Something You Should Know - What Your Stuff Reveals About You & How Your Gut Affects Your Mood

Episode Date: May 3, 2018

The more decisions you make during the day, the worse you get at it. It’s called “decision fatigue” and everyone gets it. Listen as we begin this episode and discover just how it happens and what you can do about it. (http://jamesclear.com/willpower-decision-fatigue)  What does your stuff say about you? Tons, according to my first guest, Sam Gosling. Sam sent investigators and scientists to snoop around people’s homes and offices to discover what can be learned by their belongings. The results are in his book, Snoop: What Your Stuff Says about You (https://amzn.to/2HR1VSs). Sam joins me to explain what he discovered.  You probably don’t think a lot about food – but there are some fascinating things worth knowing. So we will explore things like how much food you eat in a year; the shelf life of Twinkies (if there is one) and what may be lurking in your peanut butter. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/17/food-facts_n_4788746.html) The bacteria in your gut could actually have a significant impact on your mood and your ability to think and solve problems. It sounds weird but the science for this is pretty substantial. Journalist Scott Anderson explored this thoroughly for his book (published by National Geographic) called The Psychobiotic Revolution: Mood, Food and the New Science of the Gut-Brain Connection. Normally I am very conservative about what kind of health claims and advice I allow on the podcast but there really seems to be something to this and it could be of help for people with depression as well as people who have trouble with their gut. (https://amzn.to/2HOMx90)  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today on Something You Should Know, the more decisions you make in a day, the worse you get at it. We'll explore why that is, then what a person's stuff says about them. It's fascinating when you know what to look for. And one of the places I really like to look is the photos people choose to have of themselves. Because in this day and age, there are many different photos we could display. Why did we choose these particular ones? And these are really talking about the type of image of the self that the person wants to project to others.

Also, do you know how much food you will eat this year? The amount will shock you. And the bacteria in your gut can have an impact on your brain. What we're seeing is if you give some of those bacteria to people under stress, they can perform better. They're not quite so stressed out. They seem to be cognitively improved, and they have better moods about it. All this today on Something You Should Know.

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 is 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 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. 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. Well, the numbers are in, and April was a record month for listeners to this podcast. We had more listeners in the month of April 2018 than in any other calendar month. And March was a great month as well, but March was a 31-day month, and April even beat that, and it had one less day in it. So thank you for listening and sharing this with your friends,

which is what helps to make this podcast grow. First up today, we're going to talk about something called decision fatigue. Simply put, the more decisions that you make in the course of a day, the worse you get at it, and the more tired of it you get. Researchers looked at how judges make decisions in criminal cases, and the results were fascinating. At the beginning of the day, a judge was likely to give a favorable ruling about 65% of the time. However, as the morning wore on and the judge became drained

from making more and more decisions, the likelihood of the defendant getting a favorable ruling steadily dropped to zero. Statistically, a judge's rulings should remain fairly constant throughout the day. Then, after taking a lunch break, the judge would return to the courtroom refreshed, and the likelihood of a favorable ruling would immediately jump back to 65%. Then, as the hours moved on, the percentage of favorable rulings would fall back down to zero by the end of the day.

Now, decision fatigue doesn't only happen in the courtroom, it happens to you in your life as well. If you have a particularly decision-heavy day at work, then you might come home feeling drained. Now, you might want to go to the gym and work out, but your brain would rather default to the gym and work out, but your brain would rather default to the easy decision, which is to sit on the couch and watch TV. That is the perfect example of decision fatigue. And that is something you should know. You have stuff. Your home is full of your stuff. But what does your stuff say about you? Anything?

Can you really tell much about someone by looking at their stuff, their belongings, the things in the back of their closet? Apparently so, says Sam Gosling. He explores this in his very popular book, Snoop, What Your Stuff Says About You. Hey Sam, so what do you mean you can tell about a person from their stuff? I mean, if somebody has a picture of Diamondhead on their wall, I can tell they probably like Hawaii, and I can tell by looking at their stuff whether or not they're neat or messy. But what do you mean by it?

Well, there are a number of different ways things say things about us. Some of those ways are deliberate ways we affect the environment. So if we put up a poster on the wall or we put up a memento from a vacation, that's deliberately expressing something to communicate to others or, in some cases, to communicate to ourselves. We also affect the environment by modifying it to make us feel a certain way, creating a relaxing environment or an invigorating environment. And then the final way we affect the environment is by just doing behaviors,

and then we inadvertently leave traces of our behaviors in those spaces, and those traces can also tell us about the person who lives there too. But can't you come back from a vacation, let's say, and put a picture from your vacation on your TV set because you like it? It doesn't really say anything about you. It just means you like the picture. Yeah, you could. And I think that's how most of it works.

That's how most of it feels. Most of it feels, oh, I like that picture, or I think the sofa feels really good over there, or here's a few photos of myself or some people that I'm going to put up on my screensaver. And I think you're right. That is the phenomenology of it. It's just how it feels right. But there is some reason that there were 10,000 pictures you could have got on vacation,

and there are 300 places around the house you could have displayed them. What caused you to put those in those places? And so that's really what I'm interested in. And to be sure, in some cases, it probably is just chance. That's why we look for a sort of broad pattern of behaviors and displays. So can you give me some examples of, like, what says what about a person? Sure. And we find that many different spaces tell you about people. And by spaces, I'm talking very broadly here, not just living spaces, but also office spaces,

the musical environments we create ourselves, our playlists, our Facebook profiles, our web pages, and so on. So what we have found, for example, is that people often assume that very, very messy places are a key to high creativity. Well, that turns out not to be true. Messy places are a key to what I call this air traffic controller factor. So as you might expect, people who are organized, orderly, think before they act, and so on. And if you really want to find out if somebody's high on creativity, you need to look for a different set of clues. That is, you want to look for very distinctive spaces and very broad range of items, not 500 books all on the same topic.

Say 10 books all on different topics would be more diagnostic. So messy just may mean you're messy. Messy, yeah, messy may just mean you're messy, and there are very creative people who are messy and very creative people who are tidy. It's irrelevant to that. It's relevant to some things like this traffic controller factor. But people go beyond that, too. People also think that people who are messy tend to be low on agreeableness.

We found that in our studies, that people form that impression. Wait, wait. I didn't understand that. Lower than what? Low on agreeableness, how nice you are, what I call the Mr. Rogers factor, how sympathetic, kind, warm, and so on. They think the people with messy spaces are lower on that.

And it's an automatic assumption. It's not something people are doing deliberately. They're not saying, you have this, therefore I think this. But people who have those spaces tend to be rated lower on those traits. But can it just be that you're just a little messy? And that's the beginning and the end of it. There's nothing more to it than that. You can't attach other trades to that.

I don't like necessarily to tidy up a lot, so I'm messier than my wife, say, who doesn't like a mess and is much more likely to tidy up. That's just our natures. But couldn't it be that that's all it says? But that's exactly what I'm trying to find out, your nature. I agree. It is because it's your nature, but that's exactly what I'm interested in finding out.

But my point is that couldn't it just end there? That's your nature. Well, it could, but research has shown that it typically doesn't. Research has shown that people who tend to have a certain nature also is associated with a broader array of traits. Of course, not in every case, but on average it is. On average, people who are messy, they tend to be people who don't think ahead so much. They tend to be a bit more impulsive than others. They often find it harder to be time-oriented and task-focused. Well, you nailed me on that one. There's something interesting on the book jacket about how music

can help you make friends. So talk about that. Well, we were interested in what sources people use when they are trying to get to know each other. So we ran an experiment where people had to get to know each other over a sort of computer chat session. So they'd never meet anyone. And we wanted to see which topics they used. And it turns out that they overwhelmingly use music preferences over any other source of information when they're getting to know each other across a six-week period. And so we then said, well, okay, well, how strongly is music related to personality? People are clearly using it as part of their techniques to try and get to know each other. Are they doing the right thing? And it

turns out that music preferences are related to what people like. And so somebody who's pretty good at judging you, even if they've only heard your top 10 songs, would get a bunch of subjects, would say, what are your top 10 songs? We'd record them on a CD, and then we'd give those to somebody else. And somebody else who had just heard that was pretty good at figuring out some of your traits. Not all of them, again, but some of your traits shown through in your music collections. And so, therefore, the conclusion is what? The conclusion is that our music preferences do reveal things about what we're like.

And they reveal things not only in terms of the specific genre. So if I knew what genres you listen to, I could make good guesses at the sorts of traits you'd be higher on, but also in terms of broad themes in that music. So, for example, extroverts are a very interesting group of people because they just like other people. They do whatever they can. For example, in their offices, they make them more inviting to try and lure people into them and just hang out, whereas people low on extroversion try to their

places aren't welcoming you go in and you just they have uncomfortable chairs the doors aren't open very wide you just don't don't hang out there very long but the extroverts also like people they like uh uh photos of people and it this is reflected music they even prefer on average music with voices in to music without voices so. So you can look for broad themes there. And of course, if you can actually get to look at someone's music collection, you can pick up clues to other traits too. So for example, is it organized? Are they somebody who lives with a completely disorganized music collection? Are they somebody like me who occasionally tries to get organized

but just doesn't have the personality to pull it off? I'm speaking with Sam Gosling. He is author of the book, Snoop, What Your Stuff Says About You. 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. Hi, I'm Jennifer, a co-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 Lightning, a fantasy adventure series about a spirited young girl named Isla

who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot. During her journey, Isla meets new friends, including King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, and learns valuable life lessons with every quest, sword fight, and dragon ride. Positive and uplifting stories remind us all about the importance of kindness, friendship, honesty, and positivity. Join me and an all-star cast of actors, including Liam Neeson, Emily Blunt, Kristen Bell, Chris Hemsworth, among many others,

in welcoming the Search for the Silver Lining podcast to the Go Kid Go Network by listening today. Look for the Search for the Silver Lining on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. So Sam, I thought, and maybe I misread this, but that thing about music and how what people's musical tastes says, I thought what that was saying was that if you want to make friends, that music, your taste in music, is about as good a subject as there is to help other people understand who you are and find that common ground if there is any. What it means is that that is a very efficient way of communicating

your preferences, values, and attitudes to other people. And do people find that if your taste in music is radically different than my taste in music, that either we don't like each other so much or we're less likely to get along because of that? There is some support for that, yeah. So give me some more examples of what about my stuff tells you what about me. Okay, well one of the things I like to do, you know, very broadly when I am looking at a space is look at an object and think, okay, first of all, what is the object? Then what is its state? The state of the object is very useful because that tells you how it's been used. So I could go into two offices, both of which have a desk calendar,

but I shouldn't just say, oh, they both have desk calendars. This means they are punctual and organized. You need to look at the state. So are they both turned to the right day? One of them may be turned to 20 days ago, hasn't been used. Are they both filled out? Are they filled out consistently? So is one really being used and integrated into this person's life in a sensible way? So I'd look at the state. And then I also look at the

orientation of things. The orientation gives you a lot of clues as to its psychological function. So one of the great examples of this is the photos people have in their offices. Do they have photos that face them? If they have photos that face them, that's what we call sort of a social snack. It's there in order to provide sustenance, emotional sustenance, while that photo of a loved one or a love pet or a special place, to help you think of those while you cannot be physically in touch with them.

Whereas if the photo is turned away and it's facing others, then it's doing something very different. It's making a statement to others about how the occupant would like to be regarded, not necessarily a disingenuous one. So those are sort of the general principles I go in. One of the mistakes that novice people make when they're snooping around a place is they try and do this thing of saying, okay, if you have X, it means Y. They try to make a jump of one thing meaning something else. And I wish the world was that

simple, but it just isn't. Because there are actually many different reasons why you might have something in a space. And we can do that if we look at the items in our own space. So, you know, there was a time where I had a religious musical CD sitting on my desk. Now, you think, okay, does a religious musical CD mean he likes religious music and all the traits associated with that? Well, no, because I had it there because it was for a teaching exercise, not because I liked it. I could have had it there because I was going to give it as a gift to someone. So one of the really crucial things for snoopers to do is not to take a codebook approach that if you have one thing, it means something else. That simply cannot be done. It's more like

a doctor. I think it's a doctor. If you go into a doctor and say, okay, I have a headache, they don't say, oh, well, you have malaria. They say, oh, okay, you have a headache, so that makes me think you might have this range of things wrong with you. Let me ask you some other questions to help narrow it down. Yeah, well, I would hate to go to that doctor who said, oh, you have a headache, you must have malaria. So why is this important? Well, I think it's important for a number of reasons. One of the reasons is in terms of getting to know others and understanding how others get to know us. So often we do want to get to know what others are like, and I think snooping can help us do that.

And indeed, a lot of research shows that people want to be known, and that's one of the reasons I think that offices are so often decorated and homes are often so decorated. It's because people are genuinely trying to get others to see them as they see themselves. So that's one reason. Another reason is it's important to know how others are forming impressions of us. So this example I gave where you have a messy space and people jump to conclusions about, say, your creativity and how nice you are and your time orientation, it's good to know that people are going to automatically, unconsciously form those impressions about you. So that's one reason.

The other reason I think is interesting is in really just shedding light on how we are connected to the spaces around us. So one of the people I talk about in my book, Chris Travis, runs an architecture firm where he is using this understanding of our connections between our places and the people who live in them to design spaces well-suited to people, very well-designed to what they want, so bringing out their psychological connections. And he finds with his clients that he develops these places that are just, people feel fit them very well. And it also has implications, of course, for how we design our own workspaces. When you look and see how important it is for people to express who they are to others, that shows, okay, well, maybe having a clear desk policy and hot desks aren't such a good idea.

Maybe we really need to give people the ability to express who they are to others. Have you found that there are particular hot spots that reveal more, that if you wanted to learn about somebody, that it's the best place to look if you only had one place to look is the living room or the kitchen or the closet or wherever? And what would you look for? Yeah, I like to look at places, but also considering what function those places serve.

So, for example, I like to compare private places with public places, because that tells you, is the person trying to project one image but really behave another way? Do they have all the intellectual, highbrow, learned books

sitting on the coffee table in the living room, but in the bedroom they have all the sort of trashy romance novels or something like that. So you look for a discrepancy between the projection and how they actually behave. But having done that, I like to look at people's personal spaces, like their bedrooms, the places that are more private,

because that often shows how they're actually behaving, what's really important to them, to their deeper sense of self. And one of the places I really like to look is the photos people choose to have of themselves. Because in this day and age, you know, we could have thousands of photos. There are many, many different photos we could display. Why did we choose these particular ones? Why did you choose to have the photo of you meditating on the top of a mountain in India, rather than the one of you, you know, yelling at the camera with all of your friends,

drunkenly after a night on the town? You know, and some people choose one photo, some people choose the other. And these are really talking about the type of image of the self that the person wants to project to others. But it does seem, too, that people try to project an image that's not them. I mean, I've been in people's homes where the living room is gorgeous and lovely and modern or whatever. It doesn't really reflect who they are, because I know who they are. And it's not really them.

It's beautiful, but it's not really them. But maybe in the bedroom, things could be different. Right. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think that's right. I think these people who are projecting these images, I don't think they're being disingenuous. I think they're really trying to tell you, here is who I am. And we know that when they're successful at that, when people are successful at getting others to see them as others, as they see themselves, those people tend to be happier, healthier, and more productive. I bet if you asked people who haven't heard our discussion, I bet if you asked people

if their stuff tells much about them, I don't think they would think that it tells as much as you think it does. Well, I don't think they are you know they're thinking about it consciously so I think that's one of the things that I have found interesting with this research is that we're constantly crafting our spaces but we're not consciously thinking okay I want to project an image of a sensation seeker so I'm going to put up the picture of me parachuting. They're not going through that process consciously.

They're just thinking, ah, I like this one. And so they put it up. So I think it's only when you sort of begin to think, okay, what psychological function is this serving that you begin to unpack the various elements in our spaces. Well, this is good to know, because armed with this, you can go into people's homes or in their offices when you're talking to them and look around and get a sense of maybe who they really are compared to who they really want you to think they are. Sam Gosling has been my guest.

The book is Snoop, What Your Stuff Says About You, and there is a link to his book in the show notes. Thanks, Sam. 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. Thank you. 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. 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. Who would think that what goes on in your stomach, in your gut, would affect what goes on in your head? But more and more, the science says there is a connection, a strong connection, between your gut and your mood, and your gut and your ability to think and mentally perform. Now, the science is pretty new, and I'll tell you that I am particularly careful and conservative when it comes to presenting health advice or health information on this podcast, but there really does seem to be something here. And journalist Scott Anderson has really explored this.

He's the author of the National Geographic book The Psychobiotic Revolution, Mood, Food, and the New Science of the Gut-Brain Connection. Hi, Scott. Thanks for coming on. Well, I'm glad to be here. So make the connection for me here, because I think people think, and I've always thought, that what goes on in your head and what goes on in your gut are two separate things that aren't really connected much. So what's the connection?

Yeah, the gut-brain axis is kind of interesting. One way to look at it, and I think this is actually kind of a, it's a little simplistic but it helps a lot, is if you get the flu or if you get some food poisoning, one of the things you're going to want to do is just let's hit the hay, pull up some covers over you. Maybe somebody can bring you some soup, but basically I want to be alone. That's sickness behavior. And that is actually very similar to depression. And if it goes on for long enough, it can be almost unmistakable for depression. And in fact, may be depression. In Walkerton, Canada, about 20 years ago, they had a flood, and the flood brought a whole bunch of bacteria from the farms, the local farms, into the water supply. And people got sick. The whole town got sick. 5,000 people came down with just terrible

diseases. Several people died. The people, after a few years, researchers came to look at the population there and found that a lot of people had picked up IBS from this infection, and that those people also had depression. And this went on for years. They kept going back and looking at them. And these people who had basically just been sickened by Campylobacter jejuni, which is a nasty bacteria, those people still had depression eight years later. And so we started to realize that there was a connection between your gut microbes and what goes on in your mind. And it can kind of be as simple as thinking of it as extended sickness behavior. But just because people feel in a bad mood when

they're sick doesn't mean that putting other things in your stomach will put you in a good mood. That's just a hypothesis, so build that bridge for me. What's going on in your stomach is that you've got bacteria pathogens in some cases, or in other cases you just have bacteria that are not quite up to snuff, or some people are born with bad bacteria. And what that can lead to is permeability of the gut, what they call leaky gut. Leaky gut allows bacteria to get into your system, and your blood picks it up and then pumps it to every organ in your body. If you have chronic inflammation because of this infection,

that's going to bring on a lot of changes in your brain, we've found. And so one of the things that we're looking at here is how to adjust the bacteria in your gut so that you can improve, basically stop the leakiness. And once you do that, then you don't have these bacteria in your blood supply where they do not belong. And that's one of the things that we're trying to do with various probiotics and prebiotics. And, of course, we're calling the ones that work very well on your mood, we're calling those psychobiotics.

Those are not strange bacteria exactly. We know what most of them are. They have been around for millennia. We use them. We find a lot of them in, like, yogurts and kimchi and sauerkrauts and stuff. They include things like bifidobacter longum and lactobacillus helveticus and lactobacillus rhamnosus. You can find these things if you look at your store.

If you go and look at probiotics, you can find them there. And you can also just get them in yogurt, which has been shown to improve people's moods. We can actually follow their mood changes using what's called functional MRI. You get to look into the brain and see how things change over time. And you can actually see how neurotransmitters are moving around in the brain toward a more, let's call it happy, sort of brain frame. And that's happening as a consequence, a direct consequence of eating things like yogurt. Because I'm particularly careful about what kinds of health information and health advice we put on this podcast, explain this research.

You're sort of making it sound as if this is a done deal, that we know this for sure because it's all been tested in humans and all. So fill that in for me. A lot of this research comes from mice and rats. And so if you have a depressed mouse, we've got great solutions for you. So the question is, how well does that translate to humans? And that's a really good question. And what we're seeing is that to a certain extent it translates very well. One of the things that in my mind kind of shows the connection and causality rather than just association better than anything is you can take fecal matter from a depressed person and give it to a mouse, which is not necessarily a delightful image,

but that mouse will become depressed. So you're showing now that the microbes in the fecal matter are actually directly connected to producing that in another species even. So not only are we showing that you can transmit the blues, so to speak, but we're also showing that you can transmit it blues, so to speak, but we're also showing that you can transmit it between species. That's still not good enough. You need to see human studies, and we're starting to see those, and they're kind of new. They go back maybe three or four years, and that's about it as far as human studies are concerned. But we have seen

some good things. We've seen that bifidobacter has been shown to reduce the effect of stress in students that are studying. Wait, wait, I don't know what that word is. Oh, bifidobacteria, that's a particular one of those bacteria that we were talking about. Bifidobacteria is one of those bacteria that you get when you're a baby. It comes in mother's milk. So what we're seeing is if you give some of those bacteria to people under stress, they can perform better. They're not quite so stressed out. They seem to be cognitively improved and they have better moods about it. But then we gave some of these same people lactobacillus, which works in mice. It did not work in humans. So the human studies are showing us that, yes, there's a good connection. Some of these things work just as they do in mice, and others do not. So we have to put a little bit

of a caveat on the human studies, and that's that what we know from mice and rats is not always going to be applicable. And that actually shouldn't be too shocking, but it does mean that we have to be guarded in what we say. So what's the recommendation here when the dust all settles? So what should I be knowing what you know? What do you do differently now that you didn't do before? Well, I personally have tried almost everything that was out there, you know, based upon the reviews of the bacteria and whatnot. I started taking some probiotics. I didn't find any good results with probiotics. And then I came across a study that showed that Nature did this study that showed out of 16 probiotics that they looked at, only two

actually had in the jar what was on the label. And that was sobering. The FDA is not in charge of probiotics. And as a consequence, it's kind of a wild west out there. By and large, probiotics are dicey. You just don't know exactly what you're going to get. And you don't know, we don't know yet what the actual proper numbers of bacteria are, that should you be getting 50 billion or maybe 300 billion. So that's something that's interesting and may get better as time goes on and as we figure out exactly which species and which dose are useful. But in the meantime, what I've been using and what changed my life and turned it around entirely, I've always had problems with my gut. And I started taking something called GOS, which is G-O-S. It stands for galactooligosaccharide. And these oligosaccharides

are what we call fiber. And they're just chains of sugar that are put together in such a way that your gut can't digest them, but your bacteria can. So they're like ambrosia to the microbes in your gut. And that promotes the growth of good bacteria in your gut. And for me, it was astonishing. It was the first time in my life that I've ever gotten control over my gut. So I can't recommend that stuff enough. You can get that stuff at Amazon. If you just type in G-O-S, you'll find these things or F-O-S. The other thing that we're looking at is fermented foods. And so as we talked about before, the kimchi and sauerkraut and yogurts, they all have exactly the kinds of bacteria and a big mix of bacteria that can help. Now, they don't stick around for very long.

They're transient. So you can't just take some yogurt and expect it to cure you. But if you take the yogurt every day, for instance, then you can see, and we have seen, definite improvements in mood. And a lot of this stuff is anecdotal, but a lot of this stuff is now being done in trials, and they're finding the same sort of thing. Now, you also talk about vegetables, that just increasing fiber, which you can do by eating more vegetables, helps. And there are certain vegetables that contain a lot of fiber, like artichokes and leeks and onions and asparagus. Those, if you start adding those to your diet, it'll start helping your gut. And if it starts to help your gut, then it's going to start to help your mood.

So if you are suffering from some kind of depression or anxiety, the odds are really good that you have inflammation, chronic systemic inflammation. And these changes in your diet can actually make a difference. And although we are definitely at the very beginning of all of this, there is proof that a lot of this stuff is working. So this all sounds promising for people with depression or who are grumpy and in a bad mood all the time. But what about everybody else? I mean, does it have any benefit for people who don't suffer from any mood problems, who are just happy as can be? There was a very interesting study recently done with healthy men.

And what they showed was that even though they didn't think that they were depressed and they were counting themselves, and't think that they were depressed and they were counting themselves, and in depression tests, they were shown to not have depression. But then they gave them cognitive studies. And what they found was that their cognition improved. They were able to do tests faster and more accurately after about a week or so of being on certain probiotics. I think what they were using was kefir in that particular study. And so even though you may not have any particular mood problems, if you want to be smarter, if you need to be smarter, this shows you that by reducing stress levels, which may not show up as actual depression or anything, but it makes you better able to defend against stress that your cognition goes up.

So this is something that all of us could use at some point, unless you're already Albert Einstein and you feel great. What else, if anything? Because who would have thought, medically speaking, that what goes on in your stomach affects your mood and how you think and how well you think? So what about any other connection? One of the things that we're finding is that when you have systemic inflammation, it affects all sorts of things, including almost all chronic diseases that we know of. So

systemic inflammation that almost always centers in the gut gives rise to things like heart disease. And we're finding now that things like Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease start early in the gut gives rise to things like heart disease. And we're finding now that things like Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease start early in the gut and take 10 years or so to work their way up to your brain. And then it's kind of too late to do anything about it. So a lot of these systemic diseases that are chronic diseases that we consider to be diseases of old age or whatever are actually starting in the gut and working their way up. So to protect your gut lining and to produce the kinds of chemicals that the microbes produce in order to keep your gut healthy and not exposed, not leaky, those kinds

of things are useful for everybody. Okay, so to get real specific here, because I'm still a little fuzzy as to what the prescription therefore is, can I just eat some yogurt a couple times a week and be done with it? Or I don't really know what I'm supposed to do. You're probably supposed to be eating yogurt on a daily basis or some kind of fermented food. And you should also be working your way

toward vegetables that have more fiber in them. And you should also be working your way toward vegetables that have more fiber in them. And if you do that, you will likely, unless you have a perfect gut, you'll likely notice an improvement in your gut. I sure did. And then given that, here's the basic science story behind all of this is that if you feed fiber, if you eat fiber, it will feed the beneficial bacteria in your gut. Those bacteria like bifidobacteria and lactobacillus then produce chemicals like butyrate, short chain fatty acids they're called. And butyrate is one of these things that actually feeds the lining of your gut and helps it to heal. And as a consequence, when you eat these fibers, you improve your gut microbe, which then improves the lining of your gut and helps it to heal. And as a consequence, when you eat these fibers, you

improve your gut microbe, which then improves the lining of your gut, which then keeps out the nasty bacteria from your bloodstream. And the other story that sounds like it's coming from this discussion is because I've looked at probiotics in the store. They're very expensive. And what you're saying is you don't even know that what's in there is really in there. Right. It's not, there are only a few of them that we know of that have actually gone through peer-reviewed studies, and there are really, there are only about five, a handful, and the others are, they may work. We're not saying they don't work, but we don't know enough about them to really recommend them.

These are the brands you're talking about? Yeah, we've got, there are five brands that are out there that have been put through studies, and they are of the alike. There's one called Align, and there's one called Culturel. Those have actually been through peer-reviewed studies, and when you look at what's in them, you find that what they say on the box is in them, is actually in them. The others are less well-known, less well-studied, and there just isn't any oversight. The government doesn't care about them. That was the Shaya Act of 20 years ago, and they decided to exempt all these probiotics from government overview. Well, this is really interesting and could be a real life changer for some people who are having trouble with their gut or with their mood or both or whatever. But as you say, you know, we are at the early stages of this. So, you know, we have to be cautiously optimistic.

We are at the early stages, yet there are some things that can be done. And at this point, I can tell you, you know, anecdotally, these things have worked with me and I have worked with other people, but there is much more to come. That's Scott Anderson, author of the book, The Psychobiotic Revolution, Mood, Food, and the New Science of the Gut-Brain Connection. There's a link to his book in the show notes. Thanks, Scott. You bet, Mike. Thank you. You don't need to know a whole lot about the food you eat

because you assume it's safe, and you probably have other things to think about. However, there are some things about food you may want to know. For example, most of the salmon that we eat is actually dyed pink. Wild salmon are pink in color because of the little crustaceans called krill that they eat. But farm salmon, which accounts for about two-thirds of the salmon we eat, are fed pellets to dye their flesh pink, which is otherwise naturally gray. An ear of corn will almost always have an even number of rows.

What's in your peanut butter may shock you. According to the FDA, there may be up to an average of 30 or more insect fragments per 100 grams of peanut butter, and an average of one or more rodent hairs per 100 grams of peanut butter. Ew. Twinkies actually do have a shelf life. It's about 45 days. Honey does not have a shelf life. It may crystallize and change color over time, but honey never goes bad. Avocados, pumpkins, bananas, and watermelon are actually berries, but strawberries are not berries. Almonds are part of the peach family. And the average American, this shocked me, the average American will eat about one ton of food per year.

And that is something you should know. That's it for today. I'm Micah Ruthers. Thanks for listening 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. Listen to Chinook wherever of Camelot. Look for The Search for the Silver Lining on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.