The Science of Dreaming & Simple Rules That Could Add Years to Your Life

Walk into a meeting room, classroom, or even your own living room, and chances are you’ll sit in the same spot you’ve chosen before. And if someone else is sitting there, it feels all wrong. But why? It’s a small behavior that reveals something surprisingly deep about how humans think. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Place_attachment Every night your brain builds an alternate reality — sometimes magical, sometimes terrifying, often completely illogical. So what are dreams actually for? Are they random noise, emotional therapy, memory maintenance, or something else entirely? Award-winning health and science journalist Karen van Kampen, author of The Brain Never Sleeps: Why We Dream and What It Means for Our Health (https://amzn.to/3ZJwbIs) explains what researchers now understand about dreaming — and why your sleeping brain may be working harder than you realize. Taking care of your health can feel overwhelming — conflicting advice, complicated routines, endless “must-do” lists. But according to Dr. Zeke Emanuel, oncologist, professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and author of Eat Your Ice Cream: Six Simple Rules for a Long and Healthy Life (https://amzn.to/4cyrNU8), most of what truly matters can be distilled into a handful of simple, high-impact behaviors. No extreme biohacks. No punishing regimens. Just practical strategies that deliver outsized benefits. There’s only a one-cent difference between $59.99 and $60 — but your brain doesn’t process them the same way. Retailers know this. The “left digit effect” tricks your perception. It’s a tiny psychological quirk that quietly influences billions of purchasing decisions — including yours. https://academic.oup.com/jcr/article/32/1/54/1797197 PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS QUINCE: Refresh your wardrobe with Quince! Go to ⁠⁠⁠https://Quince.dom/sysk ⁠⁠⁠for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada, too! HIMS: For simple, online access to personalized and affordable care for Hair Loss, ED, Weight Loss, and more, visit ⁠⁠⁠https://Hims.com/SOMETHING⁠⁠⁠ for your free online visit! SHOPIFY: Sign up for your $1 per month trail and start selling today at ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Shopify.com/sysk⁠⁠⁠⁠ DELL: Dell Tech Days are here. Enjoy huge deals on PCs like the Dell 14 Plus with Intel® Core™ Ultra processors. Visit ⁠⁠⁠https://Dell.com/deals⁠⁠⁠ PLANET VISIONARIES: We love the Planet Visionaries podcast, so listen on Apple, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you're listening to this podcast! In partnership with The Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Mike Carruthers?

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• 1:23Mike Carruthers?

  Just go to indeed.com/podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need the right hire fast? Then this is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. Today on Something You Should Know, why we like to sit in the same place we sat before. Then, the fascinating science of dreaming and the power and importance of your nightly dreams.

• 1:58Speaker 01

  We are as dream deprived as we are sleep deprived. And during sleep, it's thought that dreams help strengthen memories, they help us process difficult emotions, and they help us prepare for life's dangers.

• 2:13Mike Carruthers?

  Also, an interesting quirk of the human brain that may be costing you money, and a few simple things that could drastically improve your health.

• 2:22Speaker 02

  The first is, stop drinking sugar sweetened beverages like sodas, because they're 140 calories, 10 teaspoons of sugar, and zero nutrition. Fortunately, the American public's been doing that, but we have to do more of it.

• 2:38Mike Carruthers?

  All this today on Something You Should Know.

• 2:44Mike Carruthers?

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• 3:29Mike Carruthers?

  and track your orders, all in one place. Clothes, electronics, gifts, things for the house, all kinds of stuff. And whether you win or not, it's worth knowing. But with 1,000 chances to win $1,000, I'd certainly take a look. Enter to win the $1 million Shop Cash giveaway from now until November 1st. Just go to shop.com. There are so many ways to win. That's shop.com. Shopping designed around you. No purchase necessary. Restrictions apply. Official rules available at shop.com.

• 4:09Speaker 03

  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.

• 4:22Mike Carruthers?

  When you walk into a room that you've been in before, there's a very good chance you will sit down in the same place you sat before. Why is that? Why do people do that? Well, that's what we're going to talk about as we begin this episode of Something You Should Know. So this phenomenon of sitting in the same place you sat before is called psychological ownership. It's that feeling that something is mine, even though you have no legal ownership of it. Research shows that people quickly develop attachments to physical spaces simply by occupying them repeatedly. Over time, the space becomes associated with comfort, familiarity, and identity.

• 5:06Mike Carruthers?

  Sitting in the same place reduces cognitive load because your brain doesn't have to process new environmental variables. It also creates a subtle sense of control and territorial security. There's also something called place attachment. It's a well-studied phenomenon in environmental psychology. Humans form emotional bonds, not just with homes or neighborhoods, but with micro-locations: desks, chairs, corners of rooms. These spaces become predictable anchors in an otherwise variable environment, which explains why losing your seat to someone else can feel strangely disruptive. It's not about the chair.

• 5:49Mike Carruthers?

  It's about the routine, control, and identity. And that is something you should know.

• 5:59Mike Carruthers?

  Every night, you enter a world that feels real, sometimes joyful, sometimes terrifying, and often completely bizarre. You can fly. You can relive the past. You can solve problems. Or you can wake up shaken by something that never actually happened because it's all just a dream. But what are dreams, really? For decades, scientists debated whether dreams are just random electrical noises in the brain or something far more meaningful. Why do some dreams feel trivial while others leave a deep emotional scar? Why do certain dreams repeat? And what is your brain actually doing during those hours when you're unconscious,

• 6:44Mike Carruthers?

  but your mind is very active? Karen Van Kampen is an award-winning health and science journalist and author of the book, "The Brain Never Sleeps: Why We Dream and What It Means to Our Health." And she joins me to explore what modern neuroscience has uncovered about why we dream, what those dreams may be doing for us, and how understanding them could change the way you think about sleep itself. Hi Karen, welcome to Something You Should Know.

• 7:12Speaker 01

  Thanks for having me.

• 7:13Mike Carruthers?

  Well, this is such a fun topic because I think everybody has their own personal relationship with their dreams. And one of the things I wonder about is why I dream what I dream. Some things seem obvious, right? Something happened today and you dream about it that night, or you're looking forward to something. But a lot of times dreams creep in that are about people you haven't thought of, things that have never happened, things that seem completely unconnected, and often very, very bizarre. You know, the sheep shows up and eats the car that flies into the elephant. You know what I mean?

• 7:55Speaker 01

  Yep, for sure. I'm always as fascinated by, you know, the fictions of my dream as much as the reflections of waking reality. And some of the things that we dream about, it could have to do with recency. So let's say we had an experience. Let's say we're learning something new at school or at work. If something emotional happens, it's almost like they jump the queue and they have priority to be dreamed about. And then, what's really interesting is that to strengthen new experiences, new memories, one idea is that it associates new experiences with, say,

• 8:37Speaker 01

  old memories that are, you know, filed, stored away in our brain, in our catalog of memories. And that's, that might be the reason why you have these sort of strange associations during dreaming.

• 8:49Mike Carruthers?

  Well, what we dream about, like you say, if there's something important going on that that jumps the queue, that's a great phrase to describe that. But so often, the dreams just come out of nowhere, it seems, or like you might dream about somebody you haven't thought about in a long time, or a place, or like you wonder, it seems very random and probably difficult to figure out or study, but has anybody tried?

• 9:15Speaker 01

  That was one of the questions that maybe want to write this book and maybe want to research dreams, is why is it that I'm going to suddenly dream of someone that I haven't seen for decades, or someone from my past? And so, one idea is that there might be some association, some unique association with this person, or with this time in your past, with something that's happened recently. So that's one idea, that's one possibility. That's what I've always been fascinated about. Why do we choose to dream certain things at different points in our lives?

• 9:51Mike Carruthers?

  Well, when you say choose, see, that's, I don't think I choose my dreams.

• 9:55Speaker 01

  Oh, right. Why does the dreaming brain choose? Why does our brain choose to pick those thoughts, or feelings, or experiences to dream about?

• 10:09Mike Carruthers?

  But you make it sound as if the brain has its own brain, like it's our brain, right? It's our brain. So if our brain chooses it, we choose it.

• 10:18Speaker 01

  So, let's say we're, we're lying down, we're going to fall asleep, and there's things that are going through our minds as we're drifting off. Oftentimes, something we're thinking about will jump the queue, or it will be tagged in our brain, in our mind, and then might, we might revisit that idea, or that experience later in our dreams.

• 10:44Mike Carruthers?

  Sometimes, people have bad dreams. Everyone has bad dreams, nightmares. And sometimes, they recur, they come back again and again. And what is that? And is there anything you can do about it, other than just hope you stop doing that?

• 11:03Speaker 01

  Sometimes nightmares, you can have recurrent nightmares and they can follow you for for years. And it can affect people. People become afraid to fall asleep. They don't want to go to bed because they're afraid they're going to have a nightmare. The thing is, is that dreams can affect, have a, have a very powerful influence of how we feel the next day. If we carry it with us into the next day, just like, just like a waking experience. Our dream experiences can affect our wellbeing and how we feel. So there's, there's several things that you can do for, for nightmares.

• 11:41Mike Carruthers?

  Great. So tell me how that works.

• 11:43Speaker 01

  I, I, so since I was a kid, I've had this dream where I just pictured myself, I was on the top of this metal scaffolding and then suddenly I trip and I'm falling. And just before I hit the ground, I always bolt awake. And I was told by a dream researcher that that's the ultimate avoidance strategy because I'm never getting any resolution to the dream, so the nightmare lives on. So one way to combat nightmares is to do something called imagery rehearsal therapy. So during the day, oftentimes you don't want to do this, you don't want to think about

• 12:23Speaker 01

  your dream, your bad dream, but if you think about it, then you try and rewrite it. You re-script whatever part of your distressing dream is upsetting you. So for me, it's the ending, but for some people, it could be a detail or a person. And so you reimagine your dream, you re-script your dream and you practice it. I think it's something, you know, a couple of minutes a day for a couple of weeks, you think about this new version of your dream. And then when you have this nightmare again, the way I sort of see it is it's given you another way out. So you have a different, you have an alternative to the first version of your nightmare.

• 13:05Mike Carruthers?

  So I understand that dreams are very closely related to your life, but I get very skeptical when I hear about dream interpretation, that, you know, if you were falling in your dream, it's because your life is out of control in some way. Because if you ask 10 dream interpreters what a dream means, you'll get 10 different answers. So I just, I, I don't really buy it.

• 13:31Speaker 01

  One way to look at it is, you know, ultimately, we're the best interpreter of our own dreams. So if we just want to see a dream as, you know, face value, what it is, or if we want to interpret it in a different way. Um, I spoke with one dream researcher and he said that he often has these exam dreams before he's, let's say he's preparing for a presentation or he's um, working on a grant. And he said, one idea is that, you know, exams test our competency. So that might be a theme. But, you know, so I, the way I look at it is, we can look at dreams and um, use our dreams however we'd like to.

• 14:15Speaker 01

  And, and ultimately, we're the best interpreter of our dreams.

• 14:19Mike Carruthers?

  Well, I like that. I like that because it just seems so random to ask somebody, you know, what does my dream mean? And how would they know? How, how would they have any idea what it means?

• 14:30Speaker 01

  It was interesting. I joined a dream salon in which I shared a dream. And um, then I had different people offer their thoughts and interpretations of the dream. So what happens is you share your dream and then people will say, you know, if it was my dream, I might think of this, or this, or this. And that was really interesting. And it gives you different perspectives on how you might see your dream. And then, you know, and then I think, you know, it's all, it's up to all of us how we, how we see our dreams and how we use our dreams. I mean, you know, no one's telling us, we can dismiss our dreams or we can focus on them and, and try and use them in our waking, in our waking lives.

• 15:12Mike Carruthers?

  There's something about dreams where it crosses a line where, I mean, most of my dreams, you wouldn't be able to tell I'm dreaming if I'm, you looked at me sleeping. But sometimes I say something, or I'll scream something, or I'll, you know, it comes into reality. My wife will wake me up and say, you're having a dream, wake up.

• 15:33Speaker 01

  Right.

• 15:34Mike Carruthers?

  What, what, what's going, what is that line that you cross when it stops being silent and it becomes reality?

• 15:42Speaker 01

  You can have nightmares or night terrors. And sometimes if it's a terrifying dream, you might scream or bolt awake during a night terror. Those that's at different stages of the sleep cycle. You know, I find it's interesting for me. I'm really fascinated when I dip in and out of sleep. And I might notice something, you know, a noise. And then I dip back into sleep and then I go in and out. And how the dreaming and waking world, there isn't that sharp divide. It just it it flows from from wake then into different stages of dreaming and sleep. I should say.

• 16:20Mike Carruthers?

  We're talking about your dreams, why you dream, what you dream. And I'm speaking with Karen Van Kampen. She's author of the book, The Brain Never Sleeps. Why we dream and what it means for our health.

• 16:33Speaker 04

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• 17:01Speaker 05

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• 17:30Mike Carruthers?

  So Karen, you know, that experience where you're having like a really great dream? And then you wake up and you think, oh, man. You know, I want back in. I want to get back in that dream. I can't do that. It you can't get back in.

• 17:45Speaker 01

  Exactly. So that is, I mean, I would love to be. I've never been able to do that either. But some people that goes into the area of lucid dreaming. Right? So lucid dreaming is when you're in the dream state and you're realizing you're you're dreaming as it's happening. So you can almost guide your dream thoughts. And then, once you gain this awareness. Of the dream state, then you can try and start to, uh, you know, control and guide your dreams. So I, I do know I met with some people and they would try and think of an idea as they're falling asleep, like, oh, I really want to get back to that

• 18:27Speaker 01

  great experience or that great dream. And then once they're dreaming, they try and, and lose a dream. And so I have this, I'm able to recognize that I'm dreaming, like I'll sometimes talk to a dream character and say, oh, I know why you're doing that because I'm thinking about this or something. And then the person will say, yes, but you still, you still have to keep going with the dream. And then, but I can't control a dream. I've never been able to, to lose a dream that way.

• 18:56Mike Carruthers?

  Well, every time I'm in a dream and I realize I'm in a dream, I just wake up. I just.

• 19:01Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 19:02Mike Carruthers?

  I can't, I can't stay in it. Once I've made the determination that I'm dreaming.

• 19:07Speaker 01

  I, I had this dream and I was, um, in this, uh, in this bar and I had to pay for a drink and my credit card, like I tried to tap and it wouldn't work. And so I said to the waiter, oh, I'm dreaming this because I'm planning a vacation and I'm concerned about, about money. And then the waiter said, yeah, you still have to pay me. So then it's right, but I wanted to, but so I can't switch and try and control what's going to happen next. But, um, it's, it's definitely mind expanding.

• 19:41Mike Carruthers?

  Yeah. Well, I've heard that. I've heard that, you know, dreaming can be a source of inspiration and creativity, but I've never been able to really, sometimes I've had things happen in a dream and I think, oh, this, this could be a good idea. But in, in the light of day, it turns, yeah, that wasn't such a great idea.

• 20:01Speaker 01

  Right, so there's this area of of this new sort of I look at as the the next frontier in dream science and it's called dream engineering. And one thing you can do is you can try, so it's all about guiding your dreams, learning to guide your dreams, and often it's using technology to do this. So as you fall asleep, one idea is as you fall asleep, you're thinking of an idea, but then you do these voice recordings. And as you're going into sleep onset, which has been called, it's like a creative sweet spot, dream researchers, a group of dream researchers called it this creative sweet spot. So as you're going into sleep onset, a voice recording will play, like you've created this

• 20:46Speaker 01

  voice recording. And it will say, you know, remember to think of whatever you want to, you know, get some creative inspiration about. And then this recording will play at different times of sleep onset to try and, you know, sort of guide your dreams to to this new area that you want to explore.

• 21:06Mike Carruthers?

  But why, why would you be able to come up with something in a dream that you couldn't come up with yourself in reality? Because it's still you. It's it's the same thing, and I've I've asked this question before, like, I've never understood why you can be surprised in a dream. It's your dream, but but you can be scared and surprised and shocked and like, I don't understand why you can't figure this all out, I guess.

• 21:36Speaker 01

  It's fascinating because you think, you know, like, we create these dreams, these these reels, these fictions for our own, you know, curiosity and wonder, and we've created them, yet as we're dreaming, they are, we are surprised, and it's because there is real to us as waking experiences. So as we're having this dream experience, we just get taken along on this adventure that we've created for ourselves. I agree, that's, I find it so fascinating. And it makes me think, you know, when we're disconnected from all those demands and the distractions from the day. And our dreaming brain can can wander and maybe, you know, sort through this catalog

• 22:21Speaker 01

  of memories that we have stored and it plucks all these different things and mashes them together and does almost like this highlight reel. That's what I just find it so fascinating, what our our dreaming brain can come up with and create.

• 22:36Mike Carruthers?

  Do people, I don't know if anyone surveyed people to see, but my guess is that people have like one or two or maybe three recurring dreams. Is that pretty common?

• 22:50Speaker 01

  Yes, recurring dreams are common. And recurring nightmares, recurrent nightmares are also common.

• 22:57Mike Carruthers?

  I have a recurring dream that is so weird because it is so irrelevant to me anymore. But years ago, I was a disc jockey on the radio and this was back in the day when we had physical tapes that you put in a machine or a CD that you put in a machine. It wasn't all on computer. And I would come in and start be on the radio and I couldn't find any songs to play. They were, somebody had taken them. And, and I'm freaking out trying to find a song to play. And it happens.

• 23:31Speaker 01

  Right.

• 23:31Mike Carruthers?

  I have it over and over again. It has no relevance to my life today, but for whatever reason, I keep dreaming it.

• 23:40Speaker 01

  Yes. So I, when I spoke with different dream researchers, you know, you can have this dream from years ago. And again, it brings up that, why did you dream it now? It makes sense. If it's something to do with, it makes sense that it might find its way into your dreams if it's something that you, the repetition, like if you, it's something you did all the time, if you were working in a certain place. But you can have these dreams that just reappear after many years. And it's really interesting to think, to try and ask yourselves, why? Like, why is it appearing at this time?

• 24:18Mike Carruthers?

  So knowing what you know and you've researched about dreams, what do we do with all this information? It seems like we have so little control over this. What can we do?

• 24:30Speaker 01

  You know, we spend, they say about a third of our lives asleep and a great portion of that time dreaming. And, you know, we can not pay a second thought to our dreams and just go about our lives. But, you know, if we tap into our dreams and we look at them more closely, or if we try and use our dreams to improve our waking lives, there's many ways that we can use our dreams to improve our well-being.

• 24:56Mike Carruthers?

  Well, I'd like to hear those.

• 24:59Speaker 01

  Okay, one idea is that dreams identify our waking preoccupations and concerns. So it's not that dreams are a replay of what happens in our waking life. It's almost like they're a highlight reel of what is weighing on our minds and is saying, you know, hey, it needs more attention. So this could be an issue, it could be maybe something at work. Maybe it's a person that we maybe want, that keeps showing up in our dreams. And so one easy way is to write down your dreams just before, you know, before you get out of bed, when they're still swirling around in your head, or maybe make a voice recording. And I found it really interesting. One dream researcher said, you know, connect it if you want.

• 25:43Speaker 01

  You can also do a journal if you keep a date, like a day journal, and connect your dreams with what's going on in your waking life. And another thing is that it's really important. We talk a lot about how we're sleep deprived. But I read this study and it said we are as dream deprived as we are sleep deprived. And it made me wonder, you know, why do dreams matter on their own?

• 26:06Speaker 01

  And during sleep, it's thought that dreams help strengthen memories. They help us process difficult emotions. And they help us prepare for life's dangers. Those are three ideas of benefits during dreams.

• 26:25Mike Carruthers?

  I've heard people say that they don't dream or they don't dream much. What does the science say about how much we dream? Who dreams, who doesn't dream, all of that?

• 26:35Speaker 01

  Most people dream. So we dream during non-REM and REM sleep throughout the night. And our most vivid, intense emotional dreams often happen during REM sleep, closer to when we wake up in the morning.

• 26:49Mike Carruthers?

  And do everyone's dreams seem nonsensical to some degree? I mean, does anybody dream just perfectly normal, like it's reality? Or is everybody having those weird, bizarre dreams?

• 27:03Speaker 01

  All dreams have that reflections of reality, fragments from our waking life. And then it's mixed with these bizarre elements that seem to make no sense as well. And that's sort of that fiction part of our dreams. It's really interesting to... I'm always thinking, why did I come up with that? And it's almost, it makes me wonder, it's, you're creating this, this story or this script. And how did I come up with that? It's so interesting to think how our imaginations have created this.

• 27:34Mike Carruthers?

  What's your sense about people's involvement in their own dreams? Because I find this topic fascinating, but I admit, I, you know, I don't log my dreams or give them a whole lot of thought later in the day. But how do, how do most people do this?

• 27:50Speaker 01

  You know, it's changed my view. It's almost opened up my own dream world to see how other people are thinking about and using their dreams. So, yeah, you can just not even think about your dreams. Or there's many people who reflect on their dreams, trying to understand, maybe, you know, why was I dreaming that?

• 28:14Speaker 01

  I think a big thing is to know how important it is to get enough dream sleep. To get enough sleep, but, you know, the dreams that sleep offers, it's so important that we have enough dreams, enough dream sleep for memory consolidation and learning. And processing emotions, that's a really big thing.

• 28:34Mike Carruthers?

  Yeah.

• 28:35Speaker 01

  And you know, a lot of the benefits that we get from dreams happen whether we remember our dreams or not, happen whether we think about our dreams or not, we're gaining all of these different benefits from dreams.

• 28:47Mike Carruthers?

  Well, it's such a universal topic and yet it's also a very personal topic. Everybody has their own thing about dreams and I love to hear explanations as to why it is the way it is. I've been talking with Karen Van Kampen. She's an award-winning health and science journalist and the book is called The Brain Never Sleeps: Why We Dream and What It Means for Our Health. And there's a link to that book in the show notes. Karen, thanks for explaining all this.

• 29:15Speaker 01

  Okay, thanks so much.

• 29:19Speaker 04

  Pink Pantheress here. Coach and Spotify are teaming up to bring music and style together and they want you to be part of it. Grab your friends and head to the Tabby Tour, hitting cities around the country with live performances from special artists, exclusive experiences and personalized products. And discover custom playlists on Spotify, booked just for you, based on who you are and how you listen. Live your story with Coach. Learn more at coach.com.

• 29:46Speaker 05

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• 30:19Mike Carruthers?

  Taking care of your health can feel overwhelming. One expert will tell you, cut carbs. Another says lift weights. Someone else tells you, fast. Track your sleep. Avoid this, do more of that. And don't forget your screenings. Well, it's no wonder people are confused. But what if living a long, healthy life isn't nearly as complicated as we've made it? What if beneath all the noise, there are just a few core principles that truly matter? Rules grounded in solid medical evidence? Dr. Zeke Emanuel is an oncologist, professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and one of the most widely cited voices in medicine and public health.

• 31:03Mike Carruthers?

  After years of studying what actually extends life, he argues that we've overcomplicated the formula. He boils it down to six surprisingly simple rules that may challenge what you think you know about diet, prevention, and even indulgence. He is author of the book Each or Ice Cream: Six Simple Rules for a Long and Healthy Life. Hey, doctor, welcome to Something You Should Know.

• 31:29Speaker 02

  Great to be here, thank you.

• 31:32Mike Carruthers?

  So you say wellness should be simple, but I don't think that's most people's perception of wellness, that it's simple, that it sounds like it should take a lot of work. So explain what you mean by that.

• 31:42Speaker 02

  Well, that's part of the wellness industrial complex. They want you to think it's complex so that you pay attention to what they're telling you and all the little adjustments. But my view is it's six things, and most people already know those six things. One is, don't take unreasonable risks. The second is, be social, interact with people, it's the best thing you can do for your wellness. Third is, stay mentally sharp and engaged. Fourth is, eat well. Fifth is, exercise. And sixth is, sleep. And the last three, the diet, the exercise, and the sleep, we already know we get inundated with all sorts of information about those.

• 32:26Speaker 02

  The first three, we might know a little less about, but intuitively, we know what we should be doing.

• 32:32Mike Carruthers?

  So those last three, diet, exercise, and sleep, as you say, we've heard a lot about it, but a lot of what we hear is contradictory, is changes, it's good for you this day, but bad for you that day, so it's confusing. As all get out.

• 32:49Speaker 02

  I mean, just take diet. There are two things we should stop doing and two things if we should probably focus most of our attention on. There are many other things, once you have these four elements under control. The first is stop drinking sugar sweetened beverages like sodas because they're 140 calories, 10 teaspoons of sugar, and zero nutrition. Fortunately, the American public's been doing that, but we have to do more of it. Second, we have to stop eating so much ultra-processed foods. About 60% of our calories are ultra-processed foods. The Italians are at 20, which is where most people should be.

• 33:34Speaker 02

  So that the most important thing is stop eating packaged cakes, cookies, pretzels, and snacks. That has, those packaged items have increased to 500 calories a day for most people. So those are the two things we really have to stop. The things we have to start doing, the first, and that hasn't gotten a lot of attention, is eat fermented foods, things like cottage cheese, yogurt, kimchi, sauerkraut. Those are really good for you. Not only do they give you protein and other items, but they improve your microbiome, and that is critical to good nutrition.

• 34:19Speaker 02

  And the second thing I would say is 90% or more of Americans don't get enough fiber. We need to eat more fiber. Those are basically prebiotics. Those are the things that bacteria in your gut grow on. And we can easily do that by eating fruits and vegetables, not by going out and buying those expensive packaged prebiotics. And those four things, they'll get you pretty far.

• 34:47Mike Carruthers?

  All right, well, let's, let's go back and talk about what you, because you talked about snacks and things. The title of your book is Eat Your Ice Cream, which is not a healthy food typically in most people's minds, so reconcile that for me.

• 35:01Speaker 02

  Well, ice cream is actually a dairy product. Yes, it does have a fair amount of sugar. And if you eat it occasionally as a celebration, once a week, it's fine. The dairy part of it is quite good. We know that dairy has associated with a decreased risk of diabetes, even though it has some sugar. It's associated with decreased colorectal cancer, probably because of its impact on the microbiome. It also makes people taller. It's got a lot of advantages. It does have some disadvantages. It can raise some kinds of risks of some kinds of cancer. But net-net, it's actually a good thing.

• 35:45Speaker 02

  Plus, you know, wellness is something you're going to have to do for years and decades. And if you make it all about self-denial and punishment and, you know, doing things you don't really want to do, you will not sustain it. You have to make wellness a good, a habit you like and a habit you can therefore integrate into your life and look forward to pursuing. You know, having an ice cream one or two times a week as a sort of nice dessert is something you can look forward to, and it's got some health benefits.

• 36:19Mike Carruthers?

  Wait, wait, wait. Did you say a minute ago, did you say dairy makes you taller?

• 36:25Speaker 02

  Yes. If you look at the tallest people in the world, like the Dutch or the Danes, they're taller than Americans, and they are big consumers of dairy. And we know that the more dairy you eat, especially as young children, the taller you get.

• 36:41Mike Carruthers?

  Is there an explanation for that?

• 36:44Speaker 02

  Ah, there are a variety of theories. No one knows for sure. Probably the proteins and the fats help. There's some theory that it might be the hormones in dairy, because it typically comes from cows who have just had calves. But no one knows for sure. And we know that it leads to longer, you know, the main way you measure heights across populations is by Thigh length and but the Dutch, for example, in the mid 19th century were among the shortest people in Europe. They are among the biggest consumers of dairy. They have a famous Gouda cheese. They eat a lot of yogurt, a lot of milk.

• 37:29Speaker 02

  They are now the tallest people in the world by a long shot, three to four inches taller on average than Americans.

• 37:36Mike Carruthers?

  Talk a little more about this, about the microbiome, because you said that eating fermented foods, but you know, the list of fermented foods is pretty short, it seems, and not all of them are, sound all that delicious to me, so.

• 37:51Speaker 02

  Well, here's an ideal breakfast for you. If you have a bowl of berries or some kind of fruit, so you get your fiber in, you put on granola that's got oats and dried fruits. Add yogurt and hemp seeds, both have protein as well as omega-3 and 6 fatty acids. That is a pretty optimal breakfast. I personally have that every day and I add to it egg and a half if I'm making an omelet or two eggs. Also comes with a lot of nutrients and especially 12 to 14 grams of protein.

• 38:35Speaker 02

  You have had pretty much an ideal breakfast to get you going in the day and a very healthy dose of fiber.

• 38:45Mike Carruthers?

  How does that help your microbiome?

• 38:47Speaker 02

  So you've got the fiber from the berries is helps the bacteria in your microbiome grow and it's a variety of fibers. It's not just one over and over again, so that different bacteria need different kinds of fibers. And yogurt has bacteria in it and again improves the diversity of the bacteria in your gut. We also happen to know that yogurt is one of the leading foods for weight regulation and weight loss if you're on a diet.

• 39:26Mike Carruthers?

  So one of the things you didn't talk about in talking about diet was things like fats, saturated fats, meat, vegetarian, all that. So throw that in the mix.

• 39:37Speaker 02

  Americans, almost all Americans get enough protein. There are groups that don't necessarily get enough protein. Older individuals, when we're on the downward path and losing muscle mass, need a little more protein. If you're competing in races, you will need more protein as you prepare for that. But most of us who aren't doing those kind of things, we get perfectly fine amount of protein just by eating regularly. And we don't have to really count on how much protein we're eating. We don't really have to focus on it. We eat too much meat. We eat about 12 ounces of meat per day, per American. That is too much.

• 40:22Speaker 02

  You can get your protein in many other ways, whether nuts or beans, as I mentioned, eggs, yogurts, and dairy products. And meats have excessive amounts of saturated fats. And we also know that they're associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease, increased risk of early mortality. So we should cut back on our meat. I make a recommendation that probably about six ounces, six to eight ounces a week is in the right range, not 12 ounces a day.

• 40:57Mike Carruthers?

  So the first thing you mentioned was don't take unnecessary risks. Is that a big problem for people?

• 41:05Speaker 02

  We still have a lot of smokers. We have a lot of people who drink too much. And we do a lot of things that are excessive in the risk category. Ride bicycles without helmets, play sports that are not very good for the brain. You know, and I think that there are lots of things people are pursuing, especially people who might have money, that are really Risk. Just take climbing Mount Everest is one of the riskiest things you can do. You pay a hundred thousand dollars to go up Mount Everest.

• 41:45Speaker 02

  And the chance of dying is for all comers, including expert mountaineers is one in a hundred. And if you're over fifty nine, it's one in twenty five. That strikes me as pretty schmucky move, very unreasonable risks to do.

• 42:03Mike Carruthers?

  You know what I what I notice is that there are people who like make this an effort that like they they're going to get fit, they're going to get well. So they're going to do things that they haven't done, and it's all very effortful. As opposed to people who morally more or less adopt it as part of their life. It becomes their life rather than fights their life.

• 42:27Speaker 02

  Oh, I think that's a great way of putting it. When you make wellness and living a long time, the focus of your life, you're making a mistake. Are the focus of our life should be something bigger than ourselves, not just a sort of narcissistic obsession with I've got to live a long time. That will not be a very fulfilling life. As a matter of fact, we know that part of what makes life fulfilling is not focusing on living a long time, but focusing on giving to the world. I talk about Ben Franklin, one of the greatest people who's ever lived, actually, and was world class in so many ways, world class scientist, world class diplomat, world class publisher,

• 43:12Speaker 02

  world class journalist, world class writer, world class politician. He was driven by three principles. One was curiosity. He was curious about the world. It kept his mind young. The second was moral growth, recognizing he wasn't perfect. He made mistakes, he had prejudices and trying to overcome those flaws. And the third, and I think the most important thing is he was constantly thinking about how to be useful. And by useful, he meant how do I make the world around me better? He was a consummate civic improver. He created the University of Pennsylvania. He created the first hospital in America, Pennsylvania Hospital.

• 43:56Speaker 02

  He created a lending library. He created an insurance company. He created a volunteer fire brigade. He created a learned society, the American Philosophical Society. He just made these civic items. Second, he invented at least 10 things. We know him for the bifocals, the lightning rod, but he also invented swim fins. He invented a urinary catheter. And interestingly, Mike, he never patented one of them. His view is, I'm giving these to the world. I've made some improvements. Other people will take my inventions and improve them even further. And the world will be a better place.

• 44:40Speaker 02

  And that's what motivated him. That should be the goal of everyone. How do we make the world a better place? And that will make us much more fulfilled and also live longer.

• 44:52Mike Carruthers?

  There has been a lot of talk about this whole idea of social connection and as it relates to health. But I'm not sure I really understand the connection of how it makes you healthier.

• 45:05Speaker 02

  I think your puzzlement affects a lot of people. So we think, you know, social connection, it makes me feel happier. It's all in my head. Well, it's not all psychological. It's very much physiological. Just take one element. When you interact with someone, you actually activate the hypothalamus-pituitary axis that decreases your stress hormone cortisol secreted by your adrenals. That is a direct physiological response, lowers your heart rate, lowers your stress levels, lowers your blood pressure. In addition, when you interact with someone, you actually get a release of oxytocin,

• 45:48Speaker 02

  the so-called love hormone in the brain. You get an increase in dopamine and serotonin, which also makes you happier. All of these things are actually quite important.

• 46:02Speaker 02

  Physiological responses to social interaction. And we know that human beings are social animals. We know that they like interacting. There's this very wonderful experiment by a professor from the University of Chicago, Nick Epley, where he took commuters before they got on the train and the bus and said, for the next week, force yourself to talk to someone on the commute, not just to sit there and read your book or play with your iPhone. Talk to someone. And it turned out that after a week, people were, after every commute, but also after the week, people were much happier.

• 46:43Speaker 02

  They were much, feeling much better, whether they were extroverts or introverts, by interacting with people. So it actually plays on your physiological and your brain. And that is why social interaction actually is critical to wellness. And interestingly, most books on wellness, whether it's Outlive or some of the others, do not talk about social interaction as important. And that's a big mistake.

• 47:14Mike Carruthers?

  So talk about movement and exercise, because I think, again, there's a lot of confusion of how much is enough and what do you do and all of that.

• 47:24Speaker 02

  The amount you should get, here are two important rules. Vigorous exercise, getting your heart rate up to 75% of your maximum, so you're a little breathless, you should be doing that about 75 minutes a week. That's, you know, for me, it's three to four 20-minute exercise sessions on a stationary bike when it's cold. Strength training, you should do a few times a week. You want to get your muscles a little fatigue. Don't go overboard. One of the things I think the influencers want you to do is exercise more and more. You know, Peter Attia talks about 10 hours a week. That is excessive.

• 48:08Speaker 02

  After about 150 minutes. Two and a half hours to three and a half hours a week of vigorous exercise. You get no benefit in terms of wellness and longevity, and you run the risk of repetitive motion injuries and spending time that could be spent more productively doing other things on exercise. So there's a plateau of benefit, both physically, but also in many other ways.

• 48:38Mike Carruthers?

  Well, with all of the complicated advice and contradictory advice that you so often hear, it's good to just, you know, hear the basics and hear it from someone with your credentials that make you realize it's just not that complicated. I've been talking with Dr. Zeke Emanuel. He's a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He is an oncologist who's regularly in the media, and he is author of a book called Eat Your Ice Cream: Six Simple Rules for a Long and Healthy Life. And there's a link to his book at Amazon in the show notes. Zeke, thank you so much for being here.

• 49:14Speaker 02

  Thank you so much.

• 49:19Mike Carruthers?

  You probably like to think you're pretty rational when it comes to money, but sometimes maybe not. Take the price $59.99. Now, you know that's basically $60, but your brain doesn't process it that way. Research in behavioral economics shows that we anchor heavily on the digit farthest to the left. So that 5 of $59.99 quietly tells your brain, this is a 50-something purchase, not a $60 purchase. That tiny shift lowers what researchers call the pain of paying.

• 50:01Mike Carruthers?

  But here's the twist: not all prices work that way. Studies show that precise prices, like $29.87, that signals calculation and competence. People make the assumption that the seller did the math on this. That works especially well for practical purchases.

• 50:21Mike Carruthers?

  But for emotional or luxury buys, round numbers are better. A $40 bottle of champagne feels right. So pricing isn't about sense, it's about cognition. Retailers aren't just adjusting numbers, they're adjusting your perception. And your brain is doing most of the work for them. And that is something you should know. This podcast is produced by Jeff Havison, Jennifer Brennan, and the executive producer is Ken Williams. I'm Micah Rutherford, thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know.

• 50:58Speaker 04

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• 51:26Speaker 06

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