The Daily Zeitgeist - Miles and Jack in the Great OuTDoorZ

Episode Date: May 27, 2022

In this edition of TDZ, Jack and Miles are visited by friendly woodland creatures as they discuss the benefits of a life lived out of doors and how we are more human in nature!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm Keri Champion, and this is Season 4 of Naked Sports. Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry. Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese. Every great player needs a foil. I know I'll go down in history. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's sports. Listen to the making of a rivalry.

Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese. On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Elf Beauty, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports. What? That was great. Whoa, what? Who set this stuff up here?

Now, I don't go out into nature much, but... Wait, hold on. Is there usually a podcasting setup? No. Y'all hear this sure mike and i'm for the listeners they know i mean not that this was even pre-planned but you can hear the gravel underneath our feet yeah this is real i assume that anytime i'm talking in front of a podcast mike it's gonna get to our listeners so I guess I should open up by saying hello, the internet, and welcome to this special episode of Der Daily Zeitgeist.

Wow, rang out in nature a lot different. Birds are all looking at me weird. Thanks to the good people of Mazda. Yeah. Typically, we do a trending episode at this time, but heading into the long weekend, I don't know. We wanted to try something different and just take a walk outside and hope that some microphones magically appeared in the wilderness. It's as if we knew we wanted to do this, but someone else took the time to set it up.

That definitely was us. but someone else took the time to set it up yeah that definitely was us but i really i'm glad that we're out here because i feel like we're on the show we always talk about like get off the computer yeah get off the screen get off get off social media just go outside and i have not done that ever you know i keep hearing about it from you in our recording this is the first time i've uh you know i was getting scurvy for a little bit okay no just feeling feeling the sun hearing some bird song i don't know if the microphones are picking that up these are actually very good microphones oh yeah but yeah i'm. There are other people in wilderness. They've heard of this wilderness thing.

That was wild. We walked by and we're like, yo, there's a person. What are they doing out here? What's your Twitter avatar? Maybe I recognize you from that. My first thought when we talk going out into nature is, okay, bear attacks, falling down a ravine, landing on a sharp stick, trampled by deer, gored by deer, trampled by a herd of bison, attacked by Jason Voorhees. Okay, yeah. You were doing a lot of nature stuff.

I'm like, I've never heard of these things. Attacked by Jason Voorhees. Now, that is realistic. That's why I stay inside. Attacked by Jason Voorhees. Now that is realistic. That's why I stay inside. So those get all the headlines,

but there are apparently some countervailing health benefits that all these people who are passing must be aware of because they listen to their bodies or something. And yeah, apparently all these health benefits offset the dangers of nature as I've built them up in my mind. I mean, I know inherently, I mean, we always talk about you feel better outside. You feel better looking at things that aren't screens. But it turns out that scientists also believe this. And they said, maybe we'll look into that.

And maybe we can illuminate some things for people yeah to prove once and for all and again and i'm and i told you i've been on the fence i don't know if nature is good for us not a fan personally i mean i'm looking around no offense to nature i don't see any ps5s around here right you were i mean you've been pointing that out basically every 10 feet of the hike. I know, you kept saying, you remind me of my son. Like, ugh, there's no games here. I'm bored.

I feel like you're bored. You just chased a lizard for 15 minutes. I'm like, I thought it was a controller for a week. Ugh. Yeah. But, I mean, what's, I know we've both been looking into it. I mean, I'm sure we'll get into one of the studies too. I mean, maybe we can just start off with one of the studies first,

just to set the table, right? Yeah. For what, like the reason why screens are bad. This is one from the show actually that I've been wanting to cover for a while about getting off social media. Because regularly we always talk about it. I think it's an overrated that we hear pretty frequently from guests, which is social media is overrated.

Twitter is overrated. Instagram is overrated. Not because there's a superior app out there, but because... That is always my first question. Why? So what do you want? You talking TikTok? You talking Instagram? Because I like TikTok, man.

I just don't know how I'm going to convert a lot of these followers, man. But it seems pretty cool. I saw some pretty cool stuff. I'm learning how to do that slide dance yeah um but we always talk about that and there's plenty of research i mean like we've we've touched on whenever there's a study like it's almost like i have google alerts that's like science please prove social media bad for me and they show up and the studies have gotten longer and longer like usually it's like what was it like for the immediate like day or so of not using it for a day or whatever. And now we're seeing more longer term studies. And, you know, I think when we look at being in nature and the benefits of it, a lot

of it has to do with like our emotions, our mental health, how we're taking in the world. Because if you're looking at the news every day, like we are on social media all the time there's a lot of negative energy we absorb through there yeah and it began to really affect me to the point where i was like oh i really need to actually be proactive about how i offset that what's the what's my energetic balance and part of that has been sort of not using social media as much and there's this fantastic body of research that says, even if you just have a few days, it has benefits. But in this one, this new study from Cyber Psychology Behavior and Social Networking, they did an analysis on the social media behaviors of 154 participants between the age of 18 and 72 who reported using about an average of eight hours a week on social media and i'm like

i think i use more no yeah easily we define these as problem heavy users right and i'm like users of social media absolutely i'm reading this on twitter inside the twitter app but okay and then what they did was they put them into two groups one that took a week-long break off of social media. Stay off of it all for one week challenge. And then the other group just didn't. And prior to them breaking them up into those two groups, they assessed their mental health. And guess what they found? The participants who had abstained from social media noticed significant improvements in anxiety, depression, and general mental well-being,

and the group that continued using it, there wasn't really any comparable positive effects. Just in general, to sort of set the table for why nature is so good for us, we have to first really understand that our lifestyles, our modern lifestyle of using our phones and checking social media is measurably having an effect on our well-being you will naturally fill in any empty space so if you get off social media i i always think back to the first season of the real world where they um i'm very old but he's about to reunion but the fact that like i was like what is, like, there's something that's slightly different about how they're living than how I typically live. And I was like, oh, they don't watch TV.

They're not allowed to watch TV. Like, they're not allowed to just like fill their time with just like passive, you know, screens. And I feel like that's the same thing. greens and i feel like that's the same thing like you and the way they like filled their time was by hanging out with each other and like talking and having conversations and you know whatever you fill that time with is probably going to be better and right you know i feel like nature uh might be one of the things that you try and fill it with. Yeah, it's as if our ancestors knew nature, the first TV. We don't, all the benefits that it offers us. I mean, not just to mention, like, we also even talked about studies where, like,

you know, if you're people who are recovering in a hospital, if they had, like, a view out to some greenery from their window, like, they were also experiencing much better like sense of well-being just from being like when i look out the window it green right that was even enough yeah and you know the thing that they always talk about is because when we're not focused on just like you know like they always say on the internet just touching grass you know like get off the internet that's some grass yeah i just have a patch of grass next to my desk that i just reach out whenever i see a reminder to touch grass i reach out grab a little clump um and i keep telling

you you have you can't just disturb the grass if you don't water it it's dead it's just now right they call it green but it it does seem more like just sort of a brittle dry yeah and honestly like i said i'm like you have grass in your neighborhood you don't have to go to jamba juice and steal it off the counter like i need this for my well-being uh let's take a quick break we'll come back we'll dig into a little bit more on what studies have found about the difference between you know walking in nature versus just walking around an urban environment, for instance. I'm Jess Casavetto, executive producer of the hit Netflix documentary series,

Dancing for the Devil, the 7M TikTok cult. And I'm Clea Gray, former member of 7M Films and Shekinah Church. And we're the host of the new podcast, Forgive Me For I Have Followed. Together, we'll be diving even deeper into the unbelievable stories behind 7M Films and LA-based Shekinah Church, an alleged cult that has impacted members for over two decades. Jessica and I will delve into the hidden truths between high control groups and interview dancers, church members, and others whose lives and careers have been impacted, just like mine. Through powerful, in-depth interviews with former members and new, chilling firsthand accounts, the series will illuminate untold and extremely necessary

perspectives. Forgive Me For I Have Followed will be more than an exploration. It's a vital revelation aimed at ensuring these types of abuses never happen again. Listen to Forgive Me For I Have Followed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back in nature. We're back. We're back to the great outdoors. Can you imagine doing this show out here i mean this is kind of great this is a little unnerved by all the eye contact you're making with me i prefer to just

stare at my computer and uh zoom screen jack i'm i'm bring it in for this i keep looking away from you i'm looking at my screen even though there's nothing there like maybe miles will go back on screens back on screen um yeah so i uh actually during our break i did a little research myself um there's a there's a stanford study where they put two groups of participants on 90 minute walks one in a grassland area scattered with oak trees and shrubs which makes it sound like they like uprooted oak trees and shrubs and scattered them around but um it's actually pretty desolate what happened to you uh their first question was what happened here oh my god uh the other was along a traffic heavy four-lane roadway which i've lived by quite a few times in my life. You know, and then like, all right, well, like, I got to walk the dogs.

So, like, let's go out next to this heavy road is a word that we've used increasingly on this show. But, you know, street slash road with lots of, you know, strip malls around. The opposite of nature. Yeah, it around and uh the opposite of nature yeah it's kind of the opposite of nature yeah i feel like it's still better to be out and like doing that but i don't remember when my dogs would like get out there they would just seem like a little bit you know one of them developed a twitch for that month that we lived in those apartments and uh and then when you get them out into like a park or a wooded clearing like we're in right now that happens to have a podcast set up in it um they like just their whole spirit changes oh yeah like there's like less weight on their uh

shoulders that's like my dog when we when we go on a walk he hates walking through like on the main street yeah and then we i kind of go to this park that's more like wooded and then he's like my dog when we go on a walk, he hates walking through like on the main street. Yeah. And then I kind of go to this park that's more like wooded. And then he's like, oh, yeah, yeah. Like he'll literally dig in. Like I hate the sound of this road. That's the good stuff, brother.

Yeah. So, okay. So one group walks down road. One walks down wonderful grassland. And let me guess, the people who walked on the street got robbed? They were actually happier. They kept stopping. You know, there were a lot of fast food restaurants along the way,

and they just seemed more satisfied because of delicious fried. It was during the fried chicken wars. Oh, yes, absolutely. Fried chicken sandwich wars. No, the researchers found actually little difference in physiological conditions, so it's still good to walk no matter where you are but marked changes in the brain neural activity in the and i know what this means um subgenual prefrontal cortex oh love that yeah you, the brain region that's active during rumination. Anyways, repetitive thought focused on negative emotions decreased among participants who walked in nature versus those who walked in an urban environment. pandemic during lockdown you know in general when i'm not at my best when i'm not like dealing the the best that i can that's the sort of thing it's like repetitive thought focused on negative

emotion oh yeah yeah yeah you just get get stuck in a thought loop where it's like everything's bad and you're you're at fault and you're the driver of this car wreck and you're like wait hold on hold on yeah i have to actually break this cycle of thinking. When I even get like that, I try and just pivot to something immediately pleasant when I'm like, oh, my couch feels good. Sitting down feels good. Not always the easiest way to switch gears,

but that's a challenge that I set out for myself. Feel your weight pressing down against the couch. Deeper and deeper. And I'm like, like wait am i listening to a gotus podcast but it's like it makes sense you know like that just that little bit like while obviously walking is has its benefits because we all need our own cardiovascular you know exercise but that feeling of like doing it on a street like they almost give me different kinds of energy like yeah i'm almost get hyperactive when i'm walking because i was just in new york when i was walking yeah through

like manhattan i'm like walking so fast because i'm like i'm like here we go i'm in the street i got somewhere to go and it's less like leisurely yeah until like but it's funny like until you get to like central park and then suddenly you're like wow i don't know if that's why central park almost feels even more majestic because it like breaks up the monotony of like this urban environment oh jack just went on a hummingbird there's a hummingbird hovering just full disclosure earlier jack said there's a hummingbird i turned it wasn't there i was like too late bro we started the before we recorded things were really tense i see i don't know if you could sense it in our voices but there was an iciness to work through that lack of trust that i never lie about hummingbirds that's one thing you have

to learn about that's good uh later later bud and we wouldn't have that if we were just looking at each other through our crusty computer screens an organic segue where we loved looking at a hummingbird but i honestly feel like seeing central park really underlines this whole thing because i feel like suddenly your energy changes when you when it comes into view and you're just like oh wow yeah this is actually one of my favorite parts walking in new york is a contact sport like there's there like i remember playing basketball was one of the better things to prepare me for walking in in new york because you like pick a fixed point in front of you when you're on defense and you're like trying to take it all in right like so you're always

looking at like the point in between the person you're guarding and the ball. And New York is like you pick a point 15 feet in front of you, and you're reacting to the people in between you and that point, but you also can't make eye contact with the people. It's this dance. Perfect for you. Or you just put on your very dark sunglasses, and you just make your way through. And then Central Park, it is a miracle like it's something that would be easy to imagine a world where it

doesn't the fact that it does exist the fact that we have it that somebody worked incredibly hard uh and you know did some dirty political uh work to get to get it made and protect it is you know it's something that I should be thankful for every day. Right. But that's something, there is a movement called biophilic design that is becoming more and more popular. So, you know, you hear a lot about green design, which is creating homes or building workplaces

that don't have like a huge carbon footprint and aren't like taxing the environment but biophilic design is like that plus they want to make us feel okay yeah us feel like we are in a natural environment there are plants around there are hummingbirds flitting about i love that i'm I'm backing biophilic design big time. I mean, you know, for people who don't know, biophilia is, from my Latin speakers out there. Wait, do you think there are really people who don't know biophilia?

Come on, man. The Bjork album? It does sound like a Bjork album. No, it is a Bjork album. Biophilia is a Bjork album. Amazing. But it's just about like that as humans, because we are of the earth as living beings,

we just have this innate desire to want to connect with nature and other life forms. It's just we're not built to, again, stare at screens and not be sort of interacting not just with one another but as we say with nature and even in times where you know i grew up in the most urban of environments like i grew up in it next to a freeway interchange right it's just like it couldn't get less green than that but you know even living my life in that area just going outside to make sure like the sun hits me yeah is such an underrated thing i did i i always just sort of dismissed as like i don't know what fine like you're always outside like what's the difference but even like taking my computer outside and just

doing anything with the sun hitting me i was like oh yeah like i i actually began to sort of come into or just to really realize like my that feeling of biophilia where i was naturally like no this is good this is good even if i'm in the noisy next to a freeway environment sunlight hit body equals nice yeah okay so let's take another quick break we'll come back i want to talk about like pairing you know the outdoors with going out and and finding new places. Just adding new places to the old mental bank. So we'll be right back. I'm Jess Casavetto, executive producer of the hit Netflix documentary series Dancing for the Devil, the 7M TikTok cult.

And I'm Clea Gray, former member of 7M Films and Shekinah Church. And we're the host of the new podcast, Forgive Me For I Have Followed. Together, we'll be diving even deeper into the unbelievable stories behind 7M Films and LA-based Shekinah Church, an alleged cult that has impacted members

for over two decades. Jessica and I will delve into the hidden truths between high control groups and interview dancers, church members, and others whose lives and careers have been impacted, just like mine. Through powerful, in-depth interviews with former members and new, chilling firsthand accounts, the series will illuminate untold and extremely necessary perspectives. Forgive Me For I Have Followed will be more than an exploration. It's a vital revelation aimed at ensuring these types of abuses never happen again.

Listen to Forgive Me For I Have Followed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. And just real quick on the nature thing thing something that my wife and i started doing this past year is there's something called sierra club i'm sure you know wherever you live there's probably something that's not too different from this that's like a bunch of people who hike together kind of go outdoor exploring together my wife and i uh for a while

we're trying to do date nights every week one of the things we started doing was going to meet up with the sierra club and do night hikes oh which i i highly recommend a night hike where'd you do a night hike around here uh griffith park oh wow yeah okay so wild i growing up here i'm like what are you trying to get like by Jason Voorhees? Talk about a night hike. It's interesting because we started doing it before the clocks moved back. And so it was really dark. Right from the start, it was really dark.

You felt like you were walking through an abstract painting. There were just these vague shapes and you were like that could be a water tower or you know a bluff or a tree or you know something else whatever my mind was make it yeah but it was also cool because i was like going out and meeting strangers for the first time like in a long time like in person and that that's also i don't know you know it was like we met interesting people boring people like people you never want to talk to again but you don't have to yeah exactly like cool it's like i'm just looking through a catalog we also met somebody who had some really weird opinions about Russia. It's nature. It's varied. It's everything.

But they're, you know, just people. I met them in person. I got to see a version of them that wasn't being presented for the screen. I got to, you know, react to them and, like, take in. I don't know. It just feels like that's a very healthy thing to be around other people right and i feel like that's what's so wild about even like talking about this is it's it just underscores how far we've drifted in the other direction where right we've completely lost sight of like the basics of being a human being which is like being right in nature because we are of nature and we're like

i don't know man we got all this technology man i can meet like 7 000 friends across the globe and like we can play whatever we want online but but now we're also doing things like i think it's good to go outside yeah i think and to meet other people in physical space. In person? Yeah. There's just such a difference. Like, I don't know. Like, we talk about it on Zeitgeist, but, like, that we're in an era of loneliness. And an era. We talk about it on our MBA podcast.

Like, an era when we, like, talk to each other in really, like, unkind ways a lot of the time. Sure. unkind ways a lot of the time. I feel like those are all things that seem to be getting worse at a time when we're spending less time in nature and more time in environments that are just sort of alienating. And screens and artificial constructs.

In a way, you wrote this, but you hadn't quite said it yet, but like, there's kind of like a sabermetrics, like statistician angle to decided to like take a phone call like outside or whatever, or just to take a walk. All of that really does add up in the end in a way that you don't suspect. Like I, when I was started riding my bike more, first I was just doing it. I was like, oh, I'm doing it because I'm having fun. Right. And then, then I was like, when I, when I got the desire to do it, I was like, oh no, like my body is body is saying, like, it's like a dopamine hit or something where I'm like, no, you want to do it. Like, my body's saying, you want to do this.

Yeah. Your brain is, like, reminding you of it. Yeah. It's like, yo. Remember that thing? That was fun. Remember when you were on the bike and the wind was in your face? Yeah.

And I think that's, like, really important to think about is despite, like, all of the sensory overload we can experience there are ways to combat it just like in these really simple ways like aren't necessarily you don't have to go out of your way to do something extravagant yeah because even if you live in a city chances are you live in your park i mean like if you're not in a heavily urbanized area there's always some place you can get to probably within 30 minutes if you have to and again even if you do check your email yeah just try to do it there i get that we can't always ditch the screens and things like that but just those subtle things they really do add up over time and like when you're consistent with it it really it it helps a lot if you don't have a park near you uh start building a movement to

take over your nearest golf course and turn it into a biophilically designed uh public park oh i mean or you know just talk about build your own i don't know it's it's hard it's easier for me uh because we're we're in la next to a bunch of really cool uh parks i would say most people though too like whenever i go up like to any other city i'm like wow look at that what's this is your park i mean and most people are like dude what like look at all the trees they're like this is the worst park in this state i'm like this would be the best one in la i remember when i when i worked at abc and i was living in new york city and i had to like go on assignment to alab to Alabama and I was just talking to the cameraman about the trees and the way they just kind of look like they're like water springs that just spring up from the earth, but they're green. And he was like, yo, what?

Is everything all right? Well, dude, a hummingbird is flying up overhead. Yeah, yeah. They're big fans. Well, there's a drone over there. You see that? Is there really? Yeah.

It's just hovering. Sorry, y'all. Yeah, there is. This is what happens when we record outside. Again, not in our sterile, controlled environments of a studio. That is increasingly something you see in nature is... Drones. Yeah, people like filming videos or whatever.

Which is kind of unnerving but that's a whole other podcast that's a whole other thing um that's why you need to train your uh falcon exactly that's like level 10 uh being out in nature is training your falcon to take down drones yeah i would love to be at a point where i could like put my arm out and a bird comes yeah but look baby steps first I'm gonna just check my email outside a little bit more and I'll work my way up the little sun on my arm yeah king of the hummingbirds yeah I also feel like there's a couple things on like mental health one that I think I had the misconception that like I was depressed or I wasn't depressed

and yeah like you were saying, like just these little 5% increments, everything's on a spectrum, like seasonal affective disorder, like I either have it or I don't. It's like, no, like you, you might have like 10% of it and like 5% more time spent in nature can, can help. So I don't know. I think I tend to like pathologize things that are going on with me internally. And I feel like it's been beneficial for me to just be like, no, we're, you know, we're all dealing with a lot of stuff. And just absolutely every single human being alive right now is going through a version of existence that is at its absolute most hectic. And then adding like new places so there's a thing like i remember doing research into how like our mind works reading david eagleman i think it was

but there was also like some research i did for a cracked article at one point about how wherever you are your brain is like creating a map of your environment just because like that's a survival mechanism like wants to know like okay these are the exits and like places places to run but have you ever noticed like if you're like there was a point where i was parking in the same parking garage every day for like five months and like two months in when i would come out of work at the end of the day I had no idea where my car was parked because it was just like identical like similar memories all being put into a bank and it was just like my brain was just going back to whatever that model was that I had built um and I don't know, it feels like there's something healthy

about just making your brain make new models. I know that when I go somewhere, when I travel, my first night of sleep, I have the wildest dreams. Oh, right, right, right. Because my brain, it lights up something different in my brain that is now operating. There's this travel writer, Paul Thoreau who wrote what draws me into a trip is a leap into the dark you set out from home and in the classic travel book you go to an

unknown place you discover a different world and you discover yourself i really like the idea of like a leap into the dark because every every part of the world that we haven't been to is like this part of the world that we haven't been to is this dark, uncharted territory. Right. It's like playing Civilization, that video game where the map's all blacked out until you move your character and reveal

more of it. Yeah, exactly. Knocking stuff over because I'm so energized from being outside. Look at these bees. No! Don't get scared. I'm just admiring of them Jack recoiled you also might hear crows

I have noticed that I tend to be followed around by a murder of crows that's kind of cool sounds cool I think objectively cool unless they're harassing they're not harassing me I do feel like other birds are scared of crows

yeah well you know they're really smart but so shout out the crows shout out the crow the movie yeah obviously big fans well i mean i think i think we hit that i think i think we made the points i wanted to make anything else you wanted to no i mean i again and as many ways as possible i think we just keep wanting to say the same thing, whether it's here on the show, which is like, always remember, you know, no matter what's happening out there, what you know, what we see, especially in our screen dominated world, there is an actual human natural world out there that has untold benefits. world out there that has untold benefits yeah um and i know like we and again like we talk about how easy it is to be dismissive of it and almost be shocked when we hear the most simple things like this is this is a path to feeling better this is just something to consider when we think of our very you know uh indoor lives or just not considering that like there's a dimension of us as humans that responds

to nature and like we have to kind of honor that yeah absolutely i i feel like there's a my conscious mind and like the part of my mind that like puts everything into language and talk myself out of like you know the importance of going and spending time in nature um but i i am going to make a concerted effort to just like keep that as um something like an important value in in my life and my family's life starting after i just like hit 100 000 followers on twitter um so if everybody could just like like and subscribe and uh follow me on twitter i would really help with my ability to move on and yeah get into nature um put that behind you yeah yeah yeah it's like a it's like a shower for the soul exactly and well you know it's funny in japan they actually call it forest bathing

oh it translates to forest bathing to go out into nature right uh because every human being since time immemorial knows it's good to be in nature yeah so we hope you take those things and those lessons to find ways to apply them try it out i know i'm chronically an indoor cat type person uh but as i allow myself to let the sun's rays hit me more and just be immersed in nature more i'm telling you the the feedback loop is very positive yeah i wonder if our microphones are picking up that extremely aggressive woodpecker oh yeah yeah it's it's been it was off it just got finished with its union 15 so it got back to woodpecking all right gang uh have a great weekend. Yes. Or, you know, the break from the daily Zyte Guys. Yeah.

While we have a long weekend, go take a forest bath if you are able. And we'll see you all on Monday. Bye. Bye. I love you. I'm Carrie Champion, and this is Season 4 of Naked Sports. Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry. Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese. Every great player needs a foil. I know I'll go down in history.

People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's sports. Listen to the making of a rivalry. Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Elf Beauty, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports.