Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Sign Stuff, a production of iHeartRadio. I'm
Speaker 1: hor hit him. And if you're feeling stressed about what's
Speaker 1: going on in the world right now, I think we
Speaker 1: have a solution for you. It's called the Bob Ross Effect.
Speaker 1: You know Bob Ross. He's the legendary host of the
Speaker 1: PBS show The Joy of Painting. You might know him
Speaker 1: from Missus Haridoo or The Calming Way, in which he
Speaker 1: guides viewers to paint amazing landscapes from scratch.
Speaker 2: You can always add a little blue if it gets
Speaker 2: too bright, and dull it right down, because you know,
Speaker 2: if you've painted with us before, we don't make mistakes,
Speaker 2: if we have happy accidents.
Speaker 1: Yes, that Bob Ross Now. In twenty twenty four, a
Speaker 1: group of students and researchers at Skidmore College published the
Speaker 1: paper titled Exploring the Bob Ross Effect, a psycho physiological
Speaker 1: hidden stigation, in which they try to find out if
Speaker 1: listening to Bob Ross could actually make you feel better.
Speaker 1: It turns out the answer is yes. Here to tell
Speaker 1: us about it is the lead researcher on that experiment,
Speaker 1: doctor Stephen Ives, a professor in the Department of Health
Speaker 1: and Human physiological sciences. You might remember doctor Ice from
Speaker 1: the episode about whether you really need to wait thirty
Speaker 1: minutes after eating before you can go swimming. So here's
Speaker 1: my happy accident of a chat with doctor Ives. All right,
Speaker 1: doctor Ies, thanks so much for joining us here today.
Speaker 1: Of course, I wonder if I can ask you about
Speaker 1: the Bob Ross effect I saw. Do you have a
Speaker 1: paper related to this fact? What is it?
Speaker 3: So this kind of goes back to COVID times, you know,
Speaker 3: and we're all sitting around. I found myself watching a
Speaker 3: lot of news, like most of us probably were, and
Speaker 3: I noticed my children sitting next to me and they
Speaker 3: were also watching the news. I'm like, oh, this is
Speaker 3: maybe not the best decision, and so I changed channel
Speaker 3: to PBS. Bob Ross was on YEA, and I could
Speaker 3: see them being fronted, like eyes wide open to just
Speaker 3: almost melted into the couch, and it was just sort
Speaker 3: of kind that was interesting.
Speaker 1: They were fascinated, they were interested.
Speaker 3: They were very interested and sort of almost calmed in
Speaker 3: a sense. And so it's like, oh, if there's something
Speaker 3: to this. And then I started doing a little googling,
Speaker 3: and yeah, there's a cult following of people who say,
Speaker 3: listen to bob Ross before going to bed, or if
Speaker 3: they're stressed out, or if they're studying, they'll study to
Speaker 3: the sounds of Bob Ross. And so it's been sort
Speaker 3: of coined this bob Ross effects, which they talk about
Speaker 3: eliciting the ASMR response. So I think it's audio sensory
Speaker 3: meridian response, and it's again something we don't have a
Speaker 3: lot of understanding of, but it's thought certain frequencies or
Speaker 3: sounds can elicit a brain response, and usually it's a
Speaker 3: favorable one, right, Unlike the sounds of nails on a
Speaker 3: chalkboard that all just kind of gives us the creeps, right.
Speaker 4: The opposite, Yeah, yeah, but if you think about the
Speaker 4: sounds wind or waves crashing on a beach, or in
Speaker 4: this case, listening to Bob Ross, and it lists like
Speaker 4: a soothing response.
Speaker 1: And so at the height of the COVID pandemic, doctor
Speaker 1: Ives decided to do an experiment. But everyone with social
Speaker 1: distancing from home. So they came up with a Psychology
Speaker 1: Experiment take home kit.
Speaker 3: And so we came up with a clever way to
Speaker 3: try and do study remotely, and so we made these
Speaker 3: packages for participants. Blood pressure, cough, heart rate monitor, surveys
Speaker 3: and then we would drop it off. Everything was sterilized
Speaker 3: before we dropped it a half and then we remotely
Speaker 3: administered a testing session. So these were mostly other college students, volunteers. Volunteers,
Speaker 3: so they were randomly assigned to watching a Bob Ross
Speaker 3: episode or a live stream of news.
Speaker 1: Which network though Fox News or MSNBC like that might
Speaker 1: that your response?
Speaker 3: I think we did NBC News, Okay, so I wasn't
Speaker 3: seeing enter Fox. It was kind of middle of the road.
Speaker 3: And they watched one of those and then they kept
Speaker 3: the equipment. We made measurements before they started watching during
Speaker 3: and then after then they kept the equipment. In the
Speaker 3: next day they did the other conditions. They started with
Speaker 3: Bob Ross, then they would do news the next day
Speaker 3: and vice versa. So we looked at their cardiovascular response,
Speaker 3: their heart rate. Their heart rate is fixed. Everybody thinks
Speaker 3: it's like this fixed number, but it's it's just always
Speaker 3: moving around. Really, we wanted to look at the heart
Speaker 3: rate variability blood pressure classic indicator of cardiovascular health, and
Speaker 3: then we looked at something called palm profile of mood
Speaker 3: states it's sixty something questions. It gets that anger, depression, anxiety, confusion,
Speaker 3: and vigor. I want to say, are the domains of that,
Speaker 3: like how do you feel?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: How do you feel? And we didn't find much with
Speaker 3: blood pressure. The heart rate variability seemed to point to
Speaker 3: lower sympathetic activity relative to parasympathetic, so people were from
Speaker 3: a physiological sense less stressed in the Bob Ross condition.
Speaker 3: The biggest effects we saw, though, were in the mood states.
Speaker 3: So when we looked at how they changed from before
Speaker 3: they watched after they watched, it moved in the direction
Speaker 3: that you might expect. So watching news increased anxiety, it
Speaker 3: increased depression, in increased confusion, it increased fatigue, decreased energy
Speaker 3: or vigor. That Bob Ross had the opposite effect.
Speaker 1: What do you mean?
Speaker 3: Watching Bob Ross acutely decreased indices of depression, anxiety, confusion.
Speaker 3: So they had overall better mood after watching Bob Ross
Speaker 3: for twenty six.
Speaker 1: Minutes, keeper than therapy.
Speaker 3: Now, I mean we need to do a long term study.
Speaker 3: You know, all the disclaimers I could possibly put on that,
Speaker 3: but it's promising. I think it's interesting. Try watching an
Speaker 3: episode tonight.
Speaker 1: I might, I will. I guess The question is what
Speaker 1: do you think it is? About Bob Ross. Do you
Speaker 1: think it's Bob Ross himself or the act of painting,
Speaker 1: or just what we experienced with this ASMR Like if
Speaker 1: I just heard twenty six minutes of someone whispering in
Speaker 1: my ear and opening canisters or something, would that also
Speaker 1: have the same effect or is it special to Bob Ross.
Speaker 3: I think he has a unique blend of the visual
Speaker 3: element where he just takes a paint brush and there
Speaker 3: is nothing that all of a sudden it looks like
Speaker 3: a beautiful mountain and it's a matter of seconds that
Speaker 3: it happens. So there's something sort of I would say,
Speaker 3: I don't want to say magical, but say magical. There's
Speaker 3: something mystifying about watching that. But I think there's definitely
Speaker 3: an auditory component to it as well.
Speaker 1: His voice, his cadence, Yes.
Speaker 3: Very soothing to listen to, No sudden intonations or loudness
Speaker 3: to it, very smooth and somber.
Speaker 1: Interesting. Do you think that was purposeful or do you
Speaker 1: think that's just his personality.
Speaker 3: I think it's his personality. Yeah, he was an interesting fellow.
Speaker 3: I think he kept pet squirrels. I think it gives
Speaker 3: you a clue to maybe what his personality was.
Speaker 1: Like yes, So in these stressful times, go ahead and
Speaker 1: google Bob Roth on YouTube and watch one of his videos.
Speaker 1: It's scientifically proven to make you feel better. Thanks for
Speaker 1: joining us, See you next time.
Speaker 2: Because very soon you learned to work with anything, it
Speaker 2: happens here, and when you get over that fear of
Speaker 2: making a mistake, then it becomes fun.
Speaker 1: You've been listening to Science Stuff Reduction of iHeartRadio, written
Speaker 1: and produced by me or Hey Cham, edited by Rose Seguda,
Speaker 1: executive producer Jerry Rowland, and audio engineer and mixer Ksey Pegrom,
Speaker 1: and you can follow me on social media. Just search
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Speaker 1: Thanks a lot,