Dr. Renée Lertzman will help you understand uncertainty and how to work through the feelings you might be feeling thanks to the coronavirus pandemic. You’ll also learn why one dog year doesn’t equal seven human years.
Dr. Renée Lertzman will help you understand uncertainty and how to work through the feelings you might be feeling thanks to the coronavirus pandemic. You’ll also learn why one dog year doesn’t equal seven human years.
One Dog Year Doesn't Equal Seven Human Years by Ashley Hamer
Additional resources from Dr. Renée Lertzman
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Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/dealing-with-uncertainty-during-the-coronavirus-pandemic-w-dr-renee-lertzman-and-one-dog-year-doesnt-equal-seven-human-years
CODY: Hi! You’re about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from curiosity-dot-com. I’m Cody Gough.
ASHLEY: And I’m Ashley Hamer. Today, psychologist Renée Lertzman will help you understand how to work through the feelings you might be feeling thanks to the coronavirus pandemic. But first, you’ll learn why one dog year doesn’t equal seven human years.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
One dog year does not really equal seven human years? The truth is that a dog’s age is much more complex than that. So where did this idea come from? Let’s dive into the history.
It's tricky to pinpoint the exact source of this rule. Different points in history calculate the human-dog age ratio differently: A 13th-century inscription at Westminster Abbey said one dog year equaled nine human years; an 18th-century naturalist said it was nine or ten human years. Eventually, someone probably reckoned that the average human lived for 70 years and the average dog lived for 10, and the 7-to-1 rule was born.
But think about it: dogs reproduce when they’re around one year old, and some live 20 years or longer. If one human year were equivalent to seven dog years, then humans would have babies at age 7 and live up to 150.
Here’s a better way to compare our ages. Back in 1953, French researcher A. Lebeau divided the lifespans of dogs and humans into milestones that included puberty, adulthood, and death. He figured out that dogs don't age in parallel with humans; instead, they age more quickly at first, then more slowly. He calculated that a one-year-old dog is equivalent to a 15-year-old human, a two-year-old dog is equivalent to a 24-year-old human, and then every dog year after that is equivalent to four or five human years. Of course, this varies by breed and weight, but it's more accurate than the old seven-year myth.
If you want to figure out your dog’s age in human years, there’s an online calculator in the show notes you can use — it takes size into account, which makes it a bit more accurate than other methods. But I recommend just living in the moment. Dogs do, after all.
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The world is a LOT different than it was just a couple months ago. And for plenty of people like you and me, it’s not just hard to wrap our heads around what’s happening — we’re also feeling a lot of unfamiliar emotions. Our guest today has some ideas for understanding our reactions to the coronavirus pandemic, along with some tips for working through them. Dr. Renee Lertzman is a psychologist and engagement strategist with a focus on environment and climate. Her TED Talk about how to turn climate anxiety into action has been viewed more than 900,000 times. And there are some striking similarities between how we respond to climate change and how we’re responding to today’s uncertain times. Here’s what’s going on.
[CLIP 4:01]
The “Window of Tolerance” basically refers to a mental state where you feel like you can deal with what’s happening in your life. It’s basically your threshold for stress. When we experience too much stress, we tend to go to the edges of our window, either becoming anxious or angry, or totally zoning out and shutting down. So it’s all about learning the best ways to stay in that window.
[CLIP 1:50]
Again, Dr. Renee Lertzman is a psychologist and engagement strategist with a focus on environment and climate. And we’ll put links to learn more from Renee in today’s show notes.
Let’s do a quick recap of what we learned today
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CODY: Today’s first story was written by Ashley Hamer, who’s the managing editor for Curiosity Daily.
ASHLEY: Scriptwriting was by Cody Gough and Sonja Hodgen. Curiosity Daily is produced and edited by Cody Gough.
CODY: Join us again tomorrow to learn something new in just a few minutes.
ASHLEY: And until then, stay curious!