Hey everyone, this is Asia. This is Chris and welcome to episode 1 season 1 of Health curious. Enjoy. Hello friends, hi. How is everybody? How are you? Asia? I am doing well. I'm a little bit sleepy. It is 9:03 p.m. Past your bedtime past my bedtime by three minutes, so I might be a little slower than normal tonight, but that's okay slower than normal as if we have a normal. Yeah, this is our first podcast. So we're starting off good. Yeah. Yeah starting off on a tired note. Yes. Okay, it will it'll only get better from here. Yes what I'm hoping. Yes, let's hope yeah, so this is our first our first episode podcast number one podcast. Number one. I'm nervous I was saying before we started recording I am nervous and I don't know why but it's gonna be good. It's gonna be good. We're gonna have fun. We're gonna talk about what we learned. Yay. And yeah, we're nerdy like that. So it'll be fun exactly chat about nerdy shit. So what are we talking about today is yeah. So podcast episode number one was suggested to us by one of our classmates Kim Chateau. D'yquem. She was in the policy class with us. Yeah, my some the teacher who told us to start this podcast Todd. Yes all coming back to you. My son dear friend. Shout out again Shadow number two to my some. Yes. Yeah, so Kim suggested that we do a meta first episode where we talk about podcasts and whether podcasts are healthy or unhealthy or anything around that yeah totally and we thought that was a good place to start. I guess, you know, I don't because I really feel like there's there's no real place to start like what do we start talking about? Someone not just just dive into something meta and yeah, we're starting on a mental level exactly. Yes starting off strong. Uncle diving and 9 p.m. Sleepy meta conversation about healthy podcasts. Yeah healthy or unhealthy or unhealthy what makes this podcast healthy what makes them unhealthy so myself in Asia did some research over the weekend or the past few days looking into some of the different I guess like effects of podcasting that we found and I could be so What I found actually was it typically ended up being from the like the effect of podcasting on The Listener. Is that what you found as well? Yeah, totally. Yeah, me too. It didn't really say anything about people who recorded podcast it was, you know about people who listen to podcasts and like different ways that people listen to podcast. Yeah, so whether they listen to like a lot of podcast hours or episodes a week, yeah, whether they listen to it Superfast or at Euler speed like there was this whole article about pod fasters who like listen to a podcast super fast. But yeah, we love a good pun little pun there. But yeah, so yeah most the ones I found two were about the listener. Okay, and I guess you know, if we're doing this for so long we can tell you what kind of effect it has on us as people who are recording. Yeah. I bet it's healthy for us if it's unhealthy for us. Maybe we'll do A research study, that'd be fun. Don't be cute and they are all included our study. Yes. Exactly. All right, so should we jump into it? Well, we also want to talk about like us and podcast. So like if they listen to any podcast and what we thought about it, so Chris, do you listen to the podcast? Okay. I I don't I don't actually listen to a lot of podcasts. I'm not a huge podcast person. No, which has guilt here my friends say thank you because I was literally the next words I was going to say was I love my all of our listeners are going to be like you're a fraud or something like that you fake you phony I I don't know. I just find I when I listen to podcasts and it's not that I don't enjoy them. There's definitely some that I've that I've listened to and I've learned Lots from podcast, but I find when I'm listening if I don't have anything to watch I find it very You to you know, get distracted or whatever. And so while I'm listening if I get distracted and then I start thinking about something else and I've missed the last two minutes of the podcast and I'm like, damn I gotta rewind. Yeah we wind. Is that the word? Yeah, I guess yeah, huh. I just thought about how everyone is like, you know, you know a cassette times. Yeah. Literally we want anyways you'd have to rewind and that I need to listen to it again and that happens so many times and I I just get the sweetness. Yeah. Yeah, and I because I would always feel like oh what if I'm missing a really important point so I don't know. It's probably feels like a lecture to me. Yeah, it's I just missed a really important topic. I'm not going to be able to follow along. What if I get tested this one of our contestant on my podcast knowledge exactly. Yeah, exactly. But yeah, so I find that a little bit difficult. So the ones that I do listen to tend to be a little bit more Mindless like okay like fun. Our podcast like comedy one. Yeah, come on Comedy ones. Like there's a couple YouTubers that I watch their podcast or I listen to their podcast from time to time. It's Jenna Marbles who your promote? Yeah the janitor. Yeah. I know God love her the Jenna Julien's auction the best so yeah, the genes-- Julian podcast is pretty light-hearted and It's just fun really listening kind of thing. Exactly. So if you miss five minutes of it than you don't need to rewind because it's not a big deal. Not the end of the world exactly. How about you you listen to podcast more don't you? I listened to a couple. Um, I don't even remember when I started listening to podcast, but I know my roommate in Halifax when I was living there Katrina, she listens to a ton of podcasts and I think I started listening to them because she was always like I This on this podcast and I learned this on this other podcast was like shit man, like I'm missing out. Yeah, I guess world. I know I feel that cat. So the one that I listen to most right now is called three books by Neil pasricha. He's the guy who wrote like the book of awesome. Oh, yeah. Yeah that like black book with like the rainbow letters. Yes'm. It's not like the book at all. But okay how you've read the book not that one. I don't really I didn't read his first book, but I ready yes, but on this podcast he the whole like point of the podcast is that over the course of the entire like series. He's gonna uncover the 1,000 most formative books. So every episode he interviews a different like inspirational or formative person that he knows and he asks them what their three most formative books were interested. Yeah, and then he liked cats with them about the book and like what kind of Fact the book had on their lives and when they read it and why they read it and okay how it changed their life and all that kind of stuff. So I have this like very quickly growing book list. Yes, which is kind of which is great but is like daunting. Yeah. I'm because I'm such a slow reader. Yeah, but so that's the main one that I listen to I listened to ologies without a beard and every episode is just like she talks to a PhD in like any kind of random area. Area of study. So in October they did a whole bunch of it like Halloweeny stuff soars like the science of spider webs and the science of pumpkins and it was just like there so long though episodes are like two hours long and white just talk about pumpkins for like 2 hours. So this person has a PHD in pumpkins. Yeah. So the last for lack of a better word. Yeah pretty much so like the interview or like the podcaster. Yes, and we'll track down somebody. Has like a PhD in pumpkins and we'll just sit with this person for two hours and just ask all the questions about pumpkins. It's super random, but it was one of those ones that I feel like I have to go back and Rewind because I'm like man, there's so much information about these friggin pumpkins. Exactly and I'm just like keep going back, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I feel you. Yeah anyways, but those are the two that I listen to mask. Yeah. So I like it's not surprising to me. At all that there's a PhD of their input for pumpkin. Okay. There's a PhD in everything. I swear. Yeah. I swear there's going to be a PhD and I don't pumpkins is not the right word something ology. Yeah. Sure exactly. So like the point of the podcast exactly but like there's one about werewolves that's called or know about wolves. That's called Lou penology. That's where Loop and got his favorite Harry Potter right on. There we go anyways, but I don't know if these things Podcast that I listened to of made me any healthier or any more unhealthy like right? Yeah. I I guess I didn't really pay enough attention or I don't pay enough attention to like whether they're doing good things for my brain like whether I feel like I'm able to engage in like learning like whether I focus more who knows and I feel like that's going to be a lot of what we talked about like when we discuss How it affects us on a health level. It's probably going to have a lot to do with learning. Right like we correct me if I'm wrong if you found other things but most of the articles I found they weren't like specifically like healthy. It's not like your you will physiologically be healthier. Yeah or less healthy. If you listen to podcast they were like, um, do you do actually retain the things that you you listen to like? Are you learning? Is it is it good? For your brain, or is it bad for your brain? Which I guess is like that is Health in a way because it's it is pretty well known that you know learning does improve your brain health right like continuous learning and those type of things it yeah, it improves your brain health and kind of I mean, I can't say this for sure, but from what I remember, I feel like it kind of prevents neurodegenerative types of yeah disorders and things like that and I think I actually read them one of my articles that just continuous learning well I guess promote neuroplasticity which is kind of like again those again the brain not breaking down. Yeah, which I'm neuroplasticity is just like your brain continuously growing and changing and forming new synapses, which is the way that your brain kind of communicates with in itself. That was I am much more beautiful way of explaining. Thank you. Thank you very much Fascination was the brain not break. Great love so same thing. Oh good. That's what neuroplasticity is. Yeah. So I think we're like kind of already on the topic of like how podcasts are healthy. Yeah. So I think there is an element of like maintaining that plasticity of your brain. So by like I one of the things I read called podcasting what was it? It was like intelligent education herb not education intelligent entertainment. That's halogen of detainment. Yeah. And I was like, huh makes sense. Totally makes sense. Yeah, it wouldn't have I wouldn't have necessarily thought of that but it totally is and I know so many people who like listen to podcasts in their spare time because they like feel like they're being more productive than if they were just like watching YouTube or watching TV. Well, this is why I've always wanted to be able to listen to podcast is because I watch these mindless YouTube videos like, I love a good funny stupid YouTube video But it's you're not being productive your again. It's mine lesson kind of dumb, right? So yeah, you feel like you're being productive and you're you know, you're getting something good out of this form of entertainment and actually speaking of that my partner gave he he listen to podcasts all the time. He loves The Joe Rogan podcast and I think that's that's the number one podcast on Apple podcast. I'm pretty sure yeah. Yeah, he loves that podcast and he'll always be Just be talking about anything random and he's like, oh, yeah, Joe Rogan had this crazy professional on his podcast and I he was talking about this and this and this and like he's so he learned so much. Whoa, he retains. He does a ton. He does shit. Yeah, he learns a lot from from these podcasts and this is like all kinds of different random topics. So I feel like they definitely they definitely teach you. Yeah a lot for sure. That's so cool. I definitely do not retain that much most of the time people say like something that Sparks my memory of something that I read in a podcast or add something I listened to in a podcast and I'll be like, oh I totally heard about that on a podcast. I don't remember what they said. Don't worry about it. Yeah. I don't remember any of the details. Yeah, but I know I like heard those words, but My brain at one point and now it is evidently not exactly. Oh, yeah. So I think there definitely is an element of like neuroplasticity and continued like brain activity and function and learning. Yeah, that is definitely good for your brain like continuing especially if you're like, you know, not in an environment where you're continuously learning right like we're both in school right now. So we're both kind of like continuously learning. In our brains are constantly stimulated right like so we don't necessarily have to worry as much about maintaining that neuroplasticity because we're kind of like forced to in school. Yeah, but if you've liked say been in a job for a number of years and you're like, of course, you still learn new things, but that like there's less to learn. Well Gabe does lab work like he works in a lab. So a lot of the stuff that he does, you know, he's still, you know plant paying close attention. He's but it's a lot of repetitive tasks. So that's that's kind of what he says is like it's nice to him to listen. And while he's working and and it helps them to learn it's multitasking in a way because he's working but then he's also learning and listening to something cool and it's entertaining and yeah, so that's that's definitely one of the pros of of podcasting is the the convenience of it and the the portability of it. Really? Yeah and like the ability to to learn to have your brain stimulated in to work on that neuroplasticity kind of Like anywhere. Yeah have your phone with you all the time? Exactly. Yeah, you're sitting on the bus or something just listening to a podcast if you're yeah going for a run or something totally, you know, and actually one of the the articles that I read on the topic of you saying that like Gabe will be doing these kind of like, you know repetitive tasks. Yeah, and it's useful to have that kind of in the background. There was one of the articles that I read. What was the name of the researcher? Hold on. I'm gonna look it up. I have it. Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo to where's his name whole? Okay. Dr. Steve Sholes m'n. There we go psychiatrist and assistant professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He talked about different levels of like stimuli and arousal and how different people kind of required different base levels of stimuli for like Optimal brain function. Yeah, so I know that like I can't listen to podcasts while I'm trying to do school work. I find my belly like distracting, but I know some people like my roommate has to have some kind of like chatter in the background in order for his brain to function optimally interesting. Yeah, so they were saying that like, you know having a podcast going is actually really healthy and helpful for some people but as more of a hindrance than a distraction for others. Oh, yeah, so it's like totally based on your individual brain and your individual like method of focus. Hmm. Yeah that I would be the same as you that would totally be distracting for me. Yeah, even like having a song on I'll get distracted by the lyrics or something. Yeah. Yeah, totally totally agree. Yeah, and in that same article that I was listening to the girl that it was about she was saying that she listens to like 35 hours of podcast a week. Oh Insanity that's like five hours a day. That's a lot but one of the things she was saying, is that like she Is really high levels of anxiety and so in kind of dead silence, her brain will kind of Starlight catastrophizing and right go into that negative cognitive spiral. So she says that like listening to podcasts instead of just like sitting in silence kind of allows her brain to stay out of that kind of negative thought spiral. Yeah, and I totally would have thought of that but like me, that's a really healthy kind of strategy for her use totally totally. Mental health and podcasting. Yeah. Yeah, huh. That's really interesting. Yeah, right. I thought it was Chris can you know when you when you think about it or the opposite? I guess if if she wasn't listening to those podcasts that will probably lead to something quite unhealthy for her and for her mental health. So yeah, that's That's really cool. Yeah, I thought so too. It's funny because like I almost find it the the opposite sometimes like sometimes I'm so focused on like being productive and like like we said like you feel like you're being more productive when you're listening to a podcast then if you were like watching TV, so I'm like almost so focused on like needing to be productive and learning all the time that podcast almost become this like anxious. In for me where I'm like, yeah feel like I need to be productive all the time and learning something through a podcast is like a good way to do that. I'm just like yeah and something that's kind of said about I guess Western culture nowadays is the constant rush and the constant need to be getting a million things done in the shortest amount of time possible being as productive as possible in a short amount of time and how that can have. Negative effects on our health, you know because you don't take any time for introspection and spending time with yourself self-care totally a lot of those really important things are often missed because in our society of go go go go, we're told that those types of things they're not productive. So they're not they're not things we should be doing essentially. They don't lead to things that are that are good, right? They don't make you more. Intelligent or productive or useful or six is the workforce? Exactly? Yeah, that's kind of how we find Value as a society. Yes a little bit broken if I do say so myself but messed up we all have value friends. Yes, lots of love from the healthcare. He's friends motivational motivational time for person. Asia blurb mm. Love and self love. And encouragement. Yeah, it seems like we kind of like went into the unhealthy there. Yeah. So was there anything else that you had about like kind of healthy side of podcast that you wanted to throw in before we transition? We're just having a little flick through our notes Here. We made we made little nerdy notes first podcast. I mean, I feel like my my stuff can wait. Yeah. I feel like we can we can continue to do do you have anything else about kind of like the unhealthy aspects of about the on healthy? So yeah, I have a little bit about not necessarily the unhealthy things of podcast but more about like Whether they are what we think they are. So like we listen to them in order to like be productive and we feel like we're learning like how much of it so like if that is if learning and staying up to date on things and like, you know that neuroplasticity we were talking about if that is what is healthy. Quote unquote. Yeah, is that actually what's happening when we're listening to podcasts? So like are we actually learning things when we're listening? Right? Yeah, because like I said, like someone will bring up the thing that I thought I learned in a podcast and then I'm like, oh wait, I don't actually remember. Yeah anything that happened. Yeah. So one of the things that one of the articles I read was saying was that It your brain needs moments of silence or periods of silence and reflection upon information in order to retain it and in order for it to be like stored and yeah memory location in your brain, right? So it's actually there have been studies that show that silence is important for cell development in the hippocampus. So the hippocampus side note the hippocampus is the part of the brain that is responsible for memory formation when I was tutoring side side. When I was tutoring I used to tell kids that like if you saw I went to Dallas so there's a little like quad of grass in the middle of the campus and I was like if you saw a hippo hanging out in the middle of Campus tell me you wouldn't remember that true that would stick in your memory. So the hippocampus yeah is the part of the brain. That doesn't memory, huh? I would I would do the same thing when I was learning about the brain. I would make something about a hippo in a campus. Yeah. You gotta make it. I feel like that's Universal and has to be if you didn't do that. Then you probably should have learned some better curious sticks for the English-speaking world. I feel like that has to be your your Technique. That's how you remember the hippocampus. Yes, my friends. Yes, but yeah, so silence is actually necessary for the cells in the hippocampus to properly develop. So if you're just listening to multiple podcast in a row, or if you listen to it and then when you turn it off you don't You just like go on with your day. Like I know I listen as I walk to school and then when I get to school, I turn it off and I'm at school. So I'm doing something different and I'm not yeah kind of reflecting on what I listen to. Yeah, if you don't have those moments of reflection, then your brain actually doesn't have the capability to to store that in the proper way. Hmm. So if you been don't get to reflect on it, yeah, then then you're really not doing the thing that you thought you were doing by listening to podcasts. Yeah, and it kind of just becomes like almost I'm sure it's not the same as like white noise, but but I get what you're saying. You know what I mean? It ends up just being a background noise that doesn't have a whole value productive. Yeah value that we thought we were getting by listening to it. Yeah. Yeah, so that was huh? So I guess that can could kind of tell us in a way that if you do a lot of listening to podcasts it might not be doing what you think. It's doing or it might not be as healthy again quote unquote as we think it is. Yeah, right. So totally something to consider. Yeah something to keep in mind exactly and like okay there have definitely been times when I've been listening to a podcast and have been like really zoned in to this podcast. And then like walking I don't have a car I walk everywhere so I don't um, so I'll be like walking along and I'll be at a crosswalk and not even realize what is happening around me and like walk into the street and almost get hit by a car. So like oh no, there are like I can't eat I can't be the only person who that man. Oh man. I wonder if there are any like pedestrian accidents or car accidents or like drivers are attracted by podcasts. Yeah, or like pedestrians are distracted just like walk into the street like yeah, I might do sometimes but I didn't find anything on that. I was looking for it and I didn't really find it anymore. No, I had it. I kind of had a similar thought because I did find an article it wasn't. It wasn't super applicable. It ended up being about like audiobooks and this person was saying, oh I was I was really invested in this audio book that I was listening to and I had so many strong feelings towards what I was listening to and I was totally captivated by it and I was driving home and I had that thought I was like, oh, I hope she was watching the road as well. Yeah, because you know what? It's like if you're if you're reading something or again listening to something that's really interesting. You can just kind of eat out you're not Hang on what else is going on? Yeah, totally Sometimes some so I wonder I wonder the same. Yeah, I didn't find anything about it. No me neither. Okay? Yeah. I just I just wonder if I just wonder and from personal experience. I'm sure that I would hope that that has happened to more than just me. I hope so too. Yeah, somebody somebody let us know just being Asia feel a little bit better, please write in and say you to walk in the street. Oh, yes. Don't you tell your were story possible love it. We promise unless you say we can we won't share a name. I probably said yes, we promise. So an interesting article that I found that we're kind of. I'm kind of Switching gears a little bit here. Yeah, because you know again we talked about how we talked about that learning aspect of podcasts and neuroplasticity and yada yada yada, and so A particular article that I found it's called the impact of podcasting on the learning and satisfaction of undergraduate nursing students. So what they did in that article, basically they they were comparing two forms of learning and this is so this is more formal learning right because you're you're being tested on this stuff. It's not just learning for for pleasure or for right enjoyment. It was it was part of a university program. So Ali what they found they tested some Junior Bachelor of nursing students and they the study was published in 2010 by the way and they tested the 2007 class and the 2008 class. So the 2007 class on the specific content certain portion of the content. They were learning they were just taught the content in a traditional lecture format and the 2008 class. They listen to that same content in. They listen to that same content through a podcast. Okay. So podcast format. What what would you think just to just to see if what do you think they would find from that based on your own experience with podcasts and your own experience of classes? Yeah. Okay lll set before you before you go. I will say that what they did was they compared the exam results. So they were tested on this content classes were tested on the content and the compare the results. Okay. I personally feel like I would have done better in a like in a lecture than in like listening to the same material in a podcast format. Yeah, but I also know that most research articles don't get published unless their results are like quote unquote good or are like what they want them to be. So yeah, like I am in opposition to what The article actually found so I would say the same thing. I personally feel like I would learn better with in a class in a lecture. Yeah same so what the conclusion was in this study there were no significant differences actually. Oh, okay. So yeah, so they so they had three exams. Okay, based on the content the first exam they found the podcasters of the podcast listeners. Yeah did better. Okay the second example Zam they were about the same. Okay, and then the third exam the podcast listeners did worse so they were gue really? Yeah, so there were really no significant differences between the two so I thought that was interesting because again, it depends on the person because for me personally I would want to be in a lecture like watching somebody yeah teach the information to me. I would be able to focus way better. And yeah, I would I feel like I Better an exam with lecture format, right? And I think that also like that applies to your learning style. So there's no visual Learners auditory Learners and like tactile learner. Yeah, right. So I think that if you're a visual learner than being in class is really kind of critical. Yes. I know that I'm a visual learner like much more than any other but I feel like people who are auditory Learners a podcast might be better because they aren't like distracted by what's Like people around and yeah, like Facebook because like in a class you can just like go on Facebook so easily but if you're like, yeah listening to this lecture as you're driving somewhere, you can't really like go on Facebook at the same time. There's a so, well, that's handy do not use social media. I was only joking you can but you shouldn't yeah, that's what That was good with that. But to go back to the study. They also they also did a survey to assess the satisfaction with the the podcasting format. Okay, and the podcast that are the podcast listeners they did actually indicate that they were quite satisfied with the learning style cool. They did like it they like the portability and the flexibility of all right, so I guess you know, there are some people who hate like online classes because they'd better be in class. Oh, right. So it's called I feel like it's kind of similar to that. You kind of have your own your own you can kind of fit into your own schedule, right? You don't have to go in for this class at 9 o'clock in the morning. You can sleep in and you can listen to this class while you're taking the bus to work right? For example. Yeah, and maybe this would be a good way to kind of like because I know so many people who hate online classes. Yeah. Maybe having like online classes that are like podcast recordings. Hmm could be a good way to kind of like fix the quote-unquote problem. Yeah online classes. Yeah, totally cool. And actually I think one of our online classes there are it's not a podcast but there are audio recorder like recordings. So huh cool. Well, it'll be amazing to test that theory maybe the profs should look into some podcasts and pop it just that's right. But the the study did raise quite an important. And question because since they found they didn't find many significant differences between the two forms of learning but they did find that the students were satisfied with the podcast, right? They did enjoy that type of learning they raised an important question of like is the increase in learning what we should focus on in the school system, or is it the positive student satisfaction that we should focus on right? And then I guess linking that to the topic of podcasts like what is healthy in that case like depends? Well, like I feel like the satisfaction and the enjoyment would be the healthy would be more healthy than the learning outcomes. Yeah, but then I feel like on the other side there would definitely be people who could say no no them learning more and getting better grades is what's more important? Oh totally, right? So then it's like is Health more important than success like what is of highest value? In society. Wow. Yeah that got to be a very well. Okay, we're gonna go to Chris's next time. We're not yeah, we're not going down that hole we could be down that hole over the next two hours until sorry for that. I know but yeah, I thought it was a pretty interesting article cool and to continue on with the question that they asked, you know is increase in learning sufficient or student satisfaction sufficient to encourage the adoption of new. Methods because then that's that's something important for like schools to consider and universities like you want your students to do. Well, we also know that there's a bit of a issue in University settings. Now with mental health mental illness totally, right? So yeah, it's an important question for that's so true for yeah for the school systems and universities. Wow. How about you talk about because you you were telling me you have one about The brain mapping. Oh, yes, I have. Yeah the fmri stuff. Yeah. Okay because I I have one that's a little bit similar than I think I can talk about after you talked about that one. Okay. So the main thing was there was a professor or a researcher named Jack Galant if that's how you pronounce his last name. He's a professor of cognitive computational and systems neuroscience at University of California in Berkeley. So they did this fmri study where they It research participants into an MRI machine and they played different podcast episodes and then they kind of mapped their brains throughout this process and this experiment showed that so many more areas of the brain were activated or excited during this process than they had intended. So they had thought that it would be more in the kind of like verbal processing area of the brain, but it ended up having like a full spectrum. Mm effect like on both hemispheres of the brain in multiple different brain areas. Yeah. So podcasting. Actually they talked about your brain humming and how your brain? Yeah like yeah humming more. Yes, when you listen to podcasts yeah or stories and when you listen to like music or something else like your brain has more activated more engaged, right? Yeah. So that was the gist of the study interesting and I that the gist of it was Like this is what's happening is that good is brand humming bad don't know but that's it. See ya. They're like up to you. Exactly. Okay. Let's do more studies on it. Yeah, of course typical Trope of research at the end the like all this this warrants more study more research. Yeah. Yeah blah blah blah. You know what? Okay, can't make conclusions about anything know whatever. What do you know? What year that was? Done that I have no idea because the article that I found Jack Lynch is last author, there you go. And this one was was done in 2019 and it's a little bit different. So that article is called the wreck. Okay. It's a long title. So bear with me we're at it's called the representation of semantic information across human cerebral cortex during listening versus reading is invariant to stimulus modality. Basically, so that's long and complicated. Basically they did what Asia said and they compared listening to reading. Okay? Okay College. Okay. So yeah, they mapped the brain in in both in both Yeah, man. They had people read in an MRI machine. I mean, I guess I'll be honest. I didn't read the full article. I read this is from a website called Futurity. They kind of debrief the article and then I found the article myself and just kind of skim through it. But yeah, they didn't expect they expected to there to be some kind of difference between their findings, you know between people who are reading and people who are listening their expect. They expected to have my God they expected there to be some kind of difference. Okay, but they found that the maps or the the brain Maps were virtually identical. Really? Yeah, because and that was surprising to me too, because I feel like you grow up learning like oh like it's good to read. Yeah, it's a good thing to do with something smart people. Do you know who our people read our people read? So you should read so like I feel like if someone were to ask me at a random point do you think reading something as opposed to listening to it is more beneficial be like probably yeah, probably reading right? But yeah, they found that the What they were seeing in the MRIs were virtually identical and that the the areas of the brain that were that were lighting up and being activated. So, yeah, I thought that was pretty cool. And then the article went on to talk about how this could have some really cool clinical implications because so they talked about how they could the maps could compare the MRIs of healthy people and the language processing or so. The mats could compare the language processing and healthy people versus people with things like stroke epilepsy Brian different cognitive kind of affecting exaggerating conditions that would particularly conditions brain conditions that would impair speech right? Whoa, right? So like for so I don't I think I said, yeah I said this in the trailer that I'm a nurse and so I actually work on neurosurgery. That's one of the floors that I work on. On and so we see a lot of people who have brain injuries or strokes and they lose the ability to speak and sometimes they're able to communicate in other ways. Sometimes they're not you know, and so it's I thought that was very interesting because sometimes it's very difficult for caregivers and then also for family members, of course after a person has a brain injury you you're trying to communicate with your loved one and you don't know if that message is getting through or not. They can't respond. So yeah, I think that would be really interesting if they could see, you know, based on things like podcasts and different different audio method. Yeah different different audio modalities. I don't tease to see what the Lang like what their language processing is like That's super cool. Right? Huh? Yeah, I thought that was really interesting clinical implications of podcasts. I know I know and then they also talked about how this the study could also inform interventions for people with dyslexia. Oh, right, because if a person a present, oh my God a person with dyslexia would typically have a little bit more trouble reading something from a break but if we're finding that reading and listening there's essentially no difference in what Going on in the brain right? Then this could be huge for people with dyslexia and how learning looks in the classroom. Totally right for people in grade school. That's so cool. Cool. Hey and same thing with like audio processing disorders. Yeah. Yeah similar kinds of thoughts on. Yeah kind of future implications. Yeah research exactly and seeing how again how how they do process process audio how they How things can be improved right? Yeah, so I thought that was very interesting. The only thing they did mention that they only used the English language so I can imagine again. I'm not I'm not a neurologist. I'm not a neuroscientist. But I mean I can imagine it would be the same across languages but would be cool to have the research in different languages. Probably just to like be able to have that kind of compare. Oh, yeah, 100% cool. Yeah, that was just so into something they through and and yeah, the the limitations section that's always there. Yeah, we need more of these studies in other languages, you know course to represent the diversity there deter exactly. Yeah. So we're coming to the end. I think we'll to do a little bit of a wrap up. I think we talked a little bit about what was healthy. Hold on. There we go. I thought your phone was dead. Chris has been like tapping my phone every couple minutes. Oh my God. I thought it was dead. And I thought I was weird. You're gonna have to do this whole thing over again. I don't think so. There's this little red bar. Yeah, I think yeah, we're good. We're good. Okay, we're here. Well, I'm new to this. Okay, bear with us. They are test couple of months. Yes. Yes, so bear with us for the next couple of weeks as we get used to the the tech and talking. Bear with us and also give us advice. If you have advice give us advice. We would love to hear it, please please. Yeah, um, but yeah, so to wrap up a little bit we did talk about some of the like what could be considered healthy the healthy sides of podcasts, but also the the unhealthy or like is it actually doing what we what we think it's doing and if we think it's what we think it's supposed to do is something healthy to like keep us learning and keep us our brain active. Is it actually doing that or not? But then we also kind of talked about some like like future implications right some like uses of podcasts in like different types of cognitive conditions. Yeah, like I don't know General Clement, like different clinical manifestations and also different like educational and academic. Yeah, yeah, like educational circumstances educational like with people with learning disabilities, for example, right which I think all kind of linked to health. Yeah, totally occasion is linked to your health to the social determinants of Health. Boom. Everything is healthy. Oh wow. Just shout out to Martha now as well. Oh my god. Wow! Look at us. Destroying our program. Yeah in a good learned so much in this program from wow. Wow. Wow. Sorry guys, we gotta cut off there because my dad called and it stopped recording. Thanks a lot ages Dad. Hi, Eugene, how you g? Just kidding. But yeah, we were that's okay. That's okay Daddy. Yes, but we were kind of just about to kind of clue up and come to a bit of a conclusion. We talked a little longer than we thought we would but we'll get better at that. You know what it's all good with Chad. What is it? Good Times Chen but so to conclude we wanted to kind of like reflect back on ourselves and like what we think now after learning a bit more about podcasting and like whether you now have any different kinds of like insights like do you think you're going to want to listen to more podcasts after this or what do you think man? I know I want to listen to more podcast. I know that it's just It's just listening to it and not it's kind of like challenging that idea that I need to listen to every single word. Right like right and I guess and you know what actually now that I'm thinking about it when I'm doing that. I'm kind of treating it the way I've taught or sore the way I've treated like classes. Yeah in the past like okay. I need to listen to every word and then, you know just study and study and study it so that I can get the answers right on the test. Test and then it kind of goes away right? I'm not really just learning it because this is super interesting to learn. Yeah, so maybe I'm just going into it with the wrong mindset for the different mindset. Yeah wrong true different true with a different mindset because I can definitely see from our discussion. I can definitely see the benefits of podcasting on your health and and whatnot. I think I think there's lots that can be learned from podcasts. Yeah, and so I would definitely like to listen to more podcasts. Maybe I'll maybe I'll try to do that for I mean, it's January 12th. We can start a new year's resolution on January 12th, 100% 100% So like maybe like one podcast a week so that it's not an unrealistic like over the topical and I think I've mentioned this to you. Wait did I don't know maybe I mentioned this to you before that. One of my actual New Year's resolutions was to read more. Oh, yeah. And now we know that same thing listen to podcast and reading essentially does the same thing in your brain same in your brain. Maybe I'll just mesh those two observations together audiobook. See also thing cool. Yeah, how about you so I know you already listen to podcast. Yeah. I already listened to them. I think what I'm going to take away from this is that I need to actually in order to retain things. I need to actually like sit and think about what I've listened to yeah, so maybe instead of just like Link to something the entire way to school and then like taking it out and going right into class. Even if I just stop the podcast like five minutes before I get to the building just to like give me a little bit of time to think about what I listened to before I switch into something else. Yeah, who knows that's a good idea. But yeah, just like some time for for silence and reflection totally. Yeah cool cool, man. So I hope y'all do this with our podcast. To just take five minutes after you're done and just just let it sink in think about it. Yeah, let your brain digest lady hippocampus. Do some celibate apple is MM shit. Yeah, all good. Yeah, man cool. So that's our first episode we're going to end our first episode we're going to we're going to start a bit of a segment that we're going to do. Hopefully every week it might change. Who knows who knows we'll do it for a little bit and this segment. Is I got it from ASAP science. I actually had that's a podcast that I do listen to from time to time nice and they do something I learned this week. So we would just each talk about something we learned this week. Woohoo. Okay, so you go first when you learn hey, okay y'all let me tell you the funeral industry. I never thought about it before because I feel like you know, you don't really like to think about funerals. As and death and then one time I had a thought I would I don't even remember what that was, but it was just a curious thought about something to do with funerals and I found this YouTube page, but this YouTube channel. It's called ask a mortician this girl. She's hilarious. Her name is Caitlin. It's other Caitlin Duty or Caitlin Doughty dou G HT y. Okay. She is a mortician. She owns a she owns a funeral home in, California. I think and she tells she talks she teaches you so much about the funeral industry cool. And there's there's so much that I've learned about the funeral industry one particular thing that I've learned is how bad traditional burials are for the environment. There you go. Right so like basically what typically happens with a traditional burial so I person is embalmed with embalming fluid or a corpse. I'll say Say a corpse is embalmed with embalming fluid. So basically, I mean I guess we're getting a little bit more but here but hey, that's okay. We're learning we're learning it is what it is. I'm a nurse. So I don't have a filter with some of these things. So basically they put this embalming fluid in the bloodstream of well knocking out the bloodstream in the blood vessels of the corpse and drain the blood and basically the point of this embalming fluid is just to preserve the body which It makes sense in certain circumstances, you know, why a body might need to be preserved but this embalming fluid is typically formaldehyde based and formaldehyde is terrible for the planet like for our environment. It's like such a bad chemical and so we embalm a grand majority of bodies with embalming fluid or with formaldehyde then we put them in a casket that's wood metal plastic. To cloth cloth. Yeah, and then you bury them and then it's it goes even further than that because it's not even just putting the casket in the ground. There has to be a bit big concrete burial vault in the hole that's in the ground so that the the Earth doesn't collapse right and like destroy the casket. Yeah or even just you know, like just to provide structure to yeah whole right and then you just bury very low cover and dirt and then all that space. There it stays there and and it's just something I never thought about but it's bad for the environment and it doesn't overtly make sense as to why we do it that way. Yeah. So what's up? What's a solution a solution is? Okay. I a solution to the traditional burial is just a natural burial which I like that. Yeah, and so I'd be a tree st. And like I don't even think it's that like Crazy, yeah, like I don't think it's like okay, I will I will admit that some of us like us Progressive people were into some weird stuff are like it were into sort of stuff that a lot of people might be like that's weird, you know, and I get it fair and I get that I can sound weird to do it a natural burial but like it kind of makes sense. It's kind of weirder that when we put someone in the ground we pump their body full of formaldehyde full of formaldehyde and bury them with a bunch of Materials. Yeah, rather than just digging a hole in the ground putting the person in there. You can and you don't need to just throw them in there still make them make them look beautiful and and what not put them in a beautiful little biodegradable casket it can still be ceremonial. Yeah like yeah, absolutely. Mmm, and the person's still decomposes like they would with all the formaldehyde but just that a dick just had a quicker. Yeah at a quicker rate and with Way less of a an impact on the invite. Well one more of a positive impact on the environment. Yeah. Yeah, so I learned about that. That's super cool. There's a lot more that Kaitlyn talks about in these videos. I think y'all should go check it out. If your car out. I'm like, I'm one of those weird people who are like I'm super curious about everything and so like the weirdest little things. I'm like, I got to Google it got to do it. Like if people saw my Google search history. It'd be like you are weird questionable shit and I'd be like but that's what I gotta know. I need to know the answers to these questions. So yeah, if you're interested in any of that stuff ask a mortician, that's her YouTube channel. We are going to head out, um for all of the articles that we talked about throughout the episode we're going to have links to those in the show notes from the the podcast today. Yeah, if you feel like chiming in if you have any comments any suggestions for us as new podcasters, if you want to tell us what you learned this week if you want to tell us about your experiences. With podcasts. Feel free to send us an email. Our email is Health curious podcast at gmail.com. Yeah, you can also you can tweet chat with us on Twitter Yeah by using the hashtag Health curious pod. So you can use that. Yeah and we'll getting well we'll be checking that hashtag. Yeah, right the week and also you can also use email or Twitter to suggest topics for next week and for future weeks. That's what we want. We want to hear from you guys. We want to talk about what you guys want us to talk about exactly. So we hope to hear from lots of you this week. You have to get lots of great topics from you. And yeah, we look forward to hearing from you ahead. We'll see you next week guys. Bye. Bye.
On our first episode of Health Curious, Kris & Asia chat about podcasting! Suggested by classmate Kim, they discuss the healthy, unhealthy, and interesting health implications of podcasts on their listeners. Podcasts and Shows Mentioned Jenna + Julien Podcast 3 Books With Neil Pasricha podcast  Ologies with Alie Ward podcast  ASAP Science Podcast Ask a Mortician YouTube Channel  Articles Discussed Academic Reference - Vogt, M., Schaffner, B., Ribar, A., & Chavez, R. (2010). The impact of podcasting on the learning and satisfaction of undergraduate nursing students. Nurse Education in Practice, 10(1), 38-42. Article - This Is Your Brain on Podcasts  Article - I Listen to 35 Hours of Podcasts Every Week. Is That … Bad? Article - Meet The People Who Listen to Podcasts Crazy-Fast Podcast Episode - Freakonomics Episode 262: This Is Your Brain on Podcasts  Academics and Researchers Discussed - Dr. Jack Gallant – professor of cognitive, computational, and systems neuroscience at University of California Berkeley. - Dr. Steve Schlozman - psychiatrist and assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School ** I forgot to mention his name, but I learnt about the importance of silence from brain cell development from Dr. - Michael Grabowski – professor of communication at Manhattan College in New York. 