Something You Should Know - Why We Love Things & Your Guide to Deadly Risk - SYSK Choice

Episode Date: July 13, 2024

Is it safe to let your dog lick your face or eat off your plate? It pretty much depends on how clean your dog’s mouth is. This episode begins with a look at whether being so intimate with your dog is okay or cause for concern. https://nypost.com/2022/04/06/your-dogs-kisses-could-contain-deadly-superbug-study-says/ When people say they love their house or car or shoes – is that really love? Can you love inanimate things? Possibly, according to Aaron Ahuvia, professor of marketing at the University of Michigan who is the most widely published and often cited expert on non-interpersonal love. Listen as he reveals what we really mean when we speak of loving objects and activities. Aaron is author of a book titled The Things We Love (https://amzn.to/3z4992k) Have you ever thought when you get to the end of your life, what it is that finally kills you? It’s worth thinking about because if you understand what is most likely to kill you, you can prevent or at least postpone it from happening. That’s according to Sheila Buff author of the book You Bet Your Life: Your Guide to Deadly Risk (https://amzn.to/3ARYZ6b). Listen as Shelia reveals the most common and not-so-common ways people die – and why. And maybe how we can sidestep those things and live a bit longer. Finding true love isn’t easy. And finding true love the second or third time around can seem impossible. Don’t give up hope. Instead, listen as I explain what one psychologist says can help you find true love one more time. Source: Finding Love Again by Dr. Terry Orbuch (https://amzn.to/3z0xiH4) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Download June's Journey now on Android or iOS. Today on Something You Should Know, if you let your dog kiss your face or eat off your plate, you need to hear something. Then, when people say they love something, like their car or their cell phone, is that really love? 72% of the people I talked to had at least one thing that they felt absolutely was really love.

And I'm going to let them define that. Also, what's the best way to find romantic love the second or third time around? And there are a lot of things that can kill you, and we'll discuss them. But a fall in your home? A fall in the home is a very common cause of death. Every year in the U.S., there's almost 40,000 people who die from a slip or a trip or a fall in the home. The most deadly room for falls is the living room. The bedroom is the second dangerous. You wouldn't believe how many people die falling out of bed.

All this today on Something You Should Know. Mama, look at me. Vroom, vroom. I'm going really fast. I just got my license. Can I borrow the car, please, Mom? Kids go from 0 to 18 in no time. You'll be relieved they have 24-7 roadside assistance with intact insurance. Mom, can we go to Nana's house tomorrow? I want to go to Jack's place today. I'll just take the car.

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And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. I'd like to point out every once in a while how much we appreciate the advertisers you hear in this podcast. They're very important to us, not only because they help us pay the bills, but you should also know that we vet all the advertisers. I vet many of them personally, and I hope as you hear them throughout this episode and all the episodes, if they are offering something that is of interest, that you will consider doing business with them. First up today, have you ever heard someone say that it's okay for a dog to lick your face because a dog's mouth is cleaner than a human's mouth? Well, that's not quite true. In fact, it's way off. A dog's mouth is filled with bacteria.

Now, there is some evidence that dog saliva can kill some bacteria, and if a mother dog licks its pups, she may be protecting them from disease. But when you think about what a dog does with its mouth and where it puts its mouth, it is really not a great idea to let your dog lick your face. And a new study is out urging dog owners to stop allowing their dogs to kiss them on the face or allow them to eat off their plate and to even wash your hands after petting your dog as their saliva, their slobber, may actually be a source of antibiotic resistant superbugs. And you definitely don't want that. And that is something you should know. Is it possible to be so passionate about something or some activity that you really love it? Can you love your car or your coin collection or can you love gardening or a movie? Some people might say that you can truly only love someone or something that can love you back,

like a person or a pet, that you can't really love some inanimate object. Well, meet someone who believes that you not only can love a thing and have a relationship with it, it's an important part of who we all are. Aaron Ahuvia is a professor of marketing at the University of Michigan, and he is considered to be the most widely published and cited expert on non-interpersonal love. He's author of a book called The Things We Love. Hi, Aaron. Welcome to Something You Should Know. Hi. Thanks so much for having me. So explain what you mean here, because when I hear somebody say things like, oh, I love

these shoes, or I love going to the theater, I know what they're saying, but I've never thought that when they say love, they mean love. They're using the word rather loosely to mean that they really like something or they really enjoy something. But you can't love it because love implies a relationship. That to love a pair of shoes isn't really love because the shoes have no emotion. They can't love you back or reject you. They're just a pair of shoes. That's a great question.

And I get this. What's really interesting to me is that some people feel strongly that way and it feels obvious to them. And other people feel that that's absurd. And that also feels obvious to them. People have very strong intuitions in both ways about this. The very first thing I did when I was starting to research this is I asked people to list things that they loved and they would, and then I would say, okay, for those things that you love or say you love, what do you really mean? I mean, do you really mean in the strongest, most literal sense of the

word that you love this thing? Or are you just kind of using the word loosely, using it metaphorically. 72% of the people I talked to had at least one thing that in their own mind, they felt absolutely was really love. And I'm going to let them define that. One last thought on that. If there are skeptical listeners, what I find helps a lot is if people think about, say, loving nature, most people are like, okay, yeah, people can love nature. How about a patriot loving their country? Sure, yeah, someone who's really patriotic might love their country. So people do tend to be okay with the idea that you can love things. But what they object to the most is the idea that you can maybe love your cell phone or love your car. It just seems sort of tawdry and not living up to the high aspirations we have for

love. And so when you say people love things, is there, does there tend to be something in common or do they tend to be things or is it just it's completely random people love things just because that's the thing they love it's a little of both people love an enormous variety of things but these things if you look at a different level they often have certain things in common so one thing that they have in common is that for the person who loves them, they help that person define their identity to sort of become the person they want to be. They're very connected with people's ideas about who they are. They represent certain values or they represent accomplishments or souvenirs for important

activities. So they have this connection to the person's sense of identity. The other thing that they have in common or another thing is they often connect one person to another person's sense of identity. The other thing that they have in common, or another thing, is they often connect one person to another person. So there's this phrase from another researcher, Russell Belk, who talks about person, thing, person. And the idea is, for example, that you think, oh, it's a relationship between me and my cell phone. But then you realize, well, actually, it's me and my cell phone and the other people that my cell phone connects me to. And the last thing that things all have in common is that they are evaluated as being really good.

So this is one of the differences between interpersonal love and people's love of objects or brands and things like that. If you actually, scientists do study where they put people into an fMRI machine, so they're scanning their brain, and they have them look at a picture and think about a person that they love and also an object or a brand that they love. And especially if the person is a child, is their child, people have this tremendous altruistic connection to their children. They really, you know, parents do much more for their kids than kids do for their parents, and that's fine. That's sort of the role of parents. But when they think about an object or a brand, they don't feel it's altruistic.

They feel like, oh, I love this because it does great things for me. And as a result, the things we love are things that we think are really excellent. So, what do you find in your research are the things people love the most? Top list. Number one, nature. Number two, if you're religious, God. People often talk about forms of entertainment, movies, television, books, music. People love activities that are exciting, skiing, athletic activities. They also love activities that give them a sense of relaxation, reading a book, listening to quiet music, taking a hot bath. And then they love

things that have a personal connection to them, a photograph of another person, an item that's been in their family, an heirloom that connects them to their family, or something that connects them to a group like, you know, I teach at the University of Michigan. So maybe a University of Michigan t-shirt or attending University of Michigan football games that connects me to this larger group of people. So when people say, oh, I love, I love that show. I love that. I love my car. I love it. But it would seem to me that a lot of people say, oh, I love that show. I love my car. But it would seem to me that a lot of people say that and don't really mean it in the way you're talking about. It's just a way of showing that you enjoy that or you like that. But it seems like what you're talking about is maybe a higher level,

or is it not? No, it totally is. And that's absolutely right. So while I said that 70 some percent of people love at least one thing, almost everybody will use the word love metaphorically. You know, I love your haircut. I love your car. And all that really means is, hey, nice haircut, nice new car. It's just a sort of a generic compliment. I think the reason people use the word love that way is because it does have this connection to excellence. So when you say I love something, it does sort of imply I think it's really good. And that's why people use the word love that way. However, to really love something, you start with that sense, I think it's really good, and then it's got something more, something in addition that makes it a deeper kind of love.

One concern might be for people who love things or inanimate objects or experiences, that if they love these things, it's at the expense of loving individuals, of interpersonal relationships. That can happen. And I'm sure there are people who have that happen for whom that's a problem. However, overwhelmingly, the vast majority of times, the things that we love really connect us to other people much more than they substitute for other people. So people love sports, but when you talk to them and you really get into what they love about the sports, they love the way they sit with their friends and watch the game together, and it becomes a way of connecting them. I love food and I love cooking, but why do I do that? Because I love the

sense of community and friendship I get when I get together with my friends and family and we share a meal together. So it really is most of the time we love activities and objects that connect us to other people. Can you love your work? Absolutely. I love my work. And I think a lot of people love their work. It's not always true for everyone by any means. And I think it has to do partly with, do you get a sense of meaning out of your job? Do you feel you're doing something that's worthwhile?

And also the enjoyment that you get at work, the actual process of your work. One of the things that both the activities and objects that people love have in common is we enjoy the process of performing the activity, or we enjoy the process of working with and being with the object. If something is a goal, excuse me, if something is a means to another end, right, then you don't love it. So if you feel like, look, I do my job, it pays me well, I don't like the time I spend at work, but I like the money I get, then what you would say is, I really love the money, but I don't love my job, right? In order for you to feel like you love your job, you have to actually enjoy the process

of your job. We're talking about our love of physical objects, things, and activities. And my guest is Aaron Ahuvia, professor of marketing at the University of Michigan and author of the book, The Things We Love. This is an ad for BetterHelp. Welcome to the world. Please, read your personal owner's manual thoroughly. In it, you'll find simple instructions for how to interact with your fellow human beings and how to find happiness and peace of mind. Thank you, and have a nice life.

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So, Aaron, don't you think there is a perception that people have? It sounds like something your grandmother would tell you, that it's wrong to love things, that you need to love people. But loving things is not evil but it there's something wrong with it some of it is this idea that things are superficial and that you can only really love things that are more deeply meaningful and that's true i think at the deepest sense of the word love. But people find ways of connecting a lot of objects to things that are more meaningful in their life. So here's one example that I really like. So there's a woman that I interviewed. She is an extreme couponer. So her hobby is finding just the right coupons and using them in just the right way so that

you get enormous discounts on things. And she'll do this and she'll go in and she'll get a lot of times it's makeup products or face creams or hygiene products or diapers or things like this that you are able to get these amazing discounts on. So she'll go and for fun, she'll buy a bunch of these products. But then she herself doesn't really need them. She doesn't use or need that much makeup

and she doesn't have kids who need diapers. So she makes up these care packages and she takes them to a homeless shelter and gives them to people who are in the homeless shelter who really need those products. And it's that last step that allows her to really feel that she loves this hobby of couponing because it takes it from something that is kind of materialistic and petty, just kind of get a discount on a tube of toothpaste and turns it into something that

really feels deeply meaningful to her and connects to her sort of personal and spiritual values. Talk about hoarding and how that fits into this, because, you know, you see those shows on TV about hoarders and clearly these people seem to love their stuff because they don't get rid of it, but something's gone wrong. When that first started coming out, I really wanted to say that that kind of hoarding had nothing to do with the kind of love I was studying because for the most part, I think the kind of love I'm looking at is pretty good. And that type of hoarding was clearly injuring the people who were involved in it and was not a good thing. But as I looked into the research on hoarding more, I found out that it is kind of the evil twin of love, that people do have a similar kind of deep sense of connection to the stuff that they're

hoarding. And one thing that I find is remarkable is that people, when they love things, often they love things that are a little bit anthropomorphic. Not all the time, but it turns out that if your object looks a little bit like a person or sounds a little bit like a person, this enhances love because love is really in your brain designed for people. And so when we love something that isn't a person, our brain is sort of taking something that was intended for humans and using it in this other way, applying it in this other way towards objects or activities. And if the object itself looks a little bit like a person, it's easier for your brain to do this. So when objects have this anthropomorphic quality, they look or sound like people,

that can make it a little bit easier for people to love them. And to my surprise, when people hoard, they also feel like the things they're hoarding are sort of alive. Part of the reason they don't want to get that stack of molding newspapers and throw it away as they should is they feel like it'll hurt the feelings of the newspaper. So they know rationally this isn't true, but at an unconscious level or an emotional level, they still have this feeling like somehow they're going to like hurt the feelings of those newspapers if they get rid of them and get them out of their living room. And that is a connection. That is a similarity to loving things.

Well, that's not too unlike, you know, when you throw out your kid's teddy bear. And it's hard because you almost think, this has been a companion of my child for many years. It that they love? People love that teddy bear, even if it was, say you're the parent and it was your child's teddy bear, you feel the connection to your kid. And you also remember it reminds you of the time when your child was, you know, two or three years old and was very connected to that teddy bear. And so it has that sort of autobiographical function to connect to your identity in that way. And that's something that all forms of love actually have in common, whether you're loving a romantic partner or loving a family member or loving a friend or loving an object. Everything we love, when we love, we're taking that thing and making it a part of our own sense of identity, becomes a part of who we are to a greater or lesser degree, but at least to some significant degree. And that I think is really the core of love generally. If you ask,

what do all these different kinds of love have in common? There's a couple of things, but one of the main ones is they all connect us to our sense of identity or become part of our sense of identity. And that bears out also in neuroscience studies where they do scans of people's brains and the person is involved in different types of love relationships. One of the things that all of those different types of love relationships have or show in the brain is that they activate the parts of the brain where a person is thinking about their own sense of identity and sense of who they are. So I have to get you to comment on the idea that what you're talking about, some might see as materialism, that you're not supposed to love things, you're supposed to love people,

and that if you love things, you're materialistic. There's some very interesting research, a lot of it based on work that Marsha Richens has done, but also some that I've done with collaborators. If you love something, usually the storyline is that you got it. You might not have loved it the moment you got it, but you did things with it. You used it in interesting ways. You worked on it. You improved it. You put your labor and creativity into it.

And over time, it developed into something that you loved and became a really rich, rewarding part of your life. Materialism has the exact opposite trajectory. Materialists buy things hoping that the object itself, just its presence in their life, will change who they are. And materialists enjoy the things they are going to buy the most when they're daydreaming about them before they ever buy them. And then the minute they buy them, they start liking them less and less and finding them less rewarding over time, as opposed to things we love that we tend to find more rewarding over time. So I hope I'm giving people a license to love physical objects to say there is nothing wrong with the physical world.

There's nothing wrong with something being an object that makes it bad. But I don't want to encourage people to be materialistic in the sense of thinking, oh, there's this object. If I only could afford it and buy it, it will change my life. Because it's not the object that changes your life. It's the way you use and work with and grow with the object that changes your life. Well, it just occurred to me that what you're talking about is a great argument for trying new things. Because if we have the capacity to love things, there's probably things out there I would love that I just have never been introduced to, never crossed paths with. So if you try things, you may find a new love. One of the great things about the things and activities that we love is that we can use them to discover parts of ourselves that we didn't know

existed. People try a new food and they're surprised that they like this. And they realized, huh, I never thought of myself as that kind of a person, but now I do. Now I've discovered something new about who I am. A number of years ago, I took up mountain biking, and it's not something I had ever done in the past. Now I am obsessed with it and madly in love with mountain biking. And because I tried this and it connected and I said, oh, I like that, I learned something about myself. It changed the way I think about myself. Now I've discovered something new about who I am. Well, what I really like about this, and you said it earlier in the conversation, that you're kind of giving us all permission to love things, that there's nothing wrong with it.

There's no shame in it. It's part of who we are. It's part of who we are. If we love it, we love it. And why not enjoy it? I've been speaking with Aaron Ahuvia. He is a professor of marketing at the University of Michigan, and the name of his book is The Things We Love, and you'll find a link to that book at Amazon in the show notes. Thank you. Appreciate it, Aaron. Thanks, Mike. It's really been a pleasure. Take back your free time with PC Express Online grocery delivery and pickup. Score in-store promos, PC Optimum points, and more free time. And still get groceries.

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Be careful along our tracks and only make left turns where it's safe to do so. Be alert, be aware, and stay safe. One thing we can all be certain of is that one day we will all die. But what day and from what? We hear about all the strange and unusual ways people meet their fate, but what is really likely to get you in the end? And what is amazingly unlikely to get you in the end? It's important because there are things you can do to protect yourself from many

of the major causes of death, even if you can't always protect yourself from everything. So what are the odds of dying from what? Here to explain is Sheila Buff, who is a best-selling author. Sheila, along with her husband Joe Buff, who is an expert on risk, have written a book called You Bet Your Life, Your Guide to Deadly Risk. Hi, Sheila. Welcome. Thank you. Nice to be here. So everyone knows there are certain risks in life, and there are likely things that could kill you. But I think also people have this sense of, you know, when your number's up, your number's up. Not necessarily. It's possible that your number is up. It's also possible that you're doing things that make your number come up a little quicker than it ought to.

Say, for example, driving drunk. Well, you know what's really interesting to me about this is when people think about what is likely going to kill them, we tend to worry about the wrong things. Meaning, for example, that how many people won't go in the ocean for fear of being attacked and killed by a shark, which is amazingly unlikely to happen. Yet certain chronic diseases, which are very likely to kill you, and we know how to prevent, those same people will not heed the advice to prevent that. Well, exactly. Half of all Americans will die of some form of heart disease.

And there are many things you can do. You can't postpone it indefinitely, of course, but there are many things you can do to keep heart disease from getting you prematurely. So your number might be up when you're 95 instead of when you're 65 if you take better care of yourself. For example, don't smoke, eat a healthy plant-forward Mediterranean-style diet, don't drink to excess, stay active, right? All very common sense things that can prevent premature death. I don't know how much the top causes of death change, but certainly recently with COVID, COVID was the thing people were very afraid of getting and dying from.

And now it's really not that big of a threat, at least people still get it, but they don't die from it anywhere near as much. No, it's not the third leading cause of death as it was in 2020. In fact, in 2020, it bumped suicide, which was the 10th leading cause of death off the top 10 list. I think suicide might come back next year. The thing I worry about personally is the increase in tick-borne illnesses. I live in the Hudson Valley where Lyme disease and other tick-borne illnesses are a problem. And there are some emerging ones that are really kind of scary. So a lot of people think about or worry about, and we hear about people dying in their own homes, slipping in the bathtub or a house fire. But how likely is that? I would think that with

smoke detectors, carbon monoxide detectors, the kinds of things we've done detectors and things like that. And houses, homes in general, are safer from fire. Things like pilot lights on stoves have been replaced by electronic ignition. So there are just, people don't use kerosene heaters or kerosene lamps. So the sources of fires are still with us. A lot of fires are started by people using, you know, scented candles in the bathroom and making mistakes with their fireplaces. But death by fire in the home has really dropped.

But every year in the U.S., there's almost 40,000 people who die from a slip or a trip or a fall in the home. 40,000 people? Yeah. A lot of them are from ladders, right? You get on a ladder, it's a little bit shaky, you climb up it to change the light bulb, and before you know it, you're on the ground with a concussion that kills you.

But the most deadly room for falls is the living room. That's 31% of all the falls. The bedroom is the second dangerous, 30%. You wouldn't believe how many people die falling out of bed. What? It's possible. It's possible. You know, there you are, you're lying in bed, you drop something, you think, oh, it's kind of, you know, roll over and reach, and then you reach a little further, and before you know it, you have fallen out of bed and cracked your head, and you're dead, right? The kitchen is actually a little safer. That's about 19% of the deaths, and the bathroom is surprisingly safe.

It's only 13% of the deaths. You hear a lot about people who, you know, fall in the bathtub and kill themselves that way, yet that's actually less likely than falling in your own living room. My sense is, just based on nothing, that the people who fall and die from falling in their home, tripping, falling, would be mostly elderly people. Yes, that is an issue. And part of it is just that a lot of older people are just shaking on their feet.

Sometimes they're taking medication that makes them dizzy. A lot of them have poor eyesight. And sometimes they haven't fall-proofed the house, which is something you should do regardless of your age, but throw rugs that you can trip on or electric cords that are in places where you can trip over them. That all needs to be rearranged so that it's not a trip hazard for anybody, but it's especially a trip hazard for older adults. Also, when you're older, you're more likely to break a bone,

and a fall where you hit your head is more likely to be fatal because your brain has shrunk a little bit, and it sloshes around in your head more when you fall. So talk about the car, because, you know, people who are afraid of flying are told, well, you know, it's more dangerous to ride in a car. The plane is actually safer. But cars are safer now, and so what are our chances and from what? Well, cars are so much safer now that it has caused a crisis in the transplant

industry, as it were, right? If you need a kidney transplant, there are far fewer people who have been killed in car crashes to provide a spare kidney for you. Cars are a lot safer. The airbag has made a huge difference. The roads are also safer. Road construction and design makes it safer for drivers. It actually makes it a little more dangerous for pedestrians. But if you're a passenger or a driver in a car, the design of the road makes it far less likely that you will, say, go around a curve and go over a cliff, right? You're much more likely to hit a guardrail that will actually keep you from doing that as opposed to giving way and sending you tumbling.

The people who do die from car crashes die because of, mostly I would bet, not wearing a seatbelt, drunk driving. Yes. All deaths in car crashes, about 50% are people who are not wearing seatbelts, which means that most of them could have been prevented. Yeah, the wearing of a seatbelt, I mean, that really is a big deal, right? If you wear a lap and shoulder belt in the front seat, your risk of death in a crash is cut in half. 90% of all people riding in cars wear their seatbelts. So the 10% of the people who didn't wear the seatbelts were 46% of all traffic accident deaths.

So 10% of the people riding in cars accounted for half of the deaths. You said a minute ago that road construction has made it more dangerous for pedestrians. Can you explain that? Yes. It actually makes the traffic run more smoothly so that traffic moves more quickly. People are driving faster. And it makes it, because road designers want the traffic to move quickly and smoothly, they tend to shorten up the crossing time at crosswalks. And what you get are people who enter the crosswalk a little too late, thinking that

they can make it across and not realizing that they can't. When you look at the statistics and the way people die, what is it you find the most peculiar or the most interesting? You know, the thing that struck us the most while we were working on this book were the way there are vast disparities in death rates for a lot of different things. When you look at heart disease, for example, you can see vast geographic differences. In the state of Oklahoma, which is the worst state for death from heart disease, you have 228.5 deaths per 100,000 population. And that's a way, by looking at the rate per 100,000 population,

that's a way to compare states with very different population sizes to each other. So the worst state for heart disease is Oklahoma. And the best state for death from heart disease, in other words, the state that has the fewest deaths per 100,000 population per year is Minnesota, which has 116.7 deaths per 100,000 population. So in other words, you're twice as likely to die of a heart attack if you live in Oklahoma as if you live in Minnesota. And why do we think that is? That's a really good question.

It's possible when you get down to it and you start comparing things like smoking rates and exercise rates and diet and everything else that you could see some distinct differences. There's also more subtle differences. How much stress are people under? And you can't really predict that. So we know that heart disease is a big killer, but the thing I think people often worry about or talk about anyway is cancer. Cancer, anytime you hear that word, it's just horrible. So

what's the deal with that? Well, cancer is the second leading cause of death in the United States. The most common cause of cancer death is lung cancer. It's about 22.4% of all cancer deaths, and that's followed by colon cancer, which is far less. It's about 8.8%. And then the third most common cause would be breast cancer, right? And then that would be followed by prostate cancer. Are there any things that, you know, maybe 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago, people were dying of that has kind of been fixed? Yes.

Well, if you look at, say, what people died of in 1900, the top cause of death was influenza or pneumonia, and the second cause of death was tuberculosis, and that was followed by gastrointestinal infections, and heart disease was almost a distant fourth. And by 1950, heart disease was already the leading cause of death, and it's remained that way ever since. And is the assumption that that's diet-related?

Well, in part it's because we're so much better at treating infectious disease, right? And tuberculosis is almost, as a cause of death in the U.S., is very uncommon. And when it does occur, it usually is within someone who came to the U.S. with it. They didn't get it here. But in 1900, it was a very common cause of death. It was the second leading cause of death. And even in 1920, it was the third leading cause of death. And by 1950, it was the seventh leading cause of death.

And then by the 1960s, when the antibiotic streptomycin had been developed, it had really stopped being a leading cause of death at all. I imagine there are some things people die of, due in large part to the fact that people are living longer, that people didn't die of it before because you've got to get pretty old to die from it. Well, yes, and cancer is a very good example of that because the vast majority of people with cancer are over age 60, and most people who die of it are over 70. I remember hearing someone say, maybe not quoting this correctly, but the longer you

live, the more likely that you'll live longer? Yes, that's an interesting actuarial statistic. If you are still alive at 100, the chances that you're going to make it to 101 are actually pretty good. But somewhere that has to fall apart. Well, yeah, at some point, right? It's looking like 115 is about the absolute outer limit for life expectancy, right? And the actual life expectancy for, well, it depends on who you are, if you're a man or a woman, but actual life expectancy for a woman right now would be about 83, right?

So the chances are that by the time you're, if you haven't died of something else by the time you're 80, you're going to get cancer and die from that. But does that theory kick in any earlier? Like if you live to be 40, you're going to live? Oh, what your life expectancy would be at 41. It's very hard to predict that because it's your individual risk. If you're 40 and you smoke and you drive while you're drinking and you're fond of the expression, here, hold my beer, right,

the chances that you will achieve the full life expectancy of, well, the average life expectancy in 2020 was 78.8 years. That's male and female, right? But that you would make it to be, say, 76 if you lead a reckless lifestyle is unlikely. But it can also happen. I mean, we all know people who, you know, smoke two packs a day and made it to 90. Well, I think we all understand that a lot of how long you live is probability and chance and luck. but what are some of the other things that affect statistically how long you live? In addition to your own behavior, it depends a lot on things

like your profession and where you live and what you do for fun. You know, some recreational activities are a lot riskier than others. As you've pointed out, people die from a whole lot of different things. But of the things that you think people maybe need to pay more attention to that they don't? That's a good question. Infectious disease worries me a lot. And then accidental death is also a big concern because there are so many ways, you know, so many different ways you can kill yourself by mistake.

Like even doing home repairs, forgetting to turn off the power to an appliance while you're working on it, for example, which is surprisingly common. Wait, what? Yeah. Do-it-yourself home repair is really dangerous sometimes. There's all the risks associated with power tools. There's all the risks associated with climbing up on ladders. A good example would be you decide to get rid of that wasp nest that's over the garage door. And you get up there on a rickety ladder and you spray and you provoke a wasp attack that knocks you off the ladder and also gives you anaphylactic shock, right?

Stuff like that does happen. If it can happen, it will happen. One thing you hear about is, like in the summertime, you know, drink a lot of water, you don't want to get dehydrated, heat stroke. How common is it for people to actually perish from this earth from some heat-related thing or dehydration? Heat stroke itself is not that uncommon, but actually dying from it doesn't happen that often. In 2019, there were 505 heat-related deaths, and that would include both heat stroke and also, unfortunately, children who are left in hot cars.

But that's not a lot of people. No, it isn't really. And it's actually, if you compare it to the number of people who died of hypothermia, it's only half. On average, every year, about 1,300 people die of hypothermia. Being too cold. Yeah, being far too cold. So do you ever leave the house? Yes, carefully. I would imagine you're probably

very careful. Yes, well, you know, the most common sense precautions, like just wearing your seat belt. I mean, that's a very common sense sort of thing to do, and you know, 90% of Americans do it, and then there's that 10% of people who don't, and you really have to wonder why. I often wonder how, because cars today make it very difficult for you not to wear your seatbelt. Yeah, boy, they get noisy. One of the stranger things is you've been wearing your seatbelt for most of the trip, but a lot of people will sort of release the belt as they're on kind of the final glide path home. They're on their street, and they take off the seatbelt before

they turn into the driveway. And you're somewhat more likely to have an accident at that point than you are when you're driving on the highway, because at this point you're not paying as much attention. This is the time when you could maybe get blindsided by another car or, you know, drive into a tree by mistake, something like that, and because you thought you were home free, you've had your seatbelt off. So wear it all the time. In fact, if you're in the car at all, you should be wearing your seatbelt, even if the car is stopped, like parked. Really? I would never think to do that.

Yeah, well, a lot of minor accidents. I mean, they're not real. They're not usually fatal, although, of course, it does happen. A lot of accidents take place in parking lots. And you could be in your car sitting there, parked, getting ready to exit or go to the grocery store or something, and someone can pull you out opposite. You could back right into you, which has definitely been known to happen. And you would want to be wearing your seatbelt at that point just to avoid injury.

Well, even though it's not particularly fun to contemplate your own demise, it is interesting to hear the different ways people do die, and more importantly, what you can do to prevent dying those ways. My guest has been Sheila Buff. The name of her book is You Bet Your Life, Your Guide to Deadly Risk, and you'll find a link to that book at Amazon in the show notes. Thank you, Sheila. Well, it was a pleasure. Stay safe. You know, there's an old, old Frank Sinatra song, the lyrics of which go, Love is lovelier the second time around.

Which may be true, but people looking for love the second or third time around often report that it's difficult to find. Psychologist Terry Orbach followed the same 746 divorced people for 25 years, and 71% of them have found the new love of their life. How? Well, one prerequisite seems to be let go of the past. Those who said they no longer had strong feelings toward their ex, good or bad, were more likely to find someone new. And how did they find someone new?

Well, it was mostly one of three ways. Online dating, joining a group that met regularly, or getting fixed up by a family member or friend. And that is something you should know. If you would take a moment and share this podcast with someone you know, you'd be doing me a great favor, and I think you'd be doing your friend a favor too. I'm Mike Carruthers. 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, and someone is watching Ruth. Chinook. Starring Kelly Marie Tran and Sanaa Lathan. Listen to Chinook wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Jennifer, a founder of the Go Kid Go Network. At Go Kid Go, putting kids first is at the heart of every show that we produce.

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