Something You Should Know - SYSK Choice: How to Be More Powerful & Fascinating Facts from the “Google Earth” of Health

Episode Date: September 28, 2019

Is there such a thing as the best seat in the house at a movie theater? Yes according to the people who design them. Listen to discover where to sit the next time you go to the movies. https://lifehacker.com/the-best-seat-in-the-movie-theater-according-to-the-en-1788123971 What makes a powerful person – powerful? That’s a fascinating question. And when you understand the answer, you too can be more powerful. That’s according to Dacher Keltner, professor of psychology at UC Berkley and author of The Power Paradox (https://amzn.to/2l9nabN). Listen as Dacher explains how to acquire power and how to avoid the power paradox which will steal your power away if you are not careful. With all the health information floating around – how do you know what to believe? Well, there was a definitive study on global health that looked at a lot of other studies and really determined what is and is not important to your health. Jeremy Smith author of the book Epic Measures: One Doctor. Seven Million Patients (https://amzn.to/2lD2Qjw) digs deep into the data and offers you some very practical suggestions on staying healthy. Jeremy joins me to reveal some of the interesting things he discovered.  Also in this episode some simple ways to help reduce stress. And I bet you haven’t heard of most of them before. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As a listener to Something You Should Know, I can only assume that you are someone who likes to learn about new and interesting things and bring more knowledge to work for you in your everyday life. I mean, that's kind of what Something You Should Know was all about. And so I want to invite you to listen to another podcast called TED Talks Daily. Now, you know about TED Talks, right? Many of the guests on Something You Should Know have done TED Talks. Well, you see, TED Talks Daily is a podcast that brings you a new TED Talk every weekday in less than 15 minutes. Join host Elise Hu.

She goes beyond the headlines so you can hear about the big ideas shaping our future. Learn about things like sustainable fashion, embracing your entrepreneurial spirit, the future of robotics, and so much more. Like I said, if you like this podcast, Something You Should Know, I'm pretty sure you're going to like TED Talks Daily. And you get TED Talks Daily wherever you get your podcasts. Today on Something You Should Know, how to find the best seat in the movie theater. I'll tell you exactly where it is in every theater. Plus, would you say you're a powerful person? We'll discuss how to acquire power and how not to lose it due to the

power paradox. The power paradox is we get power by being emotionally intelligent and advancing the interests of other people. But once we feel powerful, we lose those very skills and are vulnerable to the abuse of power. Also, you'll discover how to de-stress quickly. You'll need some honey, coffee, the sound of birds,

and a hit song from 1972. And some amazing findings on what we really need to do to stay healthy and live a long time. The leading dietary risk factor in the United States isn't too much red meat or lack of whole grains. It's not eating enough fruit. 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. It's the podcast where great minds meet. Listen in for some great talks on science, tech, politics, creativity, wellness, and a lot more.

A couple of recent examples, Mustafa Suleiman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, discussing the future of technology. That's pretty cool. And writer, podcaster, and filmmaker John Ronson discussing the rise of conspiracies and culture wars. Intelligence Squared is the kind of podcast that gets you thinking a little more openly about the important conversations going on today. Being curious, you're probably just the type of person Intelligence Squared is meant for.

Check out Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts. 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, and welcome to what is now our regular weekend episode of Something You Should Know. And this episode begins with a question. Is there really a best seat in the house at a movie theater? Does it really matter where you sit? Or maybe the better question is, is there a perfect place to sit in a theater?

And the answer is yes, according to the THX director of global technology. And THX is a company that's involved in the design of movie theaters and making the experience the best it can possibly be. And he says that when a theater is being built, the sound is calibrated by taking microphone measurements. And while the goal is to make the experience the best it can be for every seat in the house, the closer you can get to where they tested and where they put those microphones, the better your seat will be. And the seat where the microphones are placed is typically in the very center, about two-thirds of the way back from the screen. That is essentially the best seat in the house.

If that seat's taken, then the advice is essentially the best seat in the house. If that seat's taken, then the advice is to fan out to a center seat. You want to stay close to the center, but start moving forward, not back. Because the closer you are to the screen, the more you increase what's called your horizontal viewing angle. In other words, the closer you get to the screen up to a certain point where it's too close, the closer you get, the more the screen fills up your field of vision. And that is something you should know. When you think about someone who is powerful, what does that mean, power? What is power? Is it money? Is it influence? What? What gives someone power over other people?

And how can you increase your personal power? Here to discuss that is Docker Keltner. He is a professor of psychology at the University of California at Berkeley and author of the book, The Power Paradox. Welcome to the podcast, Docker. It's great to be with you, Mike. I love this conversation about power because so often you hear people say, well, he's such a powerful person or he has a lot of power. And usually I guess that means, or I assume that to mean he's got a lot of money or he's got a great job or he's high up in an organization. But what does power mean to you? Well, you know what power means is it's not just money or military might or politics.

It's really how you as an individual can influence other people. It's how you alter the states of other people. So give me an example. Well, we know, for example, that you can have an enormous influence on other people with really good ideas, right? Not necessarily money. And so, you know, if you have an idea like Thomas Clarkson did, where he really was upset about the conditions of slaves riding in slave ships, he wrote a simple essay in the 18th century, and it really led to the undoing of slavery. So one idea can change world politics. And I think we can be thinking about power as just influencing the emotions

and ideas and conditions of other people's lives. So when people say, well, you know, I have power, or you have power, or this guy's got power, it basically means they have the ability to influence what happens to other people. Exactly, Mike. You know, very simply, every moment of our lives, when we're with our kids, our romantic partners, we go to work, we're, you know, in a community organization, our power is in each moment, do you have the capacity to influence that person, change their mind, alter how they feel? Well, but sometimes you don't need to do that or want to do that.

Yeah, and you know, ironically, and a lot of people have come to a similar conclusion, when you want to try to influence them, they're often reactive. So it's really this capacity to influence others that it's the kind of the deepest form of power. So having a great idea is great, but not if you don't know how to use it and express it and get other people hooked into it. Yeah, absolutely. You know, so the, you know, best way to think about this is my power depends on how my ideas and the resources that I share and the practice that I engage in, to what extent does it move through social networks? And if you have great ideas and you're a hermit living in a cave, you have no power, right? So you got to

get out and engage with other people and spread your thoughts and notions. So it's really the ability to communicate your ideas, not just having the ideas. Yeah, and you know, and this is where the science is really painting a really clear picture that, you know, and this is where the science is really painting a really clear picture that, you know, when kids at school, people who have joined the military, people at work, if they really engage in others, right, and they spread those ideas and they ask good questions and they, you know, express gratitude in these ways of really engaging face-to-face, that's where your power really lies, your capacity to influence. So is there a way to do this? Is there a way, if you have always felt somewhat powerless, to up your power?

Yeah, you know, there are these great studies of just that, right, where you bring people in, and you give them a chance to influence. And they're just really simple techniques. So one is, you know, make sure early in a conversation that you express your point of view, right? And very often we lose power if we don't speak up. We can gain power by asking great questions and by showing an interest in other people. That earns the respect that they have, and it gives us a platform for power. So really engage with others and make the move. And once you have this power, how do you make sure that you hold on to it? Well, this is when, you know, this is why I called the book The Power Paradox,

which is, you know, we gain power, Mike, as we've been talking about, you know, empathizing and listening and respecting people and sharing and collaborating, all good stuff, right? And then all of a sudden when we feel powerful and we feel kind of this almost manic rush of like, wow, I'm on top of the world here, we stop listening and we feel powerful, and we feel kind of this almost manic rush of like, wow, I'm on top of the world here. We stop listening, and we start treating people disrespectfully,

and we kind of get greedy. And so I think the key to avoiding that stuff is just to stay focused on other people. Just make it a very steady practice of your daily life. What happens when you've got two powerful people trying to kind of outpower each other? And we've all been there, right? Yeah, exactly. Two alphas who are trying to dominate things. Well, here, I love this study, and it's just been published, that asks this question, like,

you know, what we know, you know, Mike, is, you know, power tends to make us a little bit less imaginative or less astute listeners of other people. We generate worse conversations. We're interrupting people, a lot of bad stuff. And so these scientists ask the question, what happens if you take a bunch of powerful people and you have them try to solve a problem? And they actually are less effective in solving problems than the right mixture of people who are less and more powerful. So put a lot of people together who have power and you're probably going to get less productive work done. I'm speaking with Docker Keltner. He's a professor of psychology at UC Berkeley, and he's author of the book,

The Power Paradox. 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.

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. Recently, he had a fascinating conversation with a British woman who was recruited and radicalized by ISIS and went to prison for three years.

She now works to raise awareness on this issue. It's a great conversation. And he spoke with Dr. Sarah Hill about how taking birth control not only prevents pregnancy, it can influence a woman's partner preferences, career choices, and overall behavior due to the hormonal changes it causes. Apple named the Jordan Harbinger Show one of the best podcasts a few years back. And in a nutshell, the show is aimed at making you a better, more informed, critical thinker. 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, Docker, when I think of someone who is powerful or someone who isn't powerful, I think of, like, introverts and extroverts, that extroverts are better equipped to have power

because they have that ability to engage with people and to get people to come to their side much more easily than quieter, shyer, more introverted people. Yeah, and you know, it's such an interesting question. So in a lot of contexts, you know, kids at school, if you're working in a kind of a dynamic organization at work, it is the extrovert who, and really, you have to think about what the core of that is, which is it's somebody who really is just reaching out to other people. Engagement, right? That will get you power. But, you know, Mike, I work in, you know, I help consult down at Facebook and Google, you know, engineering and statisticians and data people.

And they're given these new kind of contexts or work settings. There you have a lot of introverts who are doing really well. So it really depends on the context you're in, how you get power. But a good bet is to really make sure you're reaching out and building strong social ties. Let's talk a little bit about the nuance of this, just because I can think of people who ask a lot of questions, who are, you know, always talking, who are, you know, always throwing out ideas, and they're more annoying than powerful. So there's more to it than just trying to, you know, put yourself in the front of the conversation.

There's got to be some nuance to it. Yeah, well put. You know, and we've all, you know, the book, The Power Paradox, talks about these old practices that get you power. You know, expressing gratitude, encouraging people, asking good questions, just stuff your grandma might tell you, right? But we've all been around people who seem to be kind of faking this stuff, and it rubs us the wrong way. The person says thank you in a kind of inauthentic way. And, you know, I think this is where the hard work really begins. And a lot of people who have thought long and hard about great power, great leaders, just great community members, suggest that it really is this deeper kind of ethical commitment to the welfare of others. And that you can't fake.

And once you find that, then these other practices of getting power, of asking questions or kind of really empathizing, readily follow. But you've got to do the hard work to stay committed to others. But if your intent is to engage others and help others and all that, how do you get what you want? Well, you know, you have to, I mean, one of the striking discoveries in all of this, and, you know, I've just been writing about this, is that we actually, you know, when we cooperate with others, we experience activation in our reward circuits in our brain.

When we share resources with others, a path to power, reward circuits in the brain are activated. When we express gratitude and show appreciation to other people, the same thing. We get these physiological bursts of pleasure. So very interestingly, neuroscience has discovered that we find rewarding and gratifying and uplifting being good to others. So these paths to power have their own personal delights. Since it is the title of your book, what is the power paradox? Well, the power paradox is this puzzle of social living, which is we get power by being emotionally intelligent and advancing the interests of other people,

but once we feel powerful, we lose those very skills and are vulnerable to the abuse of power. Isn't that amazing? So once you become powerful, you lose the ability to know how to become powerful. I know. And, you know, if you look at history, you see this time and time again. And what we find is this is just part of our daily lives. I get power by listening carefully, and the minute I feel powerful, I'm not as good at knowing what other people think.

So I would imagine that being aware of that might help as a first step, that if you realize that that's likely to happen, you can guard against it, or not. Absolutely. You know, I think, you know, I mean, humans are amazing in how powerful just simple awareness is, right? Just being aware of, for example, some warning signs that you might be abusing your power. Are you interrupting people? Are you not listening carefully? Are you, you know, studies show that powerful people will literally turn away from somebody who's speaking and look at something else, check their cell phone or whatever.

These are warning signs that you are quickly losing your power and problems may arise. Do you lose power as fast as you gain it, or is it roughly the same speed on the way down as it is on the way up? That's a terrific question. Really neat question. I actually think you lose power more precipitously or fast than gaining it. I think gaining power in a lot of contexts is tough work, you know, when you think about rising in the ranks in an organization. But I think, you know, these abuses of power are quickly picked up by the people you're leading and make for a quick downfall. How much of this is style versus substance?

And what I mean by that is you say that it's important to get your ideas across and all that. What if your ideas aren't so great, but you're still really passionate about them and you explain them well and you're engaging and all that? You may not have the substance, but you've got the style. Do you need both or does that work? Is that good enough? I don't think there's a substitute for substance, and, you know, the best answer to your really important question, Mike, is the studies of the legacies of U.S. presidents, right? And what they find is, yeah, it's great to have this style of listening and really sort of collaboration and great communication. But you also need a bold idea that unites the body politic or the country and the great presidents.

They have this style. They're great storytellers like Lincoln was. They're great listeners, but they have this substantive idea that really transforms a country. And I think when you look at innovation in the workplace, if you look at great science, if you look at great literature, great film, substance is essential. And it's interesting because some of the abuses of power that we've been talking about actually diminish your ability to make great innovations, to produce substantive contributions. What about the other way around? Can you have the substance and not the style?

And I'm thinking in terms of like, and I'm a big fan, so I'm not saying anything negative about, say, Johnny Carson, but he was not known as a nice guy or a good listener, a guy who would get out there and engage people. But he had so much talent that he had the talent, he didn't need to do the other stuff. Yeah. I mean, I think you can clearly think of, you know, geniuses at trade, right? At, you know, the comic interviewer or the scientist or the movie maker or the artist who will change the world through their genius. But I think that time and time again, we see that it also, if you have this style that really appeals and inspires, your influence will be even greater. Well, and you know, that's true because guys like, say, Jay Leno,

who came after Johnny Carson, was known for being a very nice, friendly, engaging guy, and he did quite well, too. No, I think there are a lot of surprising examples of how, you know, niceness and just sort of a good character is a basis of power. Terrific. Well, I appreciate your time. Thanks, Docker. Yeah, great observations, Mike. Thanks. Docker Keltner is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of the book, The Power Paradox. There's a link to his book on Amazon on the show notes page

for this episode of the podcast on our website, which is somethingy should know,.net. 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 Countdown wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everyone, join me, Megan Rinks. And me, Melissa Demonts, for Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong? Each week we deliver four fun-filled shows. In Don't Blame Me, we tackle our listeners' dilemmas with hilariously honest advice. Then we have But Am I 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 listener 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 Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Every day you hear health advice based on research, and sometimes the information from that research conflicts with other information from other research, so you never really know what to believe. But there is actually a new, massive study that is different than all the others in some pretty significant ways that is worth paying attention to, and I think you'll find quite fascinating.

Here to discuss it is Jeremy Smith. He is the author of a book called Epic Measures, which discusses all this. And Jeremy, explain what is so interesting about this information and this research and how you got involved and all that. A friend of mine was a mathematician, and I looked him up a few years ago, and I learned that he was now a professor of global health at the University of Washington. And I asked myself, how on earth does a mathematician become a professor of health? I called him, and I found out that he was part of

a global scientific team trying to create the equivalent of Google Earth for health. And that's tricky because you need to draw data from all over the world. You need to fill in the gaps in information you don't have. And just as important, you need to correct the errors and inconsistencies in everything that's already out there. For example, when you add up the claims of all the different groups measuring one disease or another, you find out that everyone dies two or three times over. And obviously that's not possible.

At the same time, many people, causes, and countries are never measured at all. So the idea with this study is let's try to measure everything for everyone, everywhere, in the same way, and make sure the numbers add up in a consistent way. In looking at all that, is there, though, a danger that because different parts of the world and different cultures and different people are so different from each other that global snapshots don't mean much? Yeah. If you are someone like Bill Gates or the United Nations

and you're interested in devoting your fortune or your efforts to global health, then the big picture is really important. But the cool thing about this project that's profiled in Epic Measures is that you can zoom all the way in to your country or your age group. Or in the case of the U.S., where there's more data, sometimes you can look all the way down to a county level and see what's most important for me or my family or how are we doing compared to the people next to us

or the people a couple states over. One of the things that you say that you talk about in the book is that fruits are healthier than vegetables. So how do you know that, and can you explain how that statement comes to be? Yeah, I was really surprised to learn that the leading dietary risk factor in the United States isn't too much red meat or lack of whole grains. It's not eating enough fruit. And this is literally just two, three apples a day or the equivalent. The reason not eating enough fruit is so

harmful in this country is because fruit wards off two of our leading killers, heart disease and stroke. It's not that fruit is necessarily better for you than vegetables or something else. It's that we are further away from our ideal amount of consumption. In other words, people are actually doing a little bit better at eating their vegetables than they are eating their fruit. And so the study doesn't just look at what's better for you in a vacuum. It looks at what are the trends where people actually are in their diet, exercise, etc. You know, when I read that, I googled it, and I couldn't find anybody else differentiating between fruits and vegetables. It is, in most cases, one group, and they're not treated separately,

and no distinction is made between the two in terms of health benefits anywhere? Well, this is really one-of-a-kind study in many ways. It's taking everything ever discovered from everywhere else, all the scientific literature, and trying to put it through sort of one consistent analysis. And it's published in peer-reviewed publication in the British medical journal, The Lancet, which is sort of the British equivalent of the New England Journal of Medicine. So when, you know, another really sort of surprising fact on a global level is that, you know, I know lots of people interested and involved in the cause of clean water and sanitation, making sure people have clean drinking water. What this study found is that that is an important cause,

but five to ten times more important in most countries is the issue of indoor air pollution, people cooking with dirty cook stoves. And it just wasn't on the global health map before, in the same way fruit hasn't been on the U.S. health map. But the U.S. findings were introduced to the public and this sort of interactive tool where you can play with them, this U.S. health map, at a sort of big presentation at the White House with the First Lady. So I don't think it's, you know, too fringe at this point. Wow. So explain that a little deeper about the indoor

air pollution, because I've certainly heard that that's a problem, but not to the extent that you just stated. Well, if you think about it, if you have a dirty cook stove, which is basically someone cooking in an unventilated way with sort of dung or charcoal, what you have is the equivalent of everyone in an entire household smoking 24 hours a day. And so it leads to lung cancer, it leads to heart disease, it leads to stroke, and it leads to disabling conditions like blindness. And it affects people of all ages, whereas, you know, dirty water is important, and it's especially affecting young children who die subsequently of diarrheal diseases. But the number of children dying at early ages has dropped dramatically.

And so you want to address issues that affect people at all ages of life, and ones that you might not have thought to study before. But, of course, in this country, not a lot of us are cooking with dung. No. Well, in this country, we've got clean water. cooking with dung. No, well, in this country, we've got clean water, we've got, you know, clean cook stoves. So here, we do want to look at the other kind of causes of death and the sort of risk factors. As I said, low fruit consumption is an easy thing to improve at low cost for almost anyone. But then there's other issues like, you know, smoking is still a leading cause of death in this country. If we eliminated, you know, cigarette consumption in this country,

according to the study's estimate, 80% of lung cancer cases would be eliminated. And, you know, other things that we are well aware of but maybe haven't had hard numbers on And, you know, other things that we are well aware of but maybe haven't had hard numbers on before, for example, are if you pursue the ideal diet, heart disease falls by about 90 percent, stroke falls about 70 percent, increasing physical activity or lowering body weight can cut the toll from diabetes, you know, somewhere between 30 and 75 percent, depending on which of those two paths you're pursuing. So you can kind of see, where am I?

What are my biggest risks? And you can zoom all the way in. You know, I'm a male in the United States between 35 and 40. For my particular group, the greatest dietary risk factor isn't low fruit consumption. It's actually overconsumption of processed sort of lunch deli-style meats. So, you know, I should maybe pause before I reach for the next hot dog. One of the things that fascinates me about this is that there is certainly the information in your book, but you don't need even your book to tell.

The average smoker knows, every smoker knows that smoking is bad for you. Everybody that's eating at McDonald's knows that if you eat there seven times a week, that's not good for you. But people don't, even with the information in hand, aren't motivated often to do anything about it. A big message that I got after following this research is that public health efforts can be just as or more important than individual efforts. Look at New York City. It's gotten a lot of attention and in some cases a lot of criticism for pushing a lot of public health

efforts like cutting smoking and making cigarettes more expensive to buy, like restrictions on what can be served in food or even the size of sodas. At the same time, if you are born in New York City today, you're likely to live about 10 years longer than you were a generation ago. It is the single greatest life expectancy gain in this country. If everywhere in the U.S. had the same gains as New York City, we would be the longest living country in the world. Instead, we're about 40th. But are you attributing those gains to those policies? I think that it's, you know, that's a great question. Am I attributing those gains to those policies? I think that they've had a big impact.

I mean, smoking has plummeted in New York City, and certain elements of physical activity and diet have improved dramatically because of these public health measures. Other countries, like Australia, have modeled their public health efforts after the findings of this study and have seen similar kinds of gains. And internationally you see that as well. I mentioned dirty cook stoves. The government of Rwanda, a very poor country in Africa, did sort of their equivalent of cash for clunkers. They saw this finding and they swapped out a million dirty cook stoves for clean cook

stoves. And so I think when you look at what is the biggest problem that people I care about face, you can say, okay, what are the sort of solutions that are out there? It may be smoking, it may be diet, it may be something else altogether. You know, I live in a county in Montana that does very well for smoking, does very well for in Montana that does very well for smoking, does very well for physical activity, does very well for obesity compared to the rest of the country. But according to their data, we've got a pretty big binge drinking problem. And that leads to car crashes, violence, self-harm, a host of other injuries. So I can look at the data and say, okay, this is actually where our biggest problems lie.

What are some of, if you can do it as succinctly as the fruit thing, just to whet people's appetite, some of the other things that aren't so obvious that are making a difference or clearly can make a difference? Yeah, well, there's a couple other things in diet. For example, the study suggests that second only to fruit in importance is actually eating more nuts and seeds. So that includes, you know, peanut butters are just sort of a handful of nuts. And I think that's about 114 grams weekly. So it's not a huge amount. It's just sort of something to sprinkle into the diet. And, you know, in terms of not just preventing premature death, but sort of helping yourself live a long life to the end, they suggest that the biggest issues people face are low back pain, depression, neck pain, anxiety disorders. And a lot of these actually can be addressed with things like

regular stretching breaks or proven interventions for depression and anxiety, including therapy. So things like a pain in the neck you might just dismiss are actually pretty important, affecting a lot of people and can be addressed. Are there things that people generally believe either help or hurt your health that turn out, at least according to this study, turn out to be not true? You know, diet high in red meat doesn't ring very high, for example, in the sort of toll, according to this study. Diet high in processed meat is much more important. So I guess you could say, hey, it's okay to have the steak, but maybe skip the bologna.

So another sort of surprise killer to me were the host of injuries. I mean, worldwide, road injuries kill more people than AIDS. Falls kill more people than brain cancer. Drowning claims many more people than a lot of causes of death that you might think of much sooner. It was interesting to me that I read in the material about your book that a surprising number of people who die and there is a cause of death issued, that the cause of death is medically impossible. Yeah, this is a sort of scary fact. Every year about 50 million people die, only a third of them have death certificates. Even in countries like the U.S. where we have death

certificates, about a quarter of them are just inaccurate on their face. They have causes of death like senility, hangnail, or something subtle like heart failure. Think about heart failure. Everyone who's dead has had heart failure. Was it caused by drowning? Was it caused by a car crash? Was it caused by a heart attack? You have to know that if you want to help save lives. Just to put it in perspective, I mean, there are studies out every day purporting that, you know, you should do this to live longer and do this to prevent disease. So explain how the study you're talking about is different than, you know, the usual studies that show up in the paper every day. This is a thousand scientists in over a hundred countries spending about a quarter

of a billion dollars over a 20-year period to pull this all together. And they're now updating it annually and in some cases even quarterly. And what I love is if you go to healthdata.org, their website, you can play with the visualizations yourself and sort of zoom in and look up whatever you're particularly interested in. Wow, fascinating. Well, great. Well, I appreciate your time. Yeah, thanks so much for having me, and I appreciate the show. That's Jeremy Smith. He is the author of the book, Epic Measures, One Doctor, Seven Billion Patients.

And there is a link to his book on Amazon on our website. The show notes page for this episode has it. It's at somethingyoushouldknow.net. And finally today, how to de-stress when you're all worked up. Because sometimes you just need to chill. And here are some proven ways that will help you de-stress really, really quickly. First, smell coffee. Our sense of smell is 10,000 times more powerful than any other sense in the body. Sniffing

coffee or citrus fruit helps you de-stress by creating balance between your nervous system, brain chemistry, and hormones. Here's another one. Eat honey. Researchers in New Zealand confirmed the long-held belief that among its many healing properties, honey can reduce anxiety and calm the mind. Have a good laugh. Or cry. Both stimulate the vagus nerve, which reduces the level of cortisol, which is the stress hormone in your blood, and increases serotonin production in the brain.

A good laugh also boosts your energy, and a new study shows that it may improve short-term memory as you get older. Run cold water over your wrists. By dripping cool water on the pressure points on your wrist and splashing it behind your ears, you cool the arteries right under the skin, taking the heat down a notch and calming your whole body. And listen to birds, recorded birds or live birds. The sound of birds in the wild can have a restorative effect.

And finally, and there is no scientific evidence that anybody's ever found to prove this, but people swear that listening to the 1972 song I Can See Clearly Now by Johnny Nash can have instant, instant stress-reducing effects and make you more optimistic. And who doesn't want to be more optimistic? And that

is something you should know. Please leave a rating and review at iTunes, Apple Podcasts, CastBox, Podbean, wherever yous, CastBox, Podbean, wherever you listen to this podcast, a rating and review really helps us out. 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, this is Rob Benedict. And I am Richard Spate.

We were both on a little show you might know called Supernatural. It had a pretty good run, 15 seasons, 327 episodes. And though we have seen, of course, every episode many times, we figured, hey, now that we're wrapped, let's watch it all again. And we can't do that alone. So we're inviting the cast and crew that made the show along for the ride. We've got writers, producers, composers, directors, and we'll of course have some actors on as well,

including some certain guys that played some certain pretty iconic brothers. It was kind of a little bit of a left field choice in the best way possible. some certain guys that played some certain pretty iconic brothers. It was kind of a little bit of a left field choice in the best way possible. The note from Kripke was, he's great, we love him, but we're looking for like a really intelligent Duchovny type. With 15 seasons to explore, it's going to be the road trip of several lifetimes. So please join us and subscribe to Supernatural then and now.