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 Lamp and I'm Julie Douglas, and
Speaker 1: we're coming at you around Thanksgiving if you're listening to
Speaker 1: this as it publishes. But we're talking about comfort, and
Speaker 1: this is certainly a season of comfort, but comfort food,
Speaker 1: the feeling of comfort is something that we we crave,
Speaker 1: that we seek out at various times throughout the year.
Speaker 1: So so don't run away if you're listening to this
Speaker 1: in July, that's right, because you never know. In July
Speaker 1: you might need a bit of comfort, cold comfort at
Speaker 1: that point from your air conditioner. But um, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean what I think about comfort. I think about quilts,
Speaker 1: I think about how Coco, and I think that some
Speaker 1: people are drawing more to comfort than other people. M
Speaker 1: M yeah, I'm probably about, you know, halfway there. It
Speaker 1: doesn't you know. Sure I'll take some comfort, but I
Speaker 1: don't need it. I mean, I really like comfort. I
Speaker 1: mean I'm pro comfort because for me, I probably think,
Speaker 1: you know, and like a nice warm blanket, that's good
Speaker 1: cat on your lap, that's good hot beverage of some kind.
Speaker 1: I guess the comfort I do tend to think of it,
Speaker 1: especially something I seek out during colder months. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which which also brings to mind like like chicken soup,
Speaker 1: something that I don't Actually nobody really likes chicken soup.
Speaker 1: I mean, my wife makes delicious chicken soup, but for
Speaker 1: the most part, you're coming at chicken soup out of
Speaker 1: a sense of more than just wanting to taste, but
Speaker 1: you want all the emotions that come with it and
Speaker 1: all the all all the ideas about chicken soup that
Speaker 1: exists culturally. You know. So already we've talked about several
Speaker 1: different aspects of comfort, because really you've got the tactile
Speaker 1: part of it, and then you've got the food part
Speaker 1: of it, and then the psychology that sort of jells
Speaker 1: all of it together. Yeah, because what does it ultimately
Speaker 1: break down to? Um Asking neuroscientists, and they'll say it
Speaker 1: all comes down to it being the opposite of stress,
Speaker 1: which is for pretty broad but yeah, I think of
Speaker 1: a thing of time you've been stressed, thing of the
Speaker 1: time when you've been comfortable. They're pretty much polar opposites.
Speaker 1: Nobody's sitting around biting their nails and guzzling chicken soup
Speaker 1: with a blanket wrapped around them while they watched Gilmore
Speaker 1: Girls Marathon on TV or something, right. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: it's all about very specific and that's another aspect because
Speaker 1: I I know somebody who's Who's who that remember that
Speaker 1: was their comfort thing, And certainly that's another aspect of
Speaker 1: comfort is media. You know, it's like there'll be certain
Speaker 1: certain albums you might put on it. It It was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna put on some Boards of Canada and that's
Speaker 1: for me a very that's a very comfort minded soundtrack
Speaker 1: to plug into. Or for some people it is a
Speaker 1: Gilmore's Girl Marathon, you know, something that they that really
Speaker 1: serves as kind of a replacement social engagements. Well for me,
Speaker 1: little House from the Prairie. Yeah, yeah, Michael Landon, all
Speaker 1: the schmaltz Michael Landon it could ever want, because when
Speaker 1: the world seems cruel and unfair, Michael Landon is there
Speaker 1: for you. So what we're talking about are three principles
Speaker 1: of comfort, security, ward and connectedness. So we're feeling connected
Speaker 1: to your fellow man, which might have something to do
Speaker 1: with Michael Landon right, um, And each of these principles
Speaker 1: of comfort activate different parts of our brains. So it
Speaker 1: would make sense that you have this sort of big
Speaker 1: idea of comfort having to do with the tactile, having
Speaker 1: 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 we start really
Speaker 1: thinking about not only what it means to you, because
Speaker 1: everyone's got their comfort foods, you know, and certainly there
Speaker 1: are some comfort foods that you think of a lot
Speaker 1: of you think of things like fried chicken as a
Speaker 1: comfort food or various uh you know, or a casse
Speaker 1: role 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 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 your 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 surrogates,
Speaker 1: as you already pointed out in different ways. And it's
Speaker 1: interesting because if you look at studies concerning food and
Speaker 1: comfort you will find a bevy of them. And one
Speaker 1: of the ones that I thought was really interesting is
Speaker 1: a study that had to do with people feeling less
Speaker 1: lonely after just writing about food. Okay, they didn't consume anything,
Speaker 1: and it was specific to comfort food. All right. This
Speaker 1: is a two thousand and eleven University of Buffalo study.
Speaker 1: And so they bring in a bunch of people, so
Speaker 1: set them down and said, hey, I want you to
Speaker 1: write a little bit about a fight that you had
Speaker 1: with with somebody that the relationship with you. I imagine
Speaker 1: that most of these are gonna involve like previous relationships
Speaker 1: or 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 writing about
Speaker 1: about some some comfort foods and about the fried chicken
Speaker 1: or the blood sauces or whatever it may be. Write
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. It's not related back to mom or childhood.
Speaker 1: So of course, what do you think the results were. Uh,
Speaker 1: the results are probably going to be that the comfort
Speaker 1: food is the one that really makes the difference in
Speaker 1: most of these Yeah, that's right. What they did is
Speaker 1: they took all of the participants took a test after
Speaker 1: they wrote about food, when they filled out this questionnaire
Speaker 1: about loneliness. It was found that the comfort food, just
Speaker 1: thinking about it and writing about it helped those people
Speaker 1: to self adjust their moods. Now, there's an important caveat here,
Speaker 1: and that is that, Uh, generally the individuals who were
Speaker 1: aided by the food, they were in a more or
Speaker 1: less good relationship that they just had some some either
Speaker 1: fighting 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 to
Speaker 1: night before and then some reason you came in to
Speaker 1: do this study and you thought about mashed potatoes and
Speaker 1: it fixed everything. No, not not quiet, It's not that powerful.
Speaker 1: But certainly if you're like, oh, I really love my wife,
Speaker 1: but we we just we keep fighting over what color
Speaker 1: of the carpet should be. I think it should be
Speaker 1: hot pink, she thinks it should be Neon Green. We
Speaker 1: can't come to a decision. We keep fighting mashed potatoes.
Speaker 1: Oh what was I? What was I upset about? Well?
Speaker 1: And I think it's just interesting because we've talked about
Speaker 1: this before, but how just thinking about things can really
Speaker 1: change your brain. And we talked about this before, even
Speaker 1: in writers who are writing about their characters and people
Speaker 1: who are reading of novels that they are mirror neurons
Speaker 1: began to activate as though they were throwing the ball
Speaker 1: 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 in the Netherlands, and what they
Speaker 1: were doing is they were taking twelve healthy individuals and
Speaker 1: they all underwent four forty minute fmr I tests while
Speaker 1: 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
Speaker 1: rails because the other one, it's like, oh, you're writing
Speaker 1: something and thinking about food, or or I can imagine
Speaker 1: signing up for the study and thinking, oh, or they're
Speaker 1: just gonna show at me like a large ventreer film
Speaker 1: and then feed me some mashed potatoes. But no, they're
Speaker 1: going to pump something directly into my stomach after I
Speaker 1: watch it. That's in addition to the large one treier.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, but what kind of movie theaters that Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I wonder if they did show Melancolia through them, because
Speaker 1: that would be a really great film to try to
Speaker 1: induce sadness. I have to say, um, but all all
Speaker 1: of the participants had um completed a twelve hour fast,
Speaker 1: so they came with empty stomachs and they had no
Speaker 1: idea what it was that was being put into their stomachs. Okay,
Speaker 1: So there was alts indicated that subjects who received the
Speaker 1: fatty infusion were less sad when viewing sad pictures or
Speaker 1: listening to sad music. And then the fmm f m
Speaker 1: r I tests confirmed fewer neural responses to sadness in
Speaker 1: several areas of the brain in this group. Wow. Again,
Speaker 1: I'm still overwhelmed just by the weirdness of the experiment.
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, what they were also
Speaker 1: trying to do is to say, hey, there's it's not
Speaker 1: just the mind body link, it is the body mind link.
Speaker 1: And we've talked about this before in our podcast about
Speaker 1: whether or not our guts are really our second brains, right,
Speaker 1: And then of course when we're they really wanted to
Speaker 1: look at the nutritional intake and when you eat food.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a no brainer, but there's a lot
Speaker 1: going on. It's about it's about smelling the food that
Speaker 1: you're eating. It's about the texture. I mentioned mashed potatoes,
Speaker 1: and it's true a lot of a lot of the
Speaker 1: comfort foods you encounter, it's like a creamy kind of
Speaker 1: consistency to it. Um. I mean, some people may have
Speaker 1: beef jerky as a comfort food. That's great, but a
Speaker 1: lot of comfort foods are kind of like a smooth,
Speaker 1: easy to eat kind of a thing. And again, just
Speaker 1: having a story about that food as well, you can
Speaker 1: circumvent that by just pumping stuff directly into the stomach.
Speaker 1: It's also worth noting on that two thousand eleven University
Speaker 1: of Buffalo study, they also had another experiment where they
Speaker 1: found that eating chicken soup in the lab made people
Speaker 1: think more about relationships if they consider chicken soup to
Speaker 1: be a comfort food, which again comes down to my
Speaker 1: argument that chicken soup, even when it's really good, isn't
Speaker 1: really great because it's chicken soup if it'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 there, 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 it's funny about that is
Speaker 1: that my mom doesn't cook, never really has cooked, so
Speaker 1: but I have the same feelings about chicken soup even
Speaker 1: though I don't consume it now, because no, I was
Speaker 1: gonna say I could look at a can of Campbell's
Speaker 1: and feel a little warm cockles in the heart there.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, well, you know, I think my mom I
Speaker 1: could be wrong in this, and I'm sure she'll correct
Speaker 1: me when she hears this, but I think it would
Speaker 1: like she would do like canned chicken soup as well,
Speaker 1: because I mean she was busy as she did. I'm
Speaker 1: trying to make a bunch of you know, who has
Speaker 1: time to make like chicken stock from scratch in this
Speaker 1: day in war and day and age. But I'm pretty
Speaker 1: sure that was canned as well. But still it was
Speaker 1: this was a thing that you had when you were sick,
Speaker 1: and if you had it and then somebody loved you
Speaker 1: enough to at least open a can, and that was
Speaker 1: the truth. If not boiled down the chicken carcass for
Speaker 1: hours and create fresh chicken stock, hey man, she she
Speaker 1: did many other things I would say to help me
Speaker 1: feel better. And I should also mention that, all right.
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 associations 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 Sharaka, Like sharaka and
Speaker 1: anything it was a comfort food. Um. And certainly you
Speaker 1: get some spicy and some sweet in there, and sharak
Speaker 1: is amazing, But it's his whole thing was that this
Speaker 1: was something he had discovered. This was something that was
Speaker 1: totally totally him and didn't necessarily have a connection with
Speaker 1: with his upbringing or his past. No, he just discovered
Speaker 1: that it was making the reward part of his brain
Speaker 1: go ding ding ding, really because he was getting a
Speaker 1: little bit euphoric with a spice there. Um. And I
Speaker 1: also think that too with new experiences and food, you know,
Speaker 1: you'll pin that a lot of times to travel. So
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes I'll think about things that I've eaten
Speaker 1: and I will elevate them to the highest level because
Speaker 1: I think, oh, that I had that in Italy or whatever,
Speaker 1: and it may not even actually be that great. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you still Again, it comes down to why I
Speaker 1: pump this stuff directly into the test subject stomach, Because again,
Speaker 1: food comes to us with a story, food comes as
Speaker 1: to us with a smell, with a texture on all
Speaker 1: of these things that go beyond near nutrition. And what
Speaker 1: we're talking about here too is really gaming a sense
Speaker 1: of comfort. Of course, there is the food industry which
Speaker 1: is really interesting in this idea of tweaking moods through food.
Speaker 1: At the national meeting of the American Chemical Society, Karina
Speaker 1: Martinez Mayorga presented the latest findings from her ongoing study
Speaker 1: of the effect of various food flavors on mood. And
Speaker 1: it turns out that molecules in chocolate, a variety of berries,
Speaker 1: and then foods containing omega free 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 in several pharmaceutical mood stabilizers. Of course,
Speaker 1: the research was supported in part by a food flavor
Speaker 1: company France based uh Roberte UH Flavors, and the scientists
Speaker 1: say that food industry companies are joining pharmaceutical companies in
Speaker 1: the quest for natural mood boosters. So they're not intending
Speaker 1: this as a replacement for you know, for for treating
Speaker 1: clinical depression, but they are saying like, maybe this could
Speaker 1: give you a little extra pep in your step, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, well, certainly there are a lot of fine
Speaker 1: arguments out there that that a lot of problems with
Speaker 1: health and even mental health um to a certain degree,
Speaker 1: can be treated through a proper diet and an informed diet.
Speaker 1: But again, yeah, I think of what comfort foods tend
Speaker 1: to be. They can't be soft. They can be sweet, smooth, salty,
Speaker 1: and uh like we mentioned sugar and starch. They spur serotonin,
Speaker 1: your transmitter known to increase the sense of well being
Speaker 1: like prozac. Um. Salty foods spur oxytocin, the cuttle chemical
Speaker 1: that we talk about a lot that we also get
Speaker 1: from hugs an 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 you think back
Speaker 1: to our naked caveman running through the Serengetti chase by
Speaker 1: savor tooth tigers, a scenario that may or may not
Speaker 1: actually pan out. Actually me on that too much, but
Speaker 1: 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: of their body weight have to exercise even harder than
Speaker 1: their counterpart who didn't lose weight, but they weigh the
Speaker 1: same amount um simply because the body won't burn as
Speaker 1: many calories because again, it wants to get back to
Speaker 1: that set weight that it knows, and it also begins
Speaker 1: to crave more fatty foods. Yeah, and we, as we
Speaker 1: discussed before, and as it and as countless food documentaries
Speaker 1: point out, we live in an age now where all
Speaker 1: the fat you want just walk down to the storm
Speaker 1: by it. All of salty you want, I'll sweet you want. Generally,
Speaker 1: all these things are actually available in one bag at
Speaker 1: your local fast food restaurant. But of course we didn't
Speaker 1: evolve into that scenario. You know, that's not that's not
Speaker 1: the natural availability of these various elements. Yeah. Actually saw
Speaker 1: something the other day. It was it was about weight
Speaker 1: loss and a group of people who had had lost weight,
Speaker 1: and it said, we'll work for less food. And I thought, well,
Speaker 1: if that's not a commentary on the abundance of food
Speaker 1: in the world right now, as well as a commentary
Speaker 1: and some other stuff I don't know what is um.
Speaker 1: Then again, we're talking about this concept of gaming comfort,
Speaker 1: and you guys out there are probably familiar with this
Speaker 1: study because I think it got a lot of play.
Speaker 1: But this idea that comfort also comes externally so and
Speaker 1: actually affects our moods in ways that we might just
Speaker 1: make favorable decisions about others and what I'm talking about
Speaker 1: is um the warm mug of liquid study. Do you
Speaker 1: know which when I'm talking about where the participants were
Speaker 1: given a warm mug of coffee, I believe to hold
Speaker 1: just for a few moments and to think about someone
Speaker 1: that they may not have particularly had warm feelings about,
Speaker 1: but talk about them as they were holding the warm cup.
Speaker 1: And then participants were given uh an iced coffee to hold. Okay,
Speaker 1: so now they were holding something that's cold. And so
Speaker 1: it turns out that those people who held the mugs
Speaker 1: of hot Joe, we're much more likely to perceive others
Speaker 1: as having warmer personality traits. Well, this is basically this
Speaker 1: is the hot coco phenomenon here because with hot cocoa, well,
Speaker 1: first of all, are getting that chocolate that's sweet, so
Speaker 1: you're you're turning on some various new transmitters there. Uh.
Speaker 1: Some people like like their their hot chocolate little salty,
Speaker 1: so you've got that going on, uh, giving you a
Speaker 1: little little oxytocin. And then of course it is a
Speaker 1: warm mug of goodness that you're having generally with friends
Speaker 1: or family or loved ones while you're interacting with them.
Speaker 1: So it tends to uh to color an even warmer
Speaker 1: uh interpersonal relationship. Well, and you know it could be
Speaker 1: anybody then this this study which is really interesting. They
Speaker 1: could to be talking about co worker, they could be
Speaker 1: talking about their neighbor, or they could be talking about
Speaker 1: a family member. And this is one of those examples
Speaker 1: that neuroscientists David Eagleman talks about um when he's questions
Speaker 1: whether or not we actually have free will. And what
Speaker 1: I mean is that if a warm mug of coffee
Speaker 1: subconsciously makes you feel better about the person you're talking
Speaker 1: into while you're holding the coffee, um, then what sort
Speaker 1: of decisions might follow after that interaction or during that interaction. Well,
Speaker 1: this this reminds me, actually reminds me of times where
Speaker 1: we've dragged our recorder Matt in here, our editor, producer,
Speaker 1: director general, a man of our times, and sometimes we
Speaker 1: drag him in a ridiculous hours to try and get
Speaker 1: an episode recorded. And sometimes you'll you'll give him coffee
Speaker 1: and I thought you were just being nice, but you
Speaker 1: were manipulating him by giving him this warm beverage so
Speaker 1: that he can't help but think will warm thoughts then
Speaker 1: about us and not hate us for dragging him in
Speaker 1: it like five in the morning. Thanks for taking that down. No, really,
Speaker 1: it was. It's all coming from my heart, my warm,
Speaker 1: warm heart. But still this is a good This is
Speaker 1: a good trick that we should all exploit in our lives.
Speaker 1: You're going in for a tough meeting, or you want
Speaker 1: to just go for a job interview, you bring some
Speaker 1: hot coffee, some hot coco something, some hot tea, anything
Speaker 1: that'll that'll get the room warm, and do not let
Speaker 1: that 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, it doesn't affect how
Speaker 1: we feel. Um. Consider a study by Harry Harlow involving primates.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, this is the great one where they it
Speaker 1: was with maccaques, I believe, and uh and you've seen
Speaker 1: the photos because there terrifying, depressing, depressing where they have
Speaker 1: the baby macaques and they're they're they're given the choice
Speaker 1: of two or they tested out in two different environments.
Speaker 1: One there's this metal framework mother that that is there
Speaker 1: to distribute milk through a nipple, right, and it's just
Speaker 1: this metal framework, and then there's nothing monkey is about it. Ye,
Speaker 1: vaguely monkey shaped, I guess if you really want to
Speaker 1: get creative. But for the most part it's like metal
Speaker 1: thing with a nipple that feeds baby monkey. But then
Speaker 1: then the other part of the test is cover that
Speaker 1: with fur and you have a sort of fake monkey
Speaker 1: with a nipple. It's it's soft, it's agly monkey ish,
Speaker 1: but it's covered in fur. And which one do you
Speaker 1: think the macaques prefer? Now? This one that had the fur.
Speaker 1: The cloth was heated with a light bulb as well. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: so it's soft and furry but warm. So the surrogate
Speaker 1: that gets the most play is of course the one
Speaker 1: that has the light bulb in it, because it turns
Speaker 1: out that the baby maccaux, 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, this feeling
Speaker 1: of warmth and comfort in our ability to survive. And
Speaker 1: it reminds me of a of a study you sent
Speaker 1: me as we were looking into this podcast as well
Speaker 1: about the whole cold hands, warm heart thing which have tomit.
Speaker 1: I've never heard that saying, but apparently it's a saying
Speaker 1: cold hands, warm heart. There's a song too, really but
Speaker 1: I can't remember, but it comes on the system every
Speaker 1: once in a while. Okay, Well, but the idea is
Speaker 1: that if I guess, if you shake hands with somebody
Speaker 1: as a really cold hand, it's okay because it means
Speaker 1: their heart is so warm, they're so full of warmth
Speaker 1: in their heart they can love for their fellow man.
Speaker 1: That is actually affecting blood flow to their out to
Speaker 1: their limbs, apparently, which I've never heard because because it
Speaker 1: sounds ridiculous to me, because it sounds like people with
Speaker 1: cold fish hands. This is like propaganda they put out,
Speaker 1: you know, like like C e O S and whatnot,
Speaker 1: where they're like, oh, people think I'm horrible just because
Speaker 1: my hand is a piece of impersonal ice that I
Speaker 1: shove it people. Uh, maybe we should get some some
Speaker 1: some data out there that the opposite. We don't normally
Speaker 1: um shake, but I think we should right now. So
Speaker 1: everything you just describe my friend is me, and I
Speaker 1: will tell you that even before I knew him, at
Speaker 1: the song cold heart, cold heart, Warm hands, I used
Speaker 1: to say to my husband, cold heart, warm hands. Um.
Speaker 1: So it turns out you were wrong in science? Is there?
Speaker 1: Because because because in the study they actually looked into
Speaker 1: a two thousand and eight researchers Lawrence Williams and John
Speaker 1: bra they actually debunked this and then found that the
Speaker 1: physical warmth activates concepts of interpersonal warmth. And it's very
Speaker 1: much in keeping with the whole iron mother fury warm
Speaker 1: mother scenario. I know, I know, so it boils down
Speaker 1: to actually pour circulation from me. Um. But but I
Speaker 1: thought it was interesting because I think that in the article,
Speaker 1: the 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 gain 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. All Right, we should probably take a break.
Speaker 1: When we get back, we're going to talk about automating company.
Speaker 1: All right, we're back. So we were talking about the
Speaker 1: about the experiment with maccaques, about the the iron mother
Speaker 1: that's cold and loveless, and the the lightbulb powered furry
Speaker 1: mother that all the little maccaques go crazy for. And
Speaker 1: of course we've discussed this a little bit in the
Speaker 1: past when we've talked about robots. Yeah, we've talked about
Speaker 1: robots hugging you. And the reason is is because hugging
Speaker 1: is obviously very comforting. And in fact, one study showed
Speaker 1: that when people engage in a hug for twenty seconds
Speaker 1: or longer, that actually reduces their cortisol levels their stress
Speaker 1: levels pretty significantly. And this is why you you said
Speaker 1: you always hold your husband in for twenty seconds, like
Speaker 1: count to twenty and don't let him escape until you
Speaker 1: hit twenty. Yeah, which he kind of tries to wriggle from,
Speaker 1: but then he lovingly submitted to my embrace. But yeah,
Speaker 1: this is a really quick life hack. So of course,
Speaker 1: what do we do whenever we are trying to figure
Speaker 1: out something that we do human wise, we look to
Speaker 1: the robots to see if we can do something similar.
Speaker 1: And there's something called the hug shirt, which I believe
Speaker 1: we've talked about before. This is a Bluetooth enabled shirt
Speaker 1: made by the UK's Cute Circuit and it uses embedded
Speaker 1: sensors and actuators to simulate a hug. Yes, so you
Speaker 1: could get the same effect. Um. There is the Hug Machine,
Speaker 1: which was designed by Temple Grandin and um, that is
Speaker 1: a deep pressure device designed to calm hyper sensitive people. Yes,
Speaker 1: and that's, 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,
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. Well,
Speaker 1: a few of possibilities come to mind. Self hug, which
Speaker 1: may not be possible, and that might not actually work
Speaker 1: because generally the self hug is something you do just
Speaker 1: to convince other people that you're making out with somebody
Speaker 1: when you're kent right. Uh. And then I guess you
Speaker 1: could if you had like say, you could if you
Speaker 1: had a pet python, you could unleash the python on
Speaker 1: you in those final moments because get a combination of
Speaker 1: things there, embrace quick demise and uh. And then you
Speaker 1: also ultimately feed a giant snake. But but you're probably
Speaker 1: but what you're getting at here, I'm sure is that
Speaker 1: we should have a robot that that enters into the scenario,
Speaker 1: that enters the room of our dying and actually tends
Speaker 1: to our final emotional needs. Yep. This is the Last
Speaker 1: Moment Bought or the end of life care Machine, which
Speaker 1: was made by artists and designer Dan chen Uh. He
Speaker 1: made this because he wanted to try to present in
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. Not only the elder really,
Speaker 1: but injured individuals as well, to care for them in
Speaker 1: a hospital environment. So it's art, but it's it's like
Speaker 1: all great art. It has a lot of ties into
Speaker 1: our real current position and our near future reality. Um
Speaker 1: it is Uh, I think the robot in the art
Speaker 1: installation is incredibly depressing. Yes, well that's your argument. I
Speaker 1: I interpreted it differently. Um, and we should we should describe. Um.
Speaker 1: So you're dying, all right, You're in this hospital room
Speaker 1: by yourself. That's important to note here. You're in this
Speaker 1: room by yourself. And then uh, in your your your
Speaker 1: signs are being monitored by this machine. And suddenly it
Speaker 1: realizes that you or your death is imminent. So what happens.
Speaker 1: It turns on the last moment robot and it wheels
Speaker 1: itself over to you there and you're you're soon to
Speaker 1: be deathbed and and what does it do? Well, first
Speaker 1: of all, it actually embraces you a little bit. There
Speaker 1: are some hug mechanics that go on. It kind of
Speaker 1: looks like it's rolling dough out of your arm. But
Speaker 1: the idea is that it's supposed to feel like like
Speaker 1: an embrace, like somebody's roping your arm. But now we're
Speaker 1: talking about this plastic kind of arm thing that 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 are
Speaker 1: not alone. You are with me. Your family and friends
Speaker 1: love you very much. They will remember you after you
Speaker 1: are gone. Sucker. No, it actually kind of sounded like how.
Speaker 1: For a second, I was going for a little bit
Speaker 1: of how, a little bit of David. Yeah, I was
Speaker 1: gonna say, Okay, so what what do you find comforting
Speaker 1: about that? Okay? So I actually like just reading that.
Speaker 1: I feel my heart strings. Kind of not reading it
Speaker 1: out loud because it makes it sounds like I really
Speaker 1: love the son of my own voice, but just reading
Speaker 1: it on the page. When I first read the article
Speaker 1: about this piece. It connected with me, you know, because
Speaker 1: I'm because it actually reminds me. I mentioned Boards of
Speaker 1: Canada earlier. The UK Electronic Doo do a lot of
Speaker 1: very nostalgic, ethereal sounding electronic idem soundscapes. They have a
Speaker 1: track called an Eagle in Your Mind off the album
Speaker 1: Music Has the Right Has the Right to Children, and
Speaker 1: it's it's kind of a kind of a somber piece
Speaker 1: at first, and then it and then it picks up
Speaker 1: and there's a voice sample in there where it's kind
Speaker 1: of a computer e voice. It says I love you.
Speaker 1: And every time I hear that, even though I know
Speaker 1: it's just a sample, there's something about it where I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: somebody loves me, you know, it like it It's still
Speaker 1: connects with you. And I got that same feeling from
Speaker 1: from reading and in the video hearing the last moment
Speaker 1: robots final words to the dying. Even though it's just
Speaker 1: some sort of speech to text kind of scenario going
Speaker 1: on there, it's still I feel like it's still resonates
Speaker 1: with you, you know. Okay, I understand that abstractly, but
Speaker 1: I still feel like it's such a personal thing and
Speaker 1: you want to feel connected, right, Because if you're drawing
Speaker 1: your last breaths here on earth, wouldn't you want to
Speaker 1: feel as though you were somehow pinned to the center
Speaker 1: of it in some way through another person, through someone's eyes.
Speaker 1: To see the light go out in someone's eyes is
Speaker 1: just incredibly personal thing. So I can't I mean, you
Speaker 1: make it sound like it's it's to be like it
Speaker 1: needs to like find a dying person today and go
Speaker 1: look into their eyes when they die. Oh no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I don't breathing their soul. And it's wonderful. Know what
Speaker 1: I mean is for the person who is dying and
Speaker 1: for the person or persons who are losing this person.
Speaker 1: It's uh to me, my mind would be preferable to
Speaker 1: have the human connection. Okay, well, I would imagine the
Speaker 1: human connection is ideal. Certainly, if I were given the
Speaker 1: choice between saying goodbye or being or having a loved
Speaker 1: one tell me goodbye and a robot, I would probably
Speaker 1: go with the human Uh. Though it should be said
Speaker 1: at least the robots keeping it together here, the robots
Speaker 1: like a saint, the robots like a like a priest
Speaker 1: giving you last riots. That's done this many times before.
Speaker 1: And can at least fake beings sincere about it while
Speaker 1: also not losing it because you know you don't want
Speaker 1: you also don't want the robot. There's probably not a
Speaker 1: setting for the for the last moment robot where it
Speaker 1: just loses it and it's like, oh, please don't die.
Speaker 1: And well maybe there is, because you know, if that were,
Speaker 1: if that were to actually come to fruition, they would
Speaker 1: obviously the people who created the robot would want to
Speaker 1: try to simulate the experience so that you could draw
Speaker 1: as much comfort from And some people might draw comfort
Speaker 1: from the field because the message of the robot it's
Speaker 1: pretty straight. But it's like, hey, you're dying. It's cool.
Speaker 1: Everyone does this. You had a good life, everyone loved you,
Speaker 1: and now it's time to turn it off. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: just saying I would feel jipped. I'd be like, really,
Speaker 1: you're the last thing that I see. But but if
Speaker 1: the alternative though, Think if the alternative though is dying
Speaker 1: in a room by yourself or being vaguely attended to
Speaker 1: by an overworked caregiver who may or may not be
Speaker 1: able to muster some thake enthusiasm or legitimate enthusiasm and
Speaker 1: enthusiasm isn't the right word, um, compassion for for your
Speaker 1: last moments. Then I can see that the robot is
Speaker 1: being the preferred method. Okay, true, true. UM. Here's one
Speaker 1: situation that I will get behind though, and this is
Speaker 1: this idea that you could seek a virtual psychologist. And
Speaker 1: we've actually mentioned this before, but NASA in their program
Speaker 1: called the Virtual Space Station Psychologist just came out of
Speaker 1: It's for Your Pilot program to try to UM have
Speaker 1: some of their participants really reach out to this virtual
Speaker 1: psychologist and gained some self help care. Yeah, it's UM.
Speaker 1: It's essentially the idea we're talking about here is you're
Speaker 1: on a long distance space journey, or you're in space
Speaker 1: for a while. You may or may not. Maybe you're alone,
Speaker 1: maybe you're dealing with a small group of people, but
Speaker 1: as we've discussed before, that's a very intimate environment, and
Speaker 1: also you're dealing with a lot of biological funk that's
Speaker 1: gonna be going on. It is your body adjust a
Speaker 1: life in a semi waitless environment, and the best case
Speaker 1: is being locked away with a group of people is
Speaker 1: gonna get old. But then throw in a lot of
Speaker 1: vomit and it's just gonna get worse. So maybe you
Speaker 1: have a laptop in a room. It's kind of like
Speaker 1: the confessional room you know in the reality shows where
Speaker 1: you go in and you uh, either you talk to
Speaker 1: this thing and you actually have some back and forth interaction,
Speaker 1: or perhaps it's more like a questionnaire multiple choice like
Speaker 1: how are you doing today? A for great, B for okay,
Speaker 1: or C four I want to launch Carl out of
Speaker 1: the airlock and uh, and then the the machine will
Speaker 1: ask you, well, why do you want to launch Carl
Speaker 1: out of the airlock, and you're like, well, he's been
Speaker 1: I feel like he's just been kind of cold recently,
Speaker 1: and I'm reaching out to you know. A part of
Speaker 1: it is like let's get the astronaut actually processing some
Speaker 1: of this and setting it stead they're just brooding inside you.
Speaker 1: And then also it could consuverably launch some some tips
Speaker 1: grounded in actual psychology at you give you some text
Speaker 1: to read about what you're feeling or what you should
Speaker 1: be feeling. Yeah. The idea is that these virtual psychologists
Speaker 1: provide a problem solving treatment. And so I'm not discounting
Speaker 1: you know, um flesh psychologist, because I think there are
Speaker 1: many many talented ones, but some of the success that
Speaker 1: I think that happens in UM therapy is that it's
Speaker 1: the talking here. It's a lot of people sort of
Speaker 1: talking through the problems and in doing so finding areas
Speaker 1: that they need to work on or areas that they
Speaker 1: can find solutions for. Because if you've ever been, if
Speaker 1: you've been to a therapist and UM and I highly
Speaker 1: recommend it if you if you're even considering it, if
Speaker 1: you think, oh, maybe I should go up to a
Speaker 1: therapist for this, then do seriously consider because it can
Speaker 1: be very helpful. But there's certainly there are times where
Speaker 1: you might find yourself thinking, hey, this isn't like on TV.
Speaker 1: This person is not telling me how to solve my problems.
Speaker 1: A lot of this is me talking through it and
Speaker 1: someone nodding and writing something down and interjecting a little bit.
Speaker 1: It's easy for people to make fun of that and
Speaker 1: belittle it and say like it was just me doing
Speaker 1: all the work, but that's kind of what happening. It
Speaker 1: facilitates you actually working through what you're feeling. Well, and
Speaker 1: ideally these this program would have the sort of UM
Speaker 1: great sophisticated feedback that you might get from from a
Speaker 1: human psychologist. UM in the works. You know, hopefully this
Speaker 1: will be something that will come online later. But I
Speaker 1: did want to mention that twenty nine current and former
Speaker 1: astronauts have been consulted for the project and the trial
Speaker 1: has shown pretty good results in treating depression. And this
Speaker 1: is according to James Cartrione. He's a clinical psychologist at
Speaker 1: Harvard Medical School. And uh, future tests with firefighters and
Speaker 1: e m t s could help launch a more widespread
Speaker 1: use of the self help software and eventually bring it
Speaker 1: to the public. Yeah, and just a quick example from
Speaker 1: real life of actual interpersonal tension causing problems for space flights.
Speaker 1: A mission on Russia's Solute seven space station was scrapped
Speaker 1: after colleagues noticed the commander seemed uninterested in his work
Speaker 1: and spent hours looking out of the window on the ship.
Speaker 1: And in three years earlier, a mission on the same
Speaker 1: station was somewhat hampered by tension between two astronauts. So
Speaker 1: also maybe it was haunted. I don't know that that
Speaker 1: could be a possible as well, but no, I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess the underscores the reason why you need to
Speaker 1: have people feel as good as they can up there
Speaker 1: on their missions, because obviously a lot of things could
Speaker 1: go wrong, all right. So there you go a little,
Speaker 1: a little insight into comfort and what it is. Is
Speaker 1: it certainly as you're seeking out comfort this holiday season
Speaker 1: or the next, or just after a tough day at
Speaker 1: the office or a breakup or whatever. Because we didn't
Speaker 1: even mention ice cream after a breakup, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's another motif that you write. You never did that.
Speaker 1: I don't understand that because cold, it is cold, yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's but it's also fatty and sweet cold comfort. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: So I want to leave out with just a couple
Speaker 1: of quotes here about comfort and about our our search
Speaker 1: for comfort in life. First of all, here's a little
Speaker 1: bit from C. S. Lewis. He said, if you look
Speaker 1: for truth, you may find comfort. In the end, if
Speaker 1: you look for comfort, you will not get either comfort
Speaker 1: or truth, only soft soap and wichful thinking to begin,
Speaker 1: and in the end despair. And then our good buddy
Speaker 1: Aristotle said, we live in deeds, not years, in thoughts,
Speaker 1: not breaths, in feelings, not in figures on a dial.
Speaker 1: We should not count time by heart throbs. He most lives,
Speaker 1: who thinks, most feels, the noblest, acts the best. Also
Speaker 1: wanted to thank Mike See for writing in and asking
Speaker 1: us to do a program about the science of comfort.
Speaker 1: So take all that with you as you eat some
Speaker 1: comforting foods and do some comforting things. And we would
Speaker 1: love to hear from you guys if you want to
Speaker 1: write in about things that you could comfort from, and
Speaker 1: more importantly your analysis on on what is comforting and
Speaker 1: why is it comforting? What memories, what personal history is
Speaker 1: wrapped up in that particular item, thing or experience, and
Speaker 1: then uh, what about the science of it? Is there
Speaker 1: is there's something salty? Is this is something sweet? Is
Speaker 1: it releasing oxytocin into you? Let us know about all
Speaker 1: of that. We love to hear from people. You can
Speaker 1: find us on Facebook and you can find us on tumbler.
Speaker 1: We are stuff to blow your mind on both of
Speaker 1: those and on Facebook game certainly give us a like.
Speaker 1: We can always use a little more support, and if
Speaker 1: you want to find us on Twitter, we're on there
Speaker 1: as well, and our handle is blow the Mind. Also,
Speaker 1: if you have any thoughts on the last moment thought,
Speaker 1: you can always drop us a line at below the
Speaker 1: Mind at Discovery dot com. For more on this and
Speaker 1: thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works. Dot
Speaker 1: com