Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here too, and it's a stuff you
Speaker 2: should know. Hoe down to start the new year. Chuck's
Speaker 2: still wearing his Novelty twenty twenty six glasses that he
Speaker 2: got sponsored by Nivea.
Speaker 3: That.
Speaker 2: I believe what you were saying was Ryan Seacrest himself
Speaker 2: handed him to you while you were at Times Square.
Speaker 4: Right, No, not handed, he put them on my face hands.
Speaker 2: Whoa is it? Because you guys are co workers?
Speaker 4: Yeah, he's iheartedn't he?
Speaker 2: Yeah? But I think like half of the US is
Speaker 2: a coworker of his, got so many jobs.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you're probably right. Well, if you haven't guessed listening, audience,
Speaker 4: this is our first recording of the new year. Yes,
Speaker 4: I'm probably gonna be a little rusty. And can I
Speaker 4: just give a quick shout out to a couple of things?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Please too, great as well. Josh knows all this stuff
Speaker 4: because we communicate outside of work, believe it or not,
Speaker 4: because we're fans. But I went to you know, New
Speaker 4: York City, Emily and I do our little Broadway weekend
Speaker 4: in New York over Christmas every year and this year,
Speaker 4: I just want to say thanks to a couple of people,
Speaker 4: most notably Natasha Hodgson of Operation Mincemeat fame, because she
Speaker 4: is in the show and put together the show and
Speaker 4: stuff you should Know, and she's been in magazines as
Speaker 4: people alerted as giving stuff you should Know credit as
Speaker 4: our episode inspiring that show, and was kind enough to
Speaker 4: give us a couple of tickets to go see it,
Speaker 4: and it was fantastic. I highly recommend it.
Speaker 2: I know I was loath to miss it. That sucked.
Speaker 4: I wish you could have been there, But it's you know,
Speaker 4: it's still playing, so maybe you can check it out.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I was especially upset when you said that she
Speaker 2: gave you She came out in the audience in the
Speaker 2: middle of the show and gave you like a bouquet
Speaker 2: of roses.
Speaker 4: No, no, no, the audience.
Speaker 2: Lifted you up on their shoulders.
Speaker 4: No, that was that was That didn't happen. Also went
Speaker 4: to Barston Trolley as I like to do before Broadway.
Speaker 4: Barston Trolley is where I go before Broadway shows.
Speaker 2: Well, what is it?
Speaker 4: It's a bar but it's it's sort of a I mean,
Speaker 4: you can just make reservations a week out. I think
Speaker 4: I've mentioned this before. It's it's sort of a secret
Speaker 4: place in that it doesn't have a sign or it's
Speaker 4: not wild publicize, but you know, seven days out from
Speaker 4: when you want to go, you can call them up.
Speaker 4: They specialize in getting people in and out of their
Speaker 4: pre and post Broadway, and you know sometimes you can
Speaker 4: see Broadway performers there on the down low.
Speaker 2: Nice. I would have no idea that one could be
Speaker 2: sitting next to me and I wouldn't even know.
Speaker 4: Well, you might if it's if it's a famous you know,
Speaker 4: like Brian Cranston was sitting there. No, but he could be.
Speaker 4: I saw years ago, I saw Dexter in there. What's
Speaker 4: his name?
Speaker 2: Dexter's good enough.
Speaker 4: Yeah. This year I saw the lady from Lost. Although
Speaker 4: I don't think she's on Broadway, she was in there.
Speaker 4: But all this to say big thanks to Jason who
Speaker 4: helps take care of Barton Trolley and Joe's on Broadway.
Speaker 4: He came over on his night off just to say
Speaker 4: hi and was just a total sweetheart of a guy.
Speaker 2: What a trip.
Speaker 4: And then finally I want to thank Santa Santa Claus
Speaker 4: in the Radio City Music Hall Show. I surprised Emily
Speaker 4: by going to the Christmas show this year for the
Speaker 4: first time.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I remember Santa rode In.
Speaker 4: Santa rode In and although he was not in the
Speaker 4: performance we went to. Santa Adam was very kindness in
Speaker 4: a Christmas video to Ruby. Have you been to the show?
Speaker 2: No, I'm just some bumpkin who stays at home all
Speaker 2: the time. Apparently, dude, you and you me.
Speaker 4: Have to go to the Radio City Music or Christmas Spectacular.
Speaker 4: It is one of the delights of my life. The
Speaker 4: Rockets was one of the most impressive, most amazing live
Speaker 4: shows of any kind of ever seen. They were incredible.
Speaker 2: Wow, okay, I'll go yeah, and it's.
Speaker 4: You know you love you guys, love your Christmas cheer
Speaker 4: and it really you can't. Even the biggest grinchy curmudgeon
Speaker 4: wouldn't help but get in the mood, even at the
Speaker 4: ten am show. But the Rockets were amazing and Santa
Speaker 4: said that he turned them onto our listener mail and
Speaker 4: the Rockets episode and some of the now current Rockets
Speaker 4: are listening. Oh cool, So shout out to you Rockets.
Speaker 4: Keep on kicking.
Speaker 2: Hello, Rockettes. We did a whole show on the rockets,
Speaker 2: didn't we did? Yeah, all right, that was amazing. Chuck.
Speaker 4: You you were sick over the holidays, Yeah.
Speaker 2: It really stunk. I got this cold that apparently there's
Speaker 2: like a two week cold going around. Oh no, that
Speaker 2: light and it was just like every day I would
Speaker 2: add a new symptom, and it was I could do
Speaker 2: stuff during the day, but I was just sick the
Speaker 2: whole time and it was so sorry. It was rough. Yeah,
Speaker 2: some thanks for that, I appreciate it. But we still
Speaker 2: had a great Christmas. Well, Momo knows how to open presents,
Speaker 2: so she opened presents on Christmas mornings. She was so happy.
Speaker 2: Paul teeth quite a both. Okay, yeah, she's a pro.
Speaker 2: She knows what she's doing. She got some new rabbit treats,
Speaker 2: so she laid on her back and rolled on those
Speaker 2: and she had a great Christmas morning.
Speaker 4: So that's wonderful.
Speaker 2: It was a good Christmas. After all. We hung out
Speaker 2: with friends on Christmas Eve, and our friends Laurel and
Speaker 2: Braden and their kids, Elliott and Bear, so we got
Speaker 2: to hang out with Yeah you do, you've met them
Speaker 2: twenty times. So we got to hang out with little kids.
Speaker 2: On Christmas even, man, that will put you in the
Speaker 2: Christmas spirit when you don't have kids of your own.
Speaker 4: Yeah. How old are those kids?
Speaker 2: They're like eight and six, I think, so that's fine
Speaker 2: prime age.
Speaker 4: Yeah, right in the zone.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So thank you though for your sympathy over my sicknesses.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I felt bad.
Speaker 2: One thing I don't have, chuck, which I'm really happy
Speaker 2: I don't have, because it's awful, is sad.
Speaker 4: No sads for you.
Speaker 2: I don't have sad. Do you have sad?
Speaker 4: No, I don't have sad. You know, we're talking about
Speaker 4: seasonal effective disorder, and just right off the bat, we
Speaker 4: should point out, because I was about to say occasionally
Speaker 4: I get the winter blues, that this is not that
Speaker 4: this is a real it's legitimate depression and comorbid with
Speaker 4: stuff like bipolar disorder, and we're going to talk all
Speaker 4: about it. But it's not just you know, oh I
Speaker 4: get a little blue in the winter sometimes when it's
Speaker 4: you know, gloomy.
Speaker 2: No, but it's tied to that. Yes, it's just it
Speaker 2: seems to be an extreme version of that. But you're right,
Speaker 2: it's not. It's nothing light, it's classified. I believe in
Speaker 2: the DSM is a major depressive disorder. Yeah, with a
Speaker 2: seasonal pattern. I think that's the clinical name for seasonal
Speaker 2: effective disorder. And there are people out there, I think
Speaker 2: something like five percent of people. I don't I believe
Speaker 2: that's an American statistic. Yeah, that's America get the like
Speaker 2: real deal seasonal effective disorder where they have major depressive
Speaker 2: symptoms during the winter months. But something like ten percent
Speaker 2: or maybe even higher than that. In the United States,
Speaker 2: people get what's called sub syndromeal seasonal effective disorder, so
Speaker 2: where you don't have it where it could be considered
Speaker 2: major depression. But it's definitely worse than the holiday blues.
Speaker 2: And the weird thing about this, although it's not so
Speaker 2: weird once we explain it. It is seasonal. It's tied
Speaker 2: to winter, and it seems that they figure or summer,
Speaker 2: which that one's just mind blowing to me.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it seems like they have it figured out. They
Speaker 2: have this, they have it explained. So this is one
Speaker 2: of my favorite episodes where it's like, here's how the
Speaker 2: human body works, here's what's messed up with this when
Speaker 2: we're talking about this. I love episodes like that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, not a lot of mystery, big thanks to Olivia
Speaker 4: for getting the new year off to a great start
Speaker 4: with another banger.
Speaker 2: Yeah you're here.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we should say that this is something that hasn't
Speaker 4: been officially I mean, it's obviously been around since you know,
Speaker 4: time began, because as we'll see, it's tied to seasons
Speaker 4: and especially light and how much light you're getting. So
Speaker 4: that's always been a thing, but it hasn't been officially
Speaker 4: diagnosed as a thing for that long. It was in
Speaker 4: nineteen eighty four when there was a paper by researchers
Speaker 4: at the National Institutes of Health. A particularly guy named
Speaker 4: Norman Rosenthal got together and they discussed these almost thirty
Speaker 4: I have a feeling. One dropped out. So there were
Speaker 4: twenty nine patients. Most of them had bipolar disorder, and
Speaker 4: they all had what we now know is as sad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that thirtieth one when they like one weekend, they're
Speaker 2: like how do you feel? And they're like fine, and
Speaker 2: they're like you're cut, you can go here.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So yeah, bipolar disorders, we'll see, like really kind of
Speaker 2: ties into this. It seems to be like also seasonal
Speaker 2: in some weird way too. But pretty quickly after that
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty four paper, the DSM went all in three
Speaker 2: years later, the DSM three R, as we all know
Speaker 2: our stands for revised or rocking, that came out in
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty seven, and it was like, now, it was
Speaker 2: a diagnosis, but it was used as a modifier as
Speaker 2: we saw a major depressive disorder with a seasonal pattern.
Speaker 2: So it wasn't its own thing. It was just a
Speaker 2: subtype essentially of an existing depressive disorder. That's kind of
Speaker 2: how they first had it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you know, because it's seasonal, the most common
Speaker 4: kind of sad that we think about, Like we mentioned,
Speaker 4: it is very serious thing, and it starts off in
Speaker 4: the fall, maybe early winter, and it kind of depends
Speaker 4: on where you are is we'll see, although not all intuitively,
Speaker 4: there's a third act reveal that might surprise some people.
Speaker 4: It generally subsides in the spring. But I did mention
Speaker 4: that that odd spring and summer variety that hasn't been
Speaker 4: studied much. It's very very limited. About point five percent
Speaker 4: of the population has this opposite pattern. But it is
Speaker 4: a diagnosable mood disruption. It just happens in the spring
Speaker 4: and summer, and it's tied more to sort of like
Speaker 4: oppressive heat, and maybe unsurprisingly, some of the things they
Speaker 4: recommend for that, which again we're going to cover a
Speaker 4: little more later, is stuff like maybe stay inside, dim
Speaker 4: the lights, that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And the thing that gets me about the summer
Speaker 2: version that much rareer one is that the symptoms are
Speaker 2: almost in some cases opposite the symptoms of winter. So
Speaker 2: usually when you first start getting SAD, it's around young
Speaker 2: adulthood ages eighteen to thirty, I think, And most people
Speaker 2: who get it get it most years, but you don't
Speaker 2: necessarily have it every year. Women are four times likelier
Speaker 2: than men to have it, And if you have an
Speaker 2: existing mood disorder, you're much likelier to suffer from seasonal
Speaker 2: effective disorder because it's almost like it takes your existing
Speaker 2: mood disorder, say bipolar two, and just builds on it.
Speaker 2: There's an extra like environmental punch to it that really
Speaker 2: kind of kicks it into high gear.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and that four times more common in women's that's
Speaker 4: really substantial, And we'll get into that. It seems to
Speaker 4: be tied to estrogen, but we'll dig into that a
Speaker 4: little bit more in a bit. But having family members,
Speaker 4: they think there's some genetic component to it. If you
Speaker 4: have relatives that have depression or any kind of mental
Speaker 4: health disorder, it's you know, obviously it doesn't mean you will,
Speaker 4: but that could mean you might. I guess that's the
Speaker 4: way doctors say it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you might got it.
Speaker 4: And not surprisingly, you're more likely to develop SAD if
Speaker 4: you live in places in the far you know, away
Speaker 4: from the equator, far north or south, where there's gonna
Speaker 4: be less sunlight, or maybe you know, in places like
Speaker 4: Seattle where there's just more gray days than others.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was surprised I couldn't find the other eight,
Speaker 2: the first eight, but Seattle was the ninth most affected
Speaker 2: city with seasonal effective disorder. I would have thought it'd
Speaker 2: be higher than that. I could not find the first eight,
Speaker 2: So I'm like, does this list really exist or was
Speaker 2: this just like a post intelligence or made up article?
Speaker 4: And do they do they tie in things like or
Speaker 4: do they list things like Tacoma, like neighboring neighboring towns?
Speaker 4: Does that count as a different place?
Speaker 2: I wonder that's a great question. What about Tacoma?
Speaker 4: Well, I just wondered, Tacoma's very lovely, but maybe Seattle
Speaker 4: might be a little more lively. Yeah, no, I could
Speaker 4: get in trouble.
Speaker 2: No, No, everybody knows about Tacoma. Okay, okay, it's been
Speaker 2: a long time since we picked down a particular city.
Speaker 4: Oh, I don't want to put to coma owner sites.
Speaker 2: Okay, we won't because.
Speaker 4: You know, you can't spell. You can't spell seat tack
Speaker 4: without tack.
Speaker 2: That's right. So what happens when you experience sad seasonal
Speaker 2: effective disorder? I mean most people can kind of come
Speaker 2: up with this idea of like what depression symptoms seem like,
Speaker 2: but there's specific ones that emerge with seasonal effective disorder.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think you know generally what you will see
Speaker 4: like with most depression listlessness obviously, sadness, interest and activities
Speaker 4: that you might normally like you don't like as much.
Speaker 4: You may have a hard time concentrating suicidal thoughts if
Speaker 4: it gets really bad, hopelessness, maybe guilt sometimes, and then
Speaker 4: some physical symptoms like just a weight like in your
Speaker 4: limbs sometimes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like a lethargy, a fatigue and those. Yeah, that's
Speaker 2: kind of common among depression in general. But winter sad
Speaker 2: has some extra symptoms like over sleeping or just sleeping
Speaker 2: too much or more than you normally would craving carbs,
Speaker 2: overeating weight gain, and then that fatigue, the low energy
Speaker 2: and tiredness and all of those things too create like
Speaker 2: a feedback loop where you know, if you're depressed and
Speaker 2: you start gaining weight and that kind of thing bothers you,
Speaker 2: you're going to be even more depressed because you just
Speaker 2: started gaining weight, in which case, if you're an emotional eater,
Speaker 2: you might go eat more carbs and gain more weight
Speaker 2: and there, you know, it just kind of goes on.
Speaker 2: So that's one of the difficult things about it is
Speaker 2: it's not just like I'm depressed. It's I'm depressed and
Speaker 2: now everything is set up because of this winter season
Speaker 2: for me to just keep getting more and more depressed
Speaker 2: while winter's going on.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and if you're sitting there thinking like, oh, man,
Speaker 4: like in the wintertime, I tend to sleep later, and
Speaker 4: I tend to eat and maybe drink a little more
Speaker 4: and gain some weight and I'm a little more tired.
Speaker 4: Those are also That's why sad is such a sort
Speaker 4: of a unique thing, because that also just describes a
Speaker 4: lot of people in the winter. But there is a difference,
Speaker 4: and you know we're gonna be pointing out those differences.
Speaker 4: You mentioned summer was unusual because the summer sads because
Speaker 4: it's very much opposite. And that goes for the symptoms
Speaker 4: as well, because instead of sleeping in, you might have
Speaker 4: trouble sleeping, instead of eating too much, you might have
Speaker 4: a low appetite, you might lose weight, you might be
Speaker 4: anxious and agitated and irritable. Headaches is another one for
Speaker 4: summer sad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like winter said you go inward and are
Speaker 2: kind of closed off, and with summer said, you go outward,
Speaker 2: but it's not in any like. That doesn't mean you're
Speaker 2: just more sociable. It means like you're more agro potentially
Speaker 2: than you would be with like winter sad. So yeah,
Speaker 2: it is they're just kind of opposite, and yet they
Speaker 2: tie into, like you were saying, how people already are
Speaker 2: like you go out more in the summertime, you stay
Speaker 2: in more in the winter time. So what seems to
Speaker 2: be the case with seasonal effective disorder is that it
Speaker 2: is a hyper or hypo version of a normal human
Speaker 2: biological imperative that we have learned as a society to
Speaker 2: try to ignore, and for some people ignoring it is
Speaker 2: not really an option because it's so pronounced.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and escapable. Yeah. So there are basically four things.
Speaker 4: And like I said, if you feel like, oh man,
Speaker 4: I kind of feel those things in the winter too,
Speaker 4: listen to these four things because this is when you
Speaker 4: should see a medical professional as if one. If these
Speaker 4: feelings persist for days and days in a row, it's
Speaker 4: not like I just had a couple of rough days
Speaker 4: when it was like really rainy and cold. If you're sleeping,
Speaker 4: appetite patterns like really change is the second one if
Speaker 4: you're coping with drugs and alcohol, that's a big red flag.
Speaker 4: And then the fourth one if you feel hopeless or
Speaker 4: suicidal for sure, And I think as far as diagnosis goes,
Speaker 4: you have to I think it has to be for
Speaker 4: at least two years in a row. Even though you
Speaker 4: did say you don't necessarily have it all years, you
Speaker 4: at least have to have it two years in a
Speaker 4: row at some point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And because it is essentially if you look at
Speaker 2: the winter sad in summer sad, they're basically two ends
Speaker 2: of a spectrum mania and depression. Like people with bipolar
Speaker 2: two are definitely more susceptible to sad and they might
Speaker 2: experience both types of seasonal although again just statistically speaking,
Speaker 2: they're much more likely to just experience the winter sad.
Speaker 4: Yeah, for sure. And if you do see a professional,
Speaker 4: they're probably gonna ask you a lot of questions. You
Speaker 4: might even fill out an official questionnaire. There's no like
Speaker 4: blood test or brain scan or anything like like you know,
Speaker 4: other types of Russian that's the case as well, but
Speaker 4: you might get they might rule things out. They might
Speaker 4: do like a thyroid screening or you know, some other
Speaker 4: things just to make sure it's not something like physical
Speaker 4: going on.
Speaker 2: Right, So that's sad everybody, And I think we should
Speaker 2: talk about where this whole thing comes from. They think,
Speaker 2: after a break, chuck our first break of twenty twenty six,
Speaker 2: let's make it a big one.
Speaker 4: You still got it, You still got it?
Speaker 2: All right?
Speaker 3: Lately I've been learning some stop about insomnia or aluminia.
Speaker 1: How about the one on border like disorder that or
Speaker 1: yer order that one before?
Speaker 5: But it was so nice hoarded why except everybody listen,
Speaker 5: stop shot.
Speaker 1: Stop stop stop.
Speaker 4: All right, So kind of like we were talking, it's
Speaker 4: it's kind of hard to diagnose this. Uh as far
Speaker 4: as when you should go to a doctor, because a
Speaker 4: lot of people are just like this in the winter,
Speaker 4: and you're also sort of fighting. I think you kind
Speaker 4: of hinted at it like a natural human intuition in
Speaker 4: a lot of ways, because if you go back in
Speaker 4: time to the time where Tuck Tuck was roaming the
Speaker 4: earth in the winter, they slowed down and they conserved
Speaker 4: energy because food wasn't around and it was cold, so
Speaker 4: they they bunkered down. And there are some interesting theories
Speaker 4: around that, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah. They think it's possible that Neanderthals had like a
Speaker 2: real type of hibernation period in the winter now, you know,
Speaker 2: like a bear necessarily, but something more pronounced than humans,
Speaker 2: and that interbreeding with Neanderthals may have produced seasonal effective
Speaker 2: disorder in some people.
Speaker 4: Yea's pretty cool when Homo sapiens started hugging and kissing Neanderthals.
Speaker 2: That's right. Like in what was it? Quest for Fire?
Speaker 4: Oh man, there was some real realizations in that movie.
Speaker 2: It was a I mean, what an interesting movie though,
Speaker 2: you know. Yeah, Ron Pearlman, Yeah he really, he's a
Speaker 2: good cave man.
Speaker 4: By the way, did a minute ago did I say
Speaker 4: bunker down? M I meant to say hunker down? Is
Speaker 4: bunker down even a thing.
Speaker 2: I feel like it should be more than hunkered down.
Speaker 2: It makes more sense. Okay, I didn't even know I
Speaker 2: heard you and made like I grasped that you said
Speaker 2: bunker down, right, But it's so natural that it didn't
Speaker 2: even seem wrong.
Speaker 4: Yeah. And our Georgia bulldogs at what they say for
Speaker 4: them is hunker down, you harried dogs. I'm gonna start
Speaker 4: saying bunker down, and everyone's just gonna make them like
Speaker 4: a Cia plant or something.
Speaker 2: Right, a narc Yeah. Oh, I can't talk about the
Speaker 2: dogs right now, I know.
Speaker 4: Very disappointing.
Speaker 2: What a heartbreaker. Yeah, okay, so you said something like that.
Speaker 2: People back in Tuktok's age definitely slow down in the wintertime, right,
Speaker 2: Your body just changes, And that's still the case with humans.
Speaker 2: We have not evolved out of that. And there's been studies.
Speaker 2: There was a twenty fifteen study that found that the
Speaker 2: simone in Bolivia and the San people in Namibia, who
Speaker 2: are in no way, shape or form related ones in
Speaker 2: South America ones in Africa, they both sleep longer in
Speaker 2: the winter and less in the summer. And you might say, like, well, duh,
Speaker 2: we all do that. That's exactly the point. There's some
Speaker 2: sort of biological mechanism. There's some sort of like I said,
Speaker 2: imperative where you, without conscious thought and kind of without
Speaker 2: without a choice, you slow down in the winter time
Speaker 2: and you speed up more in the summertime. That's just
Speaker 2: what our bodies do. And because of this natural thing,
Speaker 2: it can go haywire, just like any other natural thing
Speaker 2: in humans. When it does, that produces seasonal effective disorder,
Speaker 2: and they think they've got the mechanism to the whole
Speaker 2: thing down.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and that, you know, that's kind of evidence. In
Speaker 4: this German study from twenty twenty three, they did a
Speaker 4: study and caveat all this was it was a study
Speaker 4: already of people that had sleeping issues with disturbed sleeping patterns, right,
Speaker 4: so it was kind of you know, it wasn't just
Speaker 4: the general population. And interestingly, they found that even if
Speaker 4: they were living in place where it was mostly artificial light,
Speaker 4: even then by season their sleep cycles would vary. So
Speaker 4: it's not just like, yeah, if you live out away
Speaker 4: from all the you know, out in the boonies, away
Speaker 4: from industrialization, your circadian rhythms are really dictated by natural light.
Speaker 4: That would make sense, but they found that that took
Speaker 4: place even when you were just living a regular, well
Speaker 4: lit life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, even when you lived in a windowless, brutalist apartment
Speaker 2: in Munich. That's right. You wear a black turtleneck all
Speaker 2: year round, oh man. And then another kind of thing,
Speaker 2: like you said, that was a small study and it
Speaker 2: was of people who already had a sleep disorder. Yet
Speaker 2: it backs up what everybody kind of anecdotally already knows. Right,
Speaker 2: you sleep more in the season, and you're more tired
Speaker 2: in the winter season. Another thing that's anecdotal but is
Speaker 2: backed up by study is that your appetite changes, right. Yeah,
Speaker 2: some of it's cultural, where like you know, Christmas cookies
Speaker 2: are around, sure you're gonna eat them, and Christmas cookies
Speaker 2: aren't around in March. Say maybe some maniac makes like
Speaker 2: Saint Patrick's Day cookies, but way more people make Christmas
Speaker 2: cookies than Saint Patrick's Stay cookies. So there are reasons
Speaker 2: that your appetite does increase just because there's more delicious
Speaker 2: stuff around. But we've also found that just by being
Speaker 2: in colder temperatures, being exposed to colder temperatures over periods
Speaker 2: of time, hormone levels change in our bodies. And we
Speaker 2: crave more calories because as we digest them, we produce
Speaker 2: more heat and that keeps us warm. We don't need
Speaker 2: bear skins anymore.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's right, we need buckeyeballs. And Emily's aunt comes
Speaker 4: to town every Christmas now and all the her mom
Speaker 4: and her aunt and her sister and Ruby, they all
Speaker 4: make have a night making Christmas cookies.
Speaker 2: Nice.
Speaker 4: Oh dude, I did better this year than usual. I
Speaker 4: somehow managed to only put on five pounds.
Speaker 2: Hey, that's not bad for Christmas.
Speaker 4: From Thanksgiving to January fourth.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 4: That's not bad because usually that number is more like twelve.
Speaker 4: So and I found that that temporary sort of goes
Speaker 4: off a little quicker too.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: It's certainly you get back to reason, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the key is getting back to reason faster
Speaker 2: than you know, just not putting it off for the
Speaker 2: rest of the month of January, That's what I think.
Speaker 4: And the buck eyeballs are gone, and those old fashions
Speaker 4: really slow down after Christmas.
Speaker 2: Man, those buck eyeballs. I made my mom's Christmas cookies,
Speaker 2: my mom's recipe, the one that I grew up with
Speaker 2: as a kid, that had confounded me for years because
Speaker 2: I couldn't get it quite right. It was always too flowery. Okay,
Speaker 2: And in the last few years I've learned enough about
Speaker 2: baking that I kind of figured it out on my
Speaker 2: own and I nailed it finely.
Speaker 4: Nice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I was going to have some of those.
Speaker 2: I'll make you some.
Speaker 4: It takes Christmas though, yes, for sure.
Speaker 2: Note don't do it, but you got me these cookie
Speaker 2: cutters that are all like kind of they're like sentimental
Speaker 2: between us, like different shapes. And one of them is broccoli,
Speaker 2: so proctally say cookie cutters and I hate broccoli.
Speaker 4: So oh I love that. That's fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't have any I oh yeah. We were
Speaker 2: talking about how appetite changes.
Speaker 4: That's right. Here's one thing though you might think you've
Speaker 4: probably heard that, like, you know, suicide spike around the
Speaker 4: holidays because it can be such a tough time of
Speaker 4: the year for people. That is actually not true. In fact,
Speaker 4: they happen the least in December. They're more common in
Speaker 4: the summertime. Of course in Australia that's reversed because of
Speaker 4: where they are on how their seasons run. So we're
Speaker 4: talking about that, you know, our hemispheres perspective obviously, right.
Speaker 4: But I found that interesting and it's good to correct
Speaker 4: the record because I think everyone always hears that it's
Speaker 4: probably good in a way, because it's anytime you're raising
Speaker 4: awareness on something like that, that's a good thing. But
Speaker 4: that's not true that they spike over the holidays.
Speaker 2: Now. I feel like we've talked about that before, and
Speaker 2: they think that maybe like just by people reaching out
Speaker 2: more during the holidays, you have a greater social calendar.
Speaker 2: Typically just the holiday spirit can get to people. But
Speaker 2: then also there's some other explanations for why it might
Speaker 2: be more common in the spring or summer months, like
Speaker 2: you might just have more energy to actually complete suicide. Right.
Speaker 2: Another one that I thought was just horrible is that
Speaker 2: there are autoimmune conditions like lupus or rheumatoid arthritis that
Speaker 2: are linked to seasonal allergies, and that people who have
Speaker 2: those are is this this overlooked population of people with
Speaker 2: a higher suicide risk, and that that would account for
Speaker 2: it because your loopis is probably flaring up way more
Speaker 2: in the spring and summer than it is in the
Speaker 2: winter months.
Speaker 4: Yeah, for sure. And you know, we've kind of hinted
Speaker 4: around about the length of day, and we're going to
Speaker 4: talk a lot about that over the next little bit,
Speaker 4: but it is, you know, it's intuitive and it's correct
Speaker 4: that the more tense that seasonal changes as far as
Speaker 4: that length of day goes, the more likely you're gonna
Speaker 4: have SAD. That was a I believe it was a
Speaker 4: meta analysis from South Korea just last year in twenty
Speaker 4: twenty five. They had studied twenty four studies with thirty
Speaker 4: thousand total participants, so pretty robust. And for each one
Speaker 4: degree of increase in latitude, SAD rose by point two percent,
Speaker 4: and the just the winter blues by point three two percent.
Speaker 4: So one, you know, one degree increase in latitude is
Speaker 4: obviously a little less daylight.
Speaker 2: It's like Jimmy Buffett said, changes in latitude, changes in attitude.
Speaker 4: Never thought about that.
Speaker 2: That's what he was talking about with seasonal effective disorder
Speaker 2: in that song.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he changed the title though, because you know, when
Speaker 4: you title things like Cheeseburger in Paradise, you can't title
Speaker 4: something seasonal effective disorder.
Speaker 2: Well, it was originally this song was titled major depressive
Speaker 2: Disorder with a seasonal pattern, right, right, So yeah, I
Speaker 2: think he was wise to change it. As well. So
Speaker 2: let's talk about is you want to get into some
Speaker 2: of the causes. I've been teasing this basically the entire episode,
Speaker 2: and I'm really kind of jazzed about this part.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, here's here's where it gets science y,
Speaker 4: because our old friends. Obviously serotonin and melatonin show up, right.
Speaker 2: Yes, so just as a refresher, serotonin is responsible for
Speaker 2: things like mood, sleep, cognition, bunch of other stuff. But
Speaker 2: as far as seasonal effective disorder goes, those are the
Speaker 2: important things that serotonin does. Right. Yeah, what's really cool.
Speaker 2: I didn't actually realize this sunlight hitting your retina actually
Speaker 2: triggers production of serotonin. It increases the production of serotonin. Right,
Speaker 2: So therefore, when we're exposed to less sunlight, there's a
Speaker 2: lower angle of the sun, you just don't get as
Speaker 2: much sun physically in the winter months. That means that
Speaker 2: your serotonin levels are actually less in winter than they
Speaker 2: are in the brighter spring and sou summer months. That's
Speaker 2: just a fact. It happens to everybody, but in most people,
Speaker 2: your serotonin transporter gene starts producing less serotonin transporter, the
Speaker 2: stuff that goes in and gets the serotonin out. Of
Speaker 2: the synapse, right, that's right, which means that there's less serotonin,
Speaker 2: but there's also less transporters removing the serotonin that's there,
Speaker 2: so you keep about the same level of, say, mood,
Speaker 2: that you would have in the summer months because your
Speaker 2: body is adjusting. What they found, just amazingly is that
Speaker 2: there are two things that are screwed up with the
Speaker 2: serotonin and the serotonin transporter. That seem to be one
Speaker 2: of the major causes of seasonal effective disorder.
Speaker 4: So spill it. You're on a roll.
Speaker 2: Okay, So people with seasonal who get seasonal effective disorder,
Speaker 2: they have enough serotonin all year to keep them from
Speaker 2: being depressed, right, But just like everybody else, when they
Speaker 2: are exposed to less light, their serotonin goes down. But
Speaker 2: the thing that seems to give them seasonal effective disorder
Speaker 2: is that their serotonin transporters don't also go down. So
Speaker 2: like everybody else, they have lower serotonin during the winter,
Speaker 2: but they have the same amount of serotonin transporters, so
Speaker 2: there's less serotonin, and proportionately speaking, there's more serotonin transporters
Speaker 2: removing the serotonin keeping it from working, which pushes them
Speaker 2: from non depressed to depressive. Symptoms all because they're exposed
Speaker 2: to less light during the wintertime.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you know, I mentioned women have it four
Speaker 4: times as often as men do, and it was tied
Speaker 4: to estrogen, and it looks like variations and estrogen levels
Speaker 4: can interact with those changes in serotonin and basically make
Speaker 4: it worse. And that probably is the explanation why women
Speaker 4: get it more. And you know perimenopause and menopause affect
Speaker 4: all that as well, which are that's an episode we
Speaker 4: need we need to do for sure. Yeah, and also
Speaker 4: there you know, we mentioned there's a genetic element, right,
Speaker 4: So it looks like that people is generally speaking, who
Speaker 4: have at least one short allele in that serotonin transporter
Speaker 4: gene promoter region. I know that's a lot of words, everybody,
Speaker 4: Huh the tl d L is too long? Hidn't listen?
Speaker 4: Is that right?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Is that it's there's a genetic component. So if you
Speaker 4: have that short allele, you're going to be more more
Speaker 4: vulnerable to developing just regular depression, to any kind of
Speaker 4: like you know, life events or stresses like that, or
Speaker 4: just depression period. But that short allele is also associated
Speaker 4: with those higher search levels, the se RT levels in
Speaker 4: the winter and that's where your increased level is SAD
Speaker 4: is going to come on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So that's serotonin. That's a big, big factor in
Speaker 2: reducing seasonal effective disorder, as well as just any kind
Speaker 2: of major impression, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So melatonin is next, and that just kind of
Speaker 4: broadly speaking as far as we're concerned as the one
Speaker 4: that you know, kind of makes you sleepy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which I mean, it can make you sleepy, it
Speaker 2: can make you lethargic, it can make you not want
Speaker 2: to go out, and all of this stuff. Remember, there's
Speaker 2: a positive heedback loop here with the depressive symptoms that
Speaker 2: come on with seasonal effective disorder, the behavior they produce
Speaker 2: feeding back into becoming more and more depressed. Melatonin keeps
Speaker 2: you from wanting to do stuff because that's the way
Speaker 2: our bodies are set up to respond during the winter.
Speaker 2: And it all has to do with the circadian rhythm, which,
Speaker 2: as everybody knows, most people know, governs your sleep and
Speaker 2: wake cycle. Right.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It also has to do with digestion, it has to
Speaker 2: do with body temperature, and all sorts of other hormones.
Speaker 2: I didn't know this, but apparently it has to do
Speaker 2: with the release of cortisol, which we think of cortisolts
Speaker 2: typically as a stress hormone full stop, and it is,
Speaker 2: but it also is a hormone that causes us to
Speaker 2: do more stuff to produce more energy. So when the
Speaker 2: circadian rhythm is not quite functioning correctly, it doesn't just
Speaker 2: make us sleepy, it actually makes us less energetic as well.
Speaker 2: And the whole thing, the whole circadian rhythm is controlled
Speaker 2: by a little part of the hypothalamus called the super
Speaker 2: chismatic nucleus or the SCN.
Speaker 4: Nice work on that one.
Speaker 2: I practiced a couple of times.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the SEN And this is where we can throw
Speaker 4: a little German in there. It relies on zeitgebers or
Speaker 4: time givers. And these are just clues from the world
Speaker 4: around us telling you you know, what's going on. And
Speaker 4: mainly what we're talking about here is light. Sunlight again
Speaker 4: hitting those retinas, it travels to the SCN and then
Speaker 4: that signals the pineal gland to release or produce that melatonin.
Speaker 4: So the more light you have, the less melatonin have have.
Speaker 4: That's why you know you're not supposed to be looking
Speaker 4: at your cell phone or avoid like really bright lights
Speaker 4: before you try and get some sleep. But the tldal
Speaker 4: here is it just means our bodies make more melotonin
Speaker 4: in the wintertime than the summertime, So you're gonna be
Speaker 4: sleeping longer and probably a little more lethargic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. So serotonin plus melotonin being messed with it
Speaker 2: happens to everybody, but most people's bodies respond in a
Speaker 2: way that that regulates it and keeps it from becoming depression.
Speaker 2: Some people do not have that same way to regulate it,
Speaker 2: and that's who has seasonal effective disorder.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I thought this is really interesting. So it's
Speaker 4: you know, we just said that if you experience sad
Speaker 4: then you're you're gonna have a greater than average increase
Speaker 4: in melotonin in the winter than you know, your your
Speaker 4: average person. But this is really interesting. You know, we
Speaker 4: talked about sunlight coming through your retinas, and that's the
Speaker 4: pathway that it initially travels, right, maybe a little on
Speaker 4: your skin, but mainly through your retinas. They found that
Speaker 4: your retinas actually actually react less to light in the
Speaker 4: winter compared to the summer.
Speaker 2: You're right, Chuck, that is really interesting, Thank you, Josh.
Speaker 4: And I guess before we break, we should talk about
Speaker 4: the third little thing after serotonin and melotone in which
Speaker 4: are social and environmental factors. You know, if you have sad,
Speaker 4: you when it's when fall rolls around, you start to
Speaker 4: get that dread. You're going to have a negative emotional
Speaker 4: response to winter. It's not the cause of it, but
Speaker 4: that's part of that feedback feedback loop that you were
Speaker 4: talking about. You're like, oh man, the days are going
Speaker 4: to get shorter if you live in the Pacific Northwest
Speaker 4: or other places where it rains a lot and it's
Speaker 4: just more gray days that time of year. You just
Speaker 4: you start to have that dread and that that just
Speaker 4: feeds everything.
Speaker 2: Yep, yeah, it just makes it worse. And then, yeah,
Speaker 2: the whole thing is that feedback loop. Chuck, I'm going
Speaker 2: to do it again. I think we should take a
Speaker 2: message break.
Speaker 4: All right, we'll finish up with sad right after this.
Speaker 3: Lately I've been learning some stop about insomnia or aluminia.
Speaker 1: How about the one hon borderlin disorder that are younger
Speaker 1: order that one be warm But it was so nice.
Speaker 5: Hoar why except nobody listen up?
Speaker 2: Job stop stop stop, Yes, all right, So we talked
Speaker 2: several times that about sad being a form of major depression,
Speaker 2: which means that it is highly treatable. Actually thanks to
Speaker 2: our friend, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor SSRI or antidepressants apparently well,
Speaker 2: BUTTRIN works really well to treat SAD. But basically any
Speaker 2: SSRI is going to work. One thing that stuck out
Speaker 2: to me, I believe that if you have seasonal effective disorder,
Speaker 2: but you you're not. You don't have bipolar, you don't
Speaker 2: have major depressive disorder, it's just seasonal. I guess they
Speaker 2: suggest that you take SSRIs. You ramp up and say,
Speaker 2: like the fall before it becomes winter, and then you
Speaker 2: wean off as springtime comes around. So they would have
Speaker 2: you on SSRIs, but not year round because you wouldn't
Speaker 2: need them year round. I thought that was fascinating because
Speaker 2: that can be that can be risky if you don't
Speaker 2: do it right, it can be really risky.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you know, one of the things after that
Speaker 4: they suggest with all of these treatments is that you
Speaker 4: you you start before it hits like you know, and
Speaker 4: depending on where you live, like when fall starts rolling around,
Speaker 4: maybe you start some of these therapies to see if
Speaker 4: you can head it off at the pass like in
Speaker 4: the Old West. Yeah, but CBT is another thing that
Speaker 4: they suggest. Like all cognitive behavioral therapy, it's basically, folks,
Speaker 4: you know, trying to get you to change the way
Speaker 4: you're thinking about a thing. It might be a group
Speaker 4: therapy a couple of times a week over a couple
Speaker 4: of months maybe, but specifically in this case, it's like,
Speaker 4: let's try and get those negative thoughts about the upcoming
Speaker 4: season or the season that is upon you with positive
Speaker 4: ones and maybe do things like, hey, I know this
Speaker 4: is a thing for me, so I'm gonna plan some
Speaker 4: things specifically for this winter that I know that I
Speaker 4: will enjoy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like CBT seeks to break that feedback loop up,
Speaker 2: so at least you're not getting worse and worse because
Speaker 2: of all the other the cascading effects that has. Yeah,
Speaker 2: for sure, one of the other ones, like as that
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty four study right off the bat came identified
Speaker 2: a really great treatment for seasonal effective disorder that's non
Speaker 2: pharmaceutical that you can do at home. As a matter
Speaker 2: of fact, you can do it at the library. I
Speaker 2: saw that the libraries in Northern Ireland rent out light boxes.
Speaker 2: It's called bright light therapy. Us is very intense white light.
Speaker 2: Don't worry, there's a protective UV cover, so you're not
Speaker 2: blasting your face. You're not going to get a tant
Speaker 2: from it, essentially, but your retinas are going to pick
Speaker 2: up on that white light, and so serotonin is going
Speaker 2: to increase, your melatonin is going to not be so high,
Speaker 2: and it can actually treat especially moderate forms of seasonal
Speaker 2: effective disorder.
Speaker 4: Yeah, for sure. The idea is you put this light on.
Speaker 4: You don't just sit there and stare at it. You
Speaker 4: just kind of maybe do it in the morning fifteen
Speaker 4: minutes to an hour, maybe forty five minutes or so,
Speaker 4: cast it upon your face. This goes is that funny? Yeah,
Speaker 4: this goes all the way back actually to the seventeen hundreds.
Speaker 4: It was an Italian physician named Vincenzo Chierra Rugi who
Speaker 4: way back then said, hey, if you're depressed, I think
Speaker 4: sunlight would help. So it's been a thing for a
Speaker 4: long time, but now you know, obviously they still say
Speaker 4: get out in the sun if you can. But in
Speaker 4: a lot of places where there's limited light in the
Speaker 4: winter or just gray days like we were talking about,
Speaker 4: this is where the blt that bright light therapy comes
Speaker 4: in play. I saw they also make little hats, little visors.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, that just shine down on your face at
Speaker 4: all times.
Speaker 2: Nice like Collective Soul said, Yeah.
Speaker 4: I don't think you're supposed to I think it's supposed
Speaker 4: to be limited. Still, though, you're not supposed to have
Speaker 4: that light on you at all times because it can
Speaker 4: disrupt your sleep and cause eye strain and fatigue and
Speaker 4: stuff like that.
Speaker 2: Right. Yeah, you don't want to overdo it for sure,
Speaker 2: And I think it's different for each person how much
Speaker 2: you actually but it does work. I know firsthand it
Speaker 2: works because you may used to get what I guess
Speaker 2: you would call sub syndromeal seasonal effective disorder. She didn't
Speaker 2: definitely didn't have major depression, but it was like she
Speaker 2: was impacted noticeably, and she found out about light boxes
Speaker 2: and got one and it helped her a lot.
Speaker 4: That's cool. I have friends that use these things just
Speaker 4: for not even seasonal, just for you know, regular depression,
Speaker 4: and they say it helps them out. Dawn stimulation is
Speaker 4: another thing, and it's kind of the same idea, but
Speaker 4: it's like one of those alarm clocks that slowly starts
Speaker 4: brightening your room over the course of like thirty minutes
Speaker 4: or so as you're waking up, so again, tied into
Speaker 4: this circadian rhythm of rising with the sun's rise.
Speaker 2: Do you remember that alarm clock from the seventies and
Speaker 2: eighties that like it would light up. It had a
Speaker 2: picture of like I think, like a fence out in
Speaker 2: the Old West, and the sky would go like dark blue.
Speaker 2: It would like it would change the color of the
Speaker 2: sky on the alarm clock picture depending on what time
Speaker 2: of day it was. You don't remember those, no, I
Speaker 2: don't they've ever seen that. They were amazing. My oldest
Speaker 2: sister had one of those. I would love one. I
Speaker 2: don't know what happened to that, probably broke.
Speaker 4: Yeah. My brother had one of those clocks, the alarm
Speaker 4: clocks that had the like a rollodex. It would flip
Speaker 4: the numbers around like mechanically. Oh n yeah, those were fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah. The one I always had was like that.
Speaker 4: Kind of oh man, no really yeah.
Speaker 2: When I was a teenager, that's what I needed.
Speaker 4: Or the two bells with the hammer.
Speaker 2: I had one of those too.
Speaker 4: Oh man.
Speaker 2: There was a period where I had the one that
Speaker 2: went I wouldn't do it, so I had to switch
Speaker 2: over to the two bells one.
Speaker 4: Oh, i'd be always had a hard time waking up
Speaker 4: like that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, have I I don't anymore, but yes, I used
Speaker 2: to when I was a teenager.
Speaker 4: Well, because I get emails from you at like five
Speaker 4: thirty in the morning. What the hell are you doing?
Speaker 4: You farming?
Speaker 2: I've seen I've milking the cows and email at the
Speaker 2: same time. Sometimes I have decided that getting up at
Speaker 2: five is way too early for me. So good, I'm
Speaker 2: doing six.
Speaker 4: Now, Hey, that's reasonable.
Speaker 2: It is seven sometimes if I'm feeling frisky.
Speaker 4: They had a really late night the night before.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I went to bed at ten.
Speaker 4: We should mention vitamin D speaking of cows, because vitamin
Speaker 4: D deficiency does correlate with a more likelihood of having
Speaker 4: or developing SAD. But they haven't found any like good, hard,
Speaker 4: consistent evidence that vitamin D supplements can help a lot.
Speaker 2: There's one place. Remember you said that high latitudes. Yeah,
Speaker 2: the higher the latitude, the more negative the attitude, right,
Speaker 2: the likelier you are to have seasonal a factor of
Speaker 2: disorder that does not hold true at least in some parts,
Speaker 2: some of the most extremely northern parts the world. In
Speaker 2: particular's a town called trumsa Norway that is very northern.
Speaker 2: It might be the most northernmost city in Norway. It's
Speaker 2: really high up there. Suffice to say that they are
Speaker 2: absent from sunlight. I think two full months out of
Speaker 2: the year. Oh man, like nothing, nothing like the sun
Speaker 2: comes out. I mean, I think it might get as
Speaker 2: much as it would get like before sunrise on a
Speaker 2: normal day, And they go like that for two months.
Speaker 2: And yet the rates of seasonal effective disorder are much
Speaker 2: less in Trums of that than you would expect.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it seems to be because they've done just sort
Speaker 4: of studies and questionnaires, and people there agree with statements
Speaker 4: like I love the coziness of the winter months. Winter
Speaker 4: brings many wonderful seasonal changes. They don't agree with winter
Speaker 4: is boring when winter is limiting. So it seems to
Speaker 4: really be a lot about the attitude. And you know,
Speaker 4: I think if you live there, a lot of people
Speaker 4: probably don't just move there. It seems to be a
Speaker 4: place where you're usually from. Or maybe people do move
Speaker 4: to one of the most northernmost cities in the world.
Speaker 4: I'm sure it happens, but generally, if you have grown
Speaker 4: up in a place and that's the thing. Everyone knows
Speaker 4: that's the thing, and so there are probably many many
Speaker 4: events and traditions and activities that they do to thwart that.
Speaker 4: And it seems to work because they get into their skiing,
Speaker 4: they get into their winter hiking, they get into their
Speaker 4: cozy drinks and their warm blankets and their fireplaces, and
Speaker 4: it seems to be that they look forward to that
Speaker 4: stuff and it bears out by them not having a
Speaker 4: prevalence of sad there.
Speaker 2: It's kind of interesting, yeah, And some people point to
Speaker 2: that as evidence. They say that there's no such thing
Speaker 2: as sad. That just does not make sense. If sad
Speaker 2: is this response to biological imperative that happens every year
Speaker 2: among people who are maladjusted for that imperative, then that's
Speaker 2: just not be the way in TRUMSA And there was
Speaker 2: actually a study from twenty sixteen from researchers at Auburn Montgomery,
Speaker 2: the University of Auburn and Montgomery, and they studied CDC
Speaker 2: data and they found no seasonal variations in depression symptoms
Speaker 2: and it was a massive population that they studied. I mean,
Speaker 2: if there is such a thing as seasonal effective disorder,
Speaker 2: then there should be an increase in the winter months
Speaker 2: and they didn't find it. That does not seem to
Speaker 2: be the consensus among the scientific community. As a matter
Speaker 2: of fact, I wanted to go click on the link
Speaker 2: in this Scientific American article that we were checking out
Speaker 2: that exploded. It was gone. It couldn't find it.
Speaker 4: Oh wow.
Speaker 2: So it made me wonder if they quietly retracted it,
Speaker 2: or maybe it was just a broken link. It never
Speaker 2: can tell. But for the most part, if you look
Speaker 2: up seasonal effective disorder, every reliable website in America like
Speaker 2: Johns Hopkins or Harvard Health or Cleveland Clinic, Mayo Clinic,
Speaker 2: I could keep going. They are they all are all
Speaker 2: all in non seasonal effective disorder.
Speaker 4: I'm now I'm picturing just like a couple of scientists
Speaker 4: in a ditch being shoveled over with lime.
Speaker 2: So just one thing before we stop. It has nothing
Speaker 2: to do with Norway, really, but it reminded me. I
Speaker 2: saw a there's a good true crime. I don't know
Speaker 2: if it's a docudrama, but it's based on real life
Speaker 2: and it's Danish. It's called The Investigation. It's so mellow,
Speaker 2: The Investigation.
Speaker 4: I love those I love story set in those parts
Speaker 4: of the world. I love Danish filmmaking and Norwegian filmmaking.
Speaker 2: You'll love it out. It's like there's at least one
Speaker 2: episode where almost the entire time nothing happens, and they
Speaker 2: just show nothing happening. It's it's but it's really good.
Speaker 2: It's really in growth, so I would recommend it. Awesome,
Speaker 2: Chuck said, Awesome. That means he just triggered the first
Speaker 2: listener mail of twenty twenty six. Everybody, that's right.
Speaker 4: This is from Megan and Michigan. Hey, guys, thank you
Speaker 4: for the many years of engaging in interesting content. I
Speaker 4: first started listening in twenty twelve when I moved out
Speaker 4: of my home state and would download episodes onto CDs.
Speaker 2: Nice. Wow, that is why I love old.
Speaker 4: Well, this will make you feel old too, to pass
Speaker 4: the time on the long drives in my old Cavalier.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 4: Wow, they don't still make the Cavalier, do they.
Speaker 2: I don't believe so. No. I think they buried them
Speaker 2: with those Auburn and Montgomery well twenty twelve.
Speaker 4: I'ms probably wasn't in the camery. I just listened to
Speaker 4: your Dolls episode. Guys. I had to write in I
Speaker 4: have three kids and they have at times acted out
Speaker 4: scenarios with dolls and toys that would have been very
Speaker 4: disturbing if I had not been prepared that it was
Speaker 4: very normal and healthy. Actually, the most recent example is
Speaker 4: when my five year old came into the house and
Speaker 4: told me that he and his three year old sister
Speaker 4: had made gravestones in the backyard because their twin baby
Speaker 4: dolls had died. Oh my, even knowing it's normal, I
Speaker 4: do have to take a deep breath and remind myself
Speaker 4: that part of raising emotionally healthy kids as letting the
Speaker 4: process through play. Still, I was a bit relieved the
Speaker 4: next day, and they threw a big party the babies
Speaker 4: first birthday. So she skips out the part where they
Speaker 4: dug them off out if they exhumed them from the grave.
Speaker 4: Thanks again for bringing so many topics and perspectives to
Speaker 4: light while somehow keeping things humorous and upbeat. Looking forward
Speaker 4: to learning more in twenty twenty six. That is Megan
Speaker 4: and Michigan.
Speaker 2: Nice Megan, thank you for that. That was a great,
Speaker 2: great email, and God bless your kids for being awesome.
Speaker 4: For sure.
Speaker 2: If you want to be like Meghan and tell us
Speaker 2: about your awesome kids, we love that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: You could send it off to Stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio
Speaker 2: dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 4: For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app
Speaker 4: Apple Podcasts, wherever you listen to your favorite shows. MHM.