Something You Should Know - How Music Can Actually Heal You & The Skills Technology Is Stealing - SYSK Choice

Starting point is 00:00:01 Whether life serves you an ace or an unexpected backhand, the high-protein yogurt, Oikos Pro, is there to feed your strength and help you turn every challenge into a smash. Oikos Pro helps build strong muscles and support muscle recovery with high protein and contains no added sugar because true strength isn't about being able to take the hits. It's about being able to bounce back. Oikos Pro Feed your strength. Visit oikos.ca for more details.

Starting point is 00:00:28 Today on something you should know, how a full moon messes up a lot of people's sleep. Then, can listening to music be good for your health? Yes, in fact, it can treat some illnesses. Which ones? Well, colds, flu, infections of the immune system, we find that listening to relaxing music is as effective as taking a statin for lowering blood pressure. There's now evidence that listening to music that's pleasurable actually boosts your immune system. Also, why it's important to know when your brain is working at its peak and what to do when it is.

Starting point is 00:01:07 And technology has robbed us of some basic skills like reading a map. Many people can't because they use GPS. Suddenly if you don't have GPS, you don't know where to go. And it's been proven that actually can be a degrading in our cognitive abilities if we don't naturally navigate in the ways that we used to. All this today on something you should know. This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, everything else follows.

Starting point is 00:01:38 Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales, using automation, analytics, and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result? Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. Learn more at Accenture.com slash Spotify. Something You Should Know. Fascinating Intel, the world's top experts, and practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers.

Starting point is 00:02:16 Hi, welcome. A lot of good stuff today on this episode of Something You Should Know. And we're going to start with the full moon. Did you know that I didn't know this, that people tend to sleep less around the time of a full moon? Scientists aren't exactly sure why the moon might affect sleep. Maybe the light from the full moon affects the body's internal clock and its production of melatonin, which is a hormone that promotes sleep, or maybe just the light from the moon makes it harder to fall asleep. Regardless of the reason, here's what researchers have found.

Starting point is 00:02:52 A study of three different societies in Argentina and America found that people fell asleep later and slept less on night. with more moonlight, usually caused by a full moon. Another study found that people woke up more during the night when the moon was full, reducing overall sleep by 25 minutes. Another study found that people had lower quality of sleep during a full moon. And one other study found that on average, people slept 20 minutes less, took five extra minutes to fall asleep,

Starting point is 00:03:25 and had 30% less deep sleep during a full moon. and that is something you should know. You have most likely heard something about the healing power of music. And certainly music can be soothing, calming, pleasant, relaxing, distressing. But healing, as in helping with illness, that seems like it might be a bit of a stretch. Well, Dan Leviton has delved deep into this topic. Dan is a neuroscientist and author of several popular books.

Starting point is 00:03:59 He's been a guest here a few times before, and his latest book is called, I Heard, There Was a Secret Chord, Music as Medicine. Hi, Dan, welcome back. It's so great to be back with you, Mike. So the idea of music and healing, music and health, I mean, people have been talking about it, I guess, for a long time. But is there anything to it? Is there any real science that says that music can heal illness? The idea has been around for at least 20,000 years. We had shamans and faith healers using music,

Starting point is 00:04:37 but the part of it that's new is that we now have scientific evidence for it. I would say in the last 10 years, really a significant and rigorous body of evidence has emerged that shows that music really can help treat a variety of illnesses and health outcomes. So what does that look like? Because it can't be that, well, you don't need to take your medicine, you just need to listen to some music and you'll be all better. So it can't be that. So what does it look like to have music treat an illness?

Starting point is 00:05:13 It's a bunch of different things, Mike. So I'll start with an easy one, which is Parkinson's disease. People with Parkinson's often at some point are unable to walk. They'll either freeze while they're walking or they won't be able to get started. or once they get started it turns into a kind of a run and they can't slow down. Why would that happen? Well, we now understand that the disease causes degradation of circuits in the brain that are responsible for maintaining steady movement, a gate, a steady gate.

Starting point is 00:05:47 And with that degradation, we can't self-regulate our walking. But if we play someone with Parkinson's music at the tempo of their gate, then neurons can synchronize to that tempo and they can walk smoothly even after the music has stopped playing because they have the memory of the entrainment of it. Wow, that's pretty cool. I think that's pretty amazing. Now, you know, Parkinson's is a somewhat rare disease. So I started with that one because it's an easy one to visualize. But harder to visualize is that there's now evidence that listening to music that's pleasurable actually boosts your immune system. Hard to visualize unless we get deep down into brain chemistry, but the pleasurable music kicks

Starting point is 00:06:35 off a cascade of neurochemical responses in your brain that ultimately end up increasing the production of immunoglobulin A, IGA, which helps to fight off infections of the mucosal system, such as COVID, and it can boost natural killer cells and T cells which travel to the site of an infection. And so when we talk about things like that, One of the issues are things that gets muddy for me is, like, how much better and how much music to make it that much better? Because is it one song and you're good to go or you've got to listen to music for 15 years every day for four hours and we'll see a little improvement or somewhere in between? This is one of the things I like about talking with you because you've jumped ahead up a few levels.

Starting point is 00:07:25 This is what we've been talking about in the field. I've been working with Francis Collins in the White House Science Office and with the National Institutes of Health on this for many years. And the question we're asking in other terms to rephrase what you said is, what is the dose. If music is medicine, what is the dose of it? How much do I need? And for how long? And we don't really know because it varies by person and it varies by ailment just the way drugs do. How many aspirins do you take?

Starting point is 00:07:56 How long do you take an antibiotic? varies. And so if we're going to talk about music as medicine, yeah, we need to nail that down. We're working on that part. But in the case of the Parkinson's, listening to music for just five or ten minutes, it seems, will promote walking ability for another ten minutes after the music stops. Is you talking about immune system? My guess, and here I want to make a distinction between what I'm speculating on and what the science says. So we've amassed thousands of papers in the last few years in peer review journals. And so we know that music promotes immune system function. We don't know how much. But I would speculate that listening to music for maybe 20 or 30 minutes,

Starting point is 00:08:46 if you allow yourself to immerse yourself in it, that can show immediate results. So I'm going to get really specific, not go too deep into it. detail on each, but just like a shopping list of things we know that science says, things we know that music helps as far as health goes. Well, cold flu, infections of the immune system, it's good for arterial dilation. We find that listening to relaxing music is as effective as taking a statin for lowering blood pressure. Pain.

Starting point is 00:09:20 Music is well known to produce opioids in the brain. So normally we treat pain, either chronic or acute pain, by giving you aspirin or opioids or a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory. Music has been shown to be just as effective in many cases, particularly relaxing music, music that you like. And my lab was the first, my lab at McGill was the first to discover that it's the brain's own opioids, the brain's producing opioids in response to music that help give this analgesic effect. So you had mentioned that, you know, listening to pleasurable music, I think, was the term you used. But is there any indication that specific kinds of music do anything different than any other kind of music? You know, we heard the thing about, you know, play classical music to babies and they'll be smarter or whatever that was.

Starting point is 00:10:20 But are there any indications that specific music, whether you like it or not, are good? That's a great question. And it's one of the most investigated questions. That whole Mozart makes you smarter thing has been thoroughly debunked. Was it debunked by very smart people who don't like Mozart? It was debunked by very smart people who asked the question, why Mozart? Why not Beethoven? Why not Puccini? And in replications of the... attempted replications of the study, it turned out the original study didn't have a suitable control group. They either played Mozart to people in a room that had nice, bright light coming into it, or they had a bunch of people sitting a room with no natural light, no windows

Starting point is 00:11:10 and nothing to do. And it turned out Mozart didn't make you smarter, but being stuck in a dank, dark room made you dumber, at least temporarily. But I think there is this sort of elitist view that classical music is somehow better for you and the answer seems to be decisively it's better for you if you like it but um rock and roll country new age music um music of the suffice indian raga's chinese opera heavy metal hip hip hop jazz it it doesn't matter because our musical tastes are so subjective It comes down to whether it's creating pleasurable feelings in you. And that's a matter of your own personal history. As my grandpa used to say, if we all like the same things,

Starting point is 00:12:06 everybody would want to get with your grandma. And thank goodness for her, that that's not true. Is there any evidence or any reason to believe that listening to music is good for you in the sense that a good diet is good for you, that exercise is good for you, that it's just overall healthy? Yes, I would say so. Now, there's a caveat, Mike, which is that about 10% of the population we estimate

Starting point is 00:12:34 don't like music and they don't understand what all the fuss is about. But for the other 90% of us, as Nietzsche said, life without music would be a mistake. I think the most powerful evidence for it improving our life satisfaction comes from the recent work by Vinod Menon, a colleague of mine at Stanford, who discovered something called the default mode network in the brain.

Starting point is 00:13:03 And this is one of the biggest discoveries of the last 30 years. And the best way to describe it is if you've ever been reading a book and suddenly you noticed your eyes have been following the page, but you haven't really registered what you've been reading, or if you're trying to engage in some activity and your mind starts to wander, that is the default mode of the brain, mind wandering. It's when you are not in control of your thoughts. It's something like a dreaming state or a daydreaming state. And we have to exert a force of will to pay attention to things. It requires more neural resources to do that than to let your mind

Starting point is 00:13:44 wander. And mind wandering is a very healthy place to be. It's where a lot of problems get solved. It's where your brain kind of hits a reset button. So after you've been working diligently for an hour or two, either at your job or concentrating on something, your brain is telling you you need a break. And rather than grabbing another cup of coffee, which is actually counterproductive, what we should do is just let our brains wander. Maybe for 15 minutes. And there are a number of ways to get into that default mode. One is to walk in nature, another is to meditate, but music is one of the best ways. And that's the story. We're talking about the healing power of music. My guest is neuroscientist Dan Levitton. He's author of a book called

Starting point is 00:14:34 I Hear There Was a Secret Chord. Music as Medicine. At Desjardin Insurance, we know that when you own a nail salon, everything needs to be perfect. from tip to toe. That's why our agents go the extra mile to understand your business and provide tailored solutions for all its unique needs. You put your heart into your company, so we put our heart into making sure it's protected. Get insurance that's really big on care. Find an agent today at Dejardin.com slash business coverage. When Westcham first took flight in 1996, the vibes were a bit different. People thought denim on denim was peak fashion, inline skates were everywhere, and two out of three women

Starting point is 00:15:18 the Rachel. While those things stayed in the 90s, one thing that hasn't is that fuzzy feeling you get when WestJet welcomes you on board. Here's to WestJetting since 96. Travel back in time with us and actually travel with us at westjet.com slash 30 years. So Dan, when you listen to music, I don't listen to music the same all the time. Sometimes I'm listening, listening. Other times it's just in the background playing and I'm not really paying attention. I hear it, but I'm not really listening. There are different levels of music listening. Does that affect the effects of music as medicine? Very much so. So I make a distinction between music as, you know, background music, which is like sonic wallpaper and intentional listening. So maybe it's like you're in an art gallery,

Starting point is 00:16:10 a museum, and there's wallpaper there and there are paintings. And you, some of the paintings you just sort of walk by, but one of them attracts your interest. And you stand there and you stare at it for a while. You are immersed now in the experience of engaging with the painting in some fashion. You didn't engage with the other paintings. You didn't engage with the wallpaper. And the engagement is where the results come. Now, the fun thing about music is sometimes it'll be on in the background and you won't really be attending to it, but some song or piece will come on and it'll grab you. And suddenly you're dancing or you're asking the people around you to be quiet because it's caught your attention. And that kind of immersion is where the healthful qualities come in.

Starting point is 00:16:54 Is there any reason to believe that music from a particular era of my life, maybe my teens or 20s, has particular significance as it relates to what we're talking about? The music of our teens holds a special place in our memories because of the way the brain develops. From the ages of, you know, zero to 14 or so, the primary mission of the brain is to take in as much new information as possible. And then starting at 14, the primary mission of the brain shifts to pruning out unneeded and unnecessary connections. And it doesn't mean you can't learn anything new, but the stuff that gets in there in those early years, that first decade and a half holds a privileged position.

Starting point is 00:17:45 And it's not a hard stop at age 14, but most people say that the music they heard between, say, 12 and 20 is the music that they remember best and they like best. And we find in Alzheimer's patients and other patients with dementia, who have advanced cases where they no longer recognized a loved one, they don't know what day it is, they don't know where they are, they still remember the songs from that period of, say, 12 to 20, they're teen years. They remember the lyrics. They can sing along as though it was yesterday.

Starting point is 00:18:19 And that music, if we haven't overplayed it so that we become into it, it can still spark real feelings of centeredness and warmth and reconnect us with ourselves, the thread of our lives. I want to ask you about music and your mental state. I imagine there's a connection there, but it's probably more involved than just, you know, sad songs make you sad and happy songs that you like make you happy. It really is, and it's so interesting. Usually when somebody's depressed, in some sense they're feeling misunderstood or aggrieved or hurt.

Starting point is 00:19:04 and if you play somebody with depression a sad song that's actually more powerful than playing them a happy song a happy song a depression depressive depressed person hears the happy song and they think well that's somebody else who doesn't understand me yeah I'm not feeling that way at all you put on the right sad song and within just a few notes if you're depressed you feel like oh that person who's performing or who wrote that song they get me That's how I feel.

Starting point is 00:19:35 And I can't put it into words, but that song is speaking to me and to how I feel. And we begin to realize, oh, well, there's somebody sitting at the edge of the abyss with me, and they've been through this. And they came out the other side and turned it into a beautiful work of art. That's a powerful cure. What makes a sad song sad? Well, obviously lyrics can make a sad song sad, but they're instruments. music that I hear, and somehow it just sounds sad, but there's nothing, you know, objectively

Starting point is 00:20:11 sad about it. It's just music, but it's a sad song. To begin with, it's cultural. So what we find sad is not universally sad. And we've now had intrepid musicologists and cognitive scientists go to faraway corners of the world and play them Mozart and play them other kinds of things. and we've brought their music back, and the emotions are cultural. We grew up, for example, in our culture, experiencing minor chords is sad. The Klesmer tradition doesn't. In Klesmer music, minor chords are happy, but they've been associated with sad movie scenes or sad stories, and it's not just minor chords.

Starting point is 00:20:55 It's the intervals, the scales, the tempo for sad songs, to be slower. The notes tend to move in a stepwise fashion, which might be a metaphor for taking small, slow steps, as you might if you were unhappy, versus running, which you might only do if you're happy or frightened. So it's embedded in our culture, and we grew up with these associations. And composers play on that. They write sad music with an intentionality that. it will be sad, but the beauty of music that gets to its healing power is that unlike language where I might use the word sad and it means one thing to you, a sad song can evoke a whole variety of emotions.

Starting point is 00:21:49 Sadness, loss, triumph, hope, jealousy, rage, a bittersweet feeling. Music, because it has ambiguity that language doesn't have, words tend to mean just one or two things. Music can mean anything to us in the moment, and we can project ourselves onto the song and allow it to evoke in us things we can't put into words. You had mentioned, well, you had mentioned,

Starting point is 00:22:29 I think, did you say 10% of people don't look? like music? Yeah. That surprises me. I mean, that's as many people as there are left-handed people. That's a huge number of people that just don't like it. Like, do they dislike it or they just have, they're just ambivalent about it? I'd say within the 10% there are people who don't like it.

Starting point is 00:22:51 10%. There are people who don't like it, people who don't get it, who don't understand it, who don't understand why we spend so much money and time on it. It really falls out as a necessary condition of Darwinian theory, which is that we have to have genetic variation without dissent with modification, as Darwin put it. We could all succumb to the same virus. And so the genome is constantly mutating. And with that, you get a bunch of mutations that carry no observable effects, but other. that, you know, might make somebody not like chocolate.

Starting point is 00:23:35 Or, you know, there are people who don't like sex and there are people who don't like music. It just, that's the way it is. So is there a prescription in all of this or is it simply music is good for you, play a lot of music you like and that's better than not? I mean, or is there some prescription you can give? I think there are some prescriptions. and the prescriptions are not precise yet. We're working on it. So with something like Parkinson's, depression, relaxation, I think we're, yeah, we can write a prescription.

Starting point is 00:24:10 Listen to these songs for 20 minutes and you'll feel better and do it for 20 minutes every day. For productivity, setting aside disease. For productivity, take a break from work every hour and a half or so. Listen to music you like for 15 minutes. Allow your mind to wander. And some music is better for that than others. But I can't say hip-hop is bad. It's good for people who love hip-hop

Starting point is 00:24:34 and who find that hip-hop can lead to a transcendent experience. 17% of people in a survey I conducted said that they can reach a transcendent experience listening to hip-hop. And I more commonly would have thought of that coming from Miles Davis or Bill Evans or Mozart or Joni Mitchell, but to each his own. I would say, yes, to summarize, I would say it's best worked out for things like Parkinson's,

Starting point is 00:25:02 relaxation, and depression, and productivity at work. So if listening to music you like is good for you, is listening to music you don't like bad for you? When we do surveys, one of the things that people cite as a major annoyance of urban life is unwanted music piped into public places like elevators and train stations and such. That does lead to a physiological neurochemical reaction. Our brain secretes cortisol, the stress hormone, the same thing that would be secreted if a tiger approached you. So, yeah, music you don't like is bad.

Starting point is 00:25:44 Well, as you say, most people like music, but my sense is people think it's fairly benign that it's nice. That's it, it's nice. doesn't affect you in the ways you're talking about, so this is really important to hear. I've been talking to Dan Leviton. He is a neuroscientist and author of the book, I heard there was a secret chord. Music is medicine. And there's a link to his book in the show notes. Thanks, Dan. Always a pleasure. This is very kind of you to have me back and thank you. Right now, for a limited time, everyone's part of the Buick team, even you.

Starting point is 00:26:18 Buick's employee pricing for you event is on now. Get a purchase credit. of up to $3,168 on a 2026 Buick Envision. Surround yourself with signature Buick refinement from an available massaging driver's seat to an expansive panoramic moonroof and a stunning ultra-wide 30-inch diagonal screen. Don't miss Buick's employee pricing for you event. Visit buick.ca for more details.

Starting point is 00:26:44 When you're a mid-sized business, you need every competitive advantage you can get, like an AI solution that works for you, not against you. SAP Grow is built with AI embedded at its core, working across every system, and it's ready to go from day one so you can hit the ground running. Bring it with SAP Grow, AI Cloud ERP for any size business. Technology is great in so many ways, but there's always a price to pay. Things we used to do that now machines do require a certain level of human skill, and now it doesn't.

Starting point is 00:27:24 Quick example, using a map to find your way somewhere. A lot of people today really don't know how to use a map because we have GPS. Technology, in some sense, makes us lazy. It does the work for us. And so what are the consequences of that? Should we be concerned? Let's take a look with my guest, Graham Lee. He is author of a book called Human Being, Reclaim 12 Vital Skills We're Losing to Technology.

Starting point is 00:27:52 Hi, Graham, welcome to something you should know. Thanks, Mike. Thanks for having me. So I'd like to jump right in and discuss one of the skills that you talk about, which is navigation, the ability to find our way from point A to point B. We're losing that ability because we don't need it in the sense that we have GPS on our phones and our cars. So we don't need it. So we don't use it. But since we don't need it, so what?

Starting point is 00:28:20 because we don't need it. I guess that could be said with practically any ability or skill that if a computer can begin to do it for you, then so what? But the question becomes, well, if you're not doing it yourself, what are you losing? And navigation is a great example of it because the way we navigate naturally relies on our memory,

Starting point is 00:28:48 our ability to closely attend to the world around us and get a sense of place and belonging in particular. But there's key mental attributes and abilities that we develop very closely and very ably when we navigate and try and find a way through places that we travel through. And when we stop doing that, it can impinge, first of all,

Starting point is 00:29:16 when you're not connected to a device, Suddenly, if you don't have GPS, you don't know where to go. So obviously, that's one loss. The way this can roll out to other aspects of your life where your memory abilities can be impacted, and it's been proven that actually can be a degrading in our cognitive abilities in many ways if we don't naturally navigate in the ways that we used to. But that's also a good example of people probably understand what you just said, and it makes all the sense in the world.

Starting point is 00:29:48 But what are you going to do? I mean, I'm not going to go to the airport and not use GPS because what if there's an accident? What if the traffic's tied up? So I'm going to do it. And so it seems like there may be a price to pay, but I don't see anybody going back to the old way. I mean, absolutely.

Starting point is 00:30:06 There's certain journeys where I would use GPS and I'd switch on Google Maps or whatever it might be. But there's many other journeys where you just don't need it. there can be a habit where you repetitively put in the same function, the same zip code or address just because there haven't been the attention or the effort to memorize a route. But if you step back and do that less, you give yourself time to actually attend and learn. One method is the one trip pony rule. So when you're going somewhere new, set the GPS on your route there,

Starting point is 00:30:43 but don't on the way back. And if you know that's coming up, actually you're more alert, and it's quite interesting how you will be attending to street signs and following and looking for clues, knowing that you're going to have to rely on that when you head home. And the other is when you're out and walks

Starting point is 00:30:59 and heading around the city, enjoy just getting lost a little and trying to connect things together and finding new parts of town. It's something that can be really enjoyable and something that increasingly you take a lot from. I want to talk about, writing because for me anyway and from what I see because of being online so much

Starting point is 00:31:20 it seems like people are writing more than ever texts emails then then I mean I certainly am writing more than I used to 20 years ago so what so what's the problem so with writing specifically I actually looked at the physicality of writing and what I look into is some of the most latest research that have has uncovered that when we write by hand, that physicality draws a lot more of ourself into it. So it becomes we can recall more. It's, we can be more creative when you're sketching notes on a page, even doodling.

Starting point is 00:32:01 There's a way to sort of free up your thinking. So it's not linear instead of just going, you know, ever left to write down the page. There's more of a freedom to connect. and draw different ideas out. So I look at that more actually in writing, how handwriting has been lost as an ability and how increasingly we're pulled into just typing it to screen. But the actual physical movement of that is so sparse,

Starting point is 00:32:30 even if you just compare it to writing on a piece of paper. My brother's wife actually pointed out to me who just had her second child that a lot of mothers, if they've, after childbirth, actually sometimes can't fully handwrite. It takes time to regain strength in the abdominal muscles. We rely a lot and fluid motion across our body to do it. And that there's a physical intelligence that can flow into our written words. Let's talk about conversation.

Starting point is 00:33:02 That's another skill you say we're losing to technology. And certainly one that I see that I find really disturbing in that people have rather than have a face-to-face conversation or even a phone conversation over very serious things, that they'll do it by text. And I think, God, really? Yeah, well, digital, I'd say, has stripped out a lot of the richness and variety of face-to-face physical conversation. And there's a spectrum through which this can happen. So you've got text, SMS text, moving to WhatsApp messages with emojis, moving to email, and eventually progressing to video calls.

Starting point is 00:33:50 But, I mean, even with a video call, it's quite clear that a huge amount of detail and intricacy goes missing. So straight away, there's a loss in terms of understanding what someone's fully trying to get across. when you meet with someone, the actual physical gestures they're using to explain their thoughts. And also to almost people gesture to almost handle their faults. It helps them articulate more clearly what they're trying to get across. That is self-evident and they're right in front of you. Facial expressions, if you can compare them to emojis, which are obviously a very simple cartoon version, our facial expressions

Starting point is 00:34:35 we supposedly have about 10,000 different facial expressions that we draw upon very quickly and fluidly but we have almost micro expressions with their terms micro expressions which in the split second just spark across our face

Starting point is 00:34:50 and as someone in conversation you can spot these and they give you early warning of someone feeling ungrounded on a topic or unsettled unhappy and people will steer and navigate their conversation to draw a common ground and then there's more opportunity for empathy.

Starting point is 00:35:11 So there's naturally a difference between physical conversation and the different types of communication we have online. The more you do that, the more you meet in person, the more you can become aware of your own gestures and facial expressions and aware of other peoples and begin to gain a little bit more control of your communication abilities and it's a steady skill that you can gain over time, but equally lose. Well, one of the things that I've noticed that I find troubling is how many people will now have very serious conversations in text form rather than even the phone would be better,

Starting point is 00:35:53 face-to-face would be even better. But there's so much room for misinterpretation, misunderstanding in a sense. serious, very, you know, weighty conversation. And I don't see why people do it. But I know people who will only have conversations like that. I mean, I think there definitely, there can be an inclination to avoid difficult encounters. I think we all have that. Yeah. So you can see how that can lead someone down the line to send a text and get drawn into a text. conversation or over email, even in the knowledge that they instinctively know it's probably not the best route.

Starting point is 00:36:38 And secondly, the more we don't meet face to face, the more uncomfortable we become. So there's a shyness and an inability and an awkwardness that can develop which sends us increasingly down these easier paths. But unfortunately, then more and more gets lost. And as you say, there's more potential for misunderstanding. and, yeah, negative results to come from it. One of the best examples is jumping on, sending texts or emails when you're angry. You know, really it's probably the worst medium for something like that.

Starting point is 00:37:14 But it's there, it's quick, it's easy, and very easily happens. We recently did a segment in a very recent episode about solitude, about spending time alone. One thing we didn't talk about, but we could talk about with you, because it's one of the skills you think we've lost or we are losing is the ability to be with ourselves, to be alone. And I see this all the time. How can you not? When you see someone who for just moments is left alone, they whip out their phone and they start, you know, whatever they do, scrolling, Facebook, whatever they're doing. But it seems very hard today for people to just sit and be with themselves.

Starting point is 00:37:57 If you consider before the days of any form of electronic media, whether it's TV or telephones, whatever it might be, naturally that was the case. So people, I think, had a more natural comfort in living in their own skin, in being within their own thoughts. In comparison to today, where it's very easy, whenever you feel that sort of initial uncomfortable feeling of boredom, or there's a gap in your schedule, a gap in your time. There's very much an inclination to reach for your phone or switch the TV on or go to your laptop. But actually those are the moments that if you stay with it that can actually be very forming for you as a person. And yeah, you touched on just being, that notion of stopping and just existing a little and beginning to spot your internal state, the way that thoughts form. in your mind. And over time, the more you do that, there can be an increasing ability to

Starting point is 00:39:03 take control of your thoughts a bit more, become increasingly your own person, and be less swayed by external drivers, such as the various motivations and temptations that we find online. So how does the digital world affect your dreaming? I haven't heard this before, so I'm anxious to hear what you have to say about that. Yeah, this probably was the most interesting of all the topics that I've researched. And to, I suppose, put it simply, an analogy I draw is if you consider, first of all, watching a TV drama episode or a film and how when you get sucked into that, how little effort you actually have to make, it's a very pleasurable experience.

Starting point is 00:39:54 and it's a great way of relaxing at the end of the day. But actually, your attention is being totally steered by that experience. You're swept away, and it can be a lovely feeling. But there's an argument that's very much like a dream. But the difference is being externally controlled. Someone clearly, or a lot of people have spent a lot of time crafting and deliberately controlling that experience for you. Then if you compare that to our natural dreams,

Starting point is 00:40:19 and when I talk about dreams, you have your deep dreams, have when you're sleeping, but also there's the idleness, those idle moments when you have solitude where you daydream. And daydreaming has been found to perform many of the same functions as R.A.M. Sleep, where you get caught up in various scenarios and you replay things in your mind or you think through challenges you're facing. And by doing it, you come to answers and you come to conclusions. And it very much is personality forming. It gives you a ground and an essence of who you are. Right.

Starting point is 00:40:57 And if your mind is constantly occupied with the creation of others, because you're watching a movie or you're watching a video or you're watching TikTok or whatever, your mind isn't able to do that, isn't able to quiet down and think the way you just described. And how much time are we spending online? How much time are we not quiet in our own head? If you look at the actual stats of how much people are at screens, even though you'd expect it to be high, it's bewilderingly high. I mean, typical adults still, even with all the screen time we now have at mobile phones and at our work, computers, laptops, tablets, people typically, I think it's three to four hours a day still consume TV viewing. And then there's everything else.

Starting point is 00:41:50 The stats become very high. and fundamentally we're spending most of our waking moments at a screen. And if you're at a screen, you're not daydreaming. So that absolutely is a change. So that's a major one. Then in terms of the actual impact of our dreams when we sleep, I think there's two parts. One, I think it's very fair to say, although I'm not sure everyone would be aware of it, that our digital experiences will fill our dreams.

Starting point is 00:42:18 That absolutely will be the case. I don't think it's a strange notion to consider. that a TV episode you've watched could make its way into your dreams as much as an experience you've had meeting a friend in a cafe. But then equally, when we wake up and just arise from our dreams, or you're in the middle of a dream, and it's sort of a lovely sort of soft feeling as you come to, that has been found to be some of our most creative moments where little thoughts will drop in an answer to a problem you've been wrestling with. Maybe it's a work issue that you had the day before.

Starting point is 00:42:52 Often those times are when ideas just emerge. But sadly, what we often do is we reach straight away for our phones. So those moments, those intermittent moments, liminal moments between sleep and our awakeness get cut short

Starting point is 00:43:08 because we reach and check out what's been going on online or what messages were missing. Right, because if you're spending that much time with electronics, even if it's not inherently bad, in and of itself, if you're online, what are you not doing? What else could you be doing that you're not doing because you're stuck in front of a screen?

Starting point is 00:43:32 Well, and you say, and one of the other skills you say we're missing is the skill of motion, because when we are stuck in a screen, there isn't a lot of motion going on. Yes. So motion for me, actually, I would say is the most critical. And funnily enough, when I talk about it, people suddenly get it. But it's the idea that really, when you're at a screen, for all intents and purposes, you practically stop moving. And whether that's a laptop, watching TV, a mobile phone, ironically. So although they're mobile, what they tend to do is make us increasingly stationary in lots of different locations whenever we pull one out.

Starting point is 00:44:18 All of those moments, the hours that were on a screen on average, I think it's like 12, 13 hours a day is very typical for people. We're stationary. And to consider what that means for our health and just the way that we're existing and being in the world in comparison to how our evolutionary past has primed us to be is very different. And if you really consider the human body, it's designed as an expert machine. to move us quickly and for long periods of time on two feet. So when we begin to not do that and sit down for very long periods of time and it'd be driven around in a car or public transport, something absolutely goes missing.

Starting point is 00:45:05 And it affects our physical health. There was a study done by the University of Cambridge in 2012 that actually cast over 100,000 people in Europe. and it found that sedentriness and lack of exercise was the main chief driver of bad health, more than smoking, alcohol or a bad diet. So it really is the worst thing you can do for your health, yet all of us are doing it. The technology we use daily draws us naturally into those habits. It's unavoidable, primarily because when you're at a screen, it directs and pulls your

Starting point is 00:45:45 attention to a level that really it's hard to have the the option of moving around and doing the things that normally we would take for granted. Probably the only the only opposite to that would actually be audio. In some ways, I do think that's why podcasts and audiobooks are increasingly becoming popular because people can get away. They can listen when they're on the move and do other things and actually can retain some of that physicality. But overall, it's something that does get lost.

Starting point is 00:46:15 So hopefully that helps explain it a little. Well, it's something I don't think people think much about this, you know, the price of technology, that when technology does for us what we used to do ourselves, there is a price to pay and it's worth thinking about it and talking about it. Graham Lee has been my guest. The name of his book is Human Being, Reclaim 12 Vital Skills We're Losing to Technology. And there's a link to that book in the show notes. It was great to have you on.

Starting point is 00:46:44 Thank you, Graham. Thanks for offering it for me to join. Really appreciate it. Your brain works best after it's rested. For most people, that means after a good night's sleep. So you most likely do your best work and your best thinking in the morning. But that peak brain performance only lasts a couple hours. After that, your brain will not perform as well until it gets more rest.

Starting point is 00:47:12 But here's the thing. You see, most of us waste a lot of that valuable, brain time, doing things like checking email, checking phone messages, instead of tackling the tough stuff. Brain researcher David Rock says you'll be more efficient and do better work if you get right to the important tasks first thing in the morning. Leave the email and voicemail and other more mundane things until later. And that is something you should know. People ask me, I love your podcast, how can we support it? And really the best way to support this podcast is well, there's two things you could do. Do business with our sponsors because that really helps,

Starting point is 00:47:51 and also to share the podcast. Share it with people you know, so they too become listeners and it helps grow our audience. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to something you should know. Real Canadian Superstore has everything you need this back-to-school season. Save on lunchbox savers like Ziggy's sliced deli-meat products for always $3.75. And get life brand pure Vita shampoo or conditioner for $8 each. At Real Canadian Superstore, when you're ready, we're ready, with a whole world and more.

Starting point is 00:48:18 Hey y'all, it's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder, what if? Like, what if it doesn't hold up? That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what if. Just style you love and quality you can trust.

Starting point is 00:48:30 Visit Wayfair.ca. Wayfair, every style, every home.

Something You Should Know - How Music Can Actually Heal You & The Skills Technology Is Stealing - SYSK Choice

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.