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Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My

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Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And it's Saturday.

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Speaker 1: Time to go into the old Vault. And you know

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Speaker 1: we're going to do an episode about winter today. But

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Speaker 1: I must say, on the day we're recording this intro,

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Speaker 1: doesn't feel much like winter, does it. Yeah, it's unseasonably

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Speaker 1: warm at the moment, but who knows next week. Certainly,

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Speaker 1: by the time this air is again, it could be

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Speaker 1: winter again in Atlanta. That's right, some whipsaw weather. It'll

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Speaker 1: get us back into the correct territory to air the

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Speaker 1: Winter People Part one. This originally aired December. You know what,

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Speaker 1: I'd have to guess that was probably a hot day anyway.

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Speaker 1: It's always hot down here in December. It very often is.

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Speaker 1: So without further ado, let's jump right into the Winter People.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot Com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And

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Speaker 1: we are entering into winter, are we. Yeah, well, today

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Speaker 1: it feels more like winter. I would say in Atlanta,

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Speaker 1: we enter into winter sometime around mid March, and then

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Speaker 1: we exit it sometime around mid March, and then it's

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Speaker 1: summer again until December when fall begins. Yeah, that's the

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Speaker 1: way it was this last year. It's it basically stayed fall,

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Speaker 1: then it became spring just enough for my fig tree

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Speaker 1: to begin to to emerge, and then it was winter

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Speaker 1: again for like three days. This is enough to kill it.

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Speaker 1: This is really disrupting, I think, because you want to

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Speaker 1: be able to have seasonal traditions, and you want them

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Speaker 1: to be able to to be re enacted with some

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Speaker 1: kind of reliability every year. Seasonal traditions or something that

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Speaker 1: I think gives a lot of anchoring meaning to our lives.

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Speaker 1: When you're a little kid and you have that recognition

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Speaker 1: that like, oh, Christmas is coming or something like that,

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Speaker 1: whatever your traditions, maybe if you don't celebrate Stmas, you

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Speaker 1: probably have something like that sometime in the year that

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Speaker 1: sort of like marks a seasonal transition and and that

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Speaker 1: another part of a season is based around. So like

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Speaker 1: here in America, for kids who celebrate Christmas, winter is

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Speaker 1: not just a cold time, It's Christmas time. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's it's almost impossible to escape the trappings of essentially

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Speaker 1: Northern European winter survival traditions. They've been you know, they've

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Speaker 1: been neutered and altered and and and changed into a

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Speaker 1: different form altogether. But the shape is still there, like

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Speaker 1: the deep mythic importance of Santa Claus and and Yule

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Speaker 1: logs and all the all these various trappings, like their

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Speaker 1: their their mythic purpose is still present if you you

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Speaker 1: just look hard enough. Yeah, but you can also see

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Speaker 1: that there's something kind of wrong with the way we

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Speaker 1: practice Christmas here in Atlanta, Georgia, because when I see

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Speaker 1: all of the traditional aesthetic stuff that's associated with Christmas,

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Speaker 1: it's all got snow on it. There's just snow on everything.

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Speaker 1: Santa's walk around in the snow, He's got snow on him.

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Speaker 1: He kind of looks like he's sort of made of snow.

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Speaker 1: There is snow on all the Christmas trees you see

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Speaker 1: in all the pictures, and children playing in the snow.

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Speaker 1: And it never snows on Christmas down here. It's usually

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Speaker 1: in the seventies. I think we gotta we got a

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Speaker 1: white Christmas at some point in the last few years.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, for the most part, you're right. The only

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Speaker 1: way you're going to have snow on Christmas as if

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Speaker 1: you import it or you you have your tree flocked.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, to come back to the point I was

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Speaker 1: making earlier, I think one reason this variable weather and

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Speaker 1: the unreliability of it actually feeling like wintertime at Christmas

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Speaker 1: is so troubling is that we really want to have

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Speaker 1: dependable seasonal cycles that correspond to our ceremonies, because our

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Speaker 1: ceremonies make the seasons mean something, and it almost feels

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Speaker 1: encoded into our bodies that the seasons should mean something.

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Speaker 1: It shouldn't just be a time where the weather is

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Speaker 1: a little different outside. It feels like seasons should mark

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Speaker 1: something important in our existence. Yeah, though it is hard.

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Speaker 1: It is hard to backtrack because you can't just suddenly

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Speaker 1: say I'm sorry, kids, but a Christian saint is going

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Speaker 1: to climb out of the hearth tonight and start bestowing gifts.

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Speaker 1: You know, if he's actually supposed to be based on St. Nicholas,

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Speaker 1: you should You should do yourself a favor and go

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Speaker 1: look up some of the legends about the actual St. Nicholas.

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Speaker 1: He's fantastic. There's a great story where St. Nicholas goes

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Speaker 1: into an inn where there's an evil innkeeper who has uh.

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Speaker 1: I guess he just didn't like children. So he took

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Speaker 1: some boys and he killed them, and he chopped them up,

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Speaker 1: and he pickled them in a big pot. And then St.

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Speaker 1: Nicholas resurrects that chopped up pickled children. Oh man, that's wonderful.

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Speaker 1: That's the best resurrection story ever heard. But it does

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Speaker 1: drive home the inherent darkness of Christmas. When we talk

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Speaker 1: about the like the commercialization and the modernization of holiday traditions,

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Speaker 1: we're generally squeezing the darkness out of it. And that's

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Speaker 1: why I feel like so many people have taken to

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Speaker 1: sat Crampus and other traditional yet dark l mints of

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Speaker 1: holiday and pagan tradition because they represent the darkness that

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Speaker 1: we're trying to get away from. And it ultimately is

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Speaker 1: a dark time. It is about surviving the winter is

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Speaker 1: it is about the cold moving in, about life draining

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Speaker 1: from all of our vegetation, and we have to somehow

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Speaker 1: stay warm and stay fed and live to see the spring. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And it feels very possible that this could be something

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Speaker 1: that's like, I don't know, almost kind of a young

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Speaker 1: Gian archetype kind of thing, a thing that's coded deep

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Speaker 1: into the unconscious. That's some kind of received memory from

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Speaker 1: bioh history, because you look at how a lot of

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Speaker 1: other animals deal with the winter, deal with the cold months,

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Speaker 1: and it is they go. They undergo profound changes beyond

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Speaker 1: just the changes in how humans practice their culture when

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Speaker 1: it gets cold. Oh yeah, I mean one of the

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Speaker 1: most iconic examples is, of course, the bear. Oh yeah.

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Speaker 1: And I was recently listening to Roaming Imagination What the

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Speaker 1: stories we tell about bear say about a on CBC

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Speaker 1: Radio's Ideas with Paul Kennedy, one of my favorite podcast

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Speaker 1: slash radio programs. Folks out there, you didn't get to

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Speaker 1: hear it, but before we started, Robert was trying to

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Speaker 1: do a Paul Kennedy. Yeah, I sadly I can't. I can.

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Speaker 1: I can nail a few impersonations, but I just can't

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Speaker 1: quite capture Paul Kennedy's lovely voice. You sound kind of

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Speaker 1: like Optimist Prime when you do it. Yeah, he's like

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Speaker 1: a Canadian Optimist Prime, I would guess. But in this episode,

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Speaker 1: they point out the mythic power of bears in many

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Speaker 1: ancient northern traditions, traditions that gave the bear place of

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Speaker 1: honor as a boundary walker between the human and the divine,

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Speaker 1: because when the cruel winter rolls in, threatening our survival

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Speaker 1: and even our very sanity, the bear ventures into the earth,

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Speaker 1: only to emerge again in the spring. So it's it's

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Speaker 1: it's like a resurrection really. So this is why you

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Speaker 1: see shaman's have in ancient societies taking on the guys

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Speaker 1: of the holy bear. Norwegian traditions, for example, uh entailed

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Speaker 1: grave routs of bear hide, appropriating the magical power of

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Speaker 1: this animal that seeks and returns from the winter grave.

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Speaker 1: In Finland you have pre Christian traditions that hold that

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Speaker 1: bears can reincarnate, and the indigenous reincarnate as other bears

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Speaker 1: or reincarnate as other types of creatures as bears. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so there's like that, there is this this cycle of

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Speaker 1: the bear, so like the bear is following a different

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Speaker 1: set of rules for life and death. And then there's

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Speaker 1: the indigenous I knew people of Japan that holds the

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Speaker 1: bears a god, but in a in an interesting twist,

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Speaker 1: a god made flesh for their consumption and use. So

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Speaker 1: so these are bear eating people's well yeah, yeah, they

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Speaker 1: they eat the bear, they use the bears hide, and

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Speaker 1: they make products out of the bear. But there's this

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Speaker 1: idea that the god that becomes the bear has become

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Speaker 1: the bear so that they can use its flesh, oh

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Speaker 1: like like a sacrificial like this is my bare body,

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Speaker 1: take and eat actually, yeah, and then afterwards they hold

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Speaker 1: a ceremony to return the bear God's spirit to the

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Speaker 1: spirit realm. And of course, even today, bear hibernation, which

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Speaker 1: which is not a true hibernation, remains of interest to scientists,

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Speaker 1: even in the consideration of future space travel. Now you

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Speaker 1: say it's not a true hibernation, what would actually be

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Speaker 1: the difference between this pseudo hibernation we see in bears

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Speaker 1: and a true hibernation. Well, what bears do is certainly

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Speaker 1: incredible and and we'll get to the details of that

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Speaker 1: in a second. But but true hibernation is even crazier.

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Speaker 1: The Arctic ground squirrel, for instance, drops its body temperature

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Speaker 1: below freezing, which is cold enough that neurons in the

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Speaker 1: brain's cortex are physically incapable of firing, so basically it

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Speaker 1: can put its brain on pause. Yeah, basically. Uh. In

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Speaker 1: the Jason Biddle's Slate article the Great do Bears Hibernate Debate,

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Speaker 1: he points to a wonderful two experiment with torpid marmots,

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Speaker 1: and it found that you could place these hibernating creatures

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Speaker 1: in a glass container full of noxious gas and they

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Speaker 1: were unharmed so long as their body temperature didn't rise

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Speaker 1: enough for them to emerge from hibernation, so they could

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Speaker 1: sort of freeze. And it's almost like they just cut

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Speaker 1: themselves off from outside influence and some unless something like

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Speaker 1: squishes them. Yeah, yeah, as long as nothing comes in

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Speaker 1: and messes with them during the hibernation, right, I guess

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Speaker 1: you're always going to be vulnerable to getting squished. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's I mean, that's that's the risk of being a marmot. Uh.

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Speaker 1: But in the case of hibernating bears, I mean this

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Speaker 1: they fascinated us for a number of reasons, and a

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Speaker 1: lot of it comes down to the fact that you

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Speaker 1: have this rugged apex omnivore. So it's it's a be

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Speaker 1: steal reflection of us in many respects. I mean, you

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Speaker 1: can even walk on two legs when it needs to. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I was just thinking about that, all the ways that

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Speaker 1: the bare mirrors the human. It can walk on two legs,

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Speaker 1: it does eat both, you know, it's it's a total

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Speaker 1: opportunist in terms of diet, can eat both plants and animals,

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Speaker 1: and when it decides to eat animals, it is a

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Speaker 1: formidable predator, just like humans. Um it almost it seems

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Speaker 1: like it's like the other thing like us out there.

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Speaker 1: If you don't have great apes to compare yourself to, Like,

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Speaker 1: if you're not in a place where there are chimpanzees

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Speaker 1: or orangutangs or guerrillas, what's the closest thing to a

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Speaker 1: human seems like it might be a bear. Yeah. And

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Speaker 1: I was running cross across various folkloric beliefs and myths

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Speaker 1: and involved people turning to bears, bears turning into people,

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Speaker 1: the idea that bears are people who have wandered too

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Speaker 1: far into the wilderness and they've been transformed by the

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Speaker 1: magic of the wilderness. So it feels almost like Grendel.

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Speaker 1: It's like the earth rim roamer becomes a bear. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And indeed, and this is an earth rim roamer in

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Speaker 1: many of these traditions, it is it is ranging between

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Speaker 1: life and death because it can it can essentially leap

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Speaker 1: frog over the coldest and cruelest months of the year.

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Speaker 1: They quote unquote hibernate. They cut their metabolic rate in half.

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Speaker 1: So tell me about the pseudo hibernation. Okay, Well, according

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Speaker 1: to Edgar Folk of the University of Iowa, a late

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Speaker 1: fall bears heart beats forty fifty times a minute during sleep,

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Speaker 1: but during deep hibernation it slows to as few as

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Speaker 1: eight beats a minute, so they during this time they

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Speaker 1: don't eat. Their body is stored up enough to provide

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Speaker 1: them up to four thousand calories a day during the winter,

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Speaker 1: and the bear's body even takes uriah, you know, in urine,

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Speaker 1: and builds new nitrogen from the protein. They don't defecate,

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Speaker 1: they don't drink, and yet when they wake in the spring,

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Speaker 1: there they're They're hydrated, they have a balance of of

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Speaker 1: water in their bodies, and they also avoid muscle cramping

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Speaker 1: in degenerative bone loss during this time despite being just

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Speaker 1: crammed up in a tiny space the whole time. I

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Speaker 1: feel like humans often use the metaphor of hibernation like

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Speaker 1: we think, Okay, it's winter time, I'm going to spend

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Speaker 1: a lot of time indoors with my loved ones. We're

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Speaker 1: gonna cuttle up. I'm gonna be under a blanket most

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Speaker 1: of the time. But we don't really have anything like

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Speaker 1: this to to compare this experience to This is just

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Speaker 1: a different type of existence where you can go into

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Speaker 1: this sub metabolic state where you really do It's not

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Speaker 1: like you die and come back. I mean metaphorically it's

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Speaker 1: kind of like that, but it is as if you

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Speaker 1: become a different kind of organism for for a significant

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Speaker 1: part of the year. It's like you it's almost like

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Speaker 1: an animal sort of becomes a plant for the amount time, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: becomes this sort of fleshy rock in the earth and

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Speaker 1: then and and you can see why you capture the

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Speaker 1: imaginations of people. Um though, it is interesting to try

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Speaker 1: and imagine ancient people following the bear and finding out

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Speaker 1: where the bear goes and what that discovery was like,

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Speaker 1: like how they came to this realization that the that

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Speaker 1: this formidable creature is climbing into the earth and just

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Speaker 1: not emerging for months on end. You can easily see,

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Speaker 1: especially given what we've already said about it being in

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Speaker 1: some cases kind of similar to a human, why this

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Speaker 1: would take on a magical aspect to people. Yeah, so

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Speaker 1: in this episode, we're going to look at what we

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Speaker 1: humans become during the winter. So obviously we don't experience

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Speaker 1: anything like the bear or true hibernators, but the winter

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Speaker 1: does have an effect on our bodies, on our minds,

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Speaker 1: on our personality, and our culture. And through culture, I

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Speaker 1: think we have sometimes found ways to mirror the bear. Now,

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Speaker 1: obviously there are plenty of examples we could turn to

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Speaker 1: for winter survival culture, but one of the most amazing

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Speaker 1: is that of the qua qua Yuuk people. Yeah. So

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Speaker 1: the qua qua Quuk is the name of a group

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Speaker 1: of First Nations tribes that speak the Quaquala language and

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Speaker 1: that this is basically their home is the Pacific Northwest

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Speaker 1: around Vancouver Island and stuff. Yeah, and and these various

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Speaker 1: tribes have different names for themselves, but this is just

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Speaker 1: the this is the the catch off for their their

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Speaker 1: their cultural system. Yeah, the language group. Yeah. And interestingly enough,

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Speaker 1: the Field Museum in Chicago, they have an excellent section

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Speaker 1: on the art and culture of various Native American tribe,

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Speaker 1: including this one. And Joe, you and I both visited

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Speaker 1: this during a two thousand seventeen visit. Yeah, that is

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Speaker 1: a fantastic collection. And these artworks and ceremonial artifacts are

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Speaker 1: just beautiful if you ever get a chance to see it.

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Speaker 1: But Also, if you get a chance, you should check

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Speaker 1: out the u Missed Cultural Center of British Columbia, which

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Speaker 1: is run by the Umistic Cultural Society. And and that's

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Speaker 1: a Qua Kua kuuk uh run center dedicated to preserving

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Speaker 1: the cultural heritage and the h and the traditional artifacts

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Speaker 1: of the Kua Kua Kuuck people. Yeah, and I'll include

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Speaker 1: a link to that organization on the landing page for

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Speaker 1: this episode at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. So,

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Speaker 1: for the quaku Ku people, summer is a time of travel,

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Speaker 1: gathering of foods, preservation of foods for the winter because

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Speaker 1: when winter comes, which runs November through March, it is

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Speaker 1: a harsh time, but it's also a sacred time. And

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Speaker 1: during this time the people are visited by supernatural spirits.

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Speaker 1: Everyone takesfferent names and are defined more by their membership

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Speaker 1: in these different dance societies, each based on a different

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Speaker 1: supernatural entity. And so these societies they even take president's

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Speaker 1: over clan affiliation. It basically divides their world up into

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Speaker 1: two phases. You have the summer, which is uh box us,

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Speaker 1: and then there's winter which is uh sets qua, which

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Speaker 1: which has been translated as secrets. This is a really

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Speaker 1: fascinating aspect of this culture because it takes something that,

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Speaker 1: as we were saying earlier, in some ways as kind

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Speaker 1: of subtly or implicitly present in many other cultures, like

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Speaker 1: the way we sort of change according to the seasons,

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Speaker 1: but it makes it more explicit and and sort of

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Speaker 1: commits the people within the culture to say, yes, we

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Speaker 1: are different beings when the cold months arrive. Yeah, Because

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Speaker 1: it's one thing to think, well, you know, Joe is

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Speaker 1: a slightly different person during the winter. But if you

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Speaker 1: were to actually change your name, if you were to

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Speaker 1: distinguish between summer Joe and winter Joe and like sign

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Speaker 1: things as winter Joe, and you know that would be

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Speaker 1: that would be a different case altogether and have different

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Speaker 1: intra society association. Yes. So, in other words, for the

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Speaker 1: Qua qua Qua people, all cultural energy shifts from harvesting

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Speaker 1: food to a four month ritual cycle aimed at taming

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Speaker 1: cosmos threatening supernatural forces. While the rule of summer is

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Speaker 1: a hierarchy based on mythical founding ancestors, Uh said, sae

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Speaker 1: Qua is all about the dance groups. And I have

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Speaker 1: a wonderful quote here I want to read that I

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Speaker 1: think underlines a lot of this. This is from a

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Speaker 1: paper titled it is a Strict Law that bids Us

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Speaker 1: dance UH Cosmologies, colonialism, death, and ritual authority in the

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Speaker 1: Qua Qua pot Latch eighteen forty nine to nineteen twenty

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Speaker 1: two by Joseph Masco, published in Comparative Studies in Society

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Speaker 1: and History. In total, the seasons present a ritual cycle

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Speaker 1: which deconstructs and reinvents the social order. The barren winter months,

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Speaker 1: in which the collective spiritual energy of all the tribes

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Speaker 1: must be focused on regenerating the natural world, are turned

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Speaker 1: into a fecundity of the summer months, when the animal world,

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Speaker 1: placated by continuing ritual, offers itself up for human consumption. Thus,

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Speaker 1: the Quouus saw themselves as participants in a universal ecology

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Speaker 1: requiring continuous maintenance. Its root metaphor was that of hunter

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Speaker 1: and hunted to live means to kill. Now to give

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Speaker 1: you an example of some of the the dance groups

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Speaker 1: the the affiliations at one UH is associated with during

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Speaker 1: the winter UH there is the Hamasta or Cannibal society,

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Speaker 1: and they're defined by the myth of four brothers who

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Speaker 1: ventured into the home of the cannibal spirit at the

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Speaker 1: quote north end of the world, which I can't help

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Speaker 1: but think of Santa when we touched on that. But uh, here,

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Speaker 1: the cannibal spirit lived with a man eating raven called

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Speaker 1: Crooked Beak of Heaven and a giant bird who cracked

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Speaker 1: open human skulls with its beak and ate the brains.

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Speaker 1: The brothers end up defeating all of these creatures and

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Speaker 1: they gained special powers. So to join the society, you

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Speaker 1: have had to undergo an ordeal in which the cannibal

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Speaker 1: spirit kidnaps you, takes you into the woods, and when

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Speaker 1: you return to the tribe, you're possessed like a wild man.

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Speaker 1: You're dressed only in scraps of hemlock, you're dancing about

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Speaker 1: in a squatting position, and the others have to entice

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Speaker 1: you to venture close to the fire with either a

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Speaker 1: corpse or a corpse like figure. Yeah, so you lune,

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Speaker 1: you're lunging at people, you're biding at people, you're even

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Speaker 1: actually biding pre selected people. So this is like a

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Speaker 1: choreographed thing. Yeah, well, I wonder to what extent it's

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Speaker 1: it's like choreographed, maybe a little bit of improv, you know,

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Speaker 1: it's it's theater. It's essentially well, just call it theater

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Speaker 1: is is probably not giving it enough depth, because it

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Speaker 1: is the most potent form of theater. It's not necessarily

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Speaker 1: a performance for an audience, but it's an enactment, yes,

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Speaker 1: an enactment for the people and for the cosmos. It

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Speaker 1: is it is a magical ceremony. Finally, an attendant leads

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Speaker 1: you around the fire by a neck ring, pacifying you

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Speaker 1: with music four times around the fire, and then you

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Speaker 1: climb through a hole in a ceremonial screen and you

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Speaker 1: reappear in the mask of the man eating raven. Then

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Speaker 1: you reappear maskless, and then as the crooked beak of Heaven.

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Speaker 1: And finally you return for a fifth dance, fully tamed,

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Speaker 1: and dance in an upright position. So we see this

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Speaker 1: like this transformation, this taming of the wild, um and

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Speaker 1: and and it also touches on this idea of the

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Speaker 1: cannibal spirit. Would you see president in a number of

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Speaker 1: different Native people's folk beliefs, probably most famous and typified

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Speaker 1: in the Wind to Go. In addition to this, you

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Speaker 1: have the grizzly bear society that keeps ordered during the ceremony,

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Speaker 1: sometimes even even punishing transgressions with death, and during some

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Speaker 1: of the dances you see them wearing full bear skins

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Speaker 1: and behaving as bears. You have full fool dancers who

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Speaker 1: run around causing chaos. And then you have the wild

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Speaker 1: Woman of the Wood. That's great, oh yeah, because this one.

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Speaker 1: She appears as a person clad in bear skins and

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Speaker 1: a horrid mask, and she carries a basket which she

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Speaker 1: uses to to crate away children who have wandered into

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Speaker 1: the woods so that she can eat them. I detect

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Speaker 1: some parallels to cramp Us. Yeah, I mean, both of

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Speaker 1: these are the wild child eating creature that that serves

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Speaker 1: as a warning to naughty children, uh during during the winter.

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Speaker 1: So on one hand, I my reaction to this is

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Speaker 1: strong in that I not only find this very like

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Speaker 1: esthetically pleasing and beautiful, but also I detect a kind

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Speaker 1: of deep genius in it, if that makes any sense.

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Speaker 1: There's something profound that the practitioners of these ceremonies have

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Speaker 1: tapped into about our nature as human beings that a

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Speaker 1: lot of us have not quite figured out how to

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Speaker 1: properly animate. Yeah. Yeah, I love how revealing this example feels,

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Speaker 1: even for denizens of the modern world, you know, we're

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Speaker 1: so can a lot artically aided in our battle against winter.

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Speaker 1: We we have heated homes, we have we have you know,

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Speaker 1: all the electricity we can use. We have, we have

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Speaker 1: fresh water, we have we can even have fresh vegetables

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Speaker 1: delivered right to our door. Uh. And yet this still

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Speaker 1: strikes a court of truth for us. Yeah. Absolutely, because

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Speaker 1: no matter how many space heaters you surround yourself with,

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Speaker 1: and no matter how much you have access to unholy

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Speaker 1: summer foods out of season in the winter. And folks,

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Speaker 1: I should just say, don't buy tomatoes in the winter.

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Speaker 1: Just don't do it. Don't encourage that. But what if

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Speaker 1: you need spaghetti? Spaghetti is such a use can tomatoes?

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Speaker 1: They were canned in the summer. That's okay, that's right.

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Speaker 1: I mean, that's the spirit of surviving the winter is

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Speaker 1: use the canned goods, use the survival foods. Eat the pickles,

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Speaker 1: as long as they're not made from children. Obviously, Wait

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Speaker 1: where was I going with that? Well? No, anyway, so um, no,

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Speaker 1: you know, no matter, just like you say, no matter

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Speaker 1: how much we can use technology to ward off some

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Speaker 1: of the worst effects of seasonal changes, whether it's actually

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Speaker 1: winter or hot summer months, or if you live in

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Speaker 1: tropical areas, whether it's the rainy season, you might be

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Speaker 1: able to technologically put yourself into a state of stability,

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Speaker 1: you know, indoors with all of this electrical equipment. But

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Speaker 1: we sort of can't write seasonal changes out of our DNA,

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Speaker 1: things like the winter, the rainy season, you know, whatever

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Speaker 1: these seasonal changes are that are relevant wherever you live.

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Speaker 1: There are a deep part of us that is not

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Speaker 1: going to dissipate just because we've got climate control. That's right.

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Speaker 1: On that note, We're going to take a quick break

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Speaker 1: and when we come back, we will begin to explore

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Speaker 1: the winter changes to the human body. Thank you, Thank alright,

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Speaker 1: we're back, all right. So we've talked about rituals that

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Speaker 1: reimagine the person is sort of a different type of

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Speaker 1: being living in a different type of cosmic significance regime

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Speaker 1: with within the seasonal changes, like within the winter versus

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Speaker 1: the summer. But there are many ways in which our

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Speaker 1: bodies are very, uh you might say, very finely and

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Speaker 1: delicately sensitive two seasonal changes. Right, yeah, And this is

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Speaker 1: in this area of the discussion. We're going to get

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Speaker 1: into some areas here where there's no question that the

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Speaker 1: winter has an effect on the body. So, for starters

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Speaker 1: were creatures who evolved to thrive in the sun. So

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Speaker 1: you can expect some firm biological reasons that you would

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Speaker 1: need to say, catch a few rays, right, even as

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Speaker 1: the rays become rarer in the colder months. Now, Robert,

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Speaker 1: I know you can tell me good reasons we shouldn't

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Speaker 1: extinguish the sun. There are some days, especially here in

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Speaker 1: our office, where in the wintertime, in the afternoon, the

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Speaker 1: sun comes around and comes just through the window in

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Speaker 1: such a way that I am an aunt under a

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Speaker 1: magnifying glass at my desk, and like my screens just

425
00:23:45,280 --> 00:23:48,080
Speaker 1: turned into a tunnel of white light into death where

426
00:23:48,080 --> 00:23:50,600
Speaker 1: I can't see anything for the glare. And I have

427
00:23:50,720 --> 00:23:53,440
Speaker 1: at those times said I want to extinguish the sun.

428
00:23:53,600 --> 00:23:55,360
Speaker 1: Can we find a way to do it? Just put

429
00:23:55,400 --> 00:23:58,080
Speaker 1: it out? But that's probably a bad idea, right, And

430
00:23:58,200 --> 00:24:00,959
Speaker 1: probably yeah, I would. I would advise as that you

431
00:24:00,960 --> 00:24:04,399
Speaker 1: know for starters that it does light and heat and

432
00:24:04,480 --> 00:24:07,359
Speaker 1: sustain the world. But but then there's also a vitamin

433
00:24:07,440 --> 00:24:10,200
Speaker 1: D to consider. So vitamin D this is a fat

434
00:24:10,240 --> 00:24:14,680
Speaker 1: soluble nutrient that our bodies need to absorb calcium and phosphorus,

435
00:24:14,720 --> 00:24:18,240
Speaker 1: both of which are central to the development of strong bones. Now,

436
00:24:18,560 --> 00:24:21,840
Speaker 1: we can get vitamin D from oily fish, from fortified milk,

437
00:24:22,080 --> 00:24:24,840
Speaker 1: but for the most part, you're gonna need the sun

438
00:24:25,400 --> 00:24:29,840
Speaker 1: to get your vitamin D or supplements. But when we

439
00:24:29,840 --> 00:24:33,080
Speaker 1: get into the subject of supplements, that's that's where things

440
00:24:33,119 --> 00:24:35,800
Speaker 1: get surprisingly sticky, and I have to admit I really

441
00:24:35,880 --> 00:24:38,040
Speaker 1: was not up on all of this too. I read

442
00:24:38,240 --> 00:24:42,040
Speaker 1: an article by Gina Colada in The New York Times

443
00:24:42,040 --> 00:24:45,639
Speaker 1: titled why are so many people popping Vitamin D because

444
00:24:45,680 --> 00:24:50,240
Speaker 1: it tastes so good? Well? Uh, maybe, but but basically

445
00:24:50,280 --> 00:24:52,480
Speaker 1: the situation here is that about a decade ago, some

446
00:24:52,560 --> 00:24:57,080
Speaker 1: doctors became concerned about potential vitamin D deficiency in people

447
00:24:57,320 --> 00:25:02,720
Speaker 1: enduring far northern climates. People such as Dr Michael F. Holick,

448
00:25:03,080 --> 00:25:07,760
Speaker 1: a professor of medicines, physiology, and biophysics at Boston University

449
00:25:07,760 --> 00:25:12,159
Speaker 1: School of Medicine, advocated the importance of vitamin D supplements

450
00:25:12,400 --> 00:25:14,920
Speaker 1: based on what seemed to be an association between low

451
00:25:15,040 --> 00:25:19,239
Speaker 1: vitamin D levels and higher rates of various diseases. The

452
00:25:19,280 --> 00:25:23,439
Speaker 1: idea was that vitamin D levels were that were lower

453
00:25:23,920 --> 00:25:27,320
Speaker 1: that considered normal. Back in early two thousands might be

454
00:25:27,480 --> 00:25:30,440
Speaker 1: linked to multiple school rosis and mental illness, as well

455
00:25:30,480 --> 00:25:33,479
Speaker 1: as cancer risk and bone health. I mean, those are

456
00:25:33,480 --> 00:25:36,959
Speaker 1: some wide ranging effects. Yeah, So they recommended daily allowance

457
00:25:37,200 --> 00:25:41,240
Speaker 1: uh IS is currently said at six hundred international units

458
00:25:41,320 --> 00:25:44,560
Speaker 1: up to age seventy and eight hundred international units for

459
00:25:44,600 --> 00:25:47,479
Speaker 1: people who are older and as alot of points. How

460
00:25:47,520 --> 00:25:51,040
Speaker 1: this would require near constant exposure to sunlight. Well, that

461
00:25:51,080 --> 00:25:54,840
Speaker 1: doesn't sound practical, especially during the winter right where there

462
00:25:55,000 --> 00:25:58,320
Speaker 1: is literally less sunlight to go around, and you can

463
00:25:58,359 --> 00:26:01,040
Speaker 1: couple that with the possibility that you're huddling inside of

464
00:26:01,040 --> 00:26:04,119
Speaker 1: a cave or you know, or or or at least

465
00:26:04,119 --> 00:26:08,520
Speaker 1: a very nice heated apartment or home. Now, one thing,

466
00:26:08,520 --> 00:26:10,239
Speaker 1: I guess we should go ahead and say right here

467
00:26:10,240 --> 00:26:11,879
Speaker 1: it probably would have come up at some point, but

468
00:26:12,200 --> 00:26:15,359
Speaker 1: we also we don't want to encourage northern hemisphere bias.

469
00:26:15,440 --> 00:26:19,160
Speaker 1: So we should mention that the winter is not just

470
00:26:19,280 --> 00:26:23,040
Speaker 1: say December, January, February. The winter is affected by what

471
00:26:23,119 --> 00:26:25,719
Speaker 1: hemisphere you dwell in, right, So it's about the tilt

472
00:26:25,760 --> 00:26:28,159
Speaker 1: of the earth and the amount of direct sunlight that

473
00:26:28,240 --> 00:26:32,200
Speaker 1: you're receiving your latitude on the earth. So the winter

474
00:26:32,320 --> 00:26:34,639
Speaker 1: months for the northern hemisphere the summer months for the

475
00:26:34,680 --> 00:26:37,680
Speaker 1: southern hemisphere and vice versa. Both both hemispheres will get

476
00:26:37,840 --> 00:26:41,280
Speaker 1: a summer in a winter unless you're near the equator. Um.

477
00:26:41,320 --> 00:26:45,000
Speaker 1: But yeah, so there you go. It's colota explorers. Small

478
00:26:45,040 --> 00:26:48,240
Speaker 1: studies and even larger ones, however, have failed to support

479
00:26:48,240 --> 00:26:51,639
Speaker 1: a link between vitamin D and the prevention of heart attacks, cancer,

480
00:26:51,680 --> 00:26:55,359
Speaker 1: and strokes. Uh. Yet, vitamin D supplements remain big business,

481
00:26:55,400 --> 00:26:57,840
Speaker 1: but there's been some pushback against the notion that they

482
00:26:57,880 --> 00:27:02,800
Speaker 1: provide a true measureable medical boost. Uh. Nor they say,

483
00:27:02,840 --> 00:27:06,120
Speaker 1: is there a good reason for people without osteoporosis or

484
00:27:06,640 --> 00:27:11,399
Speaker 1: vitamin D absorption interfering conditions to undergo regular tests for

485
00:27:11,520 --> 00:27:14,159
Speaker 1: vitamin D? Huh. Now, that's not to say vitamin D

486
00:27:14,240 --> 00:27:18,360
Speaker 1: deficiency is in a problem, especially in utero enduring early childhood.

487
00:27:18,680 --> 00:27:22,240
Speaker 1: It can result in rickets, which is a defective mineralization

488
00:27:22,320 --> 00:27:25,520
Speaker 1: or calcification of bones and growing bodies, and this is

489
00:27:25,560 --> 00:27:29,760
Speaker 1: still a problem in the developing world. Can cause skeletal growth, retardation,

490
00:27:30,040 --> 00:27:33,679
Speaker 1: skeletal deformities, and increase the risk of hip fractures in

491
00:27:33,800 --> 00:27:37,480
Speaker 1: later life. Uh. This this last bit according to Dr

492
00:27:37,520 --> 00:27:40,560
Speaker 1: Michael F. Hollick, who I referenced earlier, Hallock is a

493
00:27:41,320 --> 00:27:43,200
Speaker 1: is an author that comes up time and time again

494
00:27:43,680 --> 00:27:48,159
Speaker 1: in these various studies about vitamin D deficiency. Man, I

495
00:27:48,200 --> 00:27:52,240
Speaker 1: feel like vitamin supplements is one of those incredibly controversial

496
00:27:52,320 --> 00:27:56,000
Speaker 1: issues that I can never really get a settled opinion on.

497
00:27:56,160 --> 00:27:58,479
Speaker 1: And it's something I've read about multiple times. But I

498
00:27:58,640 --> 00:28:00,439
Speaker 1: you know, I read people saying yeah to ACoM no,

499
00:28:00,560 --> 00:28:02,760
Speaker 1: don't take them. Yeah, no, you should take them. No,

500
00:28:03,000 --> 00:28:06,200
Speaker 1: they don't do anything. Yeah. I feel like, especially for

501
00:28:06,240 --> 00:28:08,240
Speaker 1: a lot of us who grew up, you know, being

502
00:28:08,240 --> 00:28:11,640
Speaker 1: preached at sometimes by whole Cogan himself on the importance

503
00:28:11,640 --> 00:28:16,439
Speaker 1: of taking our vitamins. Uh, it's it's this weird revelation

504
00:28:16,520 --> 00:28:21,080
Speaker 1: to to realize that, well, actually the science isn't isn't

505
00:28:21,280 --> 00:28:24,080
Speaker 1: solid on the necessity of some of these vitamins. Well

506
00:28:24,119 --> 00:28:27,359
Speaker 1: it's not. I think it's not the vitamins themselves, right,

507
00:28:27,440 --> 00:28:30,719
Speaker 1: But yes, the supplements supplement for because there's no denying

508
00:28:30,720 --> 00:28:34,760
Speaker 1: that vitamin D is important to the human body. What

509
00:28:34,760 --> 00:28:37,480
Speaker 1: what the sticking point is to what extent do we

510
00:28:37,520 --> 00:28:40,120
Speaker 1: need to be taking supplements or does the average person

511
00:28:40,160 --> 00:28:43,200
Speaker 1: need to take supplements to make up for what you're

512
00:28:43,240 --> 00:28:45,640
Speaker 1: perhaps not getting from the sun. Now, there's still a

513
00:28:45,680 --> 00:28:47,760
Speaker 1: lot of research out there on the degree to which

514
00:28:47,880 --> 00:28:52,000
Speaker 1: vitamin D via supplements, supplements and fortification is important to

515
00:28:52,080 --> 00:28:54,760
Speaker 1: human health. And I mean, there's a lot of research

516
00:28:54,760 --> 00:28:57,320
Speaker 1: in this area, and and perhaps it's something will have

517
00:28:57,360 --> 00:28:59,480
Speaker 1: to circle back around to in the future. But here's

518
00:28:59,520 --> 00:29:03,040
Speaker 1: just to take to some of the recent studies. Two

519
00:29:03,080 --> 00:29:06,200
Speaker 1: thousand seventeen. Here are just a few Vitamin D linked

520
00:29:06,200 --> 00:29:09,560
Speaker 1: with better live birth rates in women undergoing assisted reproduction.

521
00:29:10,280 --> 00:29:14,360
Speaker 1: Vitamin D maybe simple treatment to enhance burn healing. Vitamin

522
00:29:14,400 --> 00:29:18,920
Speaker 1: D supplements could help pain management. Vitamin D deficiency increases

523
00:29:19,040 --> 00:29:22,000
Speaker 1: risk of chronic headache. And then here's a two thousand

524
00:29:22,080 --> 00:29:26,640
Speaker 1: sixteen when increasing nursing mother's vitamin D levels may benefit babies.

525
00:29:26,800 --> 00:29:30,479
Speaker 1: As I said earlier, apparently wide ranging effects. I'm always

526
00:29:30,560 --> 00:29:33,040
Speaker 1: kind of curious about stuff that that seems to have

527
00:29:33,440 --> 00:29:37,320
Speaker 1: effects so broad. Not to say I doubt the research,

528
00:29:37,400 --> 00:29:39,640
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure there's a lot to be learned

529
00:29:39,640 --> 00:29:43,880
Speaker 1: about how how important nutrients like this are. Now. Interestingly enough,

530
00:29:44,040 --> 00:29:46,040
Speaker 1: a number of the studies have come out of Finland,

531
00:29:46,200 --> 00:29:49,360
Speaker 1: a northern European country known for its cold winters, and

532
00:29:49,400 --> 00:29:52,120
Speaker 1: of course it's sauna dependency. You know, that doesn't surprise me.

533
00:29:52,160 --> 00:29:54,960
Speaker 1: I mean, if you've got a deficiency of sunlight, this

534
00:29:55,000 --> 00:29:57,840
Speaker 1: seems like a thing very much worth studying. Yeah, and

535
00:29:57,920 --> 00:30:00,840
Speaker 1: this among the studies. There was a large scale two

536
00:30:00,880 --> 00:30:04,920
Speaker 1: thousand seventeen study published in Neurology that finds women with

537
00:30:05,000 --> 00:30:07,440
Speaker 1: low levels of vitamin D in their blood are more

538
00:30:07,480 --> 00:30:11,880
Speaker 1: likely to develop multiple sclerosis later in life. Still, as

539
00:30:12,640 --> 00:30:15,400
Speaker 1: Gina Colada drives home in a New York Times article,

540
00:30:15,720 --> 00:30:19,240
Speaker 1: there has never been widely accepted evidence that vitamin D

541
00:30:19,520 --> 00:30:23,840
Speaker 1: is helpful in preventing or treating depression, fatigue, muscle weakness,

542
00:30:23,920 --> 00:30:26,840
Speaker 1: or even heart disease or cancer. Huh sounds like we

543
00:30:26,920 --> 00:30:30,000
Speaker 1: got a lot of question marks. Yeah, so yeah again,

544
00:30:30,040 --> 00:30:32,120
Speaker 1: you you kind of I feel like you kind of

545
00:30:32,160 --> 00:30:35,959
Speaker 1: leave this section perhaps with more questions than answers. I

546
00:30:35,960 --> 00:30:39,560
Speaker 1: feel like that happens almost any time we get into nutrition.

547
00:30:39,680 --> 00:30:43,120
Speaker 1: Nutrition is just one of the thorniest subjects out there.

548
00:30:43,160 --> 00:30:46,840
Speaker 1: And whenever it comes down to what nutrient really does

549
00:30:46,920 --> 00:30:49,760
Speaker 1: prevent x y or Z or cause x y or Z,

550
00:30:50,440 --> 00:30:52,880
Speaker 1: you think you know something, but then there are a

551
00:30:52,960 --> 00:30:57,240
Speaker 1: lot more question marks. But still, undeniably we can say

552
00:30:57,840 --> 00:31:00,360
Speaker 1: we need vitamin D. We get a lot of it

553
00:31:00,400 --> 00:31:03,760
Speaker 1: from the sun, and there is less sunlight in the winter. Yes,

554
00:31:04,680 --> 00:31:08,120
Speaker 1: so do with that information what you will. All right,

555
00:31:08,160 --> 00:31:09,760
Speaker 1: on that note, we're going to take a quick break,

556
00:31:09,920 --> 00:31:13,800
Speaker 1: but we'll be right back. Thank you, Thank Alright, we're

557
00:31:13,800 --> 00:31:16,960
Speaker 1: back now. Another area of consideration is the effect of

558
00:31:17,000 --> 00:31:20,840
Speaker 1: sunlight on melatonin. And I'm sure everyone has at least

559
00:31:20,920 --> 00:31:24,840
Speaker 1: some familiarity with what we're talking about here, seasonal effective disorder.

560
00:31:25,040 --> 00:31:29,080
Speaker 1: Oh really, So, I've actually wondered about this before because

561
00:31:29,160 --> 00:31:32,440
Speaker 1: I've wondered if I have some mild form of this.

562
00:31:32,560 --> 00:31:34,760
Speaker 1: But that also led me to do a little reading

563
00:31:34,840 --> 00:31:37,920
Speaker 1: on it, and I know some people would allege that

564
00:31:38,000 --> 00:31:41,040
Speaker 1: this is not really a real or distinct condition. Now,

565
00:31:41,080 --> 00:31:44,720
Speaker 1: of course there are mood disorders, and some people might

566
00:31:44,800 --> 00:31:49,040
Speaker 1: experience them more often in winter months, But it is

567
00:31:49,120 --> 00:31:52,240
Speaker 1: this a distinct disorder of its own? Yeah? This is

568
00:31:52,360 --> 00:31:54,520
Speaker 1: This is another area with a fair amount of conflict

569
00:31:54,680 --> 00:31:57,239
Speaker 1: in it. And yet at the same time, I'm like you,

570
00:31:57,400 --> 00:32:00,479
Speaker 1: I can't help but think about the winters. Actually, when

571
00:32:00,520 --> 00:32:03,160
Speaker 1: I'm in the winter and ask myself, well, am I

572
00:32:03,160 --> 00:32:06,920
Speaker 1: feeling a bit blue today because because it's it's cold out? Yeah?

573
00:32:07,160 --> 00:32:09,320
Speaker 1: Is it is? It? Is it? Do I have some

574
00:32:09,520 --> 00:32:12,960
Speaker 1: level of seasonal effective disorder? Yeah? And then again, I

575
00:32:12,960 --> 00:32:17,040
Speaker 1: mean when you do that, you run the risk of

576
00:32:17,040 --> 00:32:20,479
Speaker 1: of blowing out of proportion or self medicalizing sort of

577
00:32:21,080 --> 00:32:25,800
Speaker 1: basically normal levels of mood fluctuation, Like I might feel

578
00:32:25,840 --> 00:32:28,960
Speaker 1: a lot more down in the winter. Especially. It does

579
00:32:29,000 --> 00:32:31,280
Speaker 1: seem to be somewhat seasonally related, because I feel it

580
00:32:31,360 --> 00:32:33,960
Speaker 1: especially in the afternoon when I noticed the sun is

581
00:32:34,080 --> 00:32:37,040
Speaker 1: very low, very early in the afternoon, and that's sort

582
00:32:37,080 --> 00:32:41,360
Speaker 1: of the visual and and uh sensory trigger for it.

583
00:32:41,400 --> 00:32:43,880
Speaker 1: I start to feel the doom creeping in. But I

584
00:32:43,880 --> 00:32:47,320
Speaker 1: don't want to get carried away and and start thinking, oh, yeah,

585
00:32:47,360 --> 00:32:50,560
Speaker 1: I've got I've got a disorder, I've got a mood disorder. Yeah. Well,

586
00:32:50,600 --> 00:32:53,240
Speaker 1: but one of the interesting things is that on one level,

587
00:32:53,320 --> 00:32:56,360
Speaker 1: you can say, oh, well, well, Joe is Josie's the

588
00:32:56,480 --> 00:33:00,560
Speaker 1: approaching darkness and uh and and is frightened by the

589
00:33:00,680 --> 00:33:03,040
Speaker 1: terror of night. It may just be that I suddenly

590
00:33:03,040 --> 00:33:06,600
Speaker 1: have insight in the truth is that doom is always

591
00:33:06,600 --> 00:33:08,480
Speaker 1: creeping in. Well, But the other side of it is

592
00:33:08,520 --> 00:33:11,200
Speaker 1: your body has insight. Is We're going to discuss here,

593
00:33:11,320 --> 00:33:15,040
Speaker 1: like the perception of of of darkness and light is

594
00:33:15,040 --> 00:33:18,280
Speaker 1: taking place at a you know, at a far subconscious level,

595
00:33:19,080 --> 00:33:23,080
Speaker 1: at a bodily level. So the pineal gland secretes melatonin.

596
00:33:23,200 --> 00:33:26,680
Speaker 1: This is a hormone that communicates information about environmental lighting

597
00:33:26,720 --> 00:33:29,640
Speaker 1: to various parts of the body. It's especially key to

598
00:33:29,680 --> 00:33:33,960
Speaker 1: biological rhythms, and the duration of melotonin secretion each day

599
00:33:34,080 --> 00:33:37,200
Speaker 1: is directly proportional to the length of the night. Okay,

600
00:33:37,280 --> 00:33:41,080
Speaker 1: so this, for just one thing among many, probably helps

601
00:33:41,280 --> 00:33:44,120
Speaker 1: to deal with our sleep cycles. Our body needs to

602
00:33:44,120 --> 00:33:47,520
Speaker 1: know when it's time to sleep right exactly, so naturally,

603
00:33:47,640 --> 00:33:50,920
Speaker 1: shorter days mean less melotonin, and this kind of decrease

604
00:33:50,920 --> 00:33:55,120
Speaker 1: in melotonin is often linked to seasonal effective disorder, which

605
00:33:55,240 --> 00:33:59,000
Speaker 1: to just to to define it more clearly, is seen

606
00:33:59,040 --> 00:34:02,720
Speaker 1: as a mood disord or subset that sees otherwise mentally

607
00:34:02,720 --> 00:34:06,040
Speaker 1: healthy individuals experience a mood dip during the winter. It

608
00:34:06,040 --> 00:34:09,279
Speaker 1: affects women more than men, and theories regarding its cause

609
00:34:09,320 --> 00:34:12,759
Speaker 1: also include dropping serotonin levels due to reduce sunlight, as

610
00:34:12,800 --> 00:34:16,960
Speaker 1: well as disrupted uh circadian rhythm. At any rate, rates

611
00:34:17,000 --> 00:34:21,200
Speaker 1: of seasonal effective disorder do seem to increase the farther

612
00:34:21,280 --> 00:34:25,000
Speaker 1: you move away from the equator. So this this is

613
00:34:25,000 --> 00:34:28,520
Speaker 1: how the National Institutes of Mental Health currently defines it.

614
00:34:29,040 --> 00:34:32,560
Speaker 1: Seasonal effective disorder is not considered as a separate disorder.

615
00:34:32,600 --> 00:34:36,600
Speaker 1: It is a type of depression displaying a recurring seasonal pattern.

616
00:34:36,840 --> 00:34:40,680
Speaker 1: To be diagnosed with with seasonal effective disorder, people must

617
00:34:40,719 --> 00:34:45,440
Speaker 1: meet full criteria for major depression conciding with specific seasons,

618
00:34:45,480 --> 00:34:49,120
Speaker 1: appearing in the winter or summer months, interestingly enough, for

619
00:34:49,200 --> 00:34:53,440
Speaker 1: at least two years. Seasonal depressions must be much more

620
00:34:53,440 --> 00:34:58,759
Speaker 1: frequent than any non seasonal depressions, and uh the full

621
00:34:58,840 --> 00:35:03,240
Speaker 1: range of symptoms and clude low energy, hypersomnia, over eating,

622
00:35:03,760 --> 00:35:08,200
Speaker 1: weight gain, craving for carbohydrates, and of course social withdrawal,

623
00:35:08,239 --> 00:35:11,239
Speaker 1: which some people say feels like hibernating. Now, I'm sure

624
00:35:11,280 --> 00:35:14,640
Speaker 1: some people would just say rather cheekily, like, well, you

625
00:35:14,719 --> 00:35:18,080
Speaker 1: just describe my personality, that is who I am. But

626
00:35:18,520 --> 00:35:20,680
Speaker 1: I think what we're talking about here is like these

627
00:35:20,719 --> 00:35:24,799
Speaker 1: symptoms to a level that it causes problems in your life. Now,

628
00:35:24,840 --> 00:35:28,520
Speaker 1: Seasonal effective disorder has always been somewhat divisive. It's it's

629
00:35:28,560 --> 00:35:32,520
Speaker 1: only been recognized as a condition since the late nineteen nineties,

630
00:35:32,560 --> 00:35:35,719
Speaker 1: and not everyone agrees that it's a full fledged disorder.

631
00:35:36,920 --> 00:35:40,680
Speaker 1: A two thousand sixteen study headed up by Dr Stephen Lobello,

632
00:35:41,120 --> 00:35:45,400
Speaker 1: professor of psychology at Auburn University at Montgomery, found that quote,

633
00:35:45,480 --> 00:35:49,560
Speaker 1: the prevalence of depression is very stable across different latitudes,

634
00:35:49,960 --> 00:35:53,600
Speaker 1: seasons of the year, and sunlight exposures. And in getting

635
00:35:53,640 --> 00:35:56,879
Speaker 1: to to this point, the researchers examined data from UH

636
00:35:57,040 --> 00:36:00,520
Speaker 1: thirty four thousand two D participants age A teen to

637
00:36:00,640 --> 00:36:03,200
Speaker 1: nine who took part in a phone survey about their

638
00:36:03,239 --> 00:36:05,480
Speaker 1: health through the two thousand and six Okay, so this

639
00:36:05,480 --> 00:36:08,359
Speaker 1: would seem to contrast with what you said earlier, which

640
00:36:08,440 --> 00:36:11,440
Speaker 1: was that at least it had been alleged that the

641
00:36:11,640 --> 00:36:15,520
Speaker 1: rates of seasonal effective disorder type symptoms were reported more

642
00:36:15,719 --> 00:36:18,520
Speaker 1: at higher latitudes. Right, Yeah, this would seem to fly

643
00:36:18,600 --> 00:36:21,040
Speaker 1: in the face of that. Okay. On the other hand, however,

644
00:36:21,360 --> 00:36:25,040
Speaker 1: a recent Northwestern Medicine study found that daily exposure to

645
00:36:25,080 --> 00:36:29,279
Speaker 1: bright white light at midday significantly decreased symptoms of depression

646
00:36:29,560 --> 00:36:32,960
Speaker 1: and increased functioning in people with bipolar disorder, and previous

647
00:36:32,960 --> 00:36:36,240
Speaker 1: studies have found the morning bright light therapy reduced symptoms

648
00:36:36,239 --> 00:36:41,799
Speaker 1: of depression in patients with seasonal effective disorder. You know. Once,

649
00:36:41,840 --> 00:36:43,799
Speaker 1: so one thing I'm taking away from this is this

650
00:36:43,840 --> 00:36:47,240
Speaker 1: is yet another situation where once you try to nail

651
00:36:47,280 --> 00:36:50,120
Speaker 1: down exactly what this condition is, and you know, you

652
00:36:50,440 --> 00:36:53,239
Speaker 1: medicalize it and you put it in scientific terminology, it

653
00:36:53,360 --> 00:36:57,680
Speaker 1: does seem to get a little fuzzy. Maybe um, but

654
00:36:58,120 --> 00:37:01,720
Speaker 1: there's no denying that there's some thing people are experiencing,

655
00:37:01,840 --> 00:37:04,680
Speaker 1: what whether or not, whether or not it fits the

656
00:37:04,840 --> 00:37:10,719
Speaker 1: medical definition of the disorder as established, people anecdotally report

657
00:37:10,840 --> 00:37:13,000
Speaker 1: things like this enough that you know, at least people

658
00:37:13,040 --> 00:37:16,640
Speaker 1: are feeling something, right, I think it's it's undeniable that

659
00:37:16,800 --> 00:37:21,480
Speaker 1: winter can impact one's existing emotional state, and sometimes that

660
00:37:21,560 --> 00:37:25,640
Speaker 1: impact is sufficient enough to where it it's it seems

661
00:37:25,640 --> 00:37:30,560
Speaker 1: to be an actual, uh, psychological condition. Now here's another

662
00:37:30,640 --> 00:37:34,160
Speaker 1: weird thing about the way our bodies changed with the seasons.

663
00:37:34,920 --> 00:37:38,640
Speaker 1: It is not just vitamin D deficiency or mood changes

664
00:37:38,760 --> 00:37:40,960
Speaker 1: that can be caused by the winter months, but you

665
00:37:41,080 --> 00:37:45,040
Speaker 1: actually see a pretty stark increase in the risk of

666
00:37:45,120 --> 00:37:50,120
Speaker 1: mortality from certain diseases during winter. That's right, there's something

667
00:37:50,120 --> 00:37:54,720
Speaker 1: that's referred to as winter cardiovascular disease is phenomenon because

668
00:37:54,760 --> 00:37:58,440
Speaker 1: there does seem to be a seasonal trend of cardiovascular diseases,

669
00:37:58,560 --> 00:38:03,000
Speaker 1: and these range from anis thrombosis to sudden cardiac death,

670
00:38:03,640 --> 00:38:07,799
Speaker 1: with the highest incidences occurring during the cold or winter months. Now,

671
00:38:07,800 --> 00:38:09,560
Speaker 1: there could be a lot of reasons for that, right,

672
00:38:09,600 --> 00:38:11,640
Speaker 1: That's one of those things where you you say, Okay,

673
00:38:11,840 --> 00:38:15,880
Speaker 1: we're correlating two variables here. You know, this cardiovascular disease

674
00:38:15,960 --> 00:38:19,759
Speaker 1: death and the winter months. And it might not necessarily

675
00:38:19,800 --> 00:38:24,040
Speaker 1: be the winter conditions itself that causes it, but they

676
00:38:24,080 --> 00:38:27,400
Speaker 1: do appear to be correlated. Yes. Now, in a lighter note,

677
00:38:27,640 --> 00:38:30,560
Speaker 1: there is something that's also referred to as cuffing season.

678
00:38:31,160 --> 00:38:33,279
Speaker 1: Were you familiar with this? No, I wasn't. I went

679
00:38:33,320 --> 00:38:35,279
Speaker 1: and read the article. I mean, I think this is

680
00:38:35,320 --> 00:38:38,000
Speaker 1: pretty funny. Why do they call it cuffing? I don't

681
00:38:38,000 --> 00:38:40,680
Speaker 1: know where's that term come from. It comes from It's

682
00:38:40,680 --> 00:38:44,120
Speaker 1: it's handcuffing. So there's a house stuff Works article about

683
00:38:44,120 --> 00:38:48,719
Speaker 1: this that came out last year. I understand it's from handcuffing, yes,

684
00:38:49,120 --> 00:38:51,719
Speaker 1: but I want to handcuff yourself to another person. It's

685
00:38:51,719 --> 00:38:54,480
Speaker 1: like it is cold, I am lonely. I need to

686
00:38:54,520 --> 00:38:58,080
Speaker 1: find somebody to shackle myself too, so that we may

687
00:38:58,080 --> 00:39:02,040
Speaker 1: survive the winter together. It's the season of that movie Fled. Yeah,

688
00:39:02,160 --> 00:39:05,760
Speaker 1: it's it's kind of like Fled. Uh. Yeah. The idea

689
00:39:05,800 --> 00:39:08,120
Speaker 1: here is that to get through the winter, you you

690
00:39:08,280 --> 00:39:12,960
Speaker 1: need to find somebody um and uh you want into

691
00:39:13,000 --> 00:39:16,160
Speaker 1: a warming relationship. And there may be a biological reason

692
00:39:16,200 --> 00:39:20,680
Speaker 1: behind it all. According to biochemist Dr Jennifer Stagg, it

693
00:39:20,800 --> 00:39:23,680
Speaker 1: may be coded into our DNA, so in the fall,

694
00:39:24,280 --> 00:39:27,239
Speaker 1: jenes get turned on. That results and changes in both

695
00:39:27,280 --> 00:39:32,120
Speaker 1: hormones and neurotransmitters that may be responsible for driving us

696
00:39:32,160 --> 00:39:36,000
Speaker 1: to pair up. Plus, you have testosterone levels and men. Uh,

697
00:39:36,040 --> 00:39:38,680
Speaker 1: they appear to be lowest during times of warmer weather

698
00:39:39,239 --> 00:39:44,440
Speaker 1: in longer daylight. Peak testosterone occurs around October November, but

699
00:39:44,960 --> 00:39:49,800
Speaker 1: elevation is seen throughout the winter months. So there seems

700
00:39:49,840 --> 00:39:54,160
Speaker 1: to be a a winter drive to pair up, a

701
00:39:54,200 --> 00:39:57,319
Speaker 1: winter drive to mate. Yeah, and this apparently is not

702
00:39:57,400 --> 00:40:00,440
Speaker 1: just a tiny uptick like as measured by dating apps

703
00:40:00,440 --> 00:40:02,600
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. One of the figures was that apparently,

704
00:40:02,640 --> 00:40:05,959
Speaker 1: okay Cupid reports about a thirty percent increase in love

705
00:40:06,000 --> 00:40:09,040
Speaker 1: seeking activity during winter. I mean you can't deny almost

706
00:40:09,040 --> 00:40:11,440
Speaker 1: a third more leven. Yeah, that that is a lot

707
00:40:11,440 --> 00:40:13,759
Speaker 1: more love and winter leven. Now, one of the things

708
00:40:13,840 --> 00:40:17,279
Speaker 1: you mentioned. Is a possible symptom outlined by NIM for

709
00:40:17,800 --> 00:40:21,960
Speaker 1: seasonal effective disorder is cravings for carbohydrates. Yes, that immediately

710
00:40:22,000 --> 00:40:25,360
Speaker 1: made me think of our Thanksgiving and Christmas feasting traditions. Yeah,

711
00:40:25,440 --> 00:40:29,719
Speaker 1: exactly what what do we all inevitably do around Thanksgiving?

712
00:40:29,760 --> 00:40:32,960
Speaker 1: But like just just stuff ourselves with all of these

713
00:40:33,040 --> 00:40:37,160
Speaker 1: fatty rich foods. Uh. And it also, like anecdotally makes

714
00:40:37,200 --> 00:40:41,359
Speaker 1: me think of teleworking working from home during the fall

715
00:40:41,480 --> 00:40:45,560
Speaker 1: or winter, where I seem to just inevitably just turn

716
00:40:45,640 --> 00:40:48,640
Speaker 1: the house upside down to find various things to to

717
00:40:48,719 --> 00:40:51,760
Speaker 1: spread peanut butter on. Like I feel like my work

718
00:40:51,840 --> 00:40:55,239
Speaker 1: is disrupted by this constant rummaging for food. Okay, now

719
00:40:55,280 --> 00:40:57,040
Speaker 1: I gotta put you on the spot. What's the weirdest

720
00:40:57,040 --> 00:41:03,440
Speaker 1: thing you've ever put peanut butter on? Oh? Um, lego, spaceship? Nothing,

721
00:41:03,520 --> 00:41:10,200
Speaker 1: nothing so um exotic? Probably something salty like a potato

722
00:41:10,280 --> 00:41:12,880
Speaker 1: chip or something you know, or done. Peanut butter on

723
00:41:12,920 --> 00:41:17,480
Speaker 1: beef turkey? Oh gosh, that's that's that's that's pretty bad.

724
00:41:17,480 --> 00:41:19,760
Speaker 1: Have you know how about peanut butter on a lemon?

725
00:41:20,680 --> 00:41:23,520
Speaker 1: Oh no, no, I haven't done that. Uh yeah, but

726
00:41:24,200 --> 00:41:27,600
Speaker 1: you almost get to that point like, luckily you reach

727
00:41:27,640 --> 00:41:29,160
Speaker 1: the point where you just eat it off a spoon.

728
00:41:29,440 --> 00:41:31,040
Speaker 1: I think before you get to the point where you're

729
00:41:31,040 --> 00:41:33,120
Speaker 1: you're spreading it on things that are too horrible. But

730
00:41:33,160 --> 00:41:35,200
Speaker 1: as you might expect, there have been some studies that

731
00:41:35,239 --> 00:41:37,960
Speaker 1: have looked at at this at the idea of of

732
00:41:38,040 --> 00:41:41,879
Speaker 1: there being a slightly different winter diet for humans. Some

733
00:41:41,920 --> 00:41:46,399
Speaker 1: studies have observed seasonal rhythms to human diet, which which

734
00:41:46,400 --> 00:41:51,480
Speaker 1: shouldn't come as surprise. Study in Physiology and Behavior marked

735
00:41:51,480 --> 00:41:56,280
Speaker 1: to quote, an increased total caloric intake, especially of carbohydrate

736
00:41:56,520 --> 00:41:59,960
Speaker 1: in the fall, associated with an increase in meal side

737
00:42:00,080 --> 00:42:02,960
Speaker 1: is in a greater rate of eating rate of eating.

738
00:42:03,440 --> 00:42:06,640
Speaker 1: It's like a D and D stat. Yeah, tim percent

739
00:42:06,880 --> 00:42:10,240
Speaker 1: boost in in eating, you can boost your eating stat

740
00:42:10,320 --> 00:42:14,280
Speaker 1: for the month. Now. Specifically, the researchers found that subjects

741
00:42:14,280 --> 00:42:17,120
Speaker 1: were hungrier at the end of their meals, perhaps due

742
00:42:17,160 --> 00:42:20,680
Speaker 1: to a suppression of satiation mechanisms. Okay, so it's not

743
00:42:20,760 --> 00:42:22,920
Speaker 1: necessarily that you want to eat more at the beginning,

744
00:42:22,960 --> 00:42:25,760
Speaker 1: but you start eating and it's a longer time before

745
00:42:25,800 --> 00:42:28,160
Speaker 1: you actually feel full. Yeah, it just takes longer to

746
00:42:28,160 --> 00:42:32,359
Speaker 1: reach that point where you are full or stuffed. Um,

747
00:42:32,680 --> 00:42:35,759
Speaker 1: They argue that this could be an evolved adaptation that

748
00:42:35,840 --> 00:42:39,560
Speaker 1: remains with us even in this you know, ultimately evolutionarily

749
00:42:39,680 --> 00:42:42,600
Speaker 1: brief age of artificial heating and light. Right. Well, we

750
00:42:42,680 --> 00:42:46,040
Speaker 1: obviously think about the bear who feasts before going into

751
00:42:46,080 --> 00:42:48,880
Speaker 1: hibernation so that they can have that that stored up

752
00:42:48,920 --> 00:42:52,080
Speaker 1: fat for the four thousand calories a day even while hibernating. Yeah,

753
00:42:52,120 --> 00:42:54,400
Speaker 1: it does seem to be the sort of the shadow

754
00:42:54,440 --> 00:42:57,640
Speaker 1: of the bear, doesn't it, where we're kind of mirroring

755
00:42:57,680 --> 00:43:00,960
Speaker 1: its behavior. Eat as much as you you can while

756
00:43:01,000 --> 00:43:04,680
Speaker 1: the food still remains plentiful in order to to to

757
00:43:04,800 --> 00:43:08,520
Speaker 1: shore up for the months of winter ahead. Oh and

758
00:43:08,520 --> 00:43:10,240
Speaker 1: by the way, there was there was actually a recent

759
00:43:10,239 --> 00:43:13,160
Speaker 1: two thousand seventeen study published in the American Journal of

760
00:43:13,160 --> 00:43:18,880
Speaker 1: Clinical Nutrition, and they explore the idea that obesity as

761
00:43:18,880 --> 00:43:21,960
Speaker 1: an epidemic might also be due in large part to

762
00:43:22,080 --> 00:43:25,600
Speaker 1: a circadian disorder. I think I've heard hints of this before,

763
00:43:25,920 --> 00:43:30,839
Speaker 1: like that that stuff about metabolic disorders could be related

764
00:43:31,400 --> 00:43:35,520
Speaker 1: to uh to like sleep schedules and things like that. Yeah,

765
00:43:35,680 --> 00:43:38,400
Speaker 1: I guess through through all of this, I'm I'm reminded

766
00:43:38,400 --> 00:43:41,200
Speaker 1: that humans, like all animals, are not just creatures that

767
00:43:41,280 --> 00:43:44,600
Speaker 1: live within summer or live within winter, but they live

768
00:43:45,080 --> 00:43:49,359
Speaker 1: ultimately in some sort of sink with their natural environments.

769
00:43:49,600 --> 00:43:54,239
Speaker 1: You know, we're not we're not immune to changes in um,

770
00:43:54,440 --> 00:43:56,640
Speaker 1: in the degree of some light that we're receiving in

771
00:43:56,680 --> 00:43:59,319
Speaker 1: the warmth of the world, or the availability of resources,

772
00:43:59,480 --> 00:44:03,840
Speaker 1: and we've evolved to thrive amid this, uh, this, this

773
00:44:03,920 --> 00:44:06,520
Speaker 1: seasonal flow. Okay, so we're gonna have to wrap it

774
00:44:06,600 --> 00:44:08,640
Speaker 1: up there for the first part of our discussion about

775
00:44:08,640 --> 00:44:11,799
Speaker 1: the seasonal changes that warp and command our lives. But

776
00:44:12,280 --> 00:44:13,960
Speaker 1: we had a lot to say about this, So we're

777
00:44:13,960 --> 00:44:17,520
Speaker 1: gonna be back next time with part two of this conversation,

778
00:44:17,760 --> 00:44:20,920
Speaker 1: when we'll discuss more about the winter beings we become.

779
00:44:21,719 --> 00:44:24,680
Speaker 1: In the meantime, you can find all the episodes of

780
00:44:24,680 --> 00:44:26,680
Speaker 1: the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast at stuff to

781
00:44:26,680 --> 00:44:29,960
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind dot com, along with blog post videos

782
00:44:30,040 --> 00:44:32,600
Speaker 1: and links out to our various social media accounts such

783
00:44:32,640 --> 00:44:36,480
Speaker 1: as Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler, Instagram, and so forth. And hey,

784
00:44:36,520 --> 00:44:39,160
Speaker 1: if you do seek us out on Facebook, well then

785
00:44:39,200 --> 00:44:41,319
Speaker 1: look for our Facebook group, the Stuff to Blow Your

786
00:44:41,320 --> 00:44:44,200
Speaker 1: Mind Discussion Module. That's a wonderful place where if you

787
00:44:44,239 --> 00:44:47,480
Speaker 1: sign up and you can discuss episodes or things you

788
00:44:47,480 --> 00:44:50,600
Speaker 1: would like to become episodes with other listeners to the

789
00:44:50,640 --> 00:44:53,360
Speaker 1: show as well as Joe and and I as well.

790
00:44:53,520 --> 00:44:55,480
Speaker 1: It's a great place. It gets weird in there, but

791
00:44:55,520 --> 00:44:58,920
Speaker 1: it's always so nice indeed. And if you want to

792
00:44:58,920 --> 00:45:01,319
Speaker 1: get in touch with this direct actually, as always, you

793
00:45:01,360 --> 00:45:04,840
Speaker 1: can email us at blow the Mind at how stuff

794
00:45:04,840 --> 00:45:17,160
Speaker 1: works dot com for more on this and thousands of

795
00:45:17,160 --> 00:45:26,960
Speaker 1: other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com. B