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 Julie Duklass, and
Speaker 1: today we were talking about tigers. We're talking about paper tigers,
Speaker 1: which instantly brings to mind like a you know, an
Speaker 1: oregony savor tooth tiger up the mint size, like chasing
Speaker 1: you down in your dreams, catching up with you and
Speaker 1: then just carrying into you with its with a thousand
Speaker 1: paper cuts and just ripping you to shreds. That's about right, yea, yeah,
Speaker 1: And it's kind of a stand in for for many
Speaker 1: different things. Historically, a paper tiger was a stand in
Speaker 1: for a country that really had sort of no political might,
Speaker 1: but posed a threat or was trying to pose a threat.
Speaker 1: But then it's been sort of h used in the
Speaker 1: vernacular to mean like some sort of threat that that
Speaker 1: doesn't really um have any physical manifestation, and yet it
Speaker 1: can't help but chew your brains out. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: especially if you if you go ahead and apply the
Speaker 1: actual paper aspect of this to paperwork. Um. As this
Speaker 1: podcast is coming out, we're smack dab in the middle
Speaker 1: of tax season, so you know, everyone's you know, even
Speaker 1: though there's less I guess paper involved in it if
Speaker 1: you're doing it online, but still all the paperwork of
Speaker 1: getting your taxes in like that is a huge paper
Speaker 1: tiger because you have you know, we were talking about
Speaker 1: this yesterday. It's it's not only the stress of the moment.
Speaker 1: It's like an entire year, maybe an entire life's stress
Speaker 1: uh about money and about finance and about your your
Speaker 1: very spending habits and uh and your life choices, you know, houses, uh,
Speaker 1: your marital status. All of these things just wound up
Speaker 1: into one confusing task and if you get it wrong,
Speaker 1: then if you mess it up, then you end up
Speaker 1: having to pay more money or you go to jail.
Speaker 1: It's it can be a high stress situation. Well see,
Speaker 1: that's the thing about these paper tigers is that they
Speaker 1: do cause stress. And just even saying taxes, I noticed this, um,
Speaker 1: and maybe it's because I've had too much coffee this morning,
Speaker 1: but my palms are beginning to sweat because I'm starting
Speaker 1: to think about the anxiety that I've had before and
Speaker 1: trying to do my taxes. And as you mentioned, if
Speaker 1: you mess up WOA, that that can be like a
Speaker 1: year long nightmare to try to repair. Yeah. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: that is what we are talking about today, because this
Speaker 1: is very interesting. This this lightning fast physiological response that
Speaker 1: comes from from the paper tigers you know, real or
Speaker 1: imagined and really having their um beginnings and real tigers
Speaker 1: like saber tooth tigers. Right, yeah, because again we this
Speaker 1: is one of those examples where we we go back
Speaker 1: to a mythical prehistoric plane, you know, where primordial humans
Speaker 1: are hanging out and occasionally savory thooth tigers jump out
Speaker 1: and eat them. Um, you know, ignore the actual archaeology
Speaker 1: of of this example, but it's you know, the idea
Speaker 1: that there was a time when humans didn't have it
Speaker 1: knocked and that every day was a life and death
Speaker 1: battle with the environment and a predator could just decide
Speaker 1: to eat. And this is something called the stress response. Right,
Speaker 1: It's really important to have the stress response, particularly in
Speaker 1: this example. So what is happening when you're having this
Speaker 1: kind of response, Well, your heart rate just goes bananas, right,
Speaker 1: goes up, your blood flow increases, your digestive system actually
Speaker 1: begins to shut down because uh, you know, you don't
Speaker 1: want to be digesting something you want to use that
Speaker 1: energy to confront the problem in front of you. Same
Speaker 1: thing with your immune system that gets repressed because again,
Speaker 1: the bigger threat is in front of you, not some
Speaker 1: sort of germ that your immune system is trying to
Speaker 1: fight off. So temporarily your body says, hey, immune system,
Speaker 1: you can knock it off for a couple of minutes.
Speaker 1: Why we're trying to figure this out. And then I
Speaker 1: think this is so cool. Your eyes, the pupils in
Speaker 1: your eyes actually dilate, and they do this because they're
Speaker 1: trying to take in more light. Because when they do that,
Speaker 1: you have this temporarily increased vision. So it's almost sort
Speaker 1: of like the super human moment that you have. And
Speaker 1: at last, just seconds all the settings changed. We go
Speaker 1: into this fear mode, this fight or flight mode. And
Speaker 1: we've discussed before we were talking about memory that even
Speaker 1: even memory gets kind of twisted about. There's that the idea,
Speaker 1: you know that everyone thinks that they remember exactly what
Speaker 1: they were wearing and eating on Stay nine eleven, or
Speaker 1: they're you know, older when Kennedy was shot, but in reality,
Speaker 1: the brain kind of bypasses those memories and lets you
Speaker 1: not unless you makes you think that you remember those things,
Speaker 1: because ultimately the brain is saying, don't worry about your cereal,
Speaker 1: don't worry about what you're wearing. You're you're in a
Speaker 1: stressed out mode. You need to worry about survival. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's macro and up micro. We don't need to know
Speaker 1: details right now. We just need to know if this
Speaker 1: is a real threat in front of us, and that
Speaker 1: flight or fight is really defined by the adrenaline coursing
Speaker 1: through our bodies, the cortisol, which is the stress hormone
Speaker 1: that gets released. Um, you probably have heard these examples
Speaker 1: of a mother or father picking up a thousand or
Speaker 1: two thousand pound car to try to release their child
Speaker 1: stuck underneath it. And that's that's a good example of
Speaker 1: this sort of superhuman strength or these abilities beyond ourselves
Speaker 1: that we can evoke when we are experiencing the stress response. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: your body charges up to to to fight something or
Speaker 1: to run away, to to take all of this this
Speaker 1: energy in these new settings and apply them to either
Speaker 1: beating the tar out of a saber tooth tiger or
Speaker 1: running as fast as you can so that does not
Speaker 1: eat you. Yeah, and it's one of the reasons why
Speaker 1: humans have been so successful as a species because, um,
Speaker 1: you know, this allows us to have or to make
Speaker 1: rapid fire decisions and act on them, and a lot
Speaker 1: of times, particularly when we use that example from the past,
Speaker 1: saber tooth tiger, they can have life saving outcomes. All right.
Speaker 1: The problem with modern humans, I suppose you could say,
Speaker 1: is that stress can be bad when you have insidious
Speaker 1: levels of it. And when I say insidious levels, I
Speaker 1: mean that our body doesn't distinguish between a real saber
Speaker 1: tooth tiger and well, to some degree, uh in a
Speaker 1: paper tiger, right, because the stress response is the same
Speaker 1: no matter what. So if I have a deadline approaching,
Speaker 1: or this is a classic one, you think that you
Speaker 1: have sent an email to just one person and you
Speaker 1: have this paranoid feeling like, oh my god, I just
Speaker 1: sent it out to the entire company, and your your
Speaker 1: palms begin to sweat and your heart begins to beat fast.
Speaker 1: That's that is a reaction that that is over exaggerated,
Speaker 1: right for for the actual instance, but it still feels
Speaker 1: like a threat. And this can be really dangerous to
Speaker 1: uh you know, long term to have this constant sort
Speaker 1: of low level stress about you. Um, as we had
Speaker 1: discussed in our episode about epigenome. These are the kind
Speaker 1: of thing stress that can flip the switches that um
Speaker 1: the switches that that control diseases or disorders, right, And
Speaker 1: I mean it has a big effect on your cardiac health,
Speaker 1: right because you've got inflammation in the arteries, You've got
Speaker 1: all sorts of things going on that stress can do
Speaker 1: to your body. And I think this is kind of
Speaker 1: fascinating too, that increased cortisol levels which come from the
Speaker 1: stress response, can actually begin to affect insulin production, and
Speaker 1: that insulin can then make that decision about whether or
Speaker 1: not to burn off fat or to store it. So
Speaker 1: if you are at a constant low level of stress,
Speaker 1: it's a lot harder to lose weight because it's keeping
Speaker 1: you know, all those fat stores in your body. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it ultimately again comes down to this idea
Speaker 1: that all this stress builds up and then we're supposed
Speaker 1: to release that stress in the form of a fight
Speaker 1: or a flight, but we don't. But we don't. It's
Speaker 1: kind of like like if you imagine a situation where
Speaker 1: the tiger, the saber tooth tiger almost attacks a bunch
Speaker 1: of times, like you know, it's just kind of stalking
Speaker 1: toying with the prey down like when is it gonna attack?
Speaker 1: When is it gonna actually when is the uh, when
Speaker 1: is this actually going to go down? And the stress
Speaker 1: keeps building and building. But then you know what if
Speaker 1: the tiger never attacks? Because yeah, I can't help but
Speaker 1: think back to our previous use of savor tooth tiger example,
Speaker 1: when we were talking about humor, the idea that that
Speaker 1: that laughter emerges when something that was perceived as a
Speaker 1: threat is suddenly realized to not be a threat. And
Speaker 1: then what happens We laugh and it's and this is
Speaker 1: also this is interesting too because that when what is laughter?
Speaker 1: But this, this this full body experience. You could you
Speaker 1: could almost look at that as in a means of
Speaker 1: burning off some of the stress energy through the laughter, Like, oh,
Speaker 1: I can laugh about it now, But but where do
Speaker 1: you reach that point with some of these paper tigers.
Speaker 1: I mean, even after you send in your taxes, do
Speaker 1: you ever really laughing and my taxes are off? That's great,
Speaker 1: They're done. I can laugh about it now. No, not necessarily,
Speaker 1: you're just trying to insert your laughter. Yoga agenda, I said,
Speaker 1: where we're going with us? No, after yoga agenda all right,
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break and we get back. We
Speaker 1: will talk about bosses who attack. All right, we're back,
Speaker 1: and we've been talking about you know, what happens when
Speaker 1: there's a perceived threat. We build up all that stress
Speaker 1: in your body, and then, as an organ isn't we're
Speaker 1: supposed to then release that stress by either fleeing from
Speaker 1: the thing that is endangering us or fighting the thing
Speaker 1: is endangering us. But what happens when that the thing
Speaker 1: that is giving us all this stress cannot be fled
Speaker 1: from and cannot be directly opposed. What if it's something
Speaker 1: like your taxes or um or just like a like
Speaker 1: a massive amount of paperwork you have to get done.
Speaker 1: Or what if it takes an actual, like human physical
Speaker 1: embodiment in the form of your boss, Right, yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: because really, if you could fight your boss, you could
Speaker 1: you could run from your boss. You could quit your
Speaker 1: job and move to a different city never see that
Speaker 1: boss again. Both of these options are on the table.
Speaker 1: But generally speaking, within a society, within within a culture,
Speaker 1: we have all these weird rules. You know, when you
Speaker 1: lay culture over any kind of biological reality, all these
Speaker 1: complications come up, So you end up in the station
Speaker 1: with situation where you're like, my boss is my enemy.
Speaker 1: I want to fight him or her, I want to
Speaker 1: flee from him or her, But neither of those are
Speaker 1: an option because I need a job and this is
Speaker 1: this is where I am, this is maybe this is
Speaker 1: who I who I am? You know it's so it's
Speaker 1: you can't take you to those options. Yeah, And the
Speaker 1: funny thing is, it's like your boss has a boss too,
Speaker 1: and it's experiencing the same thing when his boss or
Speaker 1: her boss comes and stands over him or her and
Speaker 1: begins to take off a to do list right or
Speaker 1: to say, you know, when something got screwed up, you
Speaker 1: began to feel that stress response, because again, it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter if it's a real saber tooth tiger or your
Speaker 1: boss just looming over you. You know that that you
Speaker 1: began to get anxious about the situation. UM. So, of
Speaker 1: course there are things you can do here other than
Speaker 1: actually going mono mono with your boss, which, as you
Speaker 1: pointed out, is probably not a good idea. UM. You've
Speaker 1: got to have some sort of release, and we've talked
Speaker 1: about a release in the form of meditation before or
Speaker 1: yoga after yoga, but for my money, I have to
Speaker 1: say that I think that exercise, that burst of energy
Speaker 1: that you talked about when you think about our our
Speaker 1: ancestors running from a saber tooth tiger, that I think
Speaker 1: is is the thing that is most helpful here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, because your body wants to run, So get
Speaker 1: on a treadmill, run a little bit, you know, well,
Speaker 1: and you've got a chemical cocktail and your body swirling
Speaker 1: around with no outlet. Right, So that's why we get
Speaker 1: this low. Look. You know, the threat may have disappeared,
Speaker 1: but later on you're still stuck with the effects of stress.
Speaker 1: So if you can burn off those chemicals in the
Speaker 1: form of exercise, well then you've just accomplished the same
Speaker 1: thing as is running from sabertooth tiger. Yeah. So high
Speaker 1: intensity exercise it's a good way to handle it. Also, sleep,
Speaker 1: a good night's sleep a good way to do it.
Speaker 1: I mean we've all had that situation. I mean, hopefully
Speaker 1: we're all at a point where we realized that if
Speaker 1: you're stressed out about something that might be a little silly, uh,
Speaker 1: like Monday night, go to sleep and see if it's
Speaker 1: still bothering you Tuesday morning. This is I highly recommend
Speaker 1: you have a nasty email you're about to send out
Speaker 1: to somebody. Let it, let it set, let's let it
Speaker 1: wait till the next day to actually send it and
Speaker 1: see if it's still as important, uh, twenty four hours later.
Speaker 1: It's true because the idea here is that you just
Speaker 1: want to lower your blood pressure and and return to
Speaker 1: normal and get out of that heightened state in whatever
Speaker 1: way that you can. So again, it makes sense to
Speaker 1: me to just do something for for thirty minutes to
Speaker 1: burn off those chemicals. And by the way, studies have
Speaker 1: shown that when you do this um this regular exercise,
Speaker 1: that also helps to control stress in future episodes, so
Speaker 1: you don't have an over exaggeration or as much um
Speaker 1: response to whatever stimuli it is in front of you. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I've also wondered what if, to what extent violent video
Speaker 1: games or even just mildly violent video games provide some
Speaker 1: sort of outlet like that as well, because if we're
Speaker 1: building up this feeling off we need to fight something,
Speaker 1: then maybe maybe it does bode well to then go
Speaker 1: home and shoot a bunch of robots. I don't know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but then you don't have the physical express right, you're
Speaker 1: still if anything you maybe just massaging that that feeling
Speaker 1: a little bit when it really needs to be throw hold.
Speaker 1: Do you think that we could institute HSW dance offs
Speaker 1: in the office to release our stress? I think it would.
Speaker 1: It might stress out some people, that's true. I don't know,
Speaker 1: you know, everyone has their their different release, but I
Speaker 1: mean I for my own part, I definitely see like
Speaker 1: a big difference. Uh. Ever, since I started doing yoga regularly,
Speaker 1: I have found that, like if there's a week that
Speaker 1: goes by where I don't actually make it to yoga,
Speaker 1: like my stress level all week is just a little
Speaker 1: higher for not having that that release. Well, we had
Speaker 1: talked about the default mode network too, and that's really
Speaker 1: at play here because it's that chattering midline of the
Speaker 1: brain that you have to quiet. So if you can
Speaker 1: do that through yoga or meditation, then you can help
Speaker 1: to tamp down the respect response to stress as well. Um,
Speaker 1: but again, exercise too quick way just to blow it
Speaker 1: out of there. Yeah yeah, I mean you don't you know,
Speaker 1: it could be as simple as a quick dance off.
Speaker 1: It could be as as simple as get up, go outside,
Speaker 1: walk around the building, come back in, you know, just
Speaker 1: do something to to burn off some of that that
Speaker 1: fight or flight chemical cock hailed that's brewing inside you.
Speaker 1: Those are just a couple of ways to shred those
Speaker 1: paper tigers. All right, let's call the robot over here
Speaker 1: and get some quick listener mail. Alright, the two that
Speaker 1: come to us today here These are actual, actually Facebook messages.
Speaker 1: The first one comes from anonymous anonymous right sentences, Hello,
Speaker 1: Robert and Julie. I love your podcast. I like to
Speaker 1: share with you a response to your regurgitation celebration podcast.
Speaker 1: It really helped me accept that vomiting is a natural
Speaker 1: part of life and can actually be beneficial depending on
Speaker 1: the circumstances. Unfortunately, vomiting for me is maladaptive. I have
Speaker 1: panic disorder and o c D, and I inevitably vomit
Speaker 1: in response to a panic attack. My panic attacks are
Speaker 1: only perpetuated by the fear of vomiting in public. As
Speaker 1: a result, I obsess about vomiting of the day. Cognitive
Speaker 1: behavioral therapy has helped me manage the disorders. I just
Speaker 1: wanted to drop you all align and let you know
Speaker 1: that your regurgitation episode has given me a new outlook
Speaker 1: on vomiting and makes me feel less alone when I
Speaker 1: do vomit from a panic attack. Sincerely, Anonymous. Well, that's
Speaker 1: that's really good to hear, you know, to to whatever extent,
Speaker 1: you know, any of the information that that we share
Speaker 1: through the podcast, can you know, provide individuals with you know,
Speaker 1: slightly different you know, hopefully more positive outlook on the body,
Speaker 1: on their behavior, on the world around them, because regretation
Speaker 1: is really, at the end of the day, a defense system, right,
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's gone a little bit of a rye
Speaker 1: in that case, but to know that it is a
Speaker 1: defense system is is I think comforting. Yeah. I feel
Speaker 1: like when I was younger, I definitely, you know, I
Speaker 1: was just scared of vomiting. I was just like it
Speaker 1: would just freak me out. But then the last the
Speaker 1: last time or two that I got really sick, I
Speaker 1: I realized this is going to happen and probably feel
Speaker 1: better for it. It's going to be disgusting, but I'm
Speaker 1: gonna feel better. And it's you know, my body wants
Speaker 1: to vomit, so I should want to vomit. So there
Speaker 1: you go. It's kind of long, but I think it
Speaker 1: would work. We also heard from a listener by the
Speaker 1: name of Andrew. Andrew Wrightson and says love the show.
Speaker 1: Have you guys done a show on the pulsebo Effet,
Speaker 1: I'd like to hear your take on the topic. Keep
Speaker 1: up the great work. And yes, we did do an
Speaker 1: episode in the Placebo Effect titled The Placebo Effect colon
Speaker 1: Brain over Pain, and that was published in two thousand eleven.
Speaker 1: But but if you go to the RSS page for
Speaker 1: our podcast, you can find it there in the list. Uh.
Speaker 1: And if you want to find that RSS link, it's
Speaker 1: always at the bottom of any blood post that we
Speaker 1: put up about the episode, so I just look for
Speaker 1: it there. But yeah, that was a cool episode, you know. Uh,
Speaker 1: speaking of paper tigers and stress. Sometimes I think about
Speaker 1: that instance. Um, And I don't know if we covered
Speaker 1: it specifically in that episode the Placebo one, but I
Speaker 1: think about the person who was taking who was in
Speaker 1: a drug trial and they were taking the placebo, but
Speaker 1: they knew about the side effects, and they had taken
Speaker 1: those side effects us to hurt so much so that
Speaker 1: they ended up at the emergency room in horrible health
Speaker 1: because their body began to shut down. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: think it's just so powerful that the you know that
Speaker 1: the brain the mind over matter. Yeah, I mean with
Speaker 1: the paper tigers, you end up almost feeling the possible
Speaker 1: negative outcome to whatever you're doing. If you start thinking
Speaker 1: about how did I send that email out to the
Speaker 1: entire company or just to my friend? Do you really
Speaker 1: start experiencing the reality. But like physically of having sent
Speaker 1: that out to all these people, you start putting yourself
Speaker 1: in a virtual fear environment in your own mind. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and just like this little death that you begin to experience,
Speaker 1: I think you're experiencing yah, and not the good kind.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that was another episode. So hey, if you
Speaker 1: guys would like to reach out to us and uh
Speaker 1: share some thoughts on this or other topics, we'd love
Speaker 1: to hear from you. What are your paper tigers, um,
Speaker 1: and then how to what extent have you been able
Speaker 1: to defeat them? Let us know. You can find us
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Speaker 1: to blow your mind on both of those. You can
Speaker 1: find us on Twitter where our handles blow the mind,
Speaker 1: and you can also drop us a line at below
Speaker 1: of the mind at Discovery dot com. For more on
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