Something You Should Know - How to Stop Your Thoughts From Ruining Your Day & How to Take Better Care of Your Skin

Episode Date: June 25, 2020

When you are in the drive-through or waiting for a train to pass, is it better to turn off your car’s engine or let it idle? This episode begins with an explanation and advice on when it becomes more efficient to turn off your car. https://slate.com/technology/2008/05/is-it-more-efficient-to-leave-your-car-idling.html You are thinking thoughts all day long. That’s what humans do – we think. Sometimes though, your thoughts get in the way. They can become toxic and ruin your day, they can mess up your perception of the world and interfere with relationships. Here to discuss how to take control of your thoughts and see them for what they really are is Andrea Bonior, PhD. Andrea is a journalist, who writes the popular "Baggage Check" advice column for the Washington Post. She serves on the faculty of Georgetown University and she is author of the book, Detox Your Thoughts: Quit Negative Self-Talk for Good and Discover the Life You've Always Wanted (https://amzn.to/2AXyPlQ). If you share a bed, how far apart do the two of you sleep? Listen as I discuss why the distance apart and the direction you face while in bed may say a lot about the state of your relationship. http://time.com/64966/what-your-sleeping-position-says-about-your-relationship/  Do you take good care of your skin? What are the most important things to do – or not do - to keep your skin healthy and looking good? Monty Lyman, M.D., is a doctor in at Oxford University and author of the book The Remarkable Life of the Skin (https://amzn.to/3dnvcD0). He joins me to explain the latest research and best practices to take care of your skin and keep it looking young. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Why does that happen? So a lot of times what we do is we become one with our thoughts right which sort of sounds like a good thing in a way but in reality we've got to disempower our thoughts because when we become one with our thoughts we start to give them so much power we start to assume that they're automatically true then if you share a bed how far apart do the two of you sleep? I'll tell you why it matters and how to take care of your skin and prevent it from aging. But essentially when it comes to slowing down aging, by

far the most effective thing is sunscreen. UVA, one of the wavelengths of ultraviolet, is the greatest contributor to aging, more than all the other factors combined. All this today on Something You Should Know. People who listen to Something You Should Know are curious about the world, looking to hear new ideas and perspectives. So I want to tell you about a podcast that is full of new ideas and perspectives, and one I've started listening to called Intelligence Squared.

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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. Hi, welcome to Something You Should Know. advice you can use in your life today something you should know with mike carothers hi welcome to something you should know you've probably been enjoying the low gas prices we've had over the last several months i know i have on the extremely few occasions that i've ever gone down to fill up my gas tank but we we will start driving more. We are starting to drive more.

And soon gas prices will go up and you'll be concerned again about the price of gas, which may make you wonder that if you're stopping your car for a minute or perhaps waiting for a train at a crossing, is it worth shutting off your engine? Or should you just let it idle? A lot of people believe that starting your engine uses a lot of gas, so it's should you just let it idle? A lot of people believe that starting

your engine uses a lot of gas, so it's best to just let it idle. But it turns out that thinking applies to older cars with carburetors. Today's fuel-injected engines make that advice obsolete. The American Society of Mechanical Engineers conducted a field test, and they concluded that restarting a six-cylinder engine with the air conditioner switched on uses as much gas as idling the same car for just six seconds. So, the recommendation is, if you're going to be stopped for more than ten seconds, it is actually more fuel-efficient to turn off the engine.

The one big exception is if you're in street traffic, like at a traffic light. It is illegal in many states to kill the engine while in traffic, and it is a big safety hazard. And that is something you should know. If you were to actually notice and pay attention to your thoughts and the things you tell yourself all day long, you would probably be surprised, and not in a good way. Most of us have a pretty negative, self-critical monologue going on in our head, which does us absolutely no good.

We talk to ourselves in ways we would never talk to someone else. We often assume the worst, even without any reason to do so. It's just what we do. And here to help you stop doing that is Dr. Andrea Bonior. She is a journalist who writes the popular Baggage Check Advice column for the Washington Post. She's written for BuzzFeed, Psychology Today, and other prominent publications, and she serves on the faculty of Georgetown University. She's also author of the book, Detox Your Thoughts,

Quit Negative Self-Talk for Good and Discover the Life You've Always Wanted. Hi, Andrea. Welcome to Something You Should Know. Hi, thanks for having me. So this idea of detoxing your thoughts implies that they're toxed. So why are they toxed? Why are we all walking around thinking so much negative, toxic things? So it's really interesting. What we're really learning about negative thoughts is that it's not the fact that they're negative that makes them toxic.

It's the fact that they stick. So depression and anxiety aren't necessarily caused by negative thinking. They're caused by those thinking patterns becoming sticky where they're perpetuated over and over again. So a lot of us have negative thoughts and we've learned to just let them pass. We have a different internal dialogue with ourselves where we don't empower those thoughts. And that's what's important to try to learn to do. If you are used to having really negative thinking that sticks, you've got to learn to relate to your thoughts in a different way. And when you say sticky, do you mean like sometimes something bad will happen and I'll have that thought of, you know, this has ruined everything.

And it hasn't ruined everything. It just seems that way for the moment that everything's ruined, but it's not. Exactly. That's a classic all or none thinking pattern. We tend to do that. You know, if something goes a little bit wrong, then all is lost. And that's one of the ways those thinking patterns can become sticky because we just get in this automatic habit of oversimplifying the negativity to catastrophize, basically. So, something small happens, and instead of being able to zoom out and see it for what it is, we feel like everything has been ruined, everything has been lost. So

when thoughts become sticky, the problem is they just perpetuate themselves because we fall into these habits. And our pathways, even neurophysiologically, become ingrained that way. But the good news is we can climb out of that by starting new pathways. You said that my example was one way. Can you talk about the other ways that this toxic thinking affects us? Yeah. So a lot of times what we do is we become one with our thoughts, right? Which sort of sounds like a good thing in a way. I think in American culture, we think, oh, you know, I think therefore I am, or think positive, or, you know, it's all about how we visualize things. But in reality, we've got to disempower our thoughts,

because when we become one with our thoughts, we start to give them so much power. We start to assume that they're automatically true, and we start to assume that our thoughts really represent us. And so the people who have the healthiest relationships with their thoughts have learned to step outside of them as observers. And this is part of mindfulness too, to be able to say, I'm having the thought that all is lost, or I'm having the

thought that this party is a disaster, or I'm having the thought that I'm going to screw up at work, rather than just automatically absorbing, I'm going to screw up at work, this party is a disaster. They're able to label that thought as just being an observer, and they can be curious about it and nonjudgmental about it. And then they can watch it pass in a different way because they're not getting into a fight with it. They're not automatically assuming that it's true to the point where they have to then go back and forth, sort of challenging it, which takes a lot of energy and usually just makes our anxiety worse. But I can imagine somebody who does this would say to what you just said,

but sometimes it is true. Sometimes things are a disaster. Sometimes the party gets rained on or sometimes things go wrong and it's hard not to get swept up in that. Yes, that's so true. And what we have to do then is we have to really examine the thought for what it can actually do in terms of helping us grow. So some thoughts are true. You know, I've worked with people who have health problems or who have lost somebody very close to them. And the truth is a lot of their negative, sad, anxious thoughts are true.

But what we have to do is start examining them. Are they bringing insight? Are they helping us plan? Are they giving us strength? And once we can identify the thoughts that are just repetitive, and they're not helping us plan, and they're not teaching us anything, then we can start to detach from those thoughts in the same way as we would detach from a thought that's not true. So it's a matter of recognizing that line between, okay, is this thought bringing anything new to the table? It might be true, but is it just weakening me?

Is it just exhausting me as I think about it? Or is it actually allowing me to make a plan? And if it's allowing me to make a plan, let me work on making that plan. But otherwise, I'm going to be able to sort of disempower that thought and say, you know, I've heard this song before. I know that it's true, but I need to actually let it pass because it's not going to help me grow. To which someone might say, well, boy, that's easy for her to say. It's so easy for her to sit, you know, and talk about it so dispassionately. But in the moment, if you've been doing that all your life, it's very hard to step back and go, well, let's see if this is really contributing to my growth.

And it just doesn't work that way. Yeah, it's not automatic. And that's why the good news is we've got a ton of data that has given us a lot of different tools. And as a clinical psychologist, I've seen, you know, okay, what works for this person doesn't work for someone else. And there are all different types of tools, and they all do take practice, but a lot of them really involve relating to your thoughts differently in that moment. And so what feels so unnatural at first, and what feels so difficult to automatically do, it takes practice. But over time, that becomes the new habit. So for some people,

that involves visualization, for instance. Okay, I see my worry cloud coming. I know this is my dark, anxious, ruminating cloud. I feel it in my body. I'm going to identify it and I'm going to slow down my breathing and breathe through it. And they can learn to recognize in the moment and detach from it. Even though when they first would have tried to just talk themselves out of the thought, they would have had no chance at doing that. So it does take practice. I remember someone saying, maybe it was an interview or just in a conversation, someone saying, if you talk to other people the way you talk to yourself, you would have no friends because we beat ourselves up. We are so unforgiving. We are so assuming the worst in ways that we would never do with someone else.

That is so true. And it's especially true for young women in terms of body image. You know, when I've worked with women with eating disorders, I always tell them, imagine telling your friend about their body, what you're telling yourself all the time about yours. But that speaks very well to a technique that can also be helpful, which is called self distancing. So again, it's this idea of stepping aside from your thoughts as an observer. And some people will actually do this in the third person, and it sounds totally hokey, but it really does help you get some objectivity. So the idea of, you know, Andrea's thinking that

she shouldn't have sent that email, and now so-and-so hates her or Andrea's thinking that this is going to be a disaster today. Getting that step away from it and literally getting into the mindset of an observer, like how you would talk to a friend, can be very helpful because we often can be so much more objective, not to mention compassionate, to a friend compared to that inner voice that we're used to beating ourselves up with. There does seem to be almost a default that humans have that you call somebody, they don't call you back, and you assume the negative. That's just the default that people assume, oh, they don't like me, I must have said something wrong, something's happened, he got a car accident. I mean, you could go through all kinds of things,

and people do, rather than just think, she hasn't had time to call me back yet. So, what is that? Is that just a natural human default or not? It is, actually. So, it has been identified. We refer to it typically as the negativity bias. And it's probably evolutionary because it helped keep us alive, really. I mean, when we were in danger of getting eaten by a predator, for instance, it behooved us to view everything as a threat, to assume the worst, to think, okay, there's some movement over there. I doubt it's my neighbor coming to say hello. I bet it's somebody going to eat me because that's going to be what I need to actually gear up for. And so it kept us alive

to assume the worst, to assume that things were more threatening than they really were. And this is actually really bad when you're sleep deprived because this overcompensates even more. Your body knows that it's not at top form. And so it errs on the side of viewing everything negatively and threatening. So that bias is there. And it's there for most of us. And if we've learned the habit of turning that inward and blaming ourselves in particular, then that's where it really starts to do damage, because we don't even recognize that we're doing this. And we might view it as an objective lens that we're looking through. And so part of detoxing your thoughts really is about learning to label and identify these lenses. None of us are completely objective. But the more we can look at

the distortions that we have, the more we can identify them as unreliable narrators because of our biases evolutionary or evolutionarily or because of just who we are and who we've become in terms of our habits, then the better we can counteract them. When you have an event like that where someone doesn't call you back and you assume the worst and then you find out that, no, it was nothing. The next time it happens, you don't learn from that last time. You do it all over again. Right. We tend to, unless we change the way that we're thinking about those thoughts in the moment. So what's beautiful about some of the newer techniques is that people really can change because they recognize that right away. They're able to say, oh, there goes my, you know, social hangover voice. For instance, I have some clients that use this concept that, you know, after a social event, they're constantly

doubting themselves, they're scrutinizing themselves, they're nitpicking everything that they said, they're wondering if they did something wrong. But they really can learn, okay, now I have a script for that. I know what my social hangover voice looks like. I know that it comes from my history of social anxiety or the fact that my parents were always really hard on me or whatever. I can step aside from it precisely because I can label it and precisely because I do know what it looks like. And I have seen it before. And I know it didn't turn out to be true. And that's the difference.

You know, so many of us just, we try to get into this talking ourselves out of it. And we go back and forth. And I've had so many clients that start out with me and they say, I know these thoughts aren't necessarily true, but they keep coming back. I need them to go away. And the key really is you don't need those thoughts to go away. You need to engage in a different way of interacting with those thoughts. And these thoughts may keep coming back, but you're not even going to notice as much anymore

because you've disempowered them from sticking. We're talking about your deep, dark, mysterious, and toxic thoughts. And we're doing so with Dr. Andrea Bonior. She's author of the book, Detox Your Thoughts, Quit Negative Self-Talk for Good and Discover the Life You've Always Wanted. Contained herein are the heresies of Rudolf punt wine. First while monk turned traveling medical investigator. Join me as I study the secrets of the divine plagues and uncover the blasphemous truth that ours is not a loving God and we are not its favorite children.

The heresies of red off punt wine, wherever podcasts are available. Since I host a podcast, it's pretty common for me to be asked to recommend a podcast. And I tell people, if you like something you should know, you're going to like The Jordan Harbinger Show. Every episode is a conversation with a fascinating guest. Of course, a lot of podcasts are conversations with guests, but Jordan does it better than most.

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Check out The Jordan Harbinger Show. There's so much for you in this podcast. The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. So, Andrea, in cases of like we were talking about when the party is ruined because something happened. When people start to go down that negative self-talk trail, is it mostly because the party is ruined or the party is ruined and now what will people think? Is a lot of it about what other people will think? So much of it. So much of it. And it's natural for us to compare ourselves to other people and to care what other

people think. You know, I think it's unrealistic when people say, oh, I just wish that it didn't bother me what other people think. You know, we are social animals. There are a lot of positives physically and emotionally for having connections to other people. And we need to care what other people think to a certain extent. But where it really gets problematic is when we let what other people think really become so internalized that we're carrying around these yardsticks of other people's judgment all the time. And it makes us do what we call excessively self-monitor. You know, we think over and over again, is this okay?

Did I say this right? Do they like me? And that's what gets in our way. And unfortunately, I do think that that's exacerbated by social media and the way that we relate to each other now, because we do feel like we need to present these aspects of ourselves that are really, you know, created in part for other people's approval. And it does seem when you stop and think about it, that what other people are thinking is nothing. Nobody's thinking about you.

They're thinking about their problems and what people are thinking about them. Don't you think we just over-inflate what other people are thinking? They're probably not thinking all that much. It's very true. It's very true. And there's been some interesting data on that where we can sort of look at those errors that we're making when we estimate how many people are actually noticing what we're doing, how many people are making judgments about it. But I think what's most helpful even is recognizing that there are sometimes judgments that other people are making in a negative way, fairly or unfairly.

And we've got to be able to learn to tolerate that and manage that. Because if we can detach our own self-worth from that yardstick of other people, then we're better able to accept, hey, I did get some negative feedback at work. This person was frustrated with me. But we're not going to fundamentally let it actually shake up who we believe ourselves to be. That's the trick. But that does start with relating to those thoughts about other people's opinions in a totally different way. Well, I know one of the suggestions people often have on this topic is to keep track of, write down or pay attention to your thoughts for an entire day.

And when you do that, you'll be pretty amazed at how hard you are on yourself. Yeah, it's true. But I also find that really positive in another way because when we learn that our thoughts are constant running commentary and sometimes they're random, sometimes they're false, sometimes they really have no meaning at all, and some of them just don't make any sense whatsoever and we can let those thoughts pass, then we can let some of the more difficult thoughts pass as well. And basically what this ties into, there's a concept called thought-action fusion. And that's the idea that when you have a thought, you equate it to actually acting on it. And folks that have obsessive compulsive disorder really suffer from this. The thoughts are so bothersome. Their obsessions become so, so anxiety provoking.

Because in their mind, you know, the fact that I thought that maybe I was going to scream in church, that's just as bad as screaming in church. And so now I've got to put all my mental energy into stopping the thought of screaming in church. And the next thing I know, I'm developing rituals and habits to try to stop this thought. Whereas in reality, for most of us, we just say, oh, I had a thought of screaming in church. Of course, I'm not going to do it.

And we move on. We haven't fused that action to the thought that people can feel so guilty for the thoughts that they have, they can feel so bothered by that. And that's why that cycle starts. Because now the thought itself is so, so bothersome, that we do anything we can to get rid of it. And the next thing you know, that thought is taken over. I mean, the more we try not to think a thought, the more we think it that's just the way that our brain processes trying to avoid a thought. Because how do you avoid something? Well, you got to get a good picture of what it looks like, right? If you're trying to avoid some suspect all day, some of them are completely unhelpful and random and false and weird. And that's okay, because I can let them pass. they have Velcro on them. They're sticky. They tend to stop. They don't pass through. They get in your head and then they roll around in there and cause all kinds of damage.

Exactly. Because we've convinced ourselves that we're supposed to listen to these certain thoughts. And for some people with a history of depression, we've convinced ourselves we have to listen to these thoughts because we really believe them to be true. We do think of ourselves as not worthy. We do think of ourselves as bad people or as people who aren't going to succeed or whatever the case may be. Or someone with an anxiety disorder does think that, you know, that thought that says, oh my gosh, that spider is actually going to kill you and you need to run away. That thought really holds power to us. And so, you know, it's so away, that thought really holds power to us. And so, you know, it's so personal, this relationship that we have with our thoughts. It's different for every individual. But the more that we can learn to just be gentle as we

observe our thoughts and be curious about them without necessarily inviting them to be seen as truthful or to be seen as representative of who we are as people, the more we can make that detachment, we really can become calmer. I mean, it's very striking what the research shows in that regard. There does seem to be, and I think I've heard there's some research about this, but there does seem to be a time element here. And what I mean by that is that we tend to give a lot of attention to thoughts in the moment they occur. I guess a good example of this is, you know, road rage. How many people who've been arrested for road rage probably the next day thought, well, what was I thinking?

But in that moment, nothing is more important than, you know, running this guy off the road. But in the moment that these thoughts occur, they take on monumental importance. Yes, yes, for sure. And I'm so glad you brought that up because that really speaks to the role of these big emotions, these hot feelings that make us even more want to move towards action in some way that usually hurts us, right? I mean, because the same process of learning to observe our thoughts can also be applied to observing our emotions. And the anger emotion is one that for so many of us, it makes us act in ways that we're about to regret. We might regret it 10 minutes from now or even 10 seconds from now if we've punched a wall or

something like that. And so yes, learning to recognize that angry voice. Okay, I feel it coming on. My pulse is quickening. I want to scream. I want to punch. I feel it in my jaw. I feel it in my feet and my palms. What can I do? I can pause. I can label it. I can start with some of those physical techniques like the breathing exercises. Because if you've ever worked with somebody who suffers from real rage, you know, and needs help with anger management, the beauty is in the pause. The beauty is in them being able for

that split second to take a breath and observe themselves, to step out of that automatic habit of I'm angry, I need to act on it. You know, my fists feel hot, I need to push them somewhere. The pause is exactly the magic that happens when you get them to choose a new path. And that pause has very much in common with that same pause of learning to relate to your thoughts differently, because what you're doing in that very moment is you're stepping outside of yourself as a mindful observer. Well, there's probably no more intimate relationship than the one between you and your thoughts.

So it's good to get some clarification on what they mean and what's really going on. Dr. Andrea Bonior has been my guest. She's a journalist who writes the popular baggage check advice column for the Washington Post. She's on the faculty of Georgetown University, and she's author of the book Detox Your Thoughts, Quit Negative Self-Talk for Good and Discover the Life You've Always Wanted. There's a link to her book in the show notes. Thanks, Andrea. Thanks so much. It's been a real pleasure. Do you love Disney? Then you are going to love our hit podcast, Disney Countdown. I'm Megan, the Magical Millennial. And I'm the

Dapper Danielle. On every episode of our fun and family friendly show. We count down our top 10 lists of all things Disney. There is nothing we don't cover. We are famous for rabbit holes, Disney themed games, and fun facts you didn't know you needed, but you definitely need in your life. So if you're looking for a healthy dose of Disney magic, check out Disney countdowndown wherever you get your podcasts. wrong which is for the listeners that didn't take our advice plus we share our hot takes on current events then tune in to see you next tuesday for our lister poll results from but am i wrong and finally wrap up your week with fisting friday where we catch up and talk all things pop culture listen to don't blame me but am i wrong on apple podcast spotify or wherever you get your podcasts new episodes every monday t, Thursday, and Friday. I think we all worry about our skin to some extent. We know not to get sunburned. We want

to keep it looking young and healthy. We worry about skin cancer. But there's probably a lot about your skin you don't know, that you probably should know. And here to tell you is Dr. Monty Lyman. He's a doctor of acute general medicine at Oxford University, and author of the book, The Remarkable Life of the Skin. Hey, Monty. Thanks for having me on, Mike. So, I'm always curious, there are so many things you could study and write about,

about the human body. Why the skin? Well, I, like most other of my fellow medical students and doctors, didn't give much thought to the skin. I mean, one of my best friends, who's now a surgeon, calls skin the wrapping paper that covers the presence. And we weren't taught too much about it and we didn't give it much thought. But I first became interested in the skin when studying for my first medical school exams. Just after a long meal, I went for a lie down and suddenly I noticed that my face had become incredibly itchy. And then I went over and looked in the mirror and it was raw, red, cracked, and quite a severe facial eczema has shadowed me ever since. And all of my family members blamed the cause of this eruption on fascinatingly different things.

Some said it was genetic. Some said I need to get out more and get some vitamin D. Some said I need to change my diet. Some said there were allergies. And I realized that skin is our most visible organ. It's our largest organ. And we all have different ideas about skin and we all have stories about our skin. But we actually know so little about it and so out of curiosity you said all these people said your skin problem was either diet or you're not getting enough sun or whatever were any of them right that's a very good question and to some extent maybe all of them are right in in in different ways our diet does affect our skin in some ways but actually in interesting ways and in strange ways so for example one of the best things that you can do for your skin is eat fresh fruit and vegetables and actually studies have shown that eating colorful vegetables that can contain carotenoids so things like peppers and carrots give skin a glow of all of all shades of color of skin a glow that is deemed more attractive by studies that looked into the

opposite sex judging people's facial appearances makes people more attractive than other aspects of skin or facial structure and things like that. And then if you tell people, the interesting psychology about the skin, if you tell people, one group of people that eating fruit and vegetables is good for reducing your chance of getting heart disease in the future, but then you tell another group that eating colourful vegetables makes you look more attractive, actually you're more likely to eat vegetables in the long run if you're in the group that was told it affects your skin.

So yes, to some extent, diet does affect our skin. To some extent, allergies and allergens in the environment affect our skin. But also, we're discovering that genetics plays a huge part we've discovered that eczema hugely hugely common and can be devastating to a lot of people's lives it was long assumed to be basically an allergic disease of allergens coming in and damaging the skin but actually a large very large number of people with eczema actually have a mutation in a gene that affects the way the structure of the outside of the skin is formed. So actually, there are cracks that are already in the skin that let the good things out, like water, and the bad things in, like allergens. So it's very complex. There are lots of different things that interplay with each other.

One of the interesting things you said, for example, is that diet can affect the skin to some extent. And I think it frustrates people to hear that sometimes because to what extent? Is it a little bit that diet affects your skin and it makes it a little bit better or a little bit worse? Or does diet have a huge impact on the skin? Yeah, that's a very good question. I think when it comes to foods that can be healthy or good for the skin, there are no silver bullets. But some of the things that have been shown to be most beneficial for the skin are fresh fruits and colorful vegetables. And for example, one study showed that eating colorful

vegetables that contain carotenoids, say things like carrots, peppers, actually make the skin appear more attractive to the opposite sex in studies. But there are no foods that are completely beneficial for the skin. But I think the skin encourages a balanced diet and what about the other side of that because how many times have we heard that chocolate causes acne or that fried food causes acne or are there things that you can consume that that actually do damage or or make the skin appear worse when it comes to for example, the most evidence for something that a food that can cause acne are foods that have a high glycemic index. So essentially sugary foods and foods that release sugars quickly.

So things that contain fat as well. So chocolate actually contains sugars, but haven't been shown to contribute that much to acne. And also dairy has a bit of an effect with acne as well. But apart from that, there's not much evidence that other foods can cause acne. What is acne? I mean, is acne a disease? Is it a condition? Is it just kind of a catch-all term for people who have breakout on their face? What is it? Yes, so acne is a disease, and it's a disease that is often looked over and ignored to a lot of people in society often dismiss acne, but it can have huge repercussions for people's lives. In Britain, roughly one in five young people who have acne have considered taking their own lives because of how they perceive the effects of it on their skin and their relationships. relationships so it's a it's a considerably important disease and it's a disease of inflammation of the pores of of our skin and it is influenced by testosterone which is why it often appears in around puberty and then it seems to for many people it seems to just go away yeah that's it's it's really interesting and it's not necessarily fully known. It's almost certainly

related to a surge in hormones and then hormones going away. Are there myths and misconceptions that persist, things people really don't understand about the skin? There are lots, I think. Diet's one that can cause a lot of confusion another one is the is the healthy tan the idea of getting a healthy tan I've got I know someone who doesn't want to wear any any sunblock and thinks that if they get a bit of a tan at the beginning of of the summer it means that protects them from from sunlight later on but there are also other people at the other end of the spectrum who don't want to go in the sun at all. They're concerned about getting skin cancer. And I think the skin tells us

that we need to find a middle way. We need to not be exposed to the sun too much. There's a reason the human skin has melanin, which is that the dark pigment that blocks access sun was a natural sunblock it blocks sunlight but there's um also a reason when humans evolved and you and when humans traveled to climates with lower amounts of sunlight they lost melanin to get more vitamin d when there wasn't enough sunlight. So I think the key for that is to, I think,

to revere but not to fear the sun, is to essentially not get sunburned and spend time outdoors, which is very important for getting vitamin D and for mental and physical health as well. But to never get sunburned, that's the key. And to spend rough when you're in the sun roughly spend about half the amount of time it would take your skin to to burn what about just general advice what should people do and not do to take care of their skin or does your skin pretty much take care of itself as long as it's relatively clean and not in the burning sun all day that's that's an interesting point because our our skin our outer layer of skin our epidermis is remarkable and the life cycle of the skin cells on the outside of our skin is about 30

days so our whole um the whole of our skin sheds itself over the period of about a month. I know that's a slightly grisly image. But essentially what it's doing then is trying to make a barrier to the outside world to keep bad things out and good things like moisture inside. So if, say, in your skincare routine, you can definitely over-exfoliate and if you use too much hot water and things like that, things that break the outer layer of the skin are bad for the skin. So you can, if you have too rigorous a skincare routine, that could be detrimental to our outside layer. But then again, we don't want to just necessarily just leave it. A lot of dermatologists recommend exfoliating gently with warm water, maybe twice, sometimes three times a week, especially if you live in an urban area, to get particles off your face.

So again, similar to diet and sunlight, it's about moderation following a middle path. Wait, exfoliate with water? isn't that just rinsing well essentially that's the the purpose of sort of exfoliating or washing our faces is just is to get essentially get the dirt away and just to let the skin build itself back up and get and remove pollutants from the skin so i think a very gentle skincare routine and just doing whatever you do gently keeping it simple there is certainly in our culture this kind of never-ending quest for youth are there things that you can put on your skin that really do get rid of wrinkles and really do roll back the years? For thousands of years, people have tried lots of different things to wax from the heads of whales and would mix them in with berries and an assortment of other things. And then she would slap that and some veal on her face and in a

leather made-to-measure mask and would wear that overnight in the hope of achieving eternal youth. But actually, over these years, a few things have been proven to have some kind of effect. For example, Queen Cleopatra used to bathe in the milk of donkeys. And actually, molecules in milk and in things like lemons called alpha hydroxy acids, have got some evidence of slowing skin aging. But essentially, when it comes to slowing down aging, by far the most effective thing is sunscreen. UVA, one of the wavelengths of ultraviolet, is the greatest contributor to aging. More than everything else, all the other factors combined.

So sun cream is the most effective anti-aging cream. And then the only other thing that's been shown to be effective is retinoic acid. And various forms of retinol are available. But they're the main things that have evidence behind them to work. So my milk bath and slapping veal on my face may not be giving me the results I was hoping for? Maybe not the slapping meat on the face. There might be something in that. But if it's sustainable, I think the milk bath

has a little bit of evidence behind it. Well, it's pretty expensive. It gets a bit costly. It's a lot of milk. There is a big connection between the skin and fingernails and hair. It's all kind of part of the same thing, right? Yes. Hair and fingernails are all known as appendages of the skin. They're all part of the skin system. And say fingernails and hair are made of keratin, which is a really strong, powerful protein. It's interesting that actually the surface of all of our skin is made of keratinocytes, those same cells. So it's exactly the same substance, essentially, that covers our soft skin that we find in our nails and our hair.

But hair is fascinating and mysterious. And hair growth and hair loss is very interesting. And you take an area of skin with hairs on it from a part of the head, and you just transplant it to another bit of the body, say the arm. The hairs will fall out at exactly the same time with balding as it would have done if it was still on the head at roughly the same time. And it's absolutely fascinating. I'm not sure about the mechanisms behind that, but it's very mysterious. Well, it's interesting. Those of us who don't really have any kind of chronic skin problem may tend to take our skin for granted. But because our skin is what people see, you mentioned at the very beginning that you have a friend who calls it, you know, the wrapping paper that keeps everything inside, that because people see our skin, people with skin problems, from your experience, you've found, have a tough time.

What I discovered about the skin was that the skin is our most human organ, and it should be an organ that makes us respect ourselves and our own bodies but also respect the the millions across the world who suffer in or for their their skin because of lots of different skin diseases one of my most important uh moments as a doctor was out in in tanzania and i was treating a young man who had um albinism, where he didn't have any melanin. So his skin was completely white, and he was very vulnerable to skin cancers. And I was trying to treat him for some of his skin cancers and his pre-cancerous lesions. But when I spoke to him, I realized that he wasn't bothered about the physical aspects of it and his risk of cancer. He was worried about his fellow humans who were hunting him and other people with albinism down and trying to kill them and to sell their body parts on the black market.

And it made me amazed and terrified that a mutation in one gene that just affected the melanin in this young man's skin had made him a social outcast. So I hope when people look at their skin and look into skin, that they respect their own bodies, but they also have an understanding for their fellow humans and realize that many people, many, many people have different skin diseases and there are millions suffering because of them. Well, thanks for sharing that and the interesting information about your skin. Dr. Monty Lyman has been my guest. He practices acute general medicine at Oxford University and he's author of the book, The Remarkable Life of the Skin. There's a link to his book in the show notes.

Thank you for coming on, Monty. Brilliant. Thanks very much, Mike. If you share a bed, the distance between you and your partner could be revealing. In a study of 500 participating couples, those who reported that they slept touching each other also reported happier relationships than those who didn't. And it seems the farther apart the couple slept, the less satisfied they were apt to be in their relationship. Richard Wiseman, a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire in England, says it's worth noticing that distance in bed. If the gap is increasing, it could suggest the quality of a relationship is weakening.

The study also found that 42% of the couples surveyed sleep back-to-back, while 31% sleep facing in the same direction. Just 4% say they sleep facing each other. 12% of the couples slept less than an inch apart, and 2% measured that gap at 30 inches or more. And that is something you should know. You would make this podcaster very, very happy if you would just take a moment and share this podcast with someone you know. I'm Micah Ruthers.

Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church for possible criminal activity.

The pair form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer, unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law, her religious convictions, and her very own family. But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone is watching Ruth. Chinook, starring Kelly Marie

Tran and Sanaa Lathan. Listen to Chinook wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Jennifer, a founder of the Go Kid Go Network. At Go Kid Go, putting kids first is at the heart of every show that we produce. That's why we're so excited to introduce a brand new show to our network called The Search for the Silver Lining, a fantasy adventure series about a spirited young girl named Isla who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot. Look for The Search for the Silver Lining on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.