Something You Should Know - Make Your Dreams Work for You / How Food Affects Mood / Why We Need Stuff

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Starting point is 00:00:27 Download June's Journey now on Android or iOS. Today on Something You Should Know, why is it so important to drink a lot of water? And what happens if you don't? Then, can you really come up with good ideas in your dreams? A lot of people have. Beethoven dozed on a carriage ride and dreamed one of his sonatas. Whereas Paul McCartney, in one of his dreams, heard a piece of music and eventually this became yesterday.

Starting point is 00:00:59 Also, how the food you eat can alter your thinking, mood, and anxiety for better or worse. And stuff. We humans need our stuff. What's really significant is to understand how our stuff is who we are. Starting at 3 million years ago, our stuff actually transformed our biology, and there became this symbiotic relationship. And so humans now literally can't live without stuff. All this today on Something You Should Know.

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Starting point is 00:02:14 Hello there. Welcome to Something You Should Know. Got a lot you should know in this episode. And first up, we're going to talk about drinking water. Because you hear so much about, oh, you're not drinking enough water. You have to stay hydrated. But have you ever wondered why? What's so important about drinking all this water? Well, here is what can happen to you head to toe if you don't drink enough water. First of all, your brain. When you're dehydrated, you're slowing the flow of oxygen to your brain. That can result in shrinkage of your neurons,

Starting point is 00:02:48 which will leave you distracted and not thinking clearly. Then there's your skin and hair. They both need water to retain moisture and to shine and have elasticity. Your mouth. Lack of water leads to dry mouth, which causes bad breath and cavities. And then there's your heart. Dehydration lowers blood volume, forcing your heart to work harder for adequate blood flow. It can even make exercise or climbing stairs more difficult. Your kidneys need water. They need it to filter out toxins, and lack of water can lead to urinary tract infections and kidney

Starting point is 00:03:25 stones. And your toes. Not drinking enough water can trigger muscle cramping in the limbs and toes. And that is something you should know. Dreams. It's a topic I think fascinates all of us because, well, we all dream, and a lot of our dreams don't seem to make a lot of sense. They are sometimes disturbing or frightening. Most of the time, they just come and go. You also hear that some people use their dreams to solve problems, find solutions, get ideas. That's never really happened to me much. There are people who study this and who study

Starting point is 00:04:06 dreams and how they work, and one of those people is Deidre Barrett. She is a dream researcher at Harvard Medical School, past president of the International Association for the Study of Dreams, editor-in-chief of Dreaming, the journal of the Association for the Study of Dreams, and she's author of the book, The Committee of Sleep, How Artists, Scientists, and Athletes Use Their Dreams for Creative Problem Solving and How You Can Too. Hi, Deidre. Welcome to Something You Should Know. Hi. Nice to be here. So I'm really interested in this idea of using your dreams to solve problems or get ideas.

Starting point is 00:04:42 But before we get into that, I'd like to get some understanding of why we dream what we dream, because it often seems so random, so strange, and so unpredictable. I mean, I'm sure I will dream when I go to bed tonight, but I have no idea what I will dream about. So what determines the content of our dreams? Well, some of the determinants of dream content are specific to the state of REM sleep, to the fact that visual areas are so active and verbal areas aren't that active. So the individual content for a person is to some extent just determined by the same things as our waking thought. The same concerns that people think about the most by day also show up in their dreams the most. The people you think about the most, the, you know, whatever your fears and hopes are, show up more. Very recent events are likelier to show up than long ago, but long ago gets included in there. And something else I've wondered about, I mean,

Starting point is 00:05:45 I dream like everyone else dreams and most dreams come and go. I don't think about them a whole lot, but every once in a while I'll wake up from a dream and it's like really vivid and it really affects me and follows me through part of the day. Then it kind of goes away. But I wonder why. Why some dreams have such an effect and yet most dreams don't. Yeah, we don't understand completely why some dreams are so much more vivid and dramatic, both often visually more vivid, but also just emotionally more impactful. But some of the things that make a difference are they're likelier to happen at times of some kind of big change, either negative kinds of crises, but also sometimes just big life events, even positive ones. Anytime you're more stirred up emotionally about something new, the dream is likely to represent that. And that can be even if that's been a little unconscious of something

Starting point is 00:06:53 big is going on, but you've sort of been trying to minimize or ignore it, the dream will bring it to the surface and stir it up. But then there's some much more superficial things like when you're getting plenty of sleep, you're likely to have vivid, dramatic, emotionally powerful dreams than when you're not sleeping as much as eight hours a night, because we get more of our dream time in the second half of a night's sleep and some of the strongest, deepest part of it. So just losing sleep and then catching up is when, you know, the catch up is when you're likelier to have those dreams. And then there's some drugs tend to produce more vivid dreams. And for some drugs, it's while they're in your system, some of the antidepressants,

Starting point is 00:07:47 especially increased vivid nightmares, but to some extent, even vivid, powerful, positive dreams. And other substances, it's as they're dropping in your system. Like alcohol suppresses rapid eye movement sleep. So you dream less and less vividly while your blood alcohol level is higher. But then as it's dropping out of your system, you tend to have more vivid dreams. So this idea that dreams can help you solve problems or come up with ideas, I've always been a little skeptical of that, figuring more that it's just random.

Starting point is 00:08:24 Given how many dreams people dream in their lifetime. You know, sooner or later, chance would dictate that you're going to get a good idea in a dream. So explain why that's not the case, why it's a little more serious than just random chance. Creative inspiration or even very concrete concrete like scientific problem solving in dreams it definitely happens i mean in in one way it's kind of well known because there are a lot of famous stories about it in another way it it's rare compared to how many dreams most people are recalling it's not most dreams that have some you know know, important creative inspiration. And I don't think it's

Starting point is 00:09:06 anything, it's not that dreams are more creative or better at that sort of thing, but because they are such a different mode of thought, that there are two areas that get the most inspiration from dreams. And that's anything where thinking outside the box helps, like some of the scientific breakthrough stories. And then also when vivid visualization is helpful in solving the problem, dreams have even more activation in our centers for visual imagery. So within the arts, it's the visual arts that get the very most inspiration from dreams. Within the sciences, it's the visual arts that get the very most inspiration from dreams. Within the sciences, it's things like the structure of chemical molecules or somebody who's trying to invent a device. One of my colleagues at Harvard who works on the controls of telescopes tends to see the designs of the chips running them and the arrangement of the lenses

Starting point is 00:10:06 inside them in dreams. And so how do you make it happen? I mean, if you have a problem and you want your dreams to help you solve it, how do you program yourself to work on the problem while you're sleeping tonight? Is there any research to show there's a way to deliberately make it happen? In one study I did with college students in telling themselves they wanted to solve a problem, which they picked out, an objective problem. Some of them were homework problems. At bedtime every night, they were telling themselves they wanted to solve this problem in their dream. They were picturing something that visualized the problem, and that was the last thing they were thinking of at bedtime. And they were to do that for a week.

Starting point is 00:10:53 And in that study, 50% of them dreamed about the topic of their problem, and then about 25% of them dreamed a solution to it. Now, those were fairly simple problems. I and other people have done some studies where there were harder problems, often kind of difficult brain teasers. And the harder the problem gets, the lower the percentage solving it. That 25% begins to drop off to much less. But the 50% dreaming on the topic seems to hold up across different types of problems. So that's to say it doesn't work reliably all the time, but it works a lot better than chance, and it's worth trying. What are a couple of examples of when this has happened?

Starting point is 00:11:42 Beethoven dozed on a carriage ride and dreamed one of his sonatas, but actually one of his minor works. Whereas Paul McCartney, in one of his dreams, heard a piece of music and he woke up and thought it was really beautiful and couldn't remember where he'd heard it before. And there was a piano in the room he was sleeping in. So he got up and he played the tune on the piano and really liked it. Still thought he must have heard it somewhere, but he wrote it down. And it didn't have words in the dream, but he first was singing scrambled eggs, oh my baby, how I love your legs, to the main verse. But eventually this became yesterday. So if I want to put my dreams to work tonight, or any night, what's the prescription? How do

Starting point is 00:12:39 you get yourself kind of in the groove to do that? The simple basics are that you think of the topic or the question or the problem that you're trying to direct your dreams toward. And first, you just boil it down to a simple phrase or at most one sentence, because our dreams are not real complexly verbal. So a very simple verbal phrase will often reach your dreaming mind, but you don't want to make it too complicated. So pare the phrase down to the essence and just be telling yourself, I want to dream about X. I want to dream about X.

Starting point is 00:13:18 And then farm an image in your mind's eye that represents the topic, the question, the problem. That's a vivid visual image that goes with it. An emotionally loaded one is best. Because the visual is even likelier to get incorporated into the dream if you're thinking about it as you fall asleep, our dreams are naturally so visual that a visual cue is the most important part. So you fall asleep, just picturing your image, saying to yourself the simple phrase, I want to dream about X, and just let that be the last thing that you think of as you fall asleep. And then almost equally important is as you wake up, you want to lie there. If you clearly recall a dream, you just want to go over it in your mind or dictate it to your phone to get it

Starting point is 00:14:14 fixed and then start seeing if any part of it relates to your question, if it's not just super obvious at first. Well, I'm willing to try it. Next time I have a problem or need to come up with something, I'm going to give it a whirl. I've been talking with Deidre Barrett. She's a dream researcher at Harvard Medical School, and the name of her book is The Committee of Sleep, How Artists, Scientists, and Athletes Use Their Dreams for Creative Problem Solving and How You Can Too. And there's a link to that book in the show notes. Appreciate it. Thanks, Deidre.

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Starting point is 00:15:54 Could it be that the food you eat, the things you put in your stomach, have an effect on how you think, on your mood, on your anxiety level? And if so, then what foods would be best to eat to optimize your thinking, and what would be the foods to avoid? That's what Dr. Uma Naidoo is here to discuss. Uma is a board-certified Harvard nutritional psychiatrist, professional chef, and nutritional biologist. She serves on the faculty at Harvard Medical School, the Harvard Department of Nutrition,

Starting point is 00:16:28 and she is author of a book called Calm Your Mind with Food. Hi, Doctor. Welcome to Something You Should Know. Thanks, Mike. Always great to talk to you. So I think people understand that food certainly, the food you eat certainly affects your general health. But the idea that food can affect how you think and your mood and your anxiety level that's a little more of a stretch for me and I think for a lot of people so explain how this works. Sure so it starts Mike with the newest science in the last decade and a half of the gut microbiome.

Starting point is 00:17:06 The fact that the gut and brain are two separate organs in the body, but they are connected. And they arise, in fact, from the exact same cells in the human embryo as our bodies are developing. As you start to unfold the science, you understand something simple. So I often ask people, if you have a headache, what do you do? And they'll say, well, I run for headache pill. And I ask them, well, where's the pain? And they say, in my head, I take a pill, I swallow it with water, and I hope the headache goes away. And then I ask them to stop and think, well, your headache is in your head, yet you're swallowing a pill that's going to your gut, to your stomach, and it's being digested. And I then start to unpack for them the science around how food can slowly and steadily impact our emotional health because food is also digested. It interacts with gut microbes,

Starting point is 00:17:57 the trillions that live in the gut. In a similar way that a medication you take, such as a headache pill, is something you swallow, yet it can work on your head, on your neural tissue and the body. So it's a way to start to explain that to people. And the missing link in how we are feeling emotionally is that no one is paying attention to the food that we eat. People tend to associate food with a number on the scale or, you know, an expanding waistline and weight loss, but they're not associating food with how we feel emotionally. But it must work a little differently because, you know, the doctor doesn't say, eat a carrot and call me in the morning if your head hurts, right? It's take a pill so so it either happens on a more broad scale or over a length of

Starting point is 00:18:49 certain length of time yes that guy so so fill those blanks in for me sure that's a great question so you're absolutely right we tend to see a doctor when we're sick and then we tend to be prescribed a medication but what nutritional psychiatry does is it fills in the gaps for what people can do with lifestyle measures such as how we eat. Nutrition, Mike, is the one pillar that can impact all chronic medical illness. So how we eat actually is important for mental health, but other things as well. The doctor is not going to tell you to eat a carrot. For one thing, most doctors in the United States are not studying nutrition. Only about 20% of our medical schools teach nutrition. In addition, doctors are sort of trained in some ways to really look at giving you medication, lifestyle medicine, lifestyle psychiatry, nutritional

Starting point is 00:19:43 interventions. These types of things are really newer modes that we're using to help people. Although Hippocrates eons ago spoke about the power of food as medicine and the gut, the connection to the gut. But science had to follow and research had to be done to bring us to where we are today. So I guess one of the, because I certainly buy what you're saying, I mean, it makes all the sense in the world, but just how subtle is this? Like, how less anxious would I be if I ate differently? Or how less depressed would I be? A little bit? Or does it really impact? Or what? So clinically, I've seen patients feel significantly better from episodes of anxiety. It does take time.

Starting point is 00:20:34 It's a marathon and not a sprint. So if they start to eat differently and eat healthier foods today, it doesn't mean by tonight they're going to have a complete change in their anxiety. But it provides an option for eating healthier in order to help improve your mood, lower your anxiety over time. And sometimes when people make simple tweaks to their diet, they will contact me within a few days to a week and say things like, I'm sleeping better, I have less brain fog,

Starting point is 00:21:02 I'm waking up without that pit of angst in my stomach. So there can be changes that one starts to experience earlier on, but it is a marathon. So it takes a little bit longer for the fine-tuning of your gut microbiome by improving how we eat, then translate into how we feel emotionally. Is it the case that when you talk about eating a healthier diet, which I want to go into in a moment, but assuming that we'll all agree on what that means, is by eating a healthier diet, you're not eating an unhealthy diet, and that's what's causing you to feel this way. And by eating a healthy diet, it's just kind of bringing you back to sea level. Or is eating a healthy diet taking you from sea level and really raising you up somehow?

Starting point is 00:21:56 It's the latter. So I agree, it gets confusing. You know, if we clean up our diet and start to eat healthier, wouldn't we feel better? I think that in mental health, it's a little bit more nuanced than that. There are specific foods that we know have been shown in research to affect mood. One example is that processed meats are made with nitrates, and nitrates have been shown to actually worsen depression. Another study looked at the supplemental form of methylfolate.

Starting point is 00:22:26 Now folate is found in leafy greens, it's vitamin B9, and low folate level is associated with a low or depressed mood. And supplementation can be given through methylfolate or by increasing just eating leafy greens over time. So it is a more subtle nuanced effect, but it can impact you over time. We're certainly following the research and looking at the evidence behind these changes one can make, but it is not at a point of being diagnostic, but we do have the ability to make safe and easy recommendations to people because we're eating meals. We usually eat a few times a day. Why not tweak towards a healthier diet and then improve your mental well-being as well as just, say, losing weight or feeling more

Starting point is 00:23:18 physically fit? So what does that diet look like? What is a healthy diet in your view as it relates to this topic? In relation to anxiety, one of the diets that has been spoken about before, but I want to share some subtle enhancements of it, is the Mediterranean diet, which is a healthy whole foods diet. I think it starts there because one of the things that is driving anxiety in the United States is how our eating habits worsened and changed during the pandemic, not for everyone, but for a lot of people. More processed, ultra-processed foods were consumed, processed food sales skyrocketed during the pandemic. So leaning into a Mediterranean eating plan with lots of plant foods, berries, healthy fats like olive oil, avocado, different types of meats, more vegetables, and then nuts and seeds

Starting point is 00:24:18 all become important to a balance. So is it more about eating these good foods that make you feel better, help your mood and your anxiety, or is it also or equally as much that you need to not eat the bad foods? Well, are there foods that make you think bad things and feel more anxious? There are definitely foods that make people feel worse. I just spoke to someone who was telling me that his habit was to drink a diet energy drink. And it was his favorite drink.

Starting point is 00:24:58 He liked the flavor. And he was suffering with extreme anxiety. And it took him a while to figure out that the artificial sweetness potentially in this diet energy drink were impacting his gut microbiome and causing him to have severe anxiety and once he figured that out and he noticed it he started to stop and cut back on this diet soda that he was drinking and And his anxiety over time remitted. So the foods that are negatively impacting us can be very powerful too. And when we step back, cut back, lower the amount that we're using of them,

Starting point is 00:25:35 they can have a very positive impact on calming our mind and helping our anxiety. I know you say that drinking water is good for your mood because because being dehydrated is linked to anxiety so explain that. Sure, so when a person, the body needs water in order for several biochemical reactions to occur at a cellular level. And when we are not drinking enough water, or we say drinking a lot of coffee, which can be dehydrating, or even alcohol, which can be dehydrating as well, the body ends up being dehydrated and needing water. I've noticed and observed, and this has been shown in research, that individuals, you know, struggling with just

Starting point is 00:26:22 maintaining enough intake of water maintaining their hydration can actually develop severe anxiety so it's worth having a sustainable water bottle and sipping on water throughout the day making sure that you're getting a good amount for your body weight and size so where is the science on this I mean you're a you are a person of science you're a doctor, but you don't hear a lot about this, about doctors talking about changing diet to affect mood and relieve anxiety. So where exactly is the science?

Starting point is 00:26:58 So there are definitely studies looking at the impact of food on anxiety. So this is evolving and ongoing research, Mike. There's definitely enough to make the remarks and share the research that I did in my book. But we are not at a point of being prescriptive where I can say, if you have anxiety, eat 10 blueberries and stop taking your Prozac. We're not at that point yet. But the food is medicine movement really is about accumulating the evidence for different conditions. Take dark chocolate, for example. It was tested in a large population-based study of more than 12,000 participants and showed about a 70% improvement in mood by the addition of that serving of dark chocolate to their diet. So there are a lot of different trials that have been done, and we definitely continue to collect more research on this.

Starting point is 00:27:53 Well, when you think about it, it makes so much sense that food could affect your thinking, your mood, your anxiety, when you realize that when you drink alcohol, that affects your thinking, that affects your anxiety. And when you take certain medications, that can also affect your mood and your thinking and your anxiety. So why not food? I've been speaking with Dr. Uma Naidoo. She is a board-certified Harvard nutritional psychiatrist, professional chef, and nutritional biologist. She serves on the faculty at Harvard Medical School

Starting point is 00:28:25 and the Harvard Department of Nutrition and is author of a book called Calm Your Mind with Food. And there's a link to that book in the show notes. Thanks for coming on and explaining this, Uma. This was really interesting. Thank you so much. Metrolinks and Crosslinks are reminding everyone to be careful as Eglinton Crosstown LRT train testing is in progress.

Starting point is 00:28:48 Please be alert as trains can pass at any time on the tracks. Remember to follow all traffic signals. Be careful along our tracks and only make left turns where it's safe to do so. Be alert, be aware and stay safe. From the kitchen to the laundry room, your home deserves the best. Give it the upgrade it deserves at Best Buy's Ultimate Appliance Event. Save up to $1,000 on two or more major appliances. Shop now, in-store, or online at bestbuy.ca. Exclusions apply. One of the things that makes humans so unique compared to other animals is that we figured out a long time ago that we don't have to do everything for ourselves. Instead, we have invented tools and gadgets that can do a lot of things for us.

Starting point is 00:29:41 And yes, other animals have figured out how to use tools, but not like we can. What's so interesting is that early humans realized that having the right tools gave you power and status. Tools became more than just tools, they became our material possessions. Why this is so interesting and important is what Chip Caldwell is here to discuss. He is an archaeologist, former museum curator, and author and editor of 12 books, his latest being So Much Stuff, How Humans Discovered Tools, Invented Meaning, and Made More of Everything. Hey Chip, welcome to Something You Should Know. Thanks so much for having me. So why is this idea of humans and their tools important to understand from your perspective? So I am baffled and amazed at the material world that we have today.

Starting point is 00:30:37 Everything from iPhones to airplanes to the clothes we wear to the sporting equipment we use. Our lives are just filled with things. We have so, so much stuff. And to me, it's so curious because so few other species, no other animal in the history of our planet has ever had so much stuff. So, how did we get to this point? That's why I go back to our very beginning as a species more than three million years ago and look at this very long history of how we as a species evolved and developed from nothing to everything. So it begins with the imagination of how stones can be turned into knives and different kinds of cutting tools. And it goes all the way up to our modern factory system, globalization and everything that we have today.

Starting point is 00:31:31 So it's a it's a big, long history because this is a big, long history that got us from nothing to everything. And it starts, you say, with with this creation of tools that we figured out how to make tools and but as you also point out that there are there are other species that use tools that they've figured it out too and I guess they tend to be somewhat human-like like chimpanzees and things like that but we're not the only species to to fashion tools out of things we're not at all. And it is really fascinating how biologists have identified a very large number of species that make tools. So there's a species of ant, for example,

Starting point is 00:32:15 that makes basically carrying containers to transport honey. There's fish that know how to use different kinds of stones to break apart things for food. Elephants make fly swatters, right? So there's this really broad swath of animals that make tools, but none of them are like us as creative tool users. So we make things not in a rote way, but in a very creative way. And that is unique about the human experience. And that in fact goes to the creative spark that probably happened about two to 3 million years ago that really launched us as a species on our trajectory well right it see it seems as if other species that use tools or other species that do anything do it in large part for survival whereas we do things because we like to do things as well as doing things for survival but a lot of the things we

Starting point is 00:33:20 make and the tools we have it's not survive, but it's to have cool things. Yeah. And we have a lot of cool things, right? So what the story tells us is that about 3 million years ago, our very first ancestors figured out the basics of tools that you can craft, you know, an object of the world and it could serve our needs. And so some of those first needs were probably getting food. And that's a very basic for survival. But somewhere along the line, probably about 500,000 years ago, our ancestors realized that these things that they were making had another layer of purpose.

Starting point is 00:34:03 And that purpose is meaning. So with symbolic thinking, the idea that something can represent something else, this creativity that we've talked about, all of this combined to sow the seeds of meaning. And so you begin to see the first inklings of art. For example, archaeologists have identified a piece of shell with some etchings in it that was made about 500,000 years ago in Indonesia by an ancestral species named Homo erectus. You begin to see the use of certain kinds of pigments. Ochre, red and blacks and oranges are used as paints starting a couple hundred thousand years ago in Africa and elsewhere. So you see these like very first starts of that these things aren't just simply tools for mere survival but that the tools themselves can be beautiful, they can be spiritual, they can be traded and have value as a kind of proto currency or kind of early form of money. So about 500,000 years ago, you begin to see this. And by about 50,000 years ago, meaning is fully in place. And that is really where you begin to see this added layer of value in the story of our stuff. And so what, I guess, is the question. I mean, this is kind of

Starting point is 00:35:27 what humans do. This is what we've always done, it seems. And so what's the big so what? What's really significant is to understand how our stuff is who we are. So starting at 3 million years ago, as our ancestors began to use cutting tools, for example, that actually began to shift our biology. So if you are able to cut meat or tough vegetables before you eat it, you don't need sharp teeth anymore. And so starting at 3 million years ago, our stuff actually transformed our biology, and there became this symbiotic relationship between our stuff and us. And so humans now literally can't live without stuff. I mean, you could just consider how, for example, on Black Friday, there have been 16 recorded deaths because of shopping, as well as more than 100 recorded injuries. We're talking riots,

Starting point is 00:36:27 murder, people driven over, people trampled, right? All because they crave and want this stuff. Well, and who would we be without our stuff? I mean, our identity is wrapped up not in just who we are, but what we have and what's around us and the things we use and the things we can brag about. And that's part of being human. So this is very much a natural instinct of ours. I think the also the desire to possess beautiful things goes way, way back. Some have even argued that some of the earliest tools about 2 million years ago were crafted not just for functional purpose, but to be beautiful, right? So even the desire to have beautiful things, I mean, these are things that probably are just a part of who we are.

Starting point is 00:37:18 And yet what happened was about 100 years ago is that marketers very cleverly figured out ways to tap into these instincts, the desire for something new, the desire to hoard, the desire to be beautiful, to see beautiful things. There is a really fascinating story about how in the 1920s, car manufacturers were figuring out how to sell more cars. And part of the problem was, is that by that point, they were making really good cars that lasted pretty long. They're really functional. People didn't need to buy a new car. And so what General Motors did was they created a marketing campaign where they just changed the exterior of the car, the molding, but the interior was identical to the previous season. And then they sold this as a brand new car, as if the whole thing was superior. And in fact,

Starting point is 00:38:12 they called one of their new brands superior. So this is the notion that marketers kind of tapped into our desire for beauty and new things and having more and more. And they convinced us by doing this, by simply making little tweaks. And this is where we are today, right? It was so much, whether it's clothing and you want the latest fashions or the new cell phone, right? How many of us trade in our phones before our old ones actually die, or new cars. All of this embodies how marketers have been able to figure out very cleverly that we humans are humans and we have these instincts, and they can always convince us to buy more and more and more. Well, yeah, that's the whole argument of planned obsolescence we've seen for a long time.

Starting point is 00:39:05 And we certainly see today, particularly with, say, electronics, computers and phones. And, you know, it's been around a long time. You know, the very first light bulbs, incandescent light bulbs, could actually burn for thousands of hours. A single bulb could burn for thousands and thousands of hours. And the problem, if you're manufacturing light bulbs, is then people aren't buying them that often. So they actually tweaked the technology itself so that they would burn out much sooner. Another more modern example is printers.

Starting point is 00:39:39 There have been some cases where manufacturers have been hauled before the public because they actually, with ink cartridges, even when there is some actual ink left in the well, the computer or the printer tells you if you're manufacturing light bulbs and you fill up the country with light bulbs and now nobody needs anymore, what would you have them do? If everything lasts forever, nobody's going to make new ones. And then when they do burn out, they're going to be so expensive or hard to find. So what would you have them do? You know, that's such a fascinating argument because our country has been here before, actually. So in the 1930s, during the Great Depression, many saw planned obsolescence as a kind of patriotic form of industry where, you know, because we needed to, in the United States and elsewhere, jumpstart the economy, we needed people to consume. The idea was that if we could actually trick people into buying more, whether it was through

Starting point is 00:40:49 style or technology, that that was actually a good thing. And you could argue the same thing today that because so many of our industries are built around planned obsolescence, that if that were to just suddenly go away, you know, it would harm our economy, our way of life. And so my response to that is, you know, I think there certainly is some truth to it that our modern economy is built around these forms of ensuring people buy more and more and more. You know, two, the way I would counter argument, one is that by allowing companies to just simply replace,

Starting point is 00:41:34 kind of compel us to replace things more and more, they're actually harming creativity and new forms of technology that could actually do better. Because if you have consumers that are just buying the same old light bulb over and over and over, then why do you need to build a better one? So I actually think it's more important for our capitalist system in the United States and elsewhere to actually encourage creative manufacturing strategies that actually expand markets and actually serving people for their real needs rather than constructed ones through planned obsolescence.

Starting point is 00:42:12 I think generally people know that we have too much stuff that maybe things are a little over commercialized and we consume too much. And there's the whole minimalist movement to kind of counter that and say, you know, we can do better with less. But I always worry that when people start to say you have too much stuff, who's to say? Who are you to say or me to say that somebody else has too much stuff? I think it's just, it's an an individual decision and if you like a lot of stuff well that's that's your choice you know i think it's up to us as individuals i don't know how you could measure that or enforce it or you know anything like that i mean so i think it's up to us to just look at our own lives look at the kind of lives we want to live and ask ourselves,

Starting point is 00:43:06 do we have too much stuff? I've taken a really hard look at myself and I tell the story in the book about trying what my family and I called a slow buy year, where we set aside from essentials like food and medicine and school supplies, we would just buy a half dozen things over the course of a year. And we made it six months. And it was a really just interesting experiment. Maybe it's not for everyone, but it was for us to just kind of learn about the way we buy things, the meaning of things in our lives, and asking ourselves, do we really need those things? So even though we didn't make it the full year that we were hoping to, it was still just a really fascinating kind of experiment for us to reflect on our own habits and our own behaviors and just to pause and reflect,

Starting point is 00:44:04 if we're going to buy something, is this something we really need? Is it something we really want? Is it a gift for someone? And it's a very important relationship that we got to sustain. Those are the kinds of things that we're able to ask ourselves. And so, you know, for me, it's very much about a kind of self-exploration and asking ourselves, you know, do we really need all of this stuff in our lives? Well, what I like about what you talk about is it's so easy to say, oh, people have too much stuff and it's so shallow that you're so into stuff.

Starting point is 00:44:41 But this desire for stuff and finding meaning and identity in our stuff, as you point out, goes back so far. This is not something, you know, recent humans have been doing. Humans have been doing this for thousands of years. And maybe that's why we're still doing it today. I've been speaking with Chip Caldwell. He's an archaeologist, former museum curator, and author of several books. His most recent is called So Much Stuff, How Humans Discovered Tools, Invented Meaning, and Made More of Everything. And there's a link to that book in the show notes. I appreciate you coming on today. Thank you, Chip. Whether you watch in the theater or at home, watching movies can have a positive effect on all of us.

Starting point is 00:45:28 And different types of movies do different things. For example, romance movies can ease anxiety. Volunteer viewers who watched romance movies experienced a 10% increase in progesterone levels, the anti-anxiety hormone. Family movies. Studies show that families who enjoy a family movie night are closer and happier than those who don't. Thrillers. Thrillers boost your brain power. Movie watchers who were shown tense thrillers

Starting point is 00:45:59 scored higher in facial recognition tests than those who were shown a comedy. Reasonable doses of anxiety can sharpen your brain function. And comedies. Comedies can actually prevent you from getting sick by boosting your production of immune system cells. So, and this is according to the University of Michigan, movies are good for you. And that is something you should know.

Starting point is 00:46:24 Remember, we've got three episodes a week for you on Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. So please follow this podcast so you get every episode delivered right to your device, phone, whatever you listen on. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Do you love Disney?

Starting point is 00:46:42 Do you love Top Ten lists? 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. The parks, the movies, the music, the food, the lore. There is nothing we don't cover on our show.

Starting point is 00:47:02 We are famous for rabbit holes, Disney-themed games, and fun facts you didn't know you needed. I had Danielle and Megan record some answers to seemingly meaningless questions. I asked Danielle what insect song is typically higher-pitched in hotter temperatures and lower-pitched in cooler temperatures. You got this. No, I didn't. Don't believe that?

Starting point is 00:47:23 About a witch coming true? Well, I didn't either. Of course, I'm just a cicada. I'm crying. I'm so sorry. You win that one. So if you're looking for a healthy dose of Disney magic, check out Disney Countdown wherever you get your podcasts.

Starting point is 00:47:44 Contained herein are the heresies of Redolph Buntwine, erstwhile 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 favored children. The heresies of Redolph Bantwine, wherever podcasts are available.

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