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Speaker 3: Oh hello again, it's still your dog, still hiding under
Speaker 3: the couch because I ate from the garbage old ally Ward.
Speaker 3: Why okay, we're back for part two of Ferrology. Folks,
Speaker 3: How Bananas was the first episode? Did you love it?
Speaker 3: I have heard from so many of you since this
Speaker 3: first aired in April twenty eighteen that this is life
Speaker 3: changing and it is for me too. I think about
Speaker 3: this episode all the time. So we're back for the
Speaker 3: last half of the interview in this encore presentation. But
Speaker 3: fun fact, did you know that you can't spell interview
Speaker 3: without review. It's true, and so when you rate and
Speaker 3: you review and you subscribe ologies, it keeps us a
Speaker 3: little podcast up in the charts. It helps other people
Speaker 3: see it, and then boom, you have more people to
Speaker 3: talk about this stuff with at dinner parties. And I
Speaker 3: read every single one no shame in this week's review.
Speaker 3: It was just so kind. This is a fresh one
Speaker 3: from December twenty nineteen from Eleanism seven, who says, I
Speaker 3: love dad Ward in this podcast so much. To yourself
Speaker 3: a favor and listen. Many of these reviews will probably
Speaker 3: mention how you'll try to cherry pick episodes, but you'll
Speaker 3: end up loving them all, and it's so true. I'm
Speaker 3: not sure how I end up bringing random information from
Speaker 3: this pod so often, but it just happens. Zombie ants, pumpkins,
Speaker 3: video games, you name it, always waiting for the next episode. Also,
Speaker 3: if you're like, why does she call herself dad Warp,
Speaker 3: it's mostly just because there's a lot of bad puns
Speaker 3: and some well meaning advice and I just love you kiddos,
Speaker 3: want the best for it. Okay, so let's get back
Speaker 3: into it. We learned last week that fear ology it's
Speaker 3: a real word. And that stress is just another sneaky
Speaker 3: word for fear, which blew my mind, and that fear
Speaker 3: is not helpful unless it's factual, and you need your
Speaker 3: muscles tense to outrun like an angry animal, and that
Speaker 3: a lot of our fictional fears stem just from being
Speaker 3: not good enough and being out of control. Ah okay,
Speaker 3: So this week we'll find out how super successful people
Speaker 3: approach fear. Mary's scariest hour of her life and what
Speaker 3: she learned, plus all of your questions about everything from
Speaker 3: night terrors to self spookery to shark's bad pr image
Speaker 3: to how likely is it that a snake bites your
Speaker 3: butt and the best things about following your passions in life.
Speaker 3: So sit back, breathe deep, and hold on to your
Speaker 3: amignola for fearologist Mary Poffin Wrath.
Speaker 4: And it sounds like a Harry Potter name, which is
Speaker 4: totally fine.
Speaker 3: Let's get right into it. Let's talk about what is
Speaker 3: the most afraid Mary Poffinroth, furrologist has ever been.
Speaker 5: Do you know the most afraid you've ever been? Let's see,
Speaker 5: I'm afraid a lot.
Speaker 4: Probably one story that pops in MyD and it's usually
Speaker 4: when you think about all the things you're.
Speaker 5: Really afraid of.
Speaker 4: It's like death right of some kind, either like your
Speaker 4: death or someone that you loves death, because.
Speaker 5: Death is final.
Speaker 4: It's one of those things that generally you can't live through,
Speaker 4: and even living through someone else's death is always really challenging.
Speaker 3: For more about fearing death, you can see or revisit
Speaker 3: the episode on Thanatology with Cole and Perry. Okay, sorry,
Speaker 3: let's get back to a story.
Speaker 5: Once.
Speaker 4: I was doing my graduate work in biology in the
Speaker 4: warm mountains of California, which is like very northeastern corner
Speaker 4: in the middle of nowhere, and it's like an eight
Speaker 4: hour drive from the Bay Area, which means that I
Speaker 4: had to like go by myself to do live trapping
Speaker 4: like a lot. And it's I'm probably like twenty three
Speaker 4: at the time, twenty four, and it's a bunch of
Speaker 4: sage brush scrub which is kind of like a like a.
Speaker 5: Tawny blue color, almost like a gray blue color.
Speaker 4: And I'm dressed in gray field pants and in a
Speaker 4: gray vest because I'm smart, and it's hunting season because
Speaker 4: it's the middle of nowhere, so I'm not by myself
Speaker 4: in the middle of like the sage brush scrub, checking
Speaker 4: my traps, studying the habitat partition of chipmunk species.
Speaker 5: So out thirty my thing and hear this like.
Speaker 4: Pop pop pop, and I like just hit Like my
Speaker 4: initial like you know, reaction is to get super small,
Speaker 4: hit the deck like you really really tiny.
Speaker 5: And at this.
Speaker 4: Point I know I'm getting shot at, Oh my god,
Speaker 4: but I don't know if they're doing it because they
Speaker 4: don't see me or because they do see me. So
Speaker 4: and as a woman, the first thing in my mind
Speaker 4: is like not death, but like, oh my god, these
Speaker 4: are hunters are going to be like cowboys.
Speaker 5: They're going to rape me. That's like that's where my
Speaker 5: mind initially goes. And as you do, yeah, as you do, right,
Speaker 5: and then like okay, what I do?
Speaker 3: What I do?
Speaker 5: And I'm trying to get.
Speaker 4: Really small under the stage bush grub and I turn
Speaker 4: over to my left and there's a giant fire ant
Speaker 4: hill like right in front of my face. So I
Speaker 4: have to make some decisions about my life right now.
Speaker 4: The truck that I had is even if I ran,
Speaker 4: I'm not a good runner, would be like like a
Speaker 4: ten minute run to get back to the truck.
Speaker 5: So I'm like Okay, do I just stay still? Do
Speaker 5: I do?
Speaker 6: Like?
Speaker 5: Do I? I don't know? Like I can't stay right
Speaker 5: here because there's fire ants literally in my face.
Speaker 4: And at this point I'm going through all of the
Speaker 4: scenarios of what could happen and do I deal with
Speaker 4: the very real in my face fire ants and just
Speaker 4: stay where I am and don't move.
Speaker 5: Because they might see if I move?
Speaker 4: Do I like make noise because maybe they'd be just
Speaker 4: don't see me because I want to trust that humans
Speaker 4: are good.
Speaker 5: You're like, what are what are I motions? And then
Speaker 5: I'm thinking like the.
Speaker 4: News right of like young Field Biologists, Warner Mountains, and
Speaker 4: this happens within seconds, right, all of these scenarios play
Speaker 4: out in your head. And I definitely and being alone
Speaker 4: right because like if I had been with someone else's
Speaker 4: ability to reach out would have made everything so much better,
Speaker 4: you know, safety and numbers and uh this was like
Speaker 4: before cell phones were a thing.
Speaker 5: So right, and so you're just in nature. I love
Speaker 5: nature of a biologists, but also nature is scary because
Speaker 5: we are not good at.
Speaker 4: Defending ourselves yet just we're pretty like we don't have things,
Speaker 4: we don't have a good ability to do much of
Speaker 4: anything physical.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we'll think our way out of it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly, good luck, right, Yeah, I mean we got
Speaker 4: a posable thumbs.
Speaker 5: That's kind of cool. Help.
Speaker 4: And so I think that probably is one one of
Speaker 4: like the like scariest factual situation.
Speaker 5: How did you resolve it?
Speaker 4: So I kind of like scoot it down again, like looking,
Speaker 4: I'm kind of you know, like very very tiny, I
Speaker 4: like to say, uh, fun sized, And I just scooted
Speaker 4: like around away from the ants and just kind of
Speaker 4: like froze there and like wait and then like waited
Speaker 4: to hear stuff. So they were like in an ATV
Speaker 4: which made noise, and just waited for the ATV sounds
Speaker 4: to like move away. And I have no idea how
Speaker 4: long I was there, but just like made myself small,
Speaker 4: did not, like, you know, cause the fighting that wasn't
Speaker 4: really gonna help. Yeah, I like flying, I knew it
Speaker 4: was too far, so I'm like I will just hide.
Speaker 3: Oh my god.
Speaker 5: What were they shooting at? Do you think point dear?
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's it's like really middle of nowhere California, like
Speaker 4: the one town. And by town, I mean there was
Speaker 4: a gas station and a bar that was the town
Speaker 4: and that was like an hour and fifteen minutes away.
Speaker 3: Drive Oh my god, yeah, just a quick note. So
Speaker 3: curiosity got the better of me and I was like,
Speaker 3: what happened? If you do bury your face in a
Speaker 3: pile of fire ants, what happens? And it led me
Speaker 3: to a YouTube video with fourteen million views in which
Speaker 3: a guy named Coyote Peterson inserts his hands into a
Speaker 3: mound of loose sandy soil like he's just getting the
Speaker 3: world's worst manicure by thousands of Satan servants giving him
Speaker 3: itchy lumps and pustules.
Speaker 5: Let's listen in I'm Kyartie Peterson.
Speaker 6: Not about ten to the strike zone with the fire ant.
Speaker 5: Have you guys ready?
Speaker 1: You shot?
Speaker 6: Good?
Speaker 1: Yep?
Speaker 6: One, two, three, Holy cow out?
Speaker 5: Oh oh, holy cow.
Speaker 6: That's a lot of things already.
Speaker 3: Anyway, he tries to keep them in there for like
Speaker 3: sixty full seconds, just like a good cuticle soak, but
Speaker 3: he lasts maybe twenty five because he's like, fuck this
Speaker 3: shit science.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 3: He doesn't say that vocally, but I bet it's in
Speaker 3: his head a little bit. Okay, back to Mary, who
Speaker 3: were they shooting at and what happened?
Speaker 5: It was?
Speaker 4: It was definitely one of those like I am actually
Speaker 4: kind of screwed if they if they were shooting at
Speaker 4: me because they saw me. But then the reality is,
Speaker 4: the chances are they probably were shooting at a deer
Speaker 4: and not me, and they shouldn't see me because I
Speaker 4: was all in gray.
Speaker 7: And still, yeah, that's I'm going to put that in
Speaker 7: the factual. Yeah, oh yeah, definitely it was. You know,
Speaker 7: the the getting shot at was super fact. But then
Speaker 7: you know, my mind continue to make all different reasons
Speaker 7: and in that situation, you.
Speaker 5: Know, you don't know, and so I.
Speaker 4: Just kind of like waited it out until I heard
Speaker 4: them like really far away, and then just like took off.
Speaker 5: Friendank, God, You're like, do we owe someone money? Am
Speaker 5: I the mom happening? Is this a political assassination?
Speaker 3: So yes, even ferologists get afraid it happens. But like
Speaker 3: super successful, crazy successful people, they must just lack a gene,
Speaker 3: they just must not feel fear, right.
Speaker 5: So actually I want to come back this.
Speaker 4: At the beginning of the top of the talk, I
Speaker 4: was saying that there's uh a guy who did some
Speaker 4: research looking at how what vocabulary was being used of
Speaker 4: super successful people versus like less than successful or mediocre people.
Speaker 4: And like the hyper successful people like the Richard Branson's
Speaker 4: and the Ed Catmell of Pixar.
Speaker 5: And like the I mean wow, have done crazy stuff.
Speaker 4: They use the word fear. They use the word afraid,
Speaker 4: and they use the word scared. No.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 4: Like in Ed Catmill's book that he wrote about creativity, Creativity, Inc.
Speaker 5: I think he used the exact backward fear like ninety
Speaker 5: eight times. Oh my god. And people that are less successful,
Speaker 5: guess what word they use stress? Stress, shut up? Are
Speaker 5: you serious? Yeah? Yeah, oh my god.
Speaker 4: So like like and Camill said, if we're not afraid,
Speaker 4: we're not doing our job, because that means we are
Speaker 4: playing small and we are not pushing our limits. So
Speaker 4: learning that fear is something you should run towards in
Speaker 4: a healthy way, with those fictional fears, not like you
Speaker 4: run towards your mugger, right the hug Yeah, but you know,
Speaker 4: making those adult decisions, but feeling that fear and being like, oh, okay,
Speaker 4: this is maybe an area that I don't feel confident in,
Speaker 4: So what can I do to push that a little
Speaker 4: harder instead of running away from it?
Speaker 3: And that is in terms of you know, this is
Speaker 3: a different episode, but in terms of phobias like that
Speaker 3: is why exposure therapy can be helpful.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And there's a lot of work being done with
Speaker 4: like VR with phobias and exposure therapy. So it's they
Speaker 4: feel a little bit safe, but still their brain is
Speaker 4: getting trained.
Speaker 5: It's okay to.
Speaker 4: You know, get on a plane or wear a sweater
Speaker 4: whatever that is to help their retrain themselves.
Speaker 5: It would just be me in a spreadsheet.
Speaker 4: Spreadsheet, breadsheet of phobia, God excelophobia.
Speaker 5: Yes, I'm so much.
Speaker 3: Okay, you're ready for rapid fire. Mm hmm Okay, I'm
Speaker 3: just gonna throw these out. You can answer as quickly
Speaker 3: as you want.
Speaker 8: Okay.
Speaker 5: These are from Patreon's patrons on Patreon who support the show.
Speaker 5: Thanks guys.
Speaker 3: Tyler Fox wants to know. Is fear of the dark
Speaker 3: mostly universal?
Speaker 4: I would say yes, because as humans we have really
Speaker 4: poor eyesight at night.
Speaker 5: We're a diurnal species.
Speaker 4: That means that we're going to be naturally, you know,
Speaker 4: awake during the day, even though in modern arts we have.
Speaker 5: The ability to have fancy electric light.
Speaker 4: Our bodies are men to be active hunting in the day,
Speaker 4: so at night we would naturally get in our little
Speaker 4: safe protective area. Whatever you know that would be, whether
Speaker 4: that is, you know, a tribal situation or if you're
Speaker 4: a primate in your little nest and then we don't
Speaker 4: leave because we can't see and there's predators out there
Speaker 4: and we can't see that well at night, like walk
Speaker 4: into your room or like the bathroom. And this is
Speaker 4: and when you talk about beer, you want to really
Speaker 4: try and separate the ones you just are going to
Speaker 4: be part of your life forever. So I'm still afraid
Speaker 4: to go in the bathroom when it's dark at night.
Speaker 5: But I don't want to turn on a light.
Speaker 4: Because then be able to go back to bed, but
Speaker 4: have to pee, And I just keep thinking, like what
Speaker 4: if there's what if there's a snake in the toilet?
Speaker 4: I live in downtown Nela, y'all, like there's no I mean,
Speaker 4: I don't live in the tropics.
Speaker 5: I mean that's but I just I don't know why.
Speaker 5: It's like what if it bites my butt?
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 5: I'm really it's how cute, how cu would be just
Speaker 5: be like marsh.
Speaker 1: Night, Hi.
Speaker 8: I mean, but the probability very slim. I mean it's
Speaker 8: very slim either. Okay, quick note here how probable is
Speaker 8: it that a snake will bite your butt? I started
Speaker 8: looking into this to prove that it's happened like one time,
Speaker 8: and the news likes to sell fear, and yes, sure enough,
Speaker 8: a family in Seattle a few years ago found an
Speaker 8: enormous ball python in their apartment toilet, and that kind
Speaker 8: of blew the notion up a bit. But then I
Speaker 8: started finding more and more stories. Apparently this is not
Speaker 8: an isolated incident. So the BBC did a piece on
Speaker 8: toilet critters and one Australian wildlife worker says that rats
Speaker 8: sometimes hang out in sewer pipes, which is like so
Speaker 8: on brand for them, and the snakes follow the rats.
Speaker 8: They're just like walking hamburgers. So this guy gets called
Speaker 8: on about four or five times a year, and he
Speaker 8: was like, not vague about his feelings. He said, quote,
Speaker 8: it's the worst job. You get a toilet bowl that's
Speaker 8: been there thirty forty years. We see the bit that
Speaker 8: gets cleaned, but the rest of it doesn't. So when
Speaker 8: you go to pull the thing out of there, it's
Speaker 8: not fun. I usually have a bottle of disinfectant with me.
Speaker 8: He said all of that in a very charming wildlife
Speaker 8: Australian accent. Okay, So then I scrolled through a large
Speaker 8: volume of images online of things in your toilet that
Speaker 8: should not be in your toilet, and I found photos
Speaker 8: of very wet baby bunnies, a dazed and sopping squirrel,
Speaker 8: and dozens of bright green toilet frogs that had just
Speaker 8: sauntered up a pipe after a rainstorm. So it happens,
Speaker 8: but it's still rare, and most of the time just
Speaker 8: think of it as a universe delivering you a new
Speaker 8: temporary pet.
Speaker 4: But it's one of those things that I think about
Speaker 4: and be like, Okay, it's irrational.
Speaker 5: I'm just gonna just let it go. And so.
Speaker 4: And part of it is when you go into a
Speaker 4: dark room, it's you don't know what's going to be there.
Speaker 4: And this is why when we look at horror movies
Speaker 4: and the tropes that are in there, they're very specifically
Speaker 4: tapping into those natural fears, you know, Like horror movies
Speaker 4: are usually dark and there's a spooky house or there's
Speaker 4: a corn field, and it's not like bright, sunny, beautiful day.
Speaker 4: Usually it's like dark.
Speaker 5: So that you can hide in the shadows.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're never like they never take place in like
Speaker 3: a brightly lit wal Mart or something.
Speaker 5: Or thought that might be a good one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that strikes terror in a lot of people, I'm
Speaker 3: sure tofer Mendoza wants to know. Is fear a learned behavior? Says,
Speaker 3: I used to be afraid of a lot of things,
Speaker 3: and then my belief structure change. Now I find it
Speaker 3: really hard to be scared by things that are supposed
Speaker 3: to be scary.
Speaker 4: So with fear, there's both, like we're saying, fictional and
Speaker 4: factual fear, So we're always going to have a natural
Speaker 4: fear response. So at the top of the hour, we're
Speaker 4: talking about stressors versus stress So as those stressors change,
Speaker 4: we can have a different perception of how we're going
Speaker 4: to react to those stressors. And everyone's gonna have a
Speaker 4: little bit of a different tolerance for dealing with different stressors.
Speaker 4: So you can learn to be more afraid, you can
Speaker 4: be you can learn to be less afraid. But you're
Speaker 4: always going to have fear in some way, shape or form.
Speaker 4: It might not be something you dealing with daily, right,
Speaker 4: like that factual fear of having your life physically threatened,
Speaker 4: or someone that you love that you know you're out
Speaker 4: of you know, control to impact it or you know
Speaker 4: those kind of fears. Hopefully you're very minimal in our lives,
Speaker 4: so really the fictional fear is where we can do
Speaker 4: the most work and we have the most impact. So
Speaker 4: it sounds like the Patreon there was able to do
Speaker 4: that work with the fictional fears and start whittling down
Speaker 4: their reaction to those things that are not directly impacting
Speaker 4: their ability to survive and even within factual fears. Like
Speaker 4: you look at military training where they're trying to get
Speaker 4: people to move past what their initial like fear reaction
Speaker 4: would be with you know.
Speaker 5: Someone literally coming to pretend kill them.
Speaker 3: Military training involves something called fear inoculation, which is getting
Speaker 3: exposed to scary ish situations in kind of small amounts
Speaker 3: until you're just no longer shocked by them, you're just
Speaker 3: kind of over it. So how do they do this?
Speaker 3: They simulate battle via in this kind of blew my
Speaker 3: mind paintball and laser tag, which now totally justifies my
Speaker 3: dislike of these recreational activities. If someone's like, hey, it's
Speaker 3: Saturday afternoon, you want to go do mini golf or
Speaker 3: like eat pancakes on a patio or pretend to kill
Speaker 3: each other with lasers. There's one of those things that
Speaker 3: I'm like, no, I'm good.
Speaker 4: And that's training and it takes a while. But to
Speaker 4: say that even a highly trained Navy seal is not
Speaker 4: afraid is ridiculous. They're still they're going to acknowledge it,
Speaker 4: but they're going to have the skills in training to
Speaker 4: move past it to do what they need to do.
Speaker 3: It'd be interesting to make a list of the things
Speaker 3: that scare you most, or the times you've been most afraid,
Speaker 3: and go back and think, was there an actual danger there? Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, And how would I handle
Speaker 3: that fear in hindsight knowing I'm thinking about the times
Speaker 3: I've been most afraid, and yeah, I think about like
Speaker 3: the centrifuge, and I'm like, yeah, no, I didn't need
Speaker 3: to be afraid.
Speaker 5: Even the mugging.
Speaker 3: I got through it. I threw my purse really far.
Speaker 3: I distracted them. I'm memorized your plates. I took them
Speaker 3: to court. Like you know, it was not a pleasant
Speaker 3: experience and I had ptsc for a while, but I clearly,
Speaker 3: you know, I think that if I if you look
Speaker 3: back on all the times that you've you've been afraid
Speaker 3: and thought, well, I handled it and so I survived.
Speaker 3: You know, then it almost feels more empowering. But you know,
Speaker 3: Jordan s wants to know weird and dumb question, why
Speaker 3: does anxiety slash dread give us that stomach achey crampy feeling.
Speaker 3: I understand the racing heart and fast breathing, but I
Speaker 3: can never really get why that stomach cramp feeling happens.
Speaker 3: And I'm the big d word, right, Yeah, literally, I
Speaker 3: love that rhea is the way to get yourself out
Speaker 3: of it.
Speaker 4: You're like ria a riah got pick one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So if you listen to part one, you may
Speaker 3: remember that Mary's tactic when you feel stressed out or
Speaker 3: angry or fretful is to stop and do some ri
Speaker 3: a some riha, which stands for recognize, identify, and address
Speaker 3: a fear or a stress when it comes up to
Speaker 3: figure out exactly what it is that you're afraid of.
Speaker 4: Throughout the work that I do, I like to have
Speaker 4: a dichotomy because people love one or the other right
Speaker 4: like binary of like left, right, good, bad, up down.
Speaker 4: So in particularly for that question we're talking about digestion,
Speaker 4: it's because digestion is a non essential function of when
Speaker 4: we are in fear. So this is also why a
Speaker 4: sustained fear response leads to part of the OBCD epidemic
Speaker 4: that we're seeing in the United States and throughout the
Speaker 4: developed world, because when our body is in fear, it's
Speaker 4: not trying to digest properly. It's just be like, okay,
Speaker 4: shut it down, because that's not going to our digestive
Speaker 4: system is not going to help us fight off the stuff.
Speaker 4: So when like the grumbly tumbly stuff, that's more of
Speaker 4: the digestion system like trying to like take things offline,
Speaker 4: and with the excavation aspect, that's trying to trying to
Speaker 4: lighten the payload so that we we just you know,
Speaker 4: like dump the cargo so you can run faster, which
Speaker 4: is which is an ant response. Like when birds like
Speaker 4: take off for flight, they want to light in the
Speaker 4: cargo load, which is why they like pooh before flight, right.
Speaker 5: You want to you know, make the journey as light
Speaker 5: as possible.
Speaker 3: You feel like anytime you have loaded a pet into
Speaker 3: the car to go to the vet, you've probably gotten
Speaker 3: shpit on it, like at least once, Like I remember
Speaker 3: having to take a cat to the vet.
Speaker 5: Once and it was just explosion.
Speaker 3: It was like you stepped on a pastry bag and
Speaker 3: I was like why, and it's like, I'm scared.
Speaker 5: I don't know a car. I don't understand cars.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like I guess that our bodies do that before
Speaker 3: a big presentation or whatever.
Speaker 5: You know, your body's like, you know what would help
Speaker 5: this presentation. It's just a little bout diarrhea. Give that
Speaker 5: something extra.
Speaker 3: This is what's going to help you survive your like
Speaker 3: PhD dissertation.
Speaker 5: It's just explode your butthole.
Speaker 3: I've also heard that right before a fight, your body
Speaker 3: wants to lighten your load in case you get stabbed
Speaker 3: by claws, like in your colon. And then the less
Speaker 3: you have on board, the smaller your risk of contaminating
Speaker 3: your own body with the filthy contents that is the
Speaker 3: bag of waste that is your guts. I hope you're
Speaker 3: not eating. So I look for some articles on this
Speaker 3: and I can't confirm it, but I think it's a
Speaker 3: cute idea, kind of like your body just like toss
Speaker 3: in a bullet chili in the bushes before a fistfight
Speaker 3: so it doesn't stain your shirt. Now, Okay, what if
Speaker 3: you're just blessed with not feeling any fear at all. Well,
Speaker 3: there's this disease called Herbach wife.
Speaker 5: I think that's how you pronounce it.
Speaker 3: That can cause calcium deposits and lesions on the little
Speaker 3: almond fear factory that is your amygdala, and thus it
Speaker 3: can reduce a patient's fear response to next to nothing.
Speaker 3: My friend, doctor Tigenwall, thank you, by the way for
Speaker 3: telling me about this over dinner. So one sufferer of
Speaker 3: this disease is identified only as SM. It's probably at
Speaker 3: the behest of the researchers for and anonymity, but she's
Speaker 3: probably like, so a lot of people find out who
Speaker 3: I am. I literally fear nothing. That's probably not true,
Speaker 3: but according to Wikipedia quote, SM appears to experience relatively
Speaker 3: little negative emotion while simultaneously experiencing a relatively high degree
Speaker 3: of positive effect despite great adversity in her life. So
Speaker 3: researchers are like, yeah, she's pretty happy, man. She's good
Speaker 3: a shit life, but she's pretty happy. So researchers took
Speaker 3: SM to an exotic pet store. They had her whole
Speaker 3: snakes and spiders, and she was fine.
Speaker 5: She was like, this is.
Speaker 3: Dope, which I kind of have to agree with her,
Speaker 3: that would be pretty cool. But they also took her
Speaker 3: to a haunted Halloween house and she was just chill.
Speaker 3: She was like, this is fun. Her lack of anticipatory fear, though,
Speaker 3: has had us consequences. She walks alone at night whenever
Speaker 3: she wants, and she's been mugged, but she continues to
Speaker 3: take the same walk home, something that her amygdala in
Speaker 3: a healthy state would otherwise be screaming at her, like,
Speaker 3: no recalculating route, bitch, no, do not go down that street.
Speaker 3: But as Sam is said to be super friendly to strangers,
Speaker 3: so I imagine she's probably like a hoot at a cocktail party.
Speaker 3: Meghan Gerard asks, setting aside really split second super bad
Speaker 3: situations factional, what can we do to help control or
Speaker 3: tamp down fear for things that we know logically are
Speaker 3: not dangerous or scary. So once again, Rhea.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, like try and recognize even just the
Speaker 4: I mean, there's so much power in just having the
Speaker 4: self awareness saying, oh, I'm having a fear response right now,
Speaker 4: instead of just following that fear response, like Alice in
Speaker 4: Wonderland down the rabbit Hole, being like.
Speaker 5: Should should I follow?
Speaker 4: That rabbit or should I maybe just chill out and
Speaker 4: see what the what the situation is? So recognizing that
Speaker 4: in the moment, identifying it, you know, like name it
Speaker 4: to claim it, saying okay, so what is this?
Speaker 5: Is it?
Speaker 4: Is it dread? Do I just kind of like, am
Speaker 4: I anxious that something is gonna happen? Am I actually terrified?
Speaker 5: Am I?
Speaker 4: Am I feeling just insecure? Like I just I don't
Speaker 4: have control over the situation. And like I said before,
Speaker 4: those two are usually like enough to start pulling you
Speaker 4: out of it and then really address what kind of
Speaker 4: outcomes can be managed here.
Speaker 5: Is there a strategy you can employ.
Speaker 4: That would help to alleviate what you're feeling right now?
Speaker 4: Or just even doing kind of what's the worst that
Speaker 4: could happen? That if you play that little game you
Speaker 4: know in your head, what's the worst that could happen?
Speaker 4: And just keep going for like five or six times,
Speaker 4: you get to a point you're like, Okay, I'm actually
Speaker 4: not gonna die.
Speaker 5: Then your brain's like, okay, we're not gonna die. Cool,
Speaker 5: I'm gonna go back to say.
Speaker 3: All right, those are this is I'm gonna have to
Speaker 3: just carry that around on like an emergency bracelet. That's
Speaker 3: like in case of emergency ari. Sarah Mischall asks, how
Speaker 3: can someone be afraid of something they haven't necessarily experienced,
Speaker 3: like sharks for example? Like what triggers a fearful response
Speaker 3: if you've never even been scared of it in person?
Speaker 5: Part of that can be.
Speaker 4: Media, and sharks is such a good example because like
Speaker 4: toasters and vending machines kill more people every year than sharks,
Speaker 4: right for real, and unless you are a scuba diver
Speaker 4: or a surfer, like, it's not a shark nado, yeah,
Speaker 4: up in your hometown Nebraska, Like why it's they're literally
Speaker 4: in the ocean. But we have a tear of sharks
Speaker 4: because thinks jaws, because they make a really good villain,
Speaker 4: because they're not that cute, they have like funky teeth,
Speaker 4: they're big, they're cold blooded, and so they make a
Speaker 4: really good way for stories to have a big scary monster,
Speaker 4: because we like to be scared in a safe way
Speaker 4: and we want those big scary monsters, and sharks just
Speaker 4: fit the bill really well. So we have been trained
Speaker 4: to be scared of sharks, and part of that is
Speaker 4: good storytelling of the build up and not having control,
Speaker 4: like you know in Jaws where you have like the
Speaker 4: little swimmer on the top, and why are they always
Speaker 4: women in bikinis that get eaten? And so you you know,
Speaker 4: and we're not made to be in water. We can
Speaker 4: be in water for a short amount of time, but
Speaker 4: we're not that good. We're kind of clunky and like,
Speaker 4: and so we don't have full control over over our faculties.
Speaker 4: And that's already putting us in a vulnerable position. So
Speaker 4: already kind of like on edge.
Speaker 5: And then you have something coming from.
Speaker 4: The deep and it's you know, like I just wooh, scary,
Speaker 4: move us us again.
Speaker 3: Right, So you have darkness and you have the inability
Speaker 3: to I mean, you probably can't fight it because you
Speaker 3: just you got these dumb little arms. And then flight
Speaker 3: is difficult because you're you can't swim as fast as
Speaker 3: you can run.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you can't see it. Yeah you probably can't hear
Speaker 4: it because it's under the ocean. They're not like, hey,
Speaker 4: I'm a shark of comment. Like, it's so all of
Speaker 4: our senses that keep us safe, that let us understand
Speaker 4: our outside world aren't really that great in the water,
Speaker 4: and that makes us vulnerable to actual death. And that's
Speaker 4: what is really good to tap into the big scary
Speaker 4: monster idea.
Speaker 3: So sharks just get a bit, or sharks vending machines
Speaker 3: watch out. I did some research on that one. So
Speaker 3: once I was hosting and writing on the show about
Speaker 3: fearful situations and the science behind them, and so before
Speaker 3: we shot, I did some digging on air show fighter
Speaker 3: pilot dangers versus shark dangers versus vending machines. And it
Speaker 3: turns out that sharks in the US kill like one
Speaker 3: person every two years, and maybe one or two deaths
Speaker 3: a year happened in fighter jet aeronautic flights like air shows,
Speaker 3: but vending machines tipping over killed two people a year,
Speaker 3: usually people who've been trying to shake snacks free from
Speaker 3: their coiled grip. While I was on location with fighter
Speaker 3: pilots shooting the show, a vending machine at the air
Speaker 3: Force base started to dispense some barbecue potato chips, about
Speaker 3: which I was very excited, but then just dangled them
Speaker 3: mercilessly at me. And these two fighter pilots were like, yeah,
Speaker 3: sometimes you just have to kind of shake the machine,
Speaker 3: and I was like, no, y'all, can't go out like this,
Speaker 3: of all the ways, this is the most dangerous. But
Speaker 3: it was fine and the chips, the chips were good,
Speaker 3: So I was.
Speaker 4: Like, dang, vending machines are dangerous, yes, yep, And it's
Speaker 4: perception right, and data will only go so far to
Speaker 4: quelling your perceived fears, Like, no one's afraid of of
Speaker 4: any machine. Yet the data shows that more people die
Speaker 4: from vending machines than sharks. But our brain has that
Speaker 4: such a debias of like I'm still not going to
Speaker 4: be afraid of a vending machine.
Speaker 3: And that doesn't even count the cholesterol problems that might
Speaker 3: happen with a vending machine, or like you know, the
Speaker 3: coronary disease that happens. I mean, you're talking to someone
Speaker 3: who used to eat ham sandwiches out of vending machines.
Speaker 3: I had a job where that was dinner at like midnight,
Speaker 3: as I would go down and get a ham sandwich.
Speaker 3: So yeah, they're dangerous on a lot of fronts. Bob
Speaker 3: wants to know how clear is a line between anxiety
Speaker 3: and fear and can you tell me a little bit
Speaker 3: more about those negative health effects of living with fear?
Speaker 4: Now you said anxiety and fear pretty much just thing,
Speaker 4: pretty much anything. Yeah, now we're talking about clinical level anxiety.
Speaker 4: That's going to be a like actual thing that needs
Speaker 4: to be addressed in a professional setting.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 4: So that's when you aren't able to adequately handle your
Speaker 4: fear and your anxiety is negatively impacting your life, and
Speaker 4: it's that line is always fuzzy.
Speaker 5: It's kind of like addiction.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: Where are you someone that just likes to drink or
Speaker 4: is the drinking impact in your life where you can't
Speaker 4: be successful, You're not having good relationships, you can't get
Speaker 4: to work or school. You know, where is that line?
Speaker 4: Not everyone that drinks wine needs to be treated at
Speaker 4: an addiction center, but there are some people that go
Speaker 4: to that level of the spectrum that they can't handle
Speaker 4: their consumption of alcohol and need to go be treated.
Speaker 4: I find addiction one of those things that's almost easier
Speaker 4: to talk about than fear and anxiety in society, which
Speaker 4: is why I use it as an analogy, because sometimes,
Speaker 4: you know, the brain has gotten to the point where
Speaker 4: just having these strategies isn't going to help, and you
Speaker 4: need to kind of get to that root of you know,
Speaker 4: what's it?
Speaker 5: Trauma driven?
Speaker 4: Well, you know, what's going on for that individual person
Speaker 4: and where that threshold is is seriously just like a
Speaker 4: person by a person thing.
Speaker 3: And some of the health effects of fear you're saying,
Speaker 3: sell regeneration, skin, digestive health, like scare me a little
Speaker 3: bit more about not being scared, you.
Speaker 4: Know, And it's definitely not in my nature to try
Speaker 4: and bring the doom and gloom.
Speaker 5: But when we.
Speaker 4: Look at like more and a research is coming out
Speaker 4: associating the way we live our lives and the fear
Speaker 4: responses and the stress response to these like what we
Speaker 4: thought were unrelated like large issues in health. So the
Speaker 4: top killers of humans in the United States is heart disease, stroke,
Speaker 4: and cancer. So those are going to be like your
Speaker 4: big three, and they're all associated with stress and fear.
Speaker 4: Now there's going to be a like genetic component of it,
Speaker 4: but you can't control your genetic component. You can control
Speaker 4: your stress level, and you can control your lifestyle choices.
Speaker 4: So you know, those are the things you want to
Speaker 4: focus on. And just looking at the three, the big three, stroke,
Speaker 4: heart disease, and cancer, I mean I don't have statistically,
Speaker 4: but like they kill a lot of people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, I'm going to rattle these off as fast
Speaker 3: as I can, so no one is too bummed out.
Speaker 3: But heart disease is six hundred and thirty thousand deaths
Speaker 3: a year, cancer about six hundred thousand deaths a year,
Speaker 3: and then lower respiratory diseases one hundred and fifty thousand
Speaker 3: a year. So okay, be less afraid of sharks and
Speaker 3: spiders and toilet snakes and public speaking, and I guess
Speaker 3: be more afraid of ice cream. It's so weird to
Speaker 3: think that gelato looks like your friend, but it could
Speaker 3: actually be your murderer. Like our typical American diet is
Speaker 3: just in menacing cahoots with stress and sleep deprivation, and.
Speaker 4: They're all going to have that component of fear and
Speaker 4: stress because they are something that is cultivated every day,
Speaker 4: you know, Like cancer is one of those things that
Speaker 4: lifestyle choices are going to impact it. So it depends
Speaker 4: your cancer is one of those really tricky things to
Speaker 4: talk about, which is one word, because every cancer is
Speaker 4: very different and how it behaves and how it's going
Speaker 4: to come about in the body. But at the heart
Speaker 4: of it, it's a disease of the cell cycle. So
Speaker 4: during that cellular generation process, something went wrong. The cell
Speaker 4: is like chugging along, wanted to do its thing, and
Speaker 4: something went wrong, and it starts making cells that it
Speaker 4: didn't mean to make, and those are going to turn
Speaker 4: into those cancer cells, and.
Speaker 5: Depending on what type.
Speaker 4: Of cancer you're looking at, they're going to be an
Speaker 4: impact of how your body's constantly in that stress state
Speaker 4: and not focusing energy on cellular regeneration and keeping up
Speaker 4: the housekeeping. So like your cell house is getting super
Speaker 4: messy because your brain is like, no, we need to
Speaker 4: focus all the energy on the stress responses because we
Speaker 4: think that we're dying all the time, because our body
Speaker 4: is not meant to be in that constant state of
Speaker 4: oh my gosh, we're going to die.
Speaker 3: And now I imagine also that must affect immunology and
Speaker 3: your immune system's ability to kind of police things and say,
Speaker 3: is this you need to send some cells after this thing?
Speaker 4: And well, I mean the biggest part of your immunity
Speaker 4: is contained in your digestive system. So if your digestive
Speaker 4: system is not getting any attention because your body's like, sorry,
Speaker 4: digestive system, we need to take care of other things.
Speaker 4: And then in the in the moments that you do
Speaker 4: calm down, A lot of people turn to food to
Speaker 4: help like get those like happy feelings going. Yeah, so
Speaker 4: they're shoving a bunch of food, usually not Brussels sprouts, like,
Speaker 4: no one stress eats broccoli, Like I've had such a
Speaker 4: hard day, babe, I just I need some broccoli before I.
Speaker 5: Can talk to you, literally said, no one ever.
Speaker 3: Did some research on this, and I found at least
Speaker 3: one person who might argue otherwise. So on September fourteenth,
Speaker 3: twenty sixteen, someone on the website twitter dot com with
Speaker 3: the handle blanket person tweeted, quote, I think I'm addicted
Speaker 3: to broccoli. I'm going to fave and retweet this from
Speaker 3: theology's Twitter and perhaps, just perhaps we can follow up
Speaker 3: to see if he's still struggling with that. Meanwhile, the
Speaker 3: rest of us tend to make less healthy choices when
Speaker 3: we numb out.
Speaker 5: So what do you do. You go for the sugars,
Speaker 5: you go for the fads, you go for the crunchy.
Speaker 4: The things that you probably shouldn't be eating anyway, but
Speaker 4: you want to get some you know, happy brain chemicals happening,
Speaker 4: so you're shoving that into your body. Then maybe you
Speaker 4: go back in your email, you start the whole thing
Speaker 4: over again, and your body is not really properly digesting things.
Speaker 4: The bacterial flora in your digestive system isn't you know?
Speaker 4: Up to part you can have bacterial die off with stress,
Speaker 4: which is decreasing your immunity. So it's like a total
Speaker 4: body thing.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 3: I have to say also, I think that, like, if
Speaker 3: you're going to spend time doing serums and sheet masks,
Speaker 3: it's probably also good for your skin to just talk
Speaker 3: yourself through your fear storms, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 3: I have to say when I was meditating more, people
Speaker 3: were like, your skin looks amazing, and I was like,
Speaker 3: and dang, I didn't. I was probably changing my body's
Speaker 3: priorities a little bit. I'll have to look into that,
Speaker 3: all right. I looked into this, and apparently it is
Speaker 3: a thing. So being in a constant state of fear
Speaker 3: ups your cortisol, which boosts oil production and gives you breakouts.
Speaker 3: It also boosts sugar levels in the blood, which breaks
Speaker 3: down collagen, and that makes your skin look old and
Speaker 3: wrinkly and dry. So if people are starting to tell
Speaker 3: you that you look like your dad and you're like, dude,
Speaker 3: I'm thirty or you're missing out on sleep because you're
Speaker 3: up watching videos about what serums to spend forty six
Speaker 3: dollars on. There's so many serums. Maybe we should all
Speaker 3: just give this meditation thing a good go and just
Speaker 3: calm this amygdalah meditation Like it seems kind of annoying
Speaker 3: if it's just like hocus focus. But when you look
Speaker 3: at it as a brief respite from terror and the
Speaker 3: chemical effects of just having like a fire alarm happening
Speaker 3: in your brain or body, You're like, yes, sure, nomasday,
Speaker 3: let's do this. I mean, it is, it's cheaper than
Speaker 3: cheat masks, and it takes way less time per day
Speaker 3: than under ice backle and you just you might end
Speaker 3: up crying less in airport bathrooms. I'm talking exclusively to
Speaker 3: myself on that last one. Courtney Sobieski asks, why do
Speaker 3: we sometimes rescare ourselves if our minds wander, Like say,
Speaker 3: I listened to a scary story and then a week later,
Speaker 3: as I'm falling asleep, I think about the scary story
Speaker 3: and experience the fear reaction all over again, unprompted.
Speaker 5: Why does my body do that to me?
Speaker 4: She asks, Because we're kind of like a masochistic, and
Speaker 4: we just there's that portion of our brain. Part of
Speaker 4: it is that we like to dress rehearse tragedy. Yeah,
Speaker 4: because there's a portion of our dysfunctional mind that thinks
Speaker 4: that if we just practice enough.
Speaker 5: We will be prepared. Yea, we will be safe.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: We're constantly looking for safety, and even though safety really
Speaker 4: doesn't exist, that we're constantly striving for it. And by
Speaker 4: dress rehearsing that tragedy, our mind's like, Okay, cool, I
Speaker 4: will be ready. I will be ready, and you keep
Speaker 4: going back to it. And part of it is we
Speaker 4: just have this like sick fascination with beating ourselves up
Speaker 4: or for stuff. I think that's that's never going to
Speaker 4: go away, but you definitely can manage it in a
Speaker 4: way where it stops being so negative on your life,
Speaker 4: and it's it's going to pop up, especially if you're
Speaker 4: someone that naturally goes to those places. It's not like
Speaker 4: it's going to just magically disappear. But you can turn
Speaker 4: down the dial a whole lot to where it's a
Speaker 4: whisper instead of like blaring in your ear.
Speaker 5: And you can't put us on anything else a bullhorn
Speaker 5: of fear. Uh, just a foghorn, But horn's.
Speaker 3: The next level man lighthouse of anxiety. Jimmerson, who is
Speaker 3: a wonderful person. I know him personally. Hi, Jim says,
Speaker 3: I'm so curious as to the ethical implications in studying fear.
Speaker 3: How does one conduct an experiment that requires someone to
Speaker 3: feel afraid that doesn't also harm them? So do scientists
Speaker 3: have to make sure to reinforce this subject's safety after
Speaker 3: they've made them feel afraid? So how is fear studied
Speaker 3: in a clinical aspect? How do clinicians do experiments on
Speaker 3: stress response?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so fear as like a study is massive, right,
Speaker 4: if you're going to focus on humans and like more
Speaker 4: of the clinical extremes, the outliers of the populations. In
Speaker 4: terms of ethics, it depends what year you're looking at.
Speaker 4: So you know pre nineteen eighties, uh, not grey, pre
Speaker 4: nineteen twenties really not grey. Oh the botomy is yeah,
Speaker 4: whul you totally did bad so. And mental health is
Speaker 4: one of those things that there's still stigma around mental
Speaker 4: wellness and mental health.
Speaker 5: It used to be where people had no rights.
Speaker 4: If you were like mentally unwell, you were put in asylums,
Speaker 4: you were abused, I mean so I mean terms of ethics,
Speaker 4: wasn't a lot of ethics. So it depends on what
Speaker 4: time period you looking at. If you're looking at modern studies,
Speaker 4: it's definitely And if it's in a clinical situation and
Speaker 4: it's United States based, again, every country's a little bit
Speaker 4: different on their laws. Now we have a lot of
Speaker 4: protections for patients and their well being and it's part
Speaker 4: of the design process before whatever institution or organization you're at,
Speaker 4: you have to have really really like strong safeguards in
Speaker 4: there to be able to have that study improved. So
Speaker 4: now it's much more ethical. Usually it's partnered with a treatment.
Speaker 4: Right now, the newest thing, like I was saying before,
Speaker 4: is VR and how we can use VR to give
Speaker 4: some of that experience and exposure therapy, but in the
Speaker 4: safest way, because it used to be you know, like,
Speaker 4: oh'm afraid of spiders. Okay, we're going to put your
Speaker 4: hand in a box of spiders. You're like what most
Speaker 4: people just even like or not, No, I'll just be
Speaker 4: a phrase spiders.
Speaker 5: That's fine. But with VR, because people.
Speaker 4: Know it's quote unquote fake, but it's kind of your
Speaker 4: brain doesn't know that, your like conscious brain knows that,
Speaker 4: but you're you're sub conscious brain doesn't, and so they're
Speaker 4: a little bit more open to be like, Okay, I'll
Speaker 4: give it a try. Doesn't sound fun, but it doesn't
Speaker 4: sound as.
Speaker 5: Bad as some other exposure therapy.
Speaker 4: So it's going to open a lot more ability to
Speaker 4: research and just asking people, right, humans stay humans is hard.
Speaker 4: So a lot of it is asking, Okay, what are
Speaker 4: your perceptions, what is your level of fear on spiders
Speaker 4: before you went into the VR, what's your level after,
Speaker 4: and just really exploring that.
Speaker 3: By the way, VR stands for virtual reality, which is
Speaker 3: like those oculous rift like the huge goggles that cover
Speaker 3: your face and like an immersive, crazy situation. So I
Speaker 3: didn't want to interrupt before, but yeah, that's what that means.
Speaker 3: So virtual spiders may pave the way to calm your
Speaker 3: shit around three dimensional alive ones. And here's a secret.
Speaker 3: The alive ones, they usually just they want to hang
Speaker 3: out your shower. They just want to look up at you.
Speaker 3: They want to hear you sing. You're like, they're nude,
Speaker 3: Selene Dion, So do not smear your biggest fans into
Speaker 3: a paste with a paper towel.
Speaker 5: They love you.
Speaker 4: There's also some research in the clinical setting around depression
Speaker 4: and using really delicate electrical current and like you know.
Speaker 5: Like outside of the skull.
Speaker 4: So it would be like an in office visit where
Speaker 4: you'd have like little pads and they'd put it, you know,
Speaker 4: like on your forehead and run your skull to kind
Speaker 4: of like see if they can get away from so
Speaker 4: much medication based treatments and start to kind of almost
Speaker 4: reset the electrical currents in your brain. And some people
Speaker 4: find a lot of like you know, therapeutic stuff with that.
Speaker 4: So there's going to be a lot more research again
Speaker 4: with people that are already struggling with that thing and
Speaker 4: seeing how those treatment options are are helping to impact
Speaker 4: them to they get them back to like a baseline
Speaker 4: where they're a higher functioning in that area.
Speaker 3: So instead of just like going to them all and
Speaker 3: kidnapping someone and saying I'm gonna show you a bunch
Speaker 3: of weapons and see how it's scared you get, it's
Speaker 3: some the research is more like, you have a problem, Yeah,
Speaker 3: come on into the study.
Speaker 5: Let's if we can help with the problem exactly, and
Speaker 5: the other kind of aspect. And we've done this forever.
Speaker 4: A lot of the biology and physiological studies are usually
Speaker 4: done on soldiers because it's a captive audience.
Speaker 5: You don't really need their permission, and it's crazy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's I mean, it's so you know, the ethics
Speaker 4: have gotten better around that. But in terms of fear,
Speaker 4: it's very common to study special ops groups or incoming
Speaker 4: cadets and because they're you know, they're gonna be.
Speaker 5: In the same place, they live together.
Speaker 4: So it's kind of like in in ecological studies, we
Speaker 4: love to study islands because you start to decrease the
Speaker 4: number of variables. So we study our military a lot,
Speaker 4: but then you run into the situation of those aren't
Speaker 4: everyone's experiences. Very few people when you look at the
Speaker 4: whole population, are ever going to be Navy seals. Like
Speaker 4: I can't even do a push up, Like I could
Speaker 4: do a plank, but like I mean, I'm not not
Speaker 4: even a real push up.
Speaker 5: So they keep.
Speaker 3: Trying to recruit me, and I'm like, you guys, not now,
Speaker 3: it's not I'm going to be in my peak form
Speaker 3: two three years from now, ask me again, paying me then, right.
Speaker 3: But we so we can use them though, maybe to
Speaker 3: look at trends or to look at models and then
Speaker 3: apply that in once we've refined them into.
Speaker 5: The greater population. Okay, oh that's fascinating.
Speaker 3: Jessica Guysler wants to know. Is there a biological advantage
Speaker 3: to a metaphobia. I haven't been able to shake it
Speaker 3: my entire life. I think that is the fear of barfing,
Speaker 3: because there is a barfing emoji, and I don't know
Speaker 3: about that. That might be a phobic question. I think
Speaker 3: that's a fear of barfing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I've never heard of that, but I mean, if
Speaker 4: there's a barfing emoji.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yes that is. I just looked it up, and
Speaker 3: it is a fear of barfing.
Speaker 5: Okay.
Speaker 4: You know, I don't personally study phobia's, so I would
Speaker 4: be hesitant to say if there's I mean, the ability
Speaker 4: to vomit is a evolutionary adaptation for survival in and
Speaker 4: of itself, of all humans, which is one of the
Speaker 4: I know. I keep coming back to R and BR
Speaker 4: because I'm actually doing AR and VR work in education,
Speaker 4: so it's like on my mind. So there is a
Speaker 4: you know, as they're continuing to develop VR is that
Speaker 4: a lot of people get nauseous from it. And that's
Speaker 4: because when our body has perceived that something is making
Speaker 4: like our ability to see things correctly. It assumes that
Speaker 4: it's like something we've eaten that's bad. So our body
Speaker 4: is like, oh no, we've been poisoned. Eject you know
Speaker 4: stomach context right. This is why like if you put
Speaker 4: someone else's glasses on that they will make you like
Speaker 4: oh like yeah, it starts to make you dizzy or nauseous,
Speaker 4: or if your glasses aren't quite where they need to be,
Speaker 4: so it could be like something you know, over developed
Speaker 4: in that area, because I mean, it is a way
Speaker 4: that if we have eaten something bad, our body can
Speaker 4: purge it. But I've had a guess that would be
Speaker 4: my two cent answer.
Speaker 5: Isn't that nuts?
Speaker 3: So the little fluid filled tubes in your ears are like, okay,
Speaker 3: I'm sence motion.
Speaker 5: Yep, that was a corner.
Speaker 3: We're moving, Holy shit, And your body's like no, no, no, no, no, dude,
Speaker 3: I'm just sitting here in the seat. I'm not even
Speaker 3: moving my legs or anything. So they have a meeting
Speaker 3: about it, and the consensus is we're hallucinating. We've eaten
Speaker 3: moldy garbage. We're hallucinating.
Speaker 5: Let's barf. So okay, this is not an episode.
Speaker 3: On phobia's but Jessica, I don't want to leave you hanging,
Speaker 3: so I did look it up, and one method of
Speaker 3: getting over it involves confronting the fear head on and
Speaker 3: then abstaining from any rituals that you might do to
Speaker 3: avoid it, like running away or praying for the apocalypse.
Speaker 3: This kind of therapy is called exposure and response prevention
Speaker 3: aka ERP or RP, which is coincidentally the noise I
Speaker 3: made before unpoisoning myself over my snake basin when I
Speaker 3: last had the stomach flu. I don't know how the
Speaker 3: exposure part works, by the way, but maybe they just
Speaker 3: take you to a spring break party. Let me know
Speaker 3: how goes. Dane Goding wants to know. Does your body
Speaker 3: have the same chemical and autonomic reactions to fear when
Speaker 3: you're a and having a nightmare as it does when
Speaker 3: you're awake and conscious, So.
Speaker 5: The fear and stress response system is the same all
Speaker 5: the time. Oh cool.
Speaker 4: When we're asleep, our body has created a system to
Speaker 4: essentially paralyze us, so we don't act out our dreams,
Speaker 4: which is good for our bed partners and are like
Speaker 4: sh right. But we still have the physiological system, so
Speaker 4: like if you have like a really vivid nightmare and
Speaker 4: you wake up and you're like, you're probably sweating, right,
Speaker 4: and you feel like you've been running, and like it
Speaker 4: takes you a second to figure out that it was
Speaker 4: just a dream. So our body is still having that
Speaker 4: physiological response. But because we're in sleep, we also have
Speaker 4: that kind of protective sheath of sleep that is preventing
Speaker 4: us from acting out our dreams. Now, sometimes people don't
Speaker 4: always have that strong sheath, and that's why you can
Speaker 4: have with night terrors, or if you are taking a
Speaker 4: sleeping pill like ambient, this is why sometimes people will have,
Speaker 4: you know, get up and drive a car or do
Speaker 4: things on sleep medication. So it doesn't always work, but
Speaker 4: that's usually why we wake up and we haven't like
Speaker 4: pummeled our bed partner, but we're all like sweaty and
Speaker 4: out of breath.
Speaker 3: Ah, that's so nuts. Anna Marie says, I have chronic
Speaker 3: night terrors. I had chronic night ters as a child,
Speaker 3: and I still have them occasionally as a thirty five
Speaker 3: year old. This is something that ever fully goes away.
Speaker 3: That's probably give me like a person by person basis.
Speaker 4: So usually night terrors are gonna be like really extreme
Speaker 4: nightmares and they're recurring generally. You know, they could be
Speaker 4: associated with the trauma, like they're relieving that trauma because
Speaker 4: they haven't like fully like dealt with it. It could
Speaker 4: just be something that their psyche is trying to like
Speaker 4: act out and express in their dream state. So you know,
Speaker 4: it's kind of I don't think that anyone has one
Speaker 4: answer that fits all humans. Yeah, it also kind of
Speaker 4: probably depends on what they're doing to address it, right,
Speaker 4: Like are they getting professional therapy where they're able to say, like, oh,
Speaker 4: this is happening, and you know, oh, maybe this is why,
Speaker 4: or maybe you could address this kind of thing, or
Speaker 4: or they you know, just numbing it out with particular substances,
Speaker 4: or are they just ignoring it. So I think it
Speaker 4: also depends on what that like individual or any individual
Speaker 4: is doing to kind of address it.
Speaker 5: That's a good answer.
Speaker 3: Side note, I just watched a bunch of videos on
Speaker 3: YouTube about night terrors and I don't recommend it, although
Speaker 3: I do have to give credit to Britain for making
Speaker 3: sympathetic TV shows exploring these really frightening medical topics, such
Speaker 3: as their program titled quote Embarrassing Bodies is there anything
Speaker 3: embarrassing or challenging about Mary's job. What is the crappiest
Speaker 3: thing about your job? What is the hardest thing, What
Speaker 3: is the most annoying thing? Is it scheduling?
Speaker 5: Is it having to look at your own internal working's? Like,
Speaker 5: what's the is it email taxes?
Speaker 4: I would say, like I mean about my professional job,
Speaker 4: it's constantly dealing with like imposter syndrome of being what
Speaker 4: I do is so weird, so interdisciplinary that I'm you know,
Speaker 4: specifically trained with in you know, have graduate degrees in biology,
Speaker 4: my science communication master's is from Imperial College, and.
Speaker 5: Those make me feel good about what I'm saying for
Speaker 5: about five seconds.
Speaker 4: And then you know, it's it's one of those things
Speaker 4: that because it's so weird, I feel like, oh I'm
Speaker 4: not I'm not good enough to do these things, or
Speaker 4: like who am I to you know, like.
Speaker 5: Have this share this knowledge and stuff.
Speaker 4: And that's why I'm always really really careful to say
Speaker 4: like I'm not a clinical psychologist. I don't see clients
Speaker 4: or patients, so that people know like I'm I am
Speaker 4: getting this stuff from some of my own research, but
Speaker 4: also research in the literature, and that just continuing to
Speaker 4: convince myself that this work is important because other people
Speaker 4: will have value from it. That's a constant conversation for me,
Speaker 4: because I think it's you know, it's so much easier.
Speaker 4: I've been teaching at Santa se State University. This is
Speaker 4: my eleventh year now, and I could just I can
Speaker 4: continue doing exactly only that role until I retire, and
Speaker 4: it'd be safe and be comfortable. And I mean, I
Speaker 4: know that I'm a good teacher. I feel confident it
Speaker 4: because I'm doing it for eleven years. But that's not
Speaker 4: going to ever allow me to grow. And if I
Speaker 4: want to experience the world in a greater, more colorful way,
Speaker 4: then I have to do the things that scare me,
Speaker 4: and that means constantly pushing the like boundaries of my
Speaker 4: own personal boundaries. And I also do a lot of
Speaker 4: like public speaking, and every time, you know, like before
Speaker 4: I go on stage, I'm just like on.
Speaker 5: The text with my friends like oh my god, oh
Speaker 5: my god, I'm gonna die.
Speaker 4: It's like okay, like at what point do you stop
Speaker 4: being freaked out by like a really big talk. And
Speaker 4: maybe that's never right, but I always feel really good
Speaker 4: coming off stage.
Speaker 5: I feel really good having that ability.
Speaker 4: To connect with people and they find value in these
Speaker 4: tips and tricks that they can then apply to their lives.
Speaker 4: And for me, having that as like a bigger goal
Speaker 4: helps with the imposter syndrome. But I think I think
Speaker 4: everyone you know, like so.
Speaker 3: Many people have roles with that of like so many people.
Speaker 3: It's amazing. Yeah, and people that you would be.
Speaker 5: Like, you have a brother, you're the book. You make
Speaker 5: me have imposter syndrome. You're just so amazing. So yeah,
Speaker 5: I think, you know.
Speaker 3: I talked to in the Gynecology episode about that, to
Speaker 3: the gynecologists who didn't feel comfortable saying she was a
Speaker 3: doctor for a while, and how the imposter syndrome is
Speaker 3: more prevalent in people who are capable and intelligence, which
Speaker 3: is so annoying because you're like, so if.
Speaker 5: You have imposter syndrome, chances are you don't need to
Speaker 5: have it. That's there, you go.
Speaker 3: I fixed, it's what's your favorite part about what you do?
Speaker 4: I think that it allows me to have I've taken
Speaker 4: a long time to craft a lifestyle that is really
Speaker 4: feral where I'm a full digital nomad. I do everything
Speaker 4: on a weird schedule. I'm constantly traveling, and I love
Speaker 4: that lifestyle of not being in a tiny box and
Speaker 4: not having a time to like, you know, punch the clock.
Speaker 4: And that's something that I've really been able to find
Speaker 4: a lot of joy in that I could pare my
Speaker 4: research and my science, communication and my teaching and my
Speaker 4: love of travel and put all those things together is
Speaker 4: just you know, like.
Speaker 5: Really really special.
Speaker 4: And I'm very privileged to be able to do that
Speaker 4: of you know, posting the.
Speaker 5: Like here's my office today with my laptop.
Speaker 4: On the beach right, and it's it's such a unique
Speaker 4: experience that there's not all the jobs in the world
Speaker 4: that you could do that. So so really lucky that
Speaker 4: I can pull all these things in. Everything I do
Speaker 4: has been driven by my interests, which is also a privilege.
Speaker 4: Some times, you know, people are in jobs they're like
Speaker 4: the reason why they're unhappy is because they have no
Speaker 4: interest in what they're doing. Where I do this because
Speaker 4: I love it. That means I don't have a distinct
Speaker 4: off switch. Yeah, it's you know, it's a lifestyle, not
Speaker 4: a job that you clock in and clock out of.
Speaker 4: My mind's always thinking about things, you know, like a
Speaker 4: writing down stories that would be good to tell on stage.
Speaker 4: I'm thinking about how I can do an activity in
Speaker 4: a workshop. So that's not for everyone. Yeah, a lot
Speaker 4: of people want to just like leave it at the office,
Speaker 4: you know, since my office is the planet there's you know.
Speaker 5: But it's such a privilege to be able to do that.
Speaker 3: It's funny too, because that was one of your mother's
Speaker 3: greatest fears, and that was one of your greatest fears,
Speaker 3: is leaving home, and that's one of your greatest joys.
Speaker 5: Now, Yeah, run towards your fear, yeah, which is amazing.
Speaker 3: It almost makes it makes me want to write down
Speaker 3: what I am most afraid of and really examine it differently,
Speaker 3: because I think that I just let fear kind of
Speaker 3: knock on my door and who is it, Ah, come
Speaker 3: in and run my life, you know what I mean?
Speaker 3: Like I don't really I don't necessarily like run toward
Speaker 3: the things that that might be scary and kind of
Speaker 3: get over them. So that's really inspiring. I can tell
Speaker 3: you that you do not have any of the marketings
Speaker 3: of an imposter.
Speaker 5: I think you are very good at what you do.
Speaker 5: Please take that throw it into the ocean. You're amazing. Oh,
Speaker 5: thank you, thank you for letting me talk to you.
Speaker 3: This is the longest interview I've ever done because I
Speaker 3: cannot stop asking you questions.
Speaker 5: You are amazing. Thank you so so much for me
Speaker 5: on Oh, You're so so welcome.
Speaker 3: So for more about Mary Poffinroth if you haven't already
Speaker 3: gingerly begun stalking her. Her website is Marypoffanroth dot com.
Speaker 3: She's Marypoffanroth on Twitter and Facebook and on Instagram.
Speaker 5: She's fear forward. Now to follow.
Speaker 3: Ologies, We're at Ologies on Twitter and on Instagram. We're
Speaker 3: on patreon dot com slash Ologies if you'd like some
Speaker 3: perks there, like submitting your questions to ologists and seeing
Speaker 3: photos and videos. You can also fund the podcast and
Speaker 3: cover your body at ologismerch dot com, which was just
Speaker 3: updated by Bonnie Dutch. We have some new pin designs
Speaker 3: up by Shannon Feltis. Thank you both for that. You
Speaker 3: can join up on Facebook on the Ologies podcast group.
Speaker 3: Thank you Hannah Lippo Esquire she just passed the bar.
Speaker 3: And Aaron Talbert for admitting for your ole pop. And
Speaker 3: thank you to Steven Ray Morris for editing and cutting
Speaker 3: this all up and putting it back together for me
Speaker 3: every week. You're the best. The music was written and
Speaker 3: performed by Nick Thorburn of the band Islands. You should
Speaker 3: check them out. And you know what, Okay, I have
Speaker 3: an idea. What if you ask smart people dumb questions?
Speaker 3: Because thinking the questions are dumb is actually a fictional fear.
Speaker 3: No questions are dumb. I just say that so that
Speaker 3: you don't judge yourself. Okay, So if you hang through
Speaker 3: the credits, you know, I tell a secrets the end
Speaker 3: of every episode, and this one I thought i'd stay
Speaker 3: on brand. I wrote this on an airplane somewhere over Tennis.
Speaker 3: See just tippity tapping away. So I thought I'd make
Speaker 3: a list of my fears and tell you what they are.
Speaker 3: One getting divorced, which is probably why I've never gotten married.
Speaker 3: Two mismanaging money, so I'm so afraid of overspending my
Speaker 3: money like an idiot, or like mc hammer did in
Speaker 3: the nineteen nineties. God bless them that. I just never
Speaker 3: buy myself shoes or clothes, so I could probably change
Speaker 3: that and live a little. Another fear teeth falling out.
Speaker 3: You know those dreams where your teeth fall out. I
Speaker 3: do not want that, irl, which also reminds me I'm
Speaker 3: out of dental floss. So okay, everyone, let's read up
Speaker 3: on I don't know, retirement accounts and maybe to treat
Speaker 3: yourself to some shoes on sale, and let's practice good
Speaker 3: oral hygiene. I hope you may end up making a
Speaker 3: list of things that have been nagging at you. I mean,
Speaker 3: there are some things we can't change, like the death
Speaker 3: of people we love or just the inevitable. Our butts
Speaker 3: are going to get droopy, but we can say to
Speaker 3: ourselves that I'll live that sorrow when it comes. You
Speaker 3: can't pre grieve anything. You can only enjoy what you
Speaker 3: have right now and deal with the fears that you
Speaker 3: have and you can do something about So I hope
Speaker 3: that helps. I hope you go out and do the
Speaker 3: things you want to do. Okay, Burbuye packidermatology, hobbiology, r
Speaker 3: doo zoology, lithology, Yeah, ceriology, meteorology, paratology, thepology, seriologyology.
Speaker 5: This is the song that Holly Horse.
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