Speaker 1: this is why you you said you always hold your
Speaker 1: husband in for twenty seconds, like count to twenty and
Speaker 1: don't let him escape until you hit twenty, Yeah, which
Speaker 1: he kind of tries to wriggle from, but then he
Speaker 1: lovingly submits to my embrace. But yeah, this is a
Speaker 1: really quick life hack. So of course, what do we
Speaker 1: do whenever we we are trying to figure out something
Speaker 1: that we do human wise, we look through the robots
Speaker 1: to see if we can do something similar. And there's
Speaker 1: something called the hug shirt, which I believe we've talked
Speaker 1: about before. This is a bluetooth enabled shirt made by
Speaker 1: the UK's cute circuit and it uses embedded sensors and
Speaker 1: actuators to simulate a hug. Yes, so you can get
Speaker 1: the same effect. Um, there is the Hug machine, which
Speaker 1: was designed by Temple Grandon and um that is a
Speaker 1: deep pressure device designed to calm hyper sensitive people. Yes,
Speaker 1: and that's so, by the way, the Temple grand In movie,
Speaker 1: great movie. I highly recommend that. Yeah, that is really great.
Speaker 1: I can who's the actress who played that, Um, Claire Danes, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: who a lot of you know from Homeland. She's yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: she did a phenomenal job in that. Um. So there
Speaker 1: are these different ways that we have tried to create
Speaker 1: the hug. But what do you do if you're beyond
Speaker 1: the hug, if you're in a situation where you are
Speaker 1: actually taking the last breaths of life and you need comfort.
Speaker 1: Well a few of possibilities come to mind, self hug,
Speaker 1: which may not be possible, and that might not actually
Speaker 1: work because generally the self hug is something you do
Speaker 1: just to convince other people that you're making out with
Speaker 1: somebody when your tent right. Uh. And then I guess
Speaker 1: you could if you had like say that, you could
Speaker 1: if you had a pet python. You could unleash the
Speaker 1: python on you in those final moments because get a
Speaker 1: combination of things there, embrace quick demise and uh, and
Speaker 1: then you also ultimately feed a giant snake. But but
Speaker 1: you're probably but what you're getting at here, I'm sure,
Speaker 1: is that we should have a robot that that enters
Speaker 1: into the scenario, that enters the room of our dying
Speaker 1: and actually tends to our final emotional needs. Yep. This
Speaker 1: is the Last Moment Bought or the end of life
Speaker 1: care machine, which was made by artist in designer Dan Chin.
Speaker 1: He made this because he wanted to try to present
Speaker 1: an extreme example of a world where machines fill in
Speaker 1: for humans. And now keep in mind too that we've
Speaker 1: talked about caregiving robots, so that art, this is his
Speaker 1: idea is is I'm going to create some art that's
Speaker 1: going to generate discussion. It's still very much in keeping
Speaker 1: with stuff that's going on today because we've talked about
Speaker 1: robots that are being designed to help elderly people around,
Speaker 1: to help them use the restroom, and not only the
Speaker 1: elder really, but injured individuals as well, to care for
Speaker 1: them in a hospital environment. So it's art, but it's
Speaker 1: it's like all great art. It has a lot of
Speaker 1: ties into our real current position and our near future reality.
Speaker 1: Um it is Uh, I think the robot in the
Speaker 1: art installation is incredibly depressing. Yes, well that's your argument.
Speaker 1: I I interpreted it differently. Um, and we should we
Speaker 1: should describe what. Um. So, you're dying, all right, You're
Speaker 1: in this hospital room by yourself. That's important to note here.
Speaker 1: You're in this room by yourself, and then in your
Speaker 1: your your signs are being monitored by this machine. And
Speaker 1: suddenly it realizes that you or your death is imminent.
Speaker 1: So what happens. It turns on the last moment robot
Speaker 1: and it wheels itself over to you there and you're
Speaker 1: you're soon to be deathbed and and what does it do? Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, it actually embraces you a little bit.
Speaker 1: There are some hug mechanics that go on. It kind
Speaker 1: of looks like it's rolling dough out of your arm.
Speaker 1: But the idea is that it's supposed to feel like
Speaker 1: like an embrace, like somebody's roping your arm. But now
Speaker 1: we're talking about this plastic kind of arm thing. It doesn't.
Speaker 1: There's nothing very human looking about it. It's all about
Speaker 1: the sensation. And then the robot actually speaks to you.
Speaker 1: The robots says, I am the last Moment Robot. I
Speaker 1: am here to help you and guide you through your
Speaker 1: last moment on Earth. I am sorry that your family
Speaker 1: and friends can't be with you right now, but don't
Speaker 1: be afraid. I am here to comfort you. You're not alone.
Speaker 1: You are with me. Your family and friends love you
Speaker 1: very much. They will remember you after you are gone. Sucker, No,
Speaker 1: it actually kind of sounded like how For a second there,
Speaker 1: I was going for a little bit of how, a
Speaker 1: little bit of David. Yeah, okay, so what what do
Speaker 1: you find comforting about that? Okay? So I actually like
Speaker 1: just reading that, like I feel my heart strings. Kind
Speaker 1: of not reading it out loud because it makes it
Speaker 1: sound like I really love the son of my own voice,
Speaker 1: but just reading it on the page. When I first
Speaker 1: read the article about this piece, it connected with me,
Speaker 1: you know, because I'm because it actually reminds me. I
Speaker 1: mentioned Boards of Canada earlier. The UK Electronic do a
Speaker 1: do a lot of very nostalgic, ethereal sounding electronic idem soundscapes.
Speaker 1: They have a track called an Eagle in Your Mind
Speaker 1: off the album music Has the Right Has the Right
Speaker 1: to Children, and it's it's kind of a kind of
Speaker 1: a somber piece at first, and then it and then
Speaker 1: it picks up and there's a voice sample in there
Speaker 1: where it's kind of a computer e voice. It says
Speaker 1: I love you. And every time I hear that, even
Speaker 1: though I know it's just a sample, there's something about
Speaker 1: it where I'm like, oh, somebody loves me, you know
Speaker 1: it like it it's still connects with you. And I
Speaker 1: got that same feeling from from reading and in the
Speaker 1: video hearing the last moment robots final words to the dying.
Speaker 1: Even though it's just some sort of speech to text
Speaker 1: kind of scenario going on there, it's still I feel
Speaker 1: like it's still resonates with you, you know, Okay, I
Speaker 1: understand that abstractly, but I still feel like it's such
Speaker 1: a personal thing and you want to feel connected, right
Speaker 1: because if you're drawing your last breaths here on earth,
Speaker 1: wouldn't you want to feel as though you were somehow
Speaker 1: pinned to the center of it in some way through
Speaker 1: another person, through someone's eyes. To see the light go
Speaker 1: out in someone's eyes is just an incredibly personal thing.
Speaker 1: So I mean, you make it sound like it's it's
Speaker 1: to be like it needs to like find a dying
Speaker 1: person today and go look into their eyes when they die.
Speaker 1: Oh no, no, no, no, I don't breathing their soul
Speaker 1: and it's wonderful. Know What I mean is for the
Speaker 1: person who is dying, for the person or persons who
Speaker 1: are losing this person, it's uh to me, my mind
Speaker 1: would be preferable to have the human connection. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: I would imagine the human connection is ideal. Certainly, if
Speaker 1: I were given the choice between saying goodbye or being
Speaker 1: or or having a loved one tell me goodbye on
Speaker 1: my death bed and a robot, I would probably go
Speaker 1: with the human Uh. Though it should be said, at
Speaker 1: least the robots keeping it together here, the robots like
Speaker 1: a saint. The robots like a like a priest giving
Speaker 1: you last riots that's done this many times before and
Speaker 1: can at least fake being sincere about it while also
Speaker 1: not losing it because you know you don't want you
Speaker 1: also don't want the robot. There's probably not a setting
Speaker 1: for the for the last moment robot where it just
Speaker 1: loses it and it's like, oh, please, don't die and well,
Speaker 1: maybe there is, because you know, if that were, if
Speaker 1: that were to actually come to fruition, they would obviously
Speaker 1: the people who created the robot would want to try
Speaker 1: to simulate the experience so that you could draw as
Speaker 1: much comfort from And some people might draw comfort from
Speaker 1: the because the message of the robot, it's pretty straight.
Speaker 1: But it's like, hey, you're dying. It's cool. Everyone does this.
Speaker 1: You had a good life, everyone loved you, and now
Speaker 1: it's time to turn it off. Yea, I'm just saying
Speaker 1: I would feel jipped. I'd be like, really, you're the
Speaker 1: last thing that I see. But but if the alternative, though,
Speaker 1: think of if the alternative, though, is dying in a
Speaker 1: room by yourself, or being vaguely attended to by an
Speaker 1: overworked caregiver who may or may not be able to
Speaker 1: muster some fake enthusiasm or legitimate enthusiasm. Enthusiasm isn't the
Speaker 1: right word, um, compassion for for your last moments, then
Speaker 1: I can see that the robot is being the preferred method. Okay, true, true. Um.
Speaker 1: Here's one situation that I will get behind, though, and
Speaker 1: this is this idea that you could seek a virtual psychologist.
Speaker 1: And we've actually mentioned this before, but NASA in their
Speaker 1: program called the Virtual Space Station Psychologist just came out
Speaker 1: of It's for Your Pilot program to try to U
Speaker 1: have some of their participants really reach out to this
Speaker 1: virtual psychologist and gain some self help care. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: um It's essentially the idea we're talking about here is
Speaker 1: you're on a long distance space journey, or you're in
Speaker 1: space for a while. You may or may not. Maybe
Speaker 1: you're alone. Maybe you're dealing with a small group of people,
Speaker 1: but as we've discussed before, that's a very intimate environment,
Speaker 1: and also you're dealing with a lot of biological funk
Speaker 1: that's gonna be going on. Is your body adjust a
Speaker 1: life in a semi waitless environment and the best cases
Speaker 1: being locked away with a group of people's gonna get old.
Speaker 1: But then throw in a lot of vomit and it's
Speaker 1: just gonna get worse. So maybe you have a laptop
Speaker 1: in a room. It's kind of like the confessional room
Speaker 1: you know in all the reality shows where you go
Speaker 1: in and you uh, either you talk to this thing
Speaker 1: you actually have some back and forth interaction, or perhaps
Speaker 1: it's more like a questionnaire multiple choice, like how are
Speaker 1: you doing today? A for great, B for okay, or
Speaker 1: C four I want to launch Carl out of the
Speaker 1: airlock and uh, And then the the machine will ask
Speaker 1: you why do you want to launch Carl out of
Speaker 1: the airlock, and you're like, well, he's been I feel
Speaker 1: like he's just been kind of cold recently, and I'm
Speaker 1: reaching out to you know. A part of it is like,
Speaker 1: let's get the astronaut actually processing some of this instead
Speaker 1: of it said they're just brooding inside you. And then
Speaker 1: also it could consuerably launch some some tips grounded in
Speaker 1: actual psychology at you give you some text to read
Speaker 1: about what you're feeling or what you should be feeling. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the idea is that these virtual psychologists provide a problem
Speaker 1: solving treatment. And so I'm not discounting, you know, flesh psychologist,
Speaker 1: because I think there are many, many talented ones. But
Speaker 1: some of the success that I think that happens in
Speaker 1: UM therapy is that it's the talking Here. It's a
Speaker 1: lot of people sort of talking through the problems and
Speaker 1: in doing so finding areas that they need to work
Speaker 1: on or areas that they can find solutions for. Because
Speaker 1: if you've ever been if you've been to a therapist,
Speaker 1: and U, and I highly recommend it if you if
Speaker 1: you're even considering it, if you think maybe if you
Speaker 1: go to a therapist for this, then do seriously consider
Speaker 1: because it can be very helpful. But there's certainly there
Speaker 1: are times where you might find yourself thinking, hey, this
Speaker 1: isn't like on TV. This person is not telling me
Speaker 1: how to solve my problems. A lot of this is
Speaker 1: me talking through it and someone nodding and writing something
Speaker 1: down and interjecting a little bit. It's easy for people
Speaker 1: to make fun of that and belittle it and say,
Speaker 1: like I I was just need doing all the work,
Speaker 1: But that's kind of what's happening. It facilitates you actually
Speaker 1: working through what you're feeling. Well, and ideally these this
Speaker 1: program would have this sort of UM great sophisticated feedback
Speaker 1: that you might get from from a human psychologist. UM
Speaker 1: in the works. You know, hopefully this will be something
Speaker 1: that will come online later. But I did want to
Speaker 1: mention that twenty nine current and former astronauts have been
Speaker 1: consulted for the project and the trial has shown pretty
Speaker 1: good results in treating depression. And this is according to
Speaker 1: James Cartraine. He's a clinical psychologist at Harvard Medical School
Speaker 1: and uh, future test with firefighters and e m t
Speaker 1: s could help launch a more wide bread use of
Speaker 1: the self help software and eventually bring it to the public. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And just a quick example from real life of actual
Speaker 1: interpersonal tension causing problems for space flights. In a mission
Speaker 1: on Russia's Solute seven space station was scrapped after colleagues
Speaker 1: noticed the commander seemed uninterested in his work and spent
Speaker 1: hours looking out of the window on the ship. And
Speaker 1: in three years earlier mission on the same station was
Speaker 1: somewhat hampered by tension between two astronauts, so also maybe
Speaker 1: it was haunted. I don't know that that could be
Speaker 1: a possible as well. Uh but no, I mean, I
Speaker 1: guess that underscores the reason why you need to have
Speaker 1: people feel as good as they can up there on
Speaker 1: their missions, because obviously a lot of things could go wrong,
Speaker 1: all right. So there you go a little a little
Speaker 1: insight into comfort and what it is is it certainly
Speaker 1: as you're seeking out comfort this holiday season or the next,
Speaker 1: or just after a tough day at the office or
Speaker 1: break up or whatever. Because we didn't even mention ice
Speaker 1: cream after a breakup. It I mean that's another motif
Speaker 1: that you run. You never did that. I don't understand
Speaker 1: that because it is cold, yeah, but it's but it's
Speaker 1: also fatty and sweet cold comfort yea. So I want
Speaker 1: to leave that with just a couple of quotes here
Speaker 1: about comfort and about our our search for comfort in life.
Speaker 1: First of all, here's a little bit from C. S. Lewis.
Speaker 1: He said, if you look for truth, you may find
Speaker 1: comfort in the end. If you look for comfort, you
Speaker 1: will not get either comfort or truth, only soft soap
Speaker 1: and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end despair.
Speaker 1: And then our good buddy Aristotle said, we live in deeds,
Speaker 1: not years, in thoughts, not breaths, in feelings, not in
Speaker 1: figures on a dial. We should not count time by
Speaker 1: heart throbs. He most lives, who thinks, most feels, the noblest,
Speaker 1: acts the best. So there you have it. Comfort food.
Speaker 1: Why it matters to us what's going on when we
Speaker 1: eat it while we keep coming back to it, and
Speaker 1: what is it doing to our bodies? Indeed, uh, if
Speaker 1: you want to share your favorite comfort food with us,
Speaker 1: we would love to hear it, because we have a
Speaker 1: whole litany of comfort things ourselves, and you can do
Speaker 1: that by emailing us that blow the mind at how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands
Speaker 1: of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com.