How Music Can Actually Heal You & The Skills Technology Is Stealing - SYSK Choice

You probably know that light, noise, temperature and stress can all interfere with your sleep. But what about the moon? Strange as it sounds, some research suggests people really do sleep differently around the time of a full moon — even when they aren’t outside looking at it. So what could possibly explain that? Listen as I reveal what researchers have discovered. https://www.self.com/story/full-moon-sleep Most of us know instinctively that music can change how we feel. The right song can calm you down, lift your mood or bring back a memory in an instant. But scientists are discovering that music may do considerably more than that. There is now fascinating research into how music can affect the brain and body and even be used to help treat certain medical conditions. Neuroscientist Daniel Levitin has been following this research for years, and he joins me to explain what we now know about the remarkable connection between music and our health. Dan is author of the book I Heard There Was a Secret Chord: Music as Medicine (https://amzn.to/46QoQcE). Technology does so many things for us that we no longer have to do for ourselves. GPS finds our way, search engines remember things for us, and our phones make sure we never have to sit quietly with nothing to do. Convenient? Absolutely. But what happens to the human abilities we stop using? Some surprisingly important skills are beginning to fade from our lives, and losing them may have consequences we haven’t considered. Graham Lee joins me to explain which skills are disappearing, why they still matter and what we can do to get them back. He is author of the book Human Being: Reclaim 12 Vital Skills We’re Losing to Technology (https://amzn.to/46MP53A). Your brain is not equally good at everything all day long. There are times when you may be better at concentrating, solving problems or doing mentally demanding work — and other times when trying to force it may be an uphill battle. So how do you know when your brain is at its best? Listen as I explain how understanding your brain’s natural rhythms can help you decide what to do — and when to do it. David Rock is author of Your Brain at Work (https://amzn.to/4g3Fk5F). PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS AIR DOCTOR: Head to ⁠⁠https://AirDoctorPro.com⁠⁠ and use promo code SYSK to get $250 off select AirDoctor air purifiers, including the 3500, 4000, and 5500 models. Plus, you’ll receive a free 3year warranty, an $84 value, and AirDoctor’s 30-day money back guarantee WAYFAIR: Ready to upgrade your home for way less? Head to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Wayfair.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ right now to shop all things home and get your space ready for less. QUINCE: Elevate your everyday. Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Quince.com/sysk⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada, too! DELL: Built for those who want better. The Dell XPS, built for you! HEALTH MATTERS: If you enjoy learning new ways to live a healthier life, check out NewYork-Presbyterian's Health Matters. Listen now and follow NewYork-Presbyterian's Health Matters wherever you get podcasts. SHOPIFY: It's time to turn those "what ifs" into CHA CHING with Shopify Today! Sign up for your $1 per month trail and start selling today at ⁠⁠https://Shopify.com/realm⁠⁠ INDEED: Get a $75 Sponsored Job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Indeed.com/PODCAST⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 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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• 0:44Mike Carruthers?

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• 1:23Mike Carruthers?

  Today on Something You Should Know, how a full moon messes up a lot of people's sleep. Then, can listening to music be good for your health? Yes, in fact, it can treat some illnesses. Which ones?

• 1:36Speaker 01

  Well, colds, flu, infections of the immune system. We find that listening to relaxing music is as effective as taking a statin for lowering blood pressure. There's now evidence that listening to music that's pleasurable actually boosts your immune system.

• 1:50Mike Carruthers?

  Also, why it's important to know when your brain is working at its peak and what to do when it is. And technology has robbed us of some basic skills like reading a map. Many people can't because they use GPS.

• 2:05Speaker 02

  Suddenly, if you don't have GPS, you don't know where to go. And it's been proven that actually it can be a degrading in our cognitive abilities if we don't naturally navigate in the ways that we used to.

• 2:17Mike Carruthers?

  All this today on Something You Should Know.

• 2:21Mike Carruthers?

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• 3:05Mike Carruthers?

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• 3:49Mike Carruthers?

  And when Quince asks where you heard about them, please let them know it was Something You Should Know. It's the best way to support our show.

• 3:58Speaker 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.

• 4:12Mike Carruthers?

  Hi, welcome. Lot of good stuff today on this episode of Something You Should Know. And we're going to start with the full moon. Did you know that, I didn't know this, that people tend to sleep less around the time of a full moon? Scientists aren't exactly sure why the moon might affect sleep. Maybe the light from the full moon affects the body's internal clock and its production of melatonin, which is a hormone that promotes sleep. Or maybe just the light from the moon makes it harder to fall asleep. Regardless of the reason, here's what researchers have found. A study of three different societies in Argentina and America found that people fell asleep later and slept less

• 4:56Mike Carruthers?

  on nights with more moonlight, usually caused by a full moon. Another study found that people woke up more during the night when the moon was full, reducing overall sleep by 25 minutes. Another study found that people had lower quality of sleep during a full moon. And one other study found that on average, people slept 20 minutes less, took five extra minutes to fall asleep, and had 30% less deep sleep during a full moon. And that is something you should know.

• 5:32Mike Carruthers?

  You have most likely heard something about the healing power of music. And certainly, music can be soothing, calming, pleasant, relaxing, de-stressing. But healing, as in helping with illness? That seems like it might be a bit of a stretch. Well, Dan Levitin has delved deep into this topic. Dan is a neuroscientist and author of several popular books. He's been a guest here a few times before. And his latest book is called, I Heard There Was A Secret Chord: Music As Medicine. Hi, Dan, welcome back.

• 6:06Speaker 01

  It's so great to be back with you, Mike.

• 6:09Mike Carruthers?

  So the idea of music and healing, music and health, I mean, people have been talking about it, I guess, for a long time. But is there anything to it? Is there any real science that says that music can heal illness?

• 6:25Speaker 01

  The idea's been around for at least 20,000 years. You know, we had shamans and faith healers using music. But the part of it that's new is that we now have scientific evidence for it. I would say in the last 10 years, really a significant and rigorous body of evidence has emerged that shows that music really can help treat a variety of illnesses and health outcomes.

• 6:55Mike Carruthers?

  So what does that look like? Because it can't be that, well, you don't need to take your medicine. You just need to listen to some music and you'll be all better. So it can't be that. So what does it look like to have music treat an illness?

• 7:09Speaker 01

  It's a bunch of different things, Mike. So I'll start with an easy one, which is Parkinson's disease. People with Parkinson's often, at some point, are unable to walk. They'll either freeze while they're walking or they won't be able to get started. Or once they get started, it turns into a kind of a run and they can't slow down. Why would that happen? Well, we now understand that the disease causes degradation of circuits in the brain that are responsible for maintaining steady movement, a gait, a steady gait. And with that degradation, we can't self-regulate our walking. But if we play someone with Parkinson's music at the tempo of their gait,

• 7:54Speaker 01

  then neurons can synchronize to that tempo and they can walk smoothly, even after the music has stopped playing because they have the memory of the entrainment of it.

• 8:04Mike Carruthers?

  Wow, that's pretty cool.

• 8:07Speaker 01

  I think that's pretty amazing. Now, you know, Parkinson's is a somewhat rare disease. So I started with that one because it's an easy one to visualize. But harder to visualize is that there's now evidence that listening to music that's pleasurable actually boosts your immune system. Hard to visualize unless we get deep down into brain chemistry. But the pleasurable music kicks off a cascade of neurochemical responses in your brain that ultimately end up increasing the production of immunoglobulin A, IgA, which helps to fight off infections of the mucosal system, such as COVID. And it can boost natural killer cells and T cells, which travel to the site of an infection.

• 8:52Mike Carruthers?

  And so when we talk about things like that, one of the issues or things that gets muddy for me is, like, how much better and how much music to make it that much better? Because is it one song and you're good to go? Or you've got to listen to music for 15 years, every day for four hours, and we'll see a little improvement or somewhere in between?

• 9:16Speaker 01

  This is one of the things I like about talking with you because you jumped ahead, up a few levels. This is what we've been talking about in the field. I've been working with Francis Collins in the White House Science Office and with the National Institutes of Health on this for many years. And what we're asking, the question we're asking in other terms, to rephrase what you said, is what is the dose? If music is medicine, what is the dose of it? How much do I need and for how long? And we don't really know because it varies by person and it varies by ailment, just the way drugs do. How many aspirins do you take? How long do you take an antibiotic? It varies. And so if we're going to talk about music as medicine, yeah, we need to nail that down.

• 10:00Speaker 01

  We're working on that part. But in the case of the Parkinson's, listening to music for just five or 10 minutes, it seems, will promote walking ability for another 10 minutes after the music stops. Talking about immune system, my guess, and here I want to make a distinction between what I'm speculating on and what the science says. So we've amassed thousands of papers in the last few years in peer-reviewed journals. And so we know that music promotes immune system function. We don't know how much. But I would speculate that listening to music for maybe 20 or 30 minutes, if you allow yourself to immerse yourself in it,

• 10:45Speaker 01

  that can show immediate results.

• 10:48Mike Carruthers?

  So I want to get really specific, not go too deep into detail on each, but just like a shopping list of things we know that science says, things we know that music helps as far as health goes.

• 11:03Speaker 01

  Well, colds, flu, infections of the immune system. It's good for arterial dilation. We find that listening to relaxing music is as effective as taking a statin for lowering blood pressure. Pain. Music is well-known to produce opioids in the brain. So normally, we treat pain, either chronic or acute pain, by giving you aspirin or opioids or non-steroidal anti-inflammatory. Music has been shown to be just as effective in many cases, particularly relaxing music, music that you like.

• 11:44Speaker 01

  My lab was the first, my lab at McGill was the first to discover that it's the brain's own opioids, the brain's producing opioids in response to music, that helped give this analgesic effect.

• 11:57Mike Carruthers?

  So you had mentioned that, you know, listening to pleasurable music, I think was the term you used. But is there any indication that specific kinds of music do anything different than any other kind of music? You know, we heard the thing about, you know, play classical music to babies and they'll be smarter, or whatever that was. But are there any indications that specific music, whether you like it or not, are good?

• 12:23Speaker 01

  That's a great question, and it's one of the most investigated questions. That whole Mozart makes you smarter thing has been thoroughly debunked.

• 12:33Mike Carruthers?

  Was it debunked by very smart people who don't like Mozart?

• 12:39Speaker 01

  It was debunked by very smart people who asked the question, why Mozart? Why not Beethoven? Why not Puccini? And in replications of the, attempted replications of the study, it turned out the original study didn't have a suitable control group. They either played Mozart to people in a room that had lights, bright light coming into it, or they had a bunch of people sitting in a room with no natural light, no windows, and nothing to do. And it turned out Mozart didn't make you smarter, but being stuck in a dank, dark room made you dumber, at least temporarily. But I think there is this sort of elitist view that classical music is somehow better

• 13:24Speaker 01

  for you. And the answer seems to be decisively, it's better for you if you like it. But rock and roll, country, new age music, music of the Sufis, Indian ragas, Chinese opera, heavy metal, hip-hop, jazz, it doesn't matter because our musical tastes are so subjective. It comes down to whether it's creating pleasurable feelings in you, and that's a matter of your own personal history. As my grandpa used to say, if we all like the same things, everybody would want to get with your grandma.

• 14:05Mike Carruthers?

  And thank goodness for her that that's not true. Is there any evidence or any reason to believe that listening to music is good for you in the sense that a good diet is good for you, that exercise is good for you, that it's just overall healthy?

• 14:24Speaker 01

  Yes, I would say so. Now, there's a caveat, Mike, which is that about 10% of the population, we estimate, don't like music, and they don't understand what all the fuss is about. But for the other 90% of us, as Nietzsche said, life without music would be a mistake. I think the most powerful evidence for it improving our life satisfaction comes from recent work by Vinod Menon, a colleague of mine at Stanford, who discovered something called the default mode network in the brain. And this is one of the biggest discoveries of the last 30 years. And the best way to describe it is, if you've ever been reading a book and suddenly you

• 15:08Speaker 01

  noticed your eyes have been following the page, but you haven't really registered what you've been reading, or if you're trying to engage in some activity and your mind starts to wander, that is the default mode of the brain, mind wandering. It's when you are not in control of your thoughts. It's something like a dreaming state or a daydreaming state. And we have to exert a force of will to pay attention to things. It requires more neural resources to do that than to let your mind wander. And mind wandering is a very healthy place to be. It's where a lot of problems get solved. It's where your brain kind of hits a reset button.

• 15:50Speaker 01

  So after you've been working diligently for an hour or two, either at your job or concentrating on something, your brain is telling you you need a break. And rather than grabbing another cup of coffee, which is actually counterproductive, what we should do is just let our brains wander, maybe for 15 minutes. And there are a number of ways to get into that default mode. One is to walk in nature, another is to meditate, but music is one of the best ways, and that's the story.

• 16:23Mike Carruthers?

  We're talking about the healing power of music. My guest is neuroscientist Dan Levitin. He's author of a book called, I Hear There Was a Secret Cord: Music as Medicine. A big thank you to today's sponsor, Vinted. I think most of us have what I call someday clothes. I'll wear that someday. That'll fit better someday. Someday, I'll have a place to wear that. Meanwhile, it's been hanging in the closet for three years. Vinted offers another possibility: sell it. Every day, people can sell clothes they're no longer wearing and make some extra money. And they've made the process pretty painless. Take what you don't wear, list it on Vinted.

• 17:08Mike Carruthers?

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• 17:49Speaker 04

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• 18:20Mike Carruthers?

  So Dan, when you listen to music, I don't listen to music the same all the time. Sometimes I'm listening, listening. Other times, it's just in the background, playing, and I'm not really paying attention. I hear it, but I'm not really listening. Does, there are different levels of music listening. Does that affect the effects of music as medicine?

• 18:45Speaker 01

  Very much so. So I make a distinction between music as, you know, background music, which is like sonic wallpaper, and intentional listening. So maybe it's like you're in an art gallery or museum, and there's wallpaper there and there are paintings, and you, some of the paintings you just sort of walk by, but one of them attracts your interest, and you stand there and you stare at it for a while. You are immersed now in the experience of engaging with the painting in some fashion. You didn't engage with the other paintings. You didn't engage with the wallpaper. And the engagement is where the results come. Now, the fun thing about music is sometimes it'll be on in the background, and you won't

• 19:25Speaker 01

  really be attending to it, but some song or piece will come on, and it'll grab you. And suddenly, you're dancing, or you're asking the people around you to be quiet because it's caught your attention. And that kind of immersion is where the healthful qualities come in.

• 19:41Mike Carruthers?

  Is there any reason to believe that music from a particular era of my life, maybe my teens or twenties, has particular significance as it relates to what we're talking about?

• 19:55Speaker 01

  The music of our teens holds a special place in our memories because of the way the brain develops. From the ages of, you know, zero to 14 or so, the primary mission of the brain is to take in as much new information as possible. And then, starting at 14, the primary mission of the brain shifts to pruning out unneeded and unnecessary connections. And it doesn't mean you can't learn anything new, but the stuff that gets in there in those early years, that first decade and a half, holds a privileged position. And it's not a hard stop at age 14, but most people say that the music they heard between,

• 20:38Speaker 01

  say, 12 and 20 is the music that they remember best and they like best. And we find in Alzheimer's patients and other patients with dementia, who have advanced cases where they no longer recognized a loved one, they don't know what day it is, they don't know where they are, they still remember the songs from that period of, say, 12 to 20, their teen years. They remember the lyrics, they can sing along as though it was yesterday. And that music, if we haven't overplayed it so that we become immune to it, it can still spark real feelings of centeredness and warmth and reconnect us with ourselves,

• 21:23Speaker 01

  the thread of our lives.

• 21:24Mike Carruthers?

  I want to ask you about music and your mental state. I imagine there's a connection there, but it's probably more involved than just, you know, sad songs make you sad and happy songs that you like make you happy.

• 21:38Speaker 01

  It really is, and it's so interesting. Usually, when somebody's depressed, in some sense, they're feeling misunderstood, or aggrieved, or hurt. And if you play somebody with depression a sad song, that's actually more powerful than playing them a happy song. A happy song, a depressive, depressed person hears the happy song and they think, well, that's somebody else who doesn't understand me. Yeah, I'm not feeling that way at all. You put on the right sad song, and within just a few notes, if you're depressed, you feel like, oh. That person who's performing or who wrote that song, they get me. That's how I feel.

• 22:23Speaker 01

  And I can't put it into words, but that song is speaking to me and to how I feel. And we begin to realize, oh, well, there's somebody sitting at the edge of the abyss with me, and they've been through this, and they came out the other side and turned it into a beautiful work of art. That's a powerful cure.

• 22:44Mike Carruthers?

  What makes a sad song sad? Obviously lyrics can make a sad song sad, but there's instrumental music that I hear, and it's somehow it just sounds sad, but there's nothing objectively sad about it. It's just music, but it's a sad song.

• 23:03Speaker 01

  To begin with, it's cultural. So what we find sad is not universally sad. And we've now had intrepid musicologists and cognitive scientists go to faraway corners of the world and play them Mozart and play them other kinds of things. And we've brought their music back, and the emotions are cultural. We grew up, for example, in our culture, experiencing minor chords is sad. The klezmer tradition doesn't. In klezmer music, minor chords are happy, but they've been associated with sad movie scenes or sad stories.

• 23:40Speaker 01

  And it's not just minor chords. It's the intervals, the scales. The tempo for sad songs tends to be slower. The notes tend to move in a stepwise fashion, which might be a metaphor for taking small, slow steps, as you might if you were unhappy, versus running, which you might only do if you're happy or frightened. So it's embedded in our culture, and we grew up with these associations. And composers play on that. They write sad music with an intentionality, that it will be sad.

• 24:19Speaker 01

  But the beauty of music that gets to its healing power is that unlike language, where I might use the word sad and it means one thing to you, a sad song can evoke a whole variety of emotions.

• 24:36Speaker 01

  Sadness, loss, triumph, hope, jealousy, rage, a bittersweet feeling. Music, because it has ambiguity that language doesn't have, words tend to mean just one or two things. Music can mean anything to us in the moment, and we can project ourselves onto the song and allow it to evoke in us things we can't put into words.

• 25:14Mike Carruthers?

  You had mentioned, I think, did you say 10% of people don't like music?

• 25:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:21Mike Carruthers?

  That surprises me. I mean, that's as many people as there are left-handed people. That's a huge number of people that just don't like it? Like, do they dislike it, or they just have, they're just ambivalent about it?

• 25:35Speaker 01

  I'd say within the 10%, there are people who don't like it. 10%. There are people who don't like it, people who don't get it, who don't understand it, who don't understand why we spend so much money and time on it. It really falls out as a necessary condition of Darwinian theory, which is that we have to have genetic variation. Without dissent with modification, as Darwin put it, we could all succumb to the same virus. And so the genome is constantly mutating, and with that, you get a bunch of mutations

• 26:14Speaker 01

  that carry no observable effects, but others that, you know, might make somebody not like chocolate. Or, you know, there are people who don't like sex, and there are people who don't like music. It just, that's the way it is.

• 26:29Mike Carruthers?

  So is there a prescription in all of this? Or is it simply, music is good for you, play a lot of music you like, and that's better than not? I mean, or is there some prescription you can give?

• 26:43Speaker 01

  I think there are some prescriptions. And the prescriptions are not precise yet. We're working on it. So with something like Parkinson's, depression, relaxation, I think we're, yeah, we can write a prescription. Listen to these songs for 20 minutes, and you'll feel better, and do it for 20 minutes every day. For productivity, setting aside disease, for productivity, take a break from work every hour and a half or so. Listen to music you like for 15 minutes. Allow your mind to wander. And some music is better for that than others. But I can't say hip-hop is bad. It's good for people who love hip-hop and who find that hip-hop is, can lead to a transcendent experience.

• 27:26Speaker 01

  17% of people in a survey I conducted said that they can reach a transcendent experience listening to hip-hop. And I more commonly would have thought of that coming from Miles Davis, or Bill Evans, or Mozart, or Joni Mitchell, but, you know, to each his own. I would say, yes, to summarize, I would say it's best worked out for things like Parkinson's, relaxation, and depression, and productivity at work.

• 27:55Mike Carruthers?

  So if listening to music you like is good for you, is listening to music you don't like bad for you?

• 28:04Speaker 01

  When we do surveys, one of the things that people cite as a major annoyance of urban life is unwanted music piped into public places, like elevators and train stations and such. That does lead to a physiological neurochemical reaction. Our brain secretes cortisol, the stress hormone, the same thing that would be secreted if a tiger approached you. So, yeah, music you don't like is bad.

• 28:31Mike Carruthers?

  Well, as you say, most people like music, but my sense is people think it's fairly benign, that it's nice, that's it, it's nice, but it doesn't affect you in the ways you're talking about, so this is really important to hear. I've been talking to Dan Levitin. He is a neuroscientist and author of the book, I Heard There Was A Secret Chord: Music Is Medicine. And there's a link to his book in the show notes. Thanks, Dan. Always a pleasure.

• 28:57Speaker 01

  This is very kind of you to have me back, and thank you.

• 29:01Speaker 04

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• 29:33Speaker 05

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• 30:04Mike Carruthers?

  Technology is great in so many ways, but there's always a price to pay. Things we used to do that now machines do required a certain level of human skill, and now it doesn't. Quick example: using a map to find your way somewhere. A lot of people today really don't know how to use a map because we have GPS. Technology, in some sense, makes us lazy. It does the work for us. And so what are the consequences of that? Should we be concerned? Let's take a look with my guest, Graham Lee. He is author of a book called Human Being: Reclaim 12 Vital Skills We're Losing to Technology. Hi, Graham. Welcome to Something You Should Know.

• 30:48Speaker 02

  Thanks, Mike. Thanks for having me.

• 30:50Mike Carruthers?

  So I'd like to jump right in and discuss one of the skills that you talk about, which is navigation, the ability to find our way from point A to point B. We're losing that ability because we don't need it, in the sense that we have GPS on our phones and our cars, so we don't need it, so we don't use it. But since we don't need it... So what? Because we don't need it.

• 31:15Speaker 02

  That I guess that could be said with practically any ability or skill that if a computer can begin to do it for you, then so what? But the the question becomes, well, if you're not doing it yourself, what are you losing? And and navigation is a great example of it because the way we navigate naturally relies on our memory, our ability to closely attend to the world around us and get a sense of place and belonging in particular. But there's, there's, there's key mental attributes and abilities that we develop

• 31:55Speaker 02

  very closely and very ably when we navigate and try and find a way, you know, through places that we we we travel through. And when we stop doing that, it can impinge, first of all, when you're not connected to a device, suddenly, if you don't have GPS, you don't know where to go. So that obviously, that's one loss. The way this can roll out to other aspects of your life where your memory abilities can can be impacted, and it's been proven that actually can be a degrading in our cognitive abilities in many ways if we don't naturally navigate in the ways that we used to.

• 32:32Mike Carruthers?

  But that's also a good example of people probably understand what you just said, and it makes all the sense in the world. But what are you gonna do? I mean, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna go to the airport and not use GPS because what if there's an accident? What if the traffic's tied up? So I'm gonna do it. And so it seems like it, there may be a price to pay, but I don't see anybody going back to the old way.

• 32:58Speaker 02

  I mean, absolutely, there's certain journeys where I I would use GPS and I'd switch on Google Maps or whatever it might be. But there's many other journeys where you just don't need it. There can be a habit where you repetitively put in the same punch in the same zip code or address, just because there haven't been the the attention or the effort to to memorize a route. But if you step back and do that less, you just, you give yourself time to actually attend and learn. One, one method is the is the one-trip pony rule. So when you're going somewhere new, set the GPS on your route there, but don't on the way back. And if you know that's coming up, actually, you're more alert.

• 33:41Speaker 02

  And it's quite interesting how you will be attending to street signs and following and looking for clues, knowing that you're gonna have to rely on that when you, when you head home. And the other is when you're out on walks and heading around the city. Enjoy just getting lost a little and trying to connect things together and finding new parts of town. It's something that can be really enjoyable and something that increasingly you take a lot from.

• 34:05Mike Carruthers?

  I want to talk about writing because, for me, anyway, and from what I see, because of being online so much, it seems like people are writing more than ever, texts, emails, than than, I mean, I certainly am writing more than I used to 20 years ago. So what, so what's the problem?

• 34:27Speaker 02

  So with writing specifically, I actually looked at the physicality of writing. And what I look into is some of the most latest research that have has uncovered that when we write by hand, that physicality draws a lot more of ourself into it. So it becomes, we can recall more, it's, we can be more creative when you're sketching notes on a page, even doodling. There's a way to sort of free up your thinking so it's not linear, instead of just going, you know, ever left or right down the page. There's more of a freedom to connect and and draw different ideas out.

• 35:09Speaker 02

  So I'd, so I look at that more, actually, in writing, how handwriting has been lost as an ability and how increasingly we're pulled into just typing at a screen. But the actual physical movement of that is so sparse, even if you just compare it to to writing on a piece of paper. My brother's wife actually pointed out to me, who just had her second child, that a lot of mothers, if they've, after childbirth, are actually sometimes can't fully handwrite. It takes time to to regain strength in the abdominal muscles. We rely a lot on fluid motion across our, across our body to do it. And that, there's a physical intelligence that can, that can flow into to our written words.

• 35:53Mike Carruthers?

  Let's talk about conversation. That's another skill you say we're losing to technology and certainly one that I see that I find really disturbing in that people have, rather than have a face-to-face conversation or even a phone conversation over very serious things, that they'll, that they'll, they'll do it by text. And I think, God, really?

• 36:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, digital, I'd say, has stripped out a lot of the richness and variety of face-to-face physical conversation. And there's a spectrum through which this can happen. So you've got texts, SMS texts, moving to WhatsApp messages with emojis, moving to email, and eventually progressing to video calls.

• 36:44Speaker 02

  But, I mean, even with a video call, it's quite clear that a huge amount of detail and intricacy goes missing. So straight away, there's a loss in terms of understanding what someone's fully trying to get across. When you meet with someone, the the actual physical gestures they're using to explain their, what their, their thoughts and also to almost, people gesture to almost handle their thoughts. It helps them articulate more clearly what they're trying to get across. That is self-evident and there, right in front of you. Facial expressions, if you can compare them to emojis, which are obviously a very simple cartoon version, are are facial expressions.

• 37:28Speaker 02

  We supposedly have about 10,000 different facial expressions that we draw upon very quickly and fluidly. But we have almost micro-expressions, whether they're termed micro-expressions, which in a split second just spark across our face. And as as some, as a someone in conversation, you can spot these. And they give you early warning of someone feeling ungrounded on a topic or unsettled, unhappy. And people will steer and navigate their, their conversation to draw a common ground. And then there's more opportunity for empathy. So there's naturally a difference between physical conversation and the different types of communication we have online.

• 38:11Speaker 02

  The more you do that, the more you meet in person, the more you can become aware of your own gestures and facial expressions and and aware of other peoples and begin to gain a little bit more control of your, your, your, your communication abilities. And it's a steady skill that you can gain over time, but equally lose.

• 38:30Mike Carruthers?

  Well, one of the things that that I've noticed that I find troubling is how many people will now have very serious conversations in text form rather than even, even the phone would be better, face-to-face would be even better. But there's so much room for misinterpretation, misunderstanding in a serious, very, you know, weighty conversation. And I don't see why people do it. But I know people who will only have conversations like that.

• 39:04Speaker 02

  Hmm. I mean, I think there, there, there definitely, there can be an inclination to avoid difficult encounters. I think we all have that.

• 39:13Mike Carruthers?

  Yeah.

• 39:15Speaker 02

  So you, you, you can see how that can lead someone down the line to send a text and get drawn into a text conversation or over email, even in the knowledge that they instinctively know it's probably not the best route. And secondly, the more we don't meet face-to-face, the more uncomfortable we become. So there, there's a shyness and a, and an inability and an awkwardness that can develop, which sends us increasingly down these easier paths. But unfortunately, then more and more gets lost. And as you say, there's more potential for misunderstanding and, yeah, negative results to come from it.

• 39:58Speaker 02

  One of the best examples is jumping on, sending texts or emails when you're angry. You know, really, it's probably the worst medium for for something like that. But it's there, it's quick, it's easy, and very easily happens.

• 40:12Mike Carruthers?

  We recently did a segment in a very recent episode about solitude, about spending time alone. One thing we didn't talk about, but we could talk about with you because it's one of the skills you think we've lost or we are losing, is the ability to be with ourselves, to be alone. And I see this all the time. How can you not? When you see someone who, for just moments, is left alone, they whip out their phone and they start, you know, whatever they do, scrolling Facebook, whatever, whatever they're doing. But it seems very hard today for people to just sit and be with themselves.

• 40:51Speaker 02

  If you consider before the, the days of any form of, you know, electronic media, whether it's TV or or telephones, whatever it might be, naturally, that was the case. So people, I think, had a more natural comfort in living in their own skin, in being within their own thoughts, in comparison to today, where it's very easy, whenever you feel that sort of initial uncomfortable feeling of boredom, or there's a gap in your schedule, a gap in your time, there's very much an inclination to reach for your phone or or switch the TV on or or go to your laptop. But actually, those are the moments that if you stay with it, that can actually be

• 41:34Speaker 02

  very forming for you as a, as a person. And, yeah, you, you touched on just being, that, that notion of stopping and just existing a little and beginning to spot your internal state, the way that thoughts form in your mind. And over time, the more you do that, there can be an increasing ability to Take control of your thoughts a bit more, become increasingly your own person, and be less swayed by external drivers such as the various motivations and temptations that we find online.

• 42:11Mike Carruthers?

  So, how does the digital world affect your dreaming? I haven't heard this before, so I'm anxious to hear what you have to say about that.

• 42:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, this probably was the most interesting of all the topics that I've researched. And to, I suppose, put it simply, an analogy I draw is if you consider, first of all, watching a TV drama episode or a film, and how, when you get sucked into that, how little effort you actually have to make. It's a very pleasurable experience, and it's a great way of relaxing at the end of the day. But actually, your attention is being totally steered by that experience. You're swept away, and that can be a lovely feeling. But there's an argument that's very much like a dream. But the difference is, is being externally controlled.

• 43:04Speaker 02

  Someone clearly, or a lot of people, have spent a lot of time crafting and deliberately controlling that experience for you. Then if you compare that to our natural dreams, and when I talk about dreams, you have your deep dreams that you have when you're sleeping, but also there's the idleness, those idle moments when you have solitude, where you daydream. And daydreaming has been found to perform many of the same functions as REM sleep, where you get caught up in various scenarios, and you replay things in your mind, or you think through challenges you're facing. And by doing it, you come to answers and you come to conclusions. And it very much is personality-forming. It gives you a grounding and an essence of who you are.

• 43:49Mike Carruthers?

  Right. And if your mind is constantly occupied with the creation of others, because you're watching a movie, or you're watching a video, or you're watching TikTok, or whatever, your mind isn't able to do that, isn't able to quiet down and think the way you just described. And how much time, how much time are we spending online? How much time are we not quiet in our own head?

• 44:15Speaker 02

  If you look at the actual stats of how much people are at screens, even though you'd expect it to be high, it's bewilderingly high. I mean, typical adults still, even with all the screen time we now have at mobile phones and at our work, computers, laptops, tablets, people typically, I think it's three to four hours a day, still consume TV viewing. And then there's everything else. You know, the stats become very high, and fundamentally, we're spending most of our waking moments at a screen. And if you're at a screen, you're not daydreaming. So that absolutely is a change. So that's a major one.

• 44:57Speaker 02

  Then in terms of the actual impact of our dreams when we sleep, I think there's two parts. One, I think it's very fair to say, although I'm not sure everyone would be aware of it, that our digital experiences will fill our dreams. That absolutely will be the case. I don't think it's a strange notion to consider that a TV episode you've watched could make its way into your dreams as much as an experience you've had meeting a friend in a cafe. But then, equally, when we wake up and just arise from our dreams, or you're in the middle of a dream, and it's sort of a lovely, sort of soft feeling as you come to, that has been found to be some of our most creative moments, where little thoughts will drop

• 45:39Speaker 02

  in, an answer to a problem you've been wrestling with, maybe it's a work issue that you had the day before. Often, those times are when ideas just emerge. But sadly, what we often do is we reach straight away for our phones. So those moments, those intermittent moments, liminal moments between sleep and our awakeness, get cut short because we reach and check out what's been going on online, or what messages we're missing.

• 46:05Mike Carruthers?

  Right. Because if you're spending that much time with electronics, even if it's not inherently bad in and of itself, if you're online, what are you not doing? What else could you be doing that you're not doing because you're stuck in front of a screen? Well, and you say, and one of the other skills you say we're missing is the skill of motion, because when we are stuck in a screen, there isn't a lot of motion going on.

• 46:35Speaker 02

  Yes. So motion, for me, actually, I would say is the most critical. And funnily enough, when I talk about it, people suddenly get it. But it's the idea that, really, when you're at a screen, for all intents and purposes, you practically stop moving. And whether that's a laptop, watching TV, a mobile phone, ironically, so although they're mobile, what they tend to do is make us increasingly stationary in lots of different locations whenever we pull one out. All of those moments, the hours that we're on a screen, on average, I think it's like

• 47:17Speaker 02

  12, 13 hours a day, is very typical for people, we're stationary. And to consider what that means for our health, and just the way that we're existing and being in the world, in comparison to how our evolutionary past has primed us to be, is very different. And if you really consider the human body, it's designed as an expert machine to move us quickly and for long periods of time on two feet. So when we begin to not do that, and sit down for very long periods of time, and be driven around in a car or public transport, something absolutely goes missing. And it affects our physical health.

• 48:01Speaker 02

  There was a study done by the University of Cambridge in 2012 that actually cast over 100,000 people in Europe, and it found that sedentriness and lack of exercise was the main chief driver of bad health, more than smoking, alcohol, or a bad diet. So it really is the worst thing you can do for your health, yet all of us are doing it. The technology we use daily draws us naturally into those habits. It's unavoidable, primarily because when you're at a screen, it directs and pulls your attention to a level that really it's hard to have the option of moving around

• 48:46Speaker 02

  and doing the things that normally we would take for granted. Probably the only, the only opposite to that would actually be audio. And in some ways, I do think that's why podcasts and audiobooks are increasingly becoming popular, because people can get away. They can listen when they're on the move and do other things, and actually can retain some of that physicality. But overall, it's something that does get lost. So hopefully, that helps explain it a little.

• 49:09Mike Carruthers?

  Well, it's something I don't think people think much about, this, you know, the price of technology, that when technology does for us what we used to do ourselves, there is a price to pay, and it's worth thinking about it and talking about it. Graham Lee has been my guest. The name of his book is Human Being: Reclaim 12 Vital Skills We're Losing to Technology. And there's a link to that book in the show notes. It was great to have you on. Thank you, Graham.

• 49:38Speaker 02

  Thanks for offering me to join. Really appreciate it.

• 49:44Mike Carruthers?

  Your brain works best after it's rested. For most people, that means after a good night's sleep. So you most likely do your best work and your best thinking in the morning. But that peak brain performance only lasts a couple hours. After that, your brain will not perform as well until it gets more rest. But here's the thing. You see, most of us waste a lot of that valuable morning brain time doing things like checking email, checking phone messages, instead of tackling the tough stuff. Brain researcher David Rock says you'll be more efficient and do better work if you get right to the important tasks first thing in the morning. Leave the email and voicemail and other more mundane things until later.

• 50:29Mike Carruthers?

  And that is something you should know. You know, people ask me, I love your podcast, how can we support it? And really, the best way to support this podcast is, well, there's two things you could do. Do business with our sponsors, because that really helps, and also to share the podcast. Share it with people you know, so they too become listeners, and it helps grow our audience. I'm Mike Herrothers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know.

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