Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My
Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And it's Saturday.
Speaker 1: Time to go into the old Vault. And you know
Speaker 1: we're going to do an episode about winter today. But
Speaker 1: I must say, on the day we're recording this intro,
Speaker 1: doesn't feel much like winter, does it. Yeah, it's unseasonably
Speaker 1: warm at the moment, but who knows next week. Certainly,
Speaker 1: by the time this air is again, it could be
Speaker 1: winter again in Atlanta. That's right, some whipsaw weather. It'll
Speaker 1: get us back into the correct territory to air the
Speaker 1: Winter People Part one. This originally aired December. You know what,
Speaker 1: I'd have to guess that was probably a hot day anyway.
Speaker 1: It's always hot down here in December. It very often is.
Speaker 1: So without further ado, let's jump right into the Winter People.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot Com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And
Speaker 1: we are entering into winter, are we. Yeah, well, today
Speaker 1: it feels more like winter. I would say in Atlanta,
Speaker 1: we enter into winter sometime around mid March, and then
Speaker 1: we exit it sometime around mid March, and then it's
Speaker 1: summer again until December when fall begins. Yeah, that's the
Speaker 1: way it was this last year. It's it basically stayed fall,
Speaker 1: then it became spring just enough for my fig tree
Speaker 1: to begin to to emerge, and then it was winter
Speaker 1: again for like three days. This is enough to kill it.
Speaker 1: This is really disrupting, I think, because you want to
Speaker 1: be able to have seasonal traditions, and you want them
Speaker 1: to be able to to be re enacted with some
Speaker 1: kind of reliability every year. Seasonal traditions or something that
Speaker 1: I think gives a lot of anchoring meaning to our lives.
Speaker 1: When you're a little kid and you have that recognition
Speaker 1: that like, oh, Christmas is coming or something like that,
Speaker 1: whatever your traditions, maybe if you don't celebrate Stmas, you
Speaker 1: probably have something like that sometime in the year that
Speaker 1: sort of like marks a seasonal transition and and that
Speaker 1: another part of a season is based around. So like
Speaker 1: here in America, for kids who celebrate Christmas, winter is
Speaker 1: not just a cold time, It's Christmas time. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's almost impossible to escape the trappings of essentially
Speaker 1: Northern European winter survival traditions. They've been you know, they've
Speaker 1: been neutered and altered and and and changed into a
Speaker 1: different form altogether. But the shape is still there, like
Speaker 1: the deep mythic importance of Santa Claus and and Yule
Speaker 1: logs and all the all these various trappings, like their
Speaker 1: their their mythic purpose is still present if you you
Speaker 1: just look hard enough. Yeah, but you can also see
Speaker 1: that there's something kind of wrong with the way we
Speaker 1: practice Christmas here in Atlanta, Georgia, because when I see
Speaker 1: all of the traditional aesthetic stuff that's associated with Christmas,
Speaker 1: it's all got snow on it. There's just snow on everything.
Speaker 1: Santa's walk around in the snow, He's got snow on him.
Speaker 1: He kind of looks like he's sort of made of snow.
Speaker 1: There is snow on all the Christmas trees you see
Speaker 1: in all the pictures, and children playing in the snow.
Speaker 1: And it never snows on Christmas down here. It's usually
Speaker 1: in the seventies. I think we gotta we got a
Speaker 1: white Christmas at some point in the last few years.
Speaker 1: But yeah, for the most part, you're right. The only
Speaker 1: way you're going to have snow on Christmas as if
Speaker 1: you import it or you you have your tree flocked.
Speaker 1: But yeah, to come back to the point I was
Speaker 1: making earlier, I think one reason this variable weather and
Speaker 1: the unreliability of it actually feeling like wintertime at Christmas
Speaker 1: is so troubling is that we really want to have
Speaker 1: dependable seasonal cycles that correspond to our ceremonies, because our
Speaker 1: ceremonies make the seasons mean something, and it almost feels
Speaker 1: encoded into our bodies that the seasons should mean something.
Speaker 1: It shouldn't just be a time where the weather is
Speaker 1: a little different outside. It feels like seasons should mark
Speaker 1: something important in our existence. Yeah, though it is hard.
Speaker 1: It is hard to backtrack because you can't just suddenly
Speaker 1: say I'm sorry, kids, but a Christian saint is going
Speaker 1: to climb out of the hearth tonight and start bestowing gifts.
Speaker 1: You know, if he's actually supposed to be based on St. Nicholas,
Speaker 1: you should You should do yourself a favor and go
Speaker 1: look up some of the legends about the actual St. Nicholas.
Speaker 1: He's fantastic. There's a great story where St. Nicholas goes
Speaker 1: into an inn where there's an evil innkeeper who has uh.
Speaker 1: I guess he just didn't like children. So he took
Speaker 1: some boys and he killed them, and he chopped them up,
Speaker 1: and he pickled them in a big pot. And then St.
Speaker 1: Nicholas resurrects that chopped up pickled children. Oh man, that's wonderful.
Speaker 1: That's the best resurrection story ever heard. But it does
Speaker 1: drive home the inherent darkness of Christmas. When we talk
Speaker 1: about the like the commercialization and the modernization of holiday traditions,
Speaker 1: we're generally squeezing the darkness out of it. And that's
Speaker 1: why I feel like so many people have taken to
Speaker 1: sat Crampus and other traditional yet dark l mints of
Speaker 1: holiday and pagan tradition because they represent the darkness that
Speaker 1: we're trying to get away from. And it ultimately is
Speaker 1: a dark time. It is about surviving the winter is
Speaker 1: it is about the cold moving in, about life draining
Speaker 1: from all of our vegetation, and we have to somehow
Speaker 1: stay warm and stay fed and live to see the spring. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it feels very possible that this could be something
Speaker 1: that's like, I don't know, almost kind of a young
Speaker 1: Gian archetype kind of thing, a thing that's coded deep
Speaker 1: into the unconscious. That's some kind of received memory from
Speaker 1: bioh history, because you look at how a lot of
Speaker 1: other animals deal with the winter, deal with the cold months,
Speaker 1: and it is they go. They undergo profound changes beyond
Speaker 1: just the changes in how humans practice their culture when
Speaker 1: it gets cold. Oh yeah, I mean one of the
Speaker 1: most iconic examples is, of course, the bear. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1: And I was recently listening to Roaming Imagination What the
Speaker 1: stories we tell about bear say about a on CBC
Speaker 1: Radio's Ideas with Paul Kennedy, one of my favorite podcast
Speaker 1: slash radio programs. Folks out there, you didn't get to
Speaker 1: hear it, but before we started, Robert was trying to
Speaker 1: do a Paul Kennedy. Yeah, I sadly I can't. I can.
Speaker 1: I can nail a few impersonations, but I just can't
Speaker 1: quite capture Paul Kennedy's lovely voice. You sound kind of
Speaker 1: like Optimist Prime when you do it. Yeah, he's like
Speaker 1: a Canadian Optimist Prime, I would guess. But in this episode,
Speaker 1: they point out the mythic power of bears in many
Speaker 1: ancient northern traditions, traditions that gave the bear place of
Speaker 1: honor as a boundary walker between the human and the divine,
Speaker 1: because when the cruel winter rolls in, threatening our survival
Speaker 1: and even our very sanity, the bear ventures into the earth,
Speaker 1: only to emerge again in the spring. So it's it's
Speaker 1: it's like a resurrection really. So this is why you
Speaker 1: see shaman's have in ancient societies taking on the guys
Speaker 1: of the holy bear. Norwegian traditions, for example, uh entailed
Speaker 1: grave routs of bear hide, appropriating the magical power of
Speaker 1: this animal that seeks and returns from the winter grave.
Speaker 1: In Finland you have pre Christian traditions that hold that
Speaker 1: bears can reincarnate, and the indigenous reincarnate as other bears
Speaker 1: or reincarnate as other types of creatures as bears. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so there's like that, there is this this cycle of
Speaker 1: the bear, so like the bear is following a different
Speaker 1: set of rules for life and death. And then there's
Speaker 1: the indigenous I knew people of Japan that holds the
Speaker 1: bears a god, but in a in an interesting twist,
Speaker 1: a god made flesh for their consumption and use. So
Speaker 1: so these are bear eating people's well yeah, yeah, they
Speaker 1: they eat the bear, they use the bears hide, and
Speaker 1: they make products out of the bear. But there's this
Speaker 1: idea that the god that becomes the bear has become
Speaker 1: the bear so that they can use its flesh, oh
Speaker 1: like like a sacrificial like this is my bare body,
Speaker 1: take and eat actually, yeah, and then afterwards they hold
Speaker 1: a ceremony to return the bear God's spirit to the
Speaker 1: spirit realm. And of course, even today, bear hibernation, which
Speaker 1: which is not a true hibernation, remains of interest to scientists,
Speaker 1: even in the consideration of future space travel. Now you
Speaker 1: say it's not a true hibernation, what would actually be
Speaker 1: the difference between this pseudo hibernation we see in bears
Speaker 1: and a true hibernation. Well, what bears do is certainly
Speaker 1: incredible and and we'll get to the details of that
Speaker 1: in a second. But but true hibernation is even crazier.
Speaker 1: The Arctic ground squirrel, for instance, drops its body temperature
Speaker 1: below freezing, which is cold enough that neurons in the
Speaker 1: brain's cortex are physically incapable of firing, so basically it
Speaker 1: can put its brain on pause. Yeah, basically. Uh. In
Speaker 1: the Jason Biddle's Slate article the Great do Bears Hibernate Debate,
Speaker 1: he points to a wonderful two experiment with torpid marmots,
Speaker 1: and it found that you could place these hibernating creatures
Speaker 1: in a glass container full of noxious gas and they
Speaker 1: were unharmed so long as their body temperature didn't rise
Speaker 1: enough for them to emerge from hibernation, so they could
Speaker 1: sort of freeze. And it's almost like they just cut
Speaker 1: themselves off from outside influence and some unless something like
Speaker 1: squishes them. Yeah, yeah, as long as nothing comes in
Speaker 1: and messes with them during the hibernation, right, I guess
Speaker 1: you're always going to be vulnerable to getting squished. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's I mean, that's that's the risk of being a marmot. Uh.
Speaker 1: But in the case of hibernating bears, I mean this
Speaker 1: they fascinated us for a number of reasons, and a
Speaker 1: lot of it comes down to the fact that you
Speaker 1: have this rugged apex omnivore. So it's it's a be
Speaker 1: steal reflection of us in many respects. I mean, you
Speaker 1: can even walk on two legs when it needs to. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was just thinking about that, all the ways that
Speaker 1: the bare mirrors the human. It can walk on two legs,
Speaker 1: it does eat both, you know, it's it's a total
Speaker 1: opportunist in terms of diet, can eat both plants and animals,
Speaker 1: and when it decides to eat animals, it is a
Speaker 1: formidable predator, just like humans. Um it almost it seems
Speaker 1: like it's like the other thing like us out there.
Speaker 1: If you don't have great apes to compare yourself to, Like,
Speaker 1: if you're not in a place where there are chimpanzees
Speaker 1: or orangutangs or guerrillas, what's the closest thing to a
Speaker 1: human seems like it might be a bear. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: I was running cross across various folkloric beliefs and myths
Speaker 1: and involved people turning to bears, bears turning into people,
Speaker 1: the idea that bears are people who have wandered too
Speaker 1: far into the wilderness and they've been transformed by the
Speaker 1: magic of the wilderness. So it feels almost like Grendel.
Speaker 1: It's like the earth rim roamer becomes a bear. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And indeed, and this is an earth rim roamer in
Speaker 1: many of these traditions, it is it is ranging between
Speaker 1: life and death because it can it can essentially leap
Speaker 1: frog over the coldest and cruelest months of the year.
Speaker 1: They quote unquote hibernate. They cut their metabolic rate in half.
Speaker 1: So tell me about the pseudo hibernation. Okay, Well, according
Speaker 1: to Edgar Folk of the University of Iowa, a late
Speaker 1: fall bears heart beats forty fifty times a minute during sleep,
Speaker 1: but during deep hibernation it slows to as few as
Speaker 1: eight beats a minute, so they during this time they
Speaker 1: don't eat. Their body is stored up enough to provide
Speaker 1: them up to four thousand calories a day during the winter,
Speaker 1: and the bear's body even takes uriah, you know, in urine,
Speaker 1: and builds new nitrogen from the protein. They don't defecate,
Speaker 1: they don't drink, and yet when they wake in the spring,
Speaker 1: there they're They're hydrated, they have a balance of of
Speaker 1: water in their bodies, and they also avoid muscle cramping
Speaker 1: in degenerative bone loss during this time despite being just
Speaker 1: crammed up in a tiny space the whole time. I
Speaker 1: feel like humans often use the metaphor of hibernation like
Speaker 1: we think, Okay, it's winter time, I'm going to spend
Speaker 1: a lot of time indoors with my loved ones. We're
Speaker 1: gonna cuttle up. I'm gonna be under a blanket most
Speaker 1: of the time. But we don't really have anything like
Speaker 1: this to to compare this experience to This is just
Speaker 1: a different type of existence where you can go into
Speaker 1: this sub metabolic state where you really do It's not
Speaker 1: like you die and come back. I mean metaphorically it's
Speaker 1: kind of like that, but it is as if you
Speaker 1: become a different kind of organism for for a significant
Speaker 1: part of the year. It's like you it's almost like
Speaker 1: an animal sort of becomes a plant for the amount time, Yeah,
Speaker 1: becomes this sort of fleshy rock in the earth and
Speaker 1: then and and you can see why you capture the
Speaker 1: imaginations of people. Um though, it is interesting to try
Speaker 1: and imagine ancient people following the bear and finding out
Speaker 1: where the bear goes and what that discovery was like,
Speaker 1: like how they came to this realization that the that
Speaker 1: this formidable creature is climbing into the earth and just
Speaker 1: not emerging for months on end. You can easily see,
Speaker 1: especially given what we've already said about it being in
Speaker 1: some cases kind of similar to a human, why this
Speaker 1: would take on a magical aspect to people. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: in this episode, we're going to look at what we
Speaker 1: humans become during the winter. So obviously we don't experience
Speaker 1: anything like the bear or true hibernators, but the winter
Speaker 1: does have an effect on our bodies, on our minds,
Speaker 1: on our personality, and our culture. And through culture, I
Speaker 1: think we have sometimes found ways to mirror the bear. Now,
Speaker 1: obviously there are plenty of examples we could turn to
Speaker 1: for winter survival culture, but one of the most amazing
Speaker 1: is that of the qua qua Yuuk people. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: the qua qua Quuk is the name of a group
Speaker 1: of First Nations tribes that speak the Quaquala language and
Speaker 1: that this is basically their home is the Pacific Northwest
Speaker 1: around Vancouver Island and stuff. Yeah, and and these various
Speaker 1: tribes have different names for themselves, but this is just
Speaker 1: the this is the the catch off for their their
Speaker 1: their cultural system. Yeah, the language group. Yeah. And interestingly enough,
Speaker 1: the Field Museum in Chicago, they have an excellent section
Speaker 1: on the art and culture of various Native American tribe,
Speaker 1: including this one. And Joe, you and I both visited
Speaker 1: this during a two thousand seventeen visit. Yeah, that is
Speaker 1: a fantastic collection. And these artworks and ceremonial artifacts are
Speaker 1: just beautiful if you ever get a chance to see it.
Speaker 1: But Also, if you get a chance, you should check
Speaker 1: out the u Missed Cultural Center of British Columbia, which
Speaker 1: is run by the Umistic Cultural Society. And and that's
Speaker 1: a Qua Kua kuuk uh run center dedicated to preserving
Speaker 1: the cultural heritage and the h and the traditional artifacts
Speaker 1: of the Kua Kua Kuuck people. Yeah, and I'll include
Speaker 1: a link to that organization on the landing page for
Speaker 1: this episode at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. So,
Speaker 1: for the quaku Ku people, summer is a time of travel,
Speaker 1: gathering of foods, preservation of foods for the winter because
Speaker 1: when winter comes, which runs November through March, it is
Speaker 1: a harsh time, but it's also a sacred time. And
Speaker 1: during this time the people are visited by supernatural spirits.
Speaker 1: Everyone takesfferent names and are defined more by their membership
Speaker 1: in these different dance societies, each based on a different
Speaker 1: supernatural entity. And so these societies they even take president's
Speaker 1: over clan affiliation. It basically divides their world up into
Speaker 1: two phases. You have the summer, which is uh box us,
Speaker 1: and then there's winter which is uh sets qua, which
Speaker 1: which has been translated as secrets. This is a really
Speaker 1: fascinating aspect of this culture because it takes something that,
Speaker 1: as we were saying earlier, in some ways as kind
Speaker 1: of subtly or implicitly present in many other cultures, like
Speaker 1: the way we sort of change according to the seasons,
Speaker 1: but it makes it more explicit and and sort of
Speaker 1: commits the people within the culture to say, yes, we
Speaker 1: are different beings when the cold months arrive. Yeah, Because
Speaker 1: it's one thing to think, well, you know, Joe is
Speaker 1: a slightly different person during the winter. But if you
Speaker 1: were to actually change your name, if you were to
Speaker 1: distinguish between summer Joe and winter Joe and like sign
Speaker 1: things as winter Joe, and you know that would be
Speaker 1: that would be a different case altogether and have different
Speaker 1: intra society association. Yes. So, in other words, for the
Speaker 1: Qua qua Qua people, all cultural energy shifts from harvesting
Speaker 1: food to a four month ritual cycle aimed at taming
Speaker 1: cosmos threatening supernatural forces. While the rule of summer is
Speaker 1: a hierarchy based on mythical founding ancestors, Uh said, sae
Speaker 1: Qua is all about the dance groups. And I have
Speaker 1: a wonderful quote here I want to read that I
Speaker 1: think underlines a lot of this. This is from a
Speaker 1: paper titled it is a Strict Law that bids Us
Speaker 1: dance UH Cosmologies, colonialism, death, and ritual authority in the
Speaker 1: Qua Qua pot Latch eighteen forty nine to nineteen twenty
Speaker 1: two by Joseph Masco, published in Comparative Studies in Society
Speaker 1: and History. In total, the seasons present a ritual cycle
Speaker 1: which deconstructs and reinvents the social order. The barren winter months,
Speaker 1: in which the collective spiritual energy of all the tribes
Speaker 1: must be focused on regenerating the natural world, are turned
Speaker 1: into a fecundity of the summer months, when the animal world,
Speaker 1: placated by continuing ritual, offers itself up for human consumption. Thus,
Speaker 1: the Quouus saw themselves as participants in a universal ecology
Speaker 1: requiring continuous maintenance. Its root metaphor was that of hunter
Speaker 1: and hunted to live means to kill. Now to give
Speaker 1: you an example of some of the the dance groups
Speaker 1: the the affiliations at one UH is associated with during
Speaker 1: the winter UH there is the Hamasta or Cannibal society,
Speaker 1: and they're defined by the myth of four brothers who
Speaker 1: ventured into the home of the cannibal spirit at the
Speaker 1: quote north end of the world, which I can't help
Speaker 1: but think of Santa when we touched on that. But uh, here,
Speaker 1: the cannibal spirit lived with a man eating raven called
Speaker 1: Crooked Beak of Heaven and a giant bird who cracked
Speaker 1: open human skulls with its beak and ate the brains.
Speaker 1: The brothers end up defeating all of these creatures and
Speaker 1: they gained special powers. So to join the society, you
Speaker 1: have had to undergo an ordeal in which the cannibal
Speaker 1: spirit kidnaps you, takes you into the woods, and when
Speaker 1: you return to the tribe, you're possessed like a wild man.
Speaker 1: You're dressed only in scraps of hemlock, you're dancing about
Speaker 1: in a squatting position, and the others have to entice
Speaker 1: you to venture close to the fire with either a
Speaker 1: corpse or a corpse like figure. Yeah, so you lune,
Speaker 1: you're lunging at people, you're biding at people, you're even
Speaker 1: actually biding pre selected people. So this is like a
Speaker 1: choreographed thing. Yeah, well, I wonder to what extent it's
Speaker 1: it's like choreographed, maybe a little bit of improv, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's theater. It's essentially well, just call it theater
Speaker 1: is is probably not giving it enough depth, because it
Speaker 1: is the most potent form of theater. It's not necessarily
Speaker 1: a performance for an audience, but it's an enactment, yes,
Speaker 1: an enactment for the people and for the cosmos. It
Speaker 1: is it is a magical ceremony. Finally, an attendant leads
Speaker 1: you around the fire by a neck ring, pacifying you
Speaker 1: with music four times around the fire, and then you
Speaker 1: climb through a hole in a ceremonial screen and you
Speaker 1: reappear in the mask of the man eating raven. Then
Speaker 1: you reappear maskless, and then as the crooked beak of Heaven.
Speaker 1: And finally you return for a fifth dance, fully tamed,
Speaker 1: and dance in an upright position. So we see this
Speaker 1: like this transformation, this taming of the wild, um and
Speaker 1: and and it also touches on this idea of the
Speaker 1: cannibal spirit. Would you see president in a number of
Speaker 1: different Native people's folk beliefs, probably most famous and typified
Speaker 1: in the Wind to Go. In addition to this, you
Speaker 1: have the grizzly bear society that keeps ordered during the ceremony,
Speaker 1: sometimes even even punishing transgressions with death, and during some
Speaker 1: of the dances you see them wearing full bear skins
Speaker 1: and behaving as bears. You have full fool dancers who
Speaker 1: run around causing chaos. And then you have the wild
Speaker 1: Woman of the Wood. That's great, oh yeah, because this one.
Speaker 1: She appears as a person clad in bear skins and
Speaker 1: a horrid mask, and she carries a basket which she
Speaker 1: uses to to crate away children who have wandered into
Speaker 1: the woods so that she can eat them. I detect
Speaker 1: some parallels to cramp Us. Yeah, I mean, both of
Speaker 1: these are the wild child eating creature that that serves
Speaker 1: as a warning to naughty children, uh during during the winter.
Speaker 1: So on one hand, I my reaction to this is
Speaker 1: strong in that I not only find this very like
Speaker 1: esthetically pleasing and beautiful, but also I detect a kind
Speaker 1: of deep genius in it, if that makes any sense.
Speaker 1: There's something profound that the practitioners of these ceremonies have
Speaker 1: tapped into about our nature as human beings that a
Speaker 1: lot of us have not quite figured out how to
Speaker 1: properly animate. Yeah. Yeah, I love how revealing this example feels,
Speaker 1: even for denizens of the modern world, you know, we're
Speaker 1: so can a lot artically aided in our battle against winter.
Speaker 1: We we have heated homes, we have we have you know,
Speaker 1: all the electricity we can use. We have, we have
Speaker 1: fresh water, we have we can even have fresh vegetables
Speaker 1: delivered right to our door. Uh. And yet this still
Speaker 1: strikes a court of truth for us. Yeah. Absolutely, because
Speaker 1: no matter how many space heaters you surround yourself with,
Speaker 1: and no matter how much you have access to unholy
Speaker 1: summer foods out of season in the winter. And folks,
Speaker 1: I should just say, don't buy tomatoes in the winter.
Speaker 1: Just don't do it. Don't encourage that. But what if
Speaker 1: you need spaghetti? Spaghetti is such a use can tomatoes?
Speaker 1: They were canned in the summer. That's okay, that's right.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the spirit of surviving the winter is
Speaker 1: use the canned goods, use the survival foods. Eat the pickles,
Speaker 1: as long as they're not made from children. Obviously, Wait
Speaker 1: where was I going with that? Well? No, anyway, so um, no,
Speaker 1: you know, no matter, just like you say, no matter
Speaker 1: how much we can use technology to ward off some
Speaker 1: of the worst effects of seasonal changes, whether it's actually
Speaker 1: winter or hot summer months, or if you live in
Speaker 1: tropical areas, whether it's the rainy season, you might be
Speaker 1: able to technologically put yourself into a state of stability,
Speaker 1: you know, indoors with all of this electrical equipment. But
Speaker 1: we sort of can't write seasonal changes out of our DNA,
Speaker 1: things like the winter, the rainy season, you know, whatever
Speaker 1: these seasonal changes are that are relevant wherever you live.
Speaker 1: There are a deep part of us that is not
Speaker 1: going to dissipate just because we've got climate control. That's right.
Speaker 1: On that note, We're going to take a quick break
Speaker 1: and when we come back, we will begin to explore
Speaker 1: the winter changes to the human body. Thank you, Thank alright,
Speaker 1: we're back, all right. So we've talked about rituals that
Speaker 1: reimagine the person is sort of a different type of
Speaker 1: being living in a different type of cosmic significance regime
Speaker 1: with within the seasonal changes, like within the winter versus
Speaker 1: the summer. But there are many ways in which our
Speaker 1: bodies are very, uh you might say, very finely and
Speaker 1: delicately sensitive two seasonal changes. Right, yeah, And this is
Speaker 1: in this area of the discussion. We're going to get
Speaker 1: into some areas here where there's no question that the
Speaker 1: winter has an effect on the body. So, for starters
Speaker 1: were creatures who evolved to thrive in the sun. So
Speaker 1: you can expect some firm biological reasons that you would
Speaker 1: need to say, catch a few rays, right, even as
Speaker 1: the rays become rarer in the colder months. Now, Robert,
Speaker 1: I know you can tell me good reasons we shouldn't
Speaker 1: extinguish the sun. There are some days, especially here in
Speaker 1: our office, where in the wintertime, in the afternoon, the
Speaker 1: sun comes around and comes just through the window in
Speaker 1: such a way that I am an aunt under a
Speaker 1: magnifying glass at my desk, and like my screens just
Speaker 1: turned into a tunnel of white light into death where
Speaker 1: I can't see anything for the glare. And I have
Speaker 1: at those times said I want to extinguish the sun.
Speaker 1: Can we find a way to do it? Just put
Speaker 1: it out? But that's probably a bad idea, right, And
Speaker 1: probably yeah, I would. I would advise as that you
Speaker 1: know for starters that it does light and heat and
Speaker 1: sustain the world. But but then there's also a vitamin
Speaker 1: D to consider. So vitamin D this is a fat
Speaker 1: soluble nutrient that our bodies need to absorb calcium and phosphorus,
Speaker 1: both of which are central to the development of strong bones. Now,
Speaker 1: we can get vitamin D from oily fish, from fortified milk,
Speaker 1: but for the most part, you're gonna need the sun
Speaker 1: to get your vitamin D or supplements. But when we
Speaker 1: get into the subject of supplements, that's that's where things
Speaker 1: get surprisingly sticky, and I have to admit I really
Speaker 1: was not up on all of this too. I read
Speaker 1: an article by Gina Colada in The New York Times
Speaker 1: titled why are so many people popping Vitamin D because
Speaker 1: it tastes so good? Well? Uh, maybe, but but basically
Speaker 1: the situation here is that about a decade ago, some
Speaker 1: doctors became concerned about potential vitamin D deficiency in people
Speaker 1: enduring far northern climates. People such as Dr Michael F. Holick,
Speaker 1: a professor of medicines, physiology, and biophysics at Boston University
Speaker 1: School of Medicine, advocated the importance of vitamin D supplements
Speaker 1: based on what seemed to be an association between low
Speaker 1: vitamin D levels and higher rates of various diseases. The
Speaker 1: idea was that vitamin D levels were that were lower
Speaker 1: that considered normal. Back in early two thousands might be
Speaker 1: linked to multiple school rosis and mental illness, as well
Speaker 1: as cancer risk and bone health. I mean, those are
Speaker 1: some wide ranging effects. Yeah, So they recommended daily allowance
Speaker 1: uh IS is currently said at six hundred international units
Speaker 1: up to age seventy and eight hundred international units for
Speaker 1: people who are older and as alot of points. How
Speaker 1: this would require near constant exposure to sunlight. Well, that
Speaker 1: doesn't sound practical, especially during the winter right where there
Speaker 1: is literally less sunlight to go around, and you can
Speaker 1: couple that with the possibility that you're huddling inside of
Speaker 1: a cave or you know, or or or at least
Speaker 1: a very nice heated apartment or home. Now, one thing,
Speaker 1: I guess we should go ahead and say right here
Speaker 1: it probably would have come up at some point, but
Speaker 1: we also we don't want to encourage northern hemisphere bias.
Speaker 1: So we should mention that the winter is not just
Speaker 1: say December, January, February. The winter is affected by what
Speaker 1: hemisphere you dwell in, right, So it's about the tilt
Speaker 1: of the earth and the amount of direct sunlight that
Speaker 1: you're receiving your latitude on the earth. So the winter
Speaker 1: months for the northern hemisphere the summer months for the
Speaker 1: southern hemisphere and vice versa. Both both hemispheres will get
Speaker 1: a summer in a winter unless you're near the equator. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so there you go. It's colota explorers. Small
Speaker 1: studies and even larger ones, however, have failed to support
Speaker 1: a link between vitamin D and the prevention of heart attacks, cancer,
Speaker 1: and strokes. Uh. Yet, vitamin D supplements remain big business,
Speaker 1: but there's been some pushback against the notion that they
Speaker 1: provide a true measureable medical boost. Uh. Nor they say,
Speaker 1: is there a good reason for people without osteoporosis or
Speaker 1: vitamin D absorption interfering conditions to undergo regular tests for
Speaker 1: vitamin D? Huh. Now, that's not to say vitamin D
Speaker 1: deficiency is in a problem, especially in utero enduring early childhood.
Speaker 1: It can result in rickets, which is a defective mineralization
Speaker 1: or calcification of bones and growing bodies, and this is
Speaker 1: still a problem in the developing world. Can cause skeletal growth, retardation,
Speaker 1: skeletal deformities, and increase the risk of hip fractures in
Speaker 1: later life. Uh. This this last bit according to Dr
Speaker 1: Michael F. Hollick, who I referenced earlier, Hallock is a
Speaker 1: is an author that comes up time and time again
Speaker 1: in these various studies about vitamin D deficiency. Man, I
Speaker 1: feel like vitamin supplements is one of those incredibly controversial
Speaker 1: issues that I can never really get a settled opinion on.
Speaker 1: And it's something I've read about multiple times. But I
Speaker 1: you know, I read people saying yeah to ACoM no,
Speaker 1: don't take them. Yeah, no, you should take them. No,
Speaker 1: they don't do anything. Yeah. I feel like, especially for
Speaker 1: a lot of us who grew up, you know, being
Speaker 1: preached at sometimes by whole Cogan himself on the importance
Speaker 1: of taking our vitamins. Uh, it's it's this weird revelation
Speaker 1: to to realize that, well, actually the science isn't isn't
Speaker 1: solid on the necessity of some of these vitamins. Well
Speaker 1: it's not. I think it's not the vitamins themselves, right,
Speaker 1: But yes, the supplements supplement for because there's no denying
Speaker 1: that vitamin D is important to the human body. What
Speaker 1: what the sticking point is to what extent do we
Speaker 1: need to be taking supplements or does the average person
Speaker 1: need to take supplements to make up for what you're
Speaker 1: perhaps not getting from the sun. Now, there's still a
Speaker 1: lot of research out there on the degree to which
Speaker 1: vitamin D via supplements, supplements and fortification is important to
Speaker 1: human health. And I mean, there's a lot of research
Speaker 1: in this area, and and perhaps it's something will have
Speaker 1: to circle back around to in the future. But here's
Speaker 1: just to take to some of the recent studies. Two
Speaker 1: thousand seventeen. Here are just a few Vitamin D linked
Speaker 1: with better live birth rates in women undergoing assisted reproduction.
Speaker 1: Vitamin D maybe simple treatment to enhance burn healing. Vitamin
Speaker 1: D supplements could help pain management. Vitamin D deficiency increases
Speaker 1: risk of chronic headache. And then here's a two thousand
Speaker 1: sixteen when increasing nursing mother's vitamin D levels may benefit babies.
Speaker 1: As I said earlier, apparently wide ranging effects. I'm always
Speaker 1: kind of curious about stuff that that seems to have
Speaker 1: effects so broad. Not to say I doubt the research,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure there's a lot to be learned
Speaker 1: about how how important nutrients like this are. Now. Interestingly enough,
Speaker 1: a number of the studies have come out of Finland,
Speaker 1: a northern European country known for its cold winters, and
Speaker 1: of course it's sauna dependency. You know, that doesn't surprise me.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you've got a deficiency of sunlight, this
Speaker 1: seems like a thing very much worth studying. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: this among the studies. There was a large scale two
Speaker 1: thousand seventeen study published in Neurology that finds women with
Speaker 1: low levels of vitamin D in their blood are more
Speaker 1: likely to develop multiple sclerosis later in life. Still, as
Speaker 1: Gina Colada drives home in a New York Times article,
Speaker 1: there has never been widely accepted evidence that vitamin D
Speaker 1: is helpful in preventing or treating depression, fatigue, muscle weakness,
Speaker 1: or even heart disease or cancer. Huh sounds like we
Speaker 1: got a lot of question marks. Yeah, so yeah again,
Speaker 1: you you kind of I feel like you kind of
Speaker 1: leave this section perhaps with more questions than answers. I
Speaker 1: feel like that happens almost any time we get into nutrition.
Speaker 1: Nutrition is just one of the thorniest subjects out there.
Speaker 1: And whenever it comes down to what nutrient really does
Speaker 1: prevent x y or Z or cause x y or Z,
Speaker 1: you think you know something, but then there are a
Speaker 1: lot more question marks. But still, undeniably we can say
Speaker 1: we need vitamin D. We get a lot of it
Speaker 1: from the sun, and there is less sunlight in the winter. Yes,
Speaker 1: so do with that information what you will. All right,
Speaker 1: on that note, we're going to take a quick break,
Speaker 1: but we'll be right back. Thank you, Thank Alright, we're
Speaker 1: back now. Another area of consideration is the effect of
Speaker 1: sunlight on melatonin. And I'm sure everyone has at least
Speaker 1: some familiarity with what we're talking about here, seasonal effective disorder.
Speaker 1: Oh really, So, I've actually wondered about this before because
Speaker 1: I've wondered if I have some mild form of this.
Speaker 1: But that also led me to do a little reading
Speaker 1: on it, and I know some people would allege that
Speaker 1: this is not really a real or distinct condition. Now,
Speaker 1: of course there are mood disorders, and some people might
Speaker 1: experience them more often in winter months, But it is
Speaker 1: this a distinct disorder of its own? Yeah? This is
Speaker 1: This is another area with a fair amount of conflict
Speaker 1: in it. And yet at the same time, I'm like you,
Speaker 1: I can't help but think about the winters. Actually, when
Speaker 1: I'm in the winter and ask myself, well, am I
Speaker 1: feeling a bit blue today because because it's it's cold out? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Is it is? It? Is it? Do I have some
Speaker 1: level of seasonal effective disorder? Yeah? And then again, I
Speaker 1: mean when you do that, you run the risk of
Speaker 1: of blowing out of proportion or self medicalizing sort of
Speaker 1: basically normal levels of mood fluctuation, Like I might feel
Speaker 1: a lot more down in the winter. Especially. It does
Speaker 1: seem to be somewhat seasonally related, because I feel it
Speaker 1: especially in the afternoon when I noticed the sun is
Speaker 1: very low, very early in the afternoon, and that's sort
Speaker 1: of the visual and and uh sensory trigger for it.
Speaker 1: I start to feel the doom creeping in. But I
Speaker 1: don't want to get carried away and and start thinking, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I've got I've got a disorder, I've got a mood disorder. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: but one of the interesting things is that on one level,
Speaker 1: you can say, oh, well, well, Joe is Josie's the
Speaker 1: approaching darkness and uh and and is frightened by the
Speaker 1: terror of night. It may just be that I suddenly
Speaker 1: have insight in the truth is that doom is always
Speaker 1: creeping in. Well, But the other side of it is
Speaker 1: your body has insight. Is We're going to discuss here,
Speaker 1: like the perception of of of darkness and light is
Speaker 1: taking place at a you know, at a far subconscious level,
Speaker 1: at a bodily level. So the pineal gland secretes melatonin.
Speaker 1: This is a hormone that communicates information about environmental lighting
Speaker 1: to various parts of the body. It's especially key to
Speaker 1: biological rhythms, and the duration of melotonin secretion each day
Speaker 1: is directly proportional to the length of the night. Okay,
Speaker 1: so this, for just one thing among many, probably helps
Speaker 1: to deal with our sleep cycles. Our body needs to
Speaker 1: know when it's time to sleep right exactly, so naturally,
Speaker 1: shorter days mean less melotonin, and this kind of decrease
Speaker 1: in melotonin is often linked to seasonal effective disorder, which
Speaker 1: to just to to define it more clearly, is seen
Speaker 1: as a mood disord or subset that sees otherwise mentally
Speaker 1: healthy individuals experience a mood dip during the winter. It
Speaker 1: affects women more than men, and theories regarding its cause
Speaker 1: also include dropping serotonin levels due to reduce sunlight, as
Speaker 1: well as disrupted uh circadian rhythm. At any rate, rates
Speaker 1: of seasonal effective disorder do seem to increase the farther
Speaker 1: you move away from the equator. So this this is
Speaker 1: how the National Institutes of Mental Health currently defines it.
Speaker 1: Seasonal effective disorder is not considered as a separate disorder.
Speaker 1: It is a type of depression displaying a recurring seasonal pattern.
Speaker 1: To be diagnosed with with seasonal effective disorder, people must
Speaker 1: meet full criteria for major depression conciding with specific seasons,
Speaker 1: appearing in the winter or summer months, interestingly enough, for
Speaker 1: at least two years. Seasonal depressions must be much more
Speaker 1: frequent than any non seasonal depressions, and uh the full
Speaker 1: range of symptoms and clude low energy, hypersomnia, over eating,
Speaker 1: weight gain, craving for carbohydrates, and of course social withdrawal,
Speaker 1: which some people say feels like hibernating. Now, I'm sure
Speaker 1: some people would just say rather cheekily, like, well, you
Speaker 1: just describe my personality, that is who I am. But
Speaker 1: I think what we're talking about here is like these
Speaker 1: symptoms to a level that it causes problems in your life. Now,
Speaker 1: Seasonal effective disorder has always been somewhat divisive. It's it's
Speaker 1: only been recognized as a condition since the late nineteen nineties,
Speaker 1: and not everyone agrees that it's a full fledged disorder.
Speaker 1: A two thousand sixteen study headed up by Dr Stephen Lobello,
Speaker 1: professor of psychology at Auburn University at Montgomery, found that quote,
Speaker 1: the prevalence of depression is very stable across different latitudes,
Speaker 1: seasons of the year, and sunlight exposures. And in getting
Speaker 1: to to this point, the researchers examined data from UH
Speaker 1: thirty four thousand two D participants age A teen to
Speaker 1: nine who took part in a phone survey about their
Speaker 1: health through the two thousand and six Okay, so this
Speaker 1: would seem to contrast with what you said earlier, which
Speaker 1: was that at least it had been alleged that the
Speaker 1: rates of seasonal effective disorder type symptoms were reported more
Speaker 1: at higher latitudes. Right, Yeah, this would seem to fly
Speaker 1: in the face of that. Okay. On the other hand, however,
Speaker 1: a recent Northwestern Medicine study found that daily exposure to
Speaker 1: bright white light at midday significantly decreased symptoms of depression
Speaker 1: and increased functioning in people with bipolar disorder, and previous
Speaker 1: studies have found the morning bright light therapy reduced symptoms
Speaker 1: of depression in patients with seasonal effective disorder. You know. Once,
Speaker 1: so one thing I'm taking away from this is this
Speaker 1: is yet another situation where once you try to nail
Speaker 1: down exactly what this condition is, and you know, you
Speaker 1: medicalize it and you put it in scientific terminology, it
Speaker 1: does seem to get a little fuzzy. Maybe um, but
Speaker 1: there's no denying that there's some thing people are experiencing,
Speaker 1: what whether or not, whether or not it fits the
Speaker 1: medical definition of the disorder as established, people anecdotally report
Speaker 1: things like this enough that you know, at least people
Speaker 1: are feeling something, right, I think it's it's undeniable that
Speaker 1: winter can impact one's existing emotional state, and sometimes that
Speaker 1: impact is sufficient enough to where it it's it seems
Speaker 1: to be an actual, uh, psychological condition. Now here's another
Speaker 1: weird thing about the way our bodies changed with the seasons.
Speaker 1: It is not just vitamin D deficiency or mood changes
Speaker 1: that can be caused by the winter months, but you
Speaker 1: actually see a pretty stark increase in the risk of
Speaker 1: mortality from certain diseases during winter. That's right, there's something
Speaker 1: that's referred to as winter cardiovascular disease is phenomenon because
Speaker 1: there does seem to be a seasonal trend of cardiovascular diseases,
Speaker 1: and these range from anis thrombosis to sudden cardiac death,
Speaker 1: with the highest incidences occurring during the cold or winter months. Now,
Speaker 1: there could be a lot of reasons for that, right,
Speaker 1: That's one of those things where you you say, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're correlating two variables here. You know, this cardiovascular disease
Speaker 1: death and the winter months. And it might not necessarily
Speaker 1: be the winter conditions itself that causes it, but they
Speaker 1: do appear to be correlated. Yes. Now, in a lighter note,
Speaker 1: there is something that's also referred to as cuffing season.
Speaker 1: Were you familiar with this? No, I wasn't. I went
Speaker 1: and read the article. I mean, I think this is
Speaker 1: pretty funny. Why do they call it cuffing? I don't
Speaker 1: know where's that term come from. It comes from It's
Speaker 1: it's handcuffing. So there's a house stuff Works article about
Speaker 1: this that came out last year. I understand it's from handcuffing, yes,
Speaker 1: but I want to handcuff yourself to another person. It's
Speaker 1: like it is cold, I am lonely. I need to
Speaker 1: find somebody to shackle myself too, so that we may
Speaker 1: survive the winter together. It's the season of that movie Fled. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's kind of like Fled. Uh. Yeah. The idea
Speaker 1: here is that to get through the winter, you you
Speaker 1: need to find somebody um and uh you want into
Speaker 1: a warming relationship. And there may be a biological reason
Speaker 1: behind it all. According to biochemist Dr Jennifer Stagg, it
Speaker 1: may be coded into our DNA, so in the fall,
Speaker 1: jenes get turned on. That results and changes in both
Speaker 1: hormones and neurotransmitters that may be responsible for driving us
Speaker 1: to pair up. Plus, you have testosterone levels and men. Uh,
Speaker 1: they appear to be lowest during times of warmer weather
Speaker 1: in longer daylight. Peak testosterone occurs around October November, but
Speaker 1: elevation is seen throughout the winter months. So there seems
Speaker 1: to be a a winter drive to pair up, a
Speaker 1: winter drive to mate. Yeah, and this apparently is not
Speaker 1: just a tiny uptick like as measured by dating apps
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. One of the figures was that apparently,
Speaker 1: okay Cupid reports about a thirty percent increase in love
Speaker 1: seeking activity during winter. I mean you can't deny almost
Speaker 1: a third more leven. Yeah, that that is a lot
Speaker 1: more love and winter leven. Now, one of the things
Speaker 1: you mentioned. Is a possible symptom outlined by NIM for
Speaker 1: seasonal effective disorder is cravings for carbohydrates. Yes, that immediately
Speaker 1: made me think of our Thanksgiving and Christmas feasting traditions. Yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly what what do we all inevitably do around Thanksgiving?
Speaker 1: But like just just stuff ourselves with all of these
Speaker 1: fatty rich foods. Uh. And it also, like anecdotally makes
Speaker 1: me think of teleworking working from home during the fall
Speaker 1: or winter, where I seem to just inevitably just turn
Speaker 1: the house upside down to find various things to to
Speaker 1: spread peanut butter on. Like I feel like my work
Speaker 1: is disrupted by this constant rummaging for food. Okay, now
Speaker 1: I gotta put you on the spot. What's the weirdest
Speaker 1: thing you've ever put peanut butter on? Oh? Um, lego, spaceship? Nothing,
Speaker 1: nothing so um exotic? Probably something salty like a potato
Speaker 1: chip or something you know, or done. Peanut butter on
Speaker 1: beef turkey? Oh gosh, that's that's that's that's pretty bad.
Speaker 1: Have you know how about peanut butter on a lemon?
Speaker 1: Oh no, no, I haven't done that. Uh yeah, but
Speaker 1: you almost get to that point like, luckily you reach
Speaker 1: the point where you just eat it off a spoon.
Speaker 1: I think before you get to the point where you're
Speaker 1: you're spreading it on things that are too horrible. But
Speaker 1: as you might expect, there have been some studies that
Speaker 1: have looked at at this at the idea of of
Speaker 1: there being a slightly different winter diet for humans. Some
Speaker 1: studies have observed seasonal rhythms to human diet, which which
Speaker 1: shouldn't come as surprise. Study in Physiology and Behavior marked
Speaker 1: to quote, an increased total caloric intake, especially of carbohydrate
Speaker 1: in the fall, associated with an increase in meal side
Speaker 1: is in a greater rate of eating rate of eating.
Speaker 1: It's like a D and D stat. Yeah, tim percent
Speaker 1: boost in in eating, you can boost your eating stat
Speaker 1: for the month. Now. Specifically, the researchers found that subjects
Speaker 1: were hungrier at the end of their meals, perhaps due
Speaker 1: to a suppression of satiation mechanisms. Okay, so it's not
Speaker 1: necessarily that you want to eat more at the beginning,
Speaker 1: but you start eating and it's a longer time before
Speaker 1: you actually feel full. Yeah, it just takes longer to
Speaker 1: reach that point where you are full or stuffed. Um,
Speaker 1: They argue that this could be an evolved adaptation that
Speaker 1: remains with us even in this you know, ultimately evolutionarily
Speaker 1: brief age of artificial heating and light. Right. Well, we
Speaker 1: obviously think about the bear who feasts before going into
Speaker 1: hibernation so that they can have that that stored up
Speaker 1: fat for the four thousand calories a day even while hibernating. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it does seem to be the sort of the shadow
Speaker 1: of the bear, doesn't it, where we're kind of mirroring
Speaker 1: its behavior. Eat as much as you you can while
Speaker 1: the food still remains plentiful in order to to to
Speaker 1: shore up for the months of winter ahead. Oh and
Speaker 1: by the way, there was there was actually a recent
Speaker 1: two thousand seventeen study published in the American Journal of
Speaker 1: Clinical Nutrition, and they explore the idea that obesity as
Speaker 1: an epidemic might also be due in large part to
Speaker 1: a circadian disorder. I think I've heard hints of this before,
Speaker 1: like that that stuff about metabolic disorders could be related
Speaker 1: to uh to like sleep schedules and things like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess through through all of this, I'm I'm reminded
Speaker 1: that humans, like all animals, are not just creatures that
Speaker 1: live within summer or live within winter, but they live
Speaker 1: ultimately in some sort of sink with their natural environments.
Speaker 1: You know, we're not we're not immune to changes in um,
Speaker 1: in the degree of some light that we're receiving in
Speaker 1: the warmth of the world, or the availability of resources,
Speaker 1: and we've evolved to thrive amid this, uh, this, this
Speaker 1: seasonal flow. Okay, so we're gonna have to wrap it
Speaker 1: up there for the first part of our discussion about
Speaker 1: the seasonal changes that warp and command our lives. But
Speaker 1: we had a lot to say about this, So we're
Speaker 1: gonna be back next time with part two of this conversation,
Speaker 1: when we'll discuss more about the winter beings we become.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, you can find all the episodes of
Speaker 1: the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast at stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind dot com, along with blog post videos
Speaker 1: and links out to our various social media accounts such
Speaker 1: as Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler, Instagram, and so forth. And hey,
Speaker 1: if you do seek us out on Facebook, well then
Speaker 1: look for our Facebook group, the Stuff to Blow Your
Speaker 1: Mind Discussion Module. That's a wonderful place where if you
Speaker 1: sign up and you can discuss episodes or things you
Speaker 1: would like to become episodes with other listeners to the
Speaker 1: show as well as Joe and and I as well.
Speaker 1: It's a great place. It gets weird in there, but
Speaker 1: it's always so nice indeed. And if you want to
Speaker 1: get in touch with this direct actually, as always, you
Speaker 1: can email us at blow the Mind at how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com for more on this and thousands of
Speaker 1: other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com. B