Learn about misokinesia, an intense hatred of movements; why fear of blood makes you faint; and why your “ghost problem” might be caused by infrasound. A third of people may have misokinesia, an intense hatred of certain movements like fidgeting by Steffie Drucker Do you hate seeing people fidget? New UBC research says you’re not alone. (2021, August 31). EurekAlert! https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/927047 If You Can’t Stand People Fidgeting, You May Have Misokinesia. (2020, February 3). Vice.com. https://www.vice.com/en/article/epnwgm/if-you-cant-stand-people-fidgeting-you-may-hav e-misokinesia Dockrill, P. (2021). First In-Depth Study of “Misokinesia” Phenomenon Shows It May Affect 1 in 3 People. ScienceAlert. https://www.sciencealert.com/first-in-depth-study-of-misokinesia-phenomenon-shows-it may-affect-1-in-3-people Sumeet Jaswal, & Handy, T. (2021, September 7). If you’re annoyed by other people’s fidgeting or finger-tapping, you’re not alone: Misokinesia affects 1 in 3. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/if-youre-annoyed-by-other-peoples-fidgeting-or-finger-tappin g-youre-not-alone-misokinesia-affects-1-in-3-166950 Misophonia episode: https://www.curiositydaily.com/why-megalodon-was-so-huge-misophonia-in-the-brain-trivia/ Here’s Why Fear Of Blood Makes You Faint When Other Phobias Make Your Heart Race by Ashley Hamer Blood, sweat and fears - A common phobia’s odd pathophysiology - 2013 SPRING - Stanford Medicine Magazine - Stanford University School of Medicine. (2013). Stanford.edu. http://sm.stanford.edu/archive/stanmed/2013spring/article6.html Wani, A. L., Ara, A., & Bhat, S. A. (2014). Blood Injury and Injection Phobia: The Neglected One. Behavioural Neurology, 2014, 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1155/2014/471340 Öst, L.-G., Fellenius, J., & Sterner, U. (1991). Applied tension, exposure in vivo, and tension-only in the treatment of blood phobia. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 29(6), 561–574. https://doi.org/10.1016/0005-7967(91)90006-o Got a Ghost Problem? It Might Just Be Infrasound by Reuben Westmaas originally aired October 26, 2018 https://omny.fm/shows/curiosity-daily/the-science-of-hauntings-sleep-deprivation-effects Follow Curiosity Daily on your favorite podcast app to learn something new every day withCody Gough andAshley Hamer. Still curious? Get exclusive science shows, nature documentaries, and more real-life entertainment on discovery+! Go to https://discoveryplus.com/curiosity to start your 7-day free trial. discovery+ is currently only available for US subscribers.
Learn about misokinesia, an intense hatred of movements; why fear of blood makes you faint; and why your “ghost problem” might be caused by infrasound.
A third of people may have misokinesia, an intense hatred of certain movements like fidgeting by Steffie Drucker
Here’s Why Fear Of Blood Makes You Faint When Other Phobias Make Your Heart Race by Ashley Hamer
Got a Ghost Problem? It Might Just Be Infrasound by Reuben Westmaas originally aired October 26, 2018 https://omny.fm/shows/curiosity-daily/the-science-of-hauntings-sleep-deprivation-effects
Follow Curiosity Daily on your favorite podcast app to learn something new every day with Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer. Still curious? Get exclusive science shows, nature documentaries, and more real-life entertainment on discovery+! Go to https://discoveryplus.com/curiosity to start your 7-day free trial. discovery+ is currently only available for US subscribers.
Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/fidget-hating-misokinesia-blood-fainting-infrasound-ghosts
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, you’ll learn what it means if you have an intense hatred of certain movements like fidgeting; why fear of blood makes you faint; and why your quote-unquote “ghost problem” might be caused by infrasound.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
A third of people may have misokinesia, an intense hatred of certain movements like fidgeting by Steffie Drucker (Cody)
https://docs.google.com/document/d/15HDNrP9vsmzNH7m8JppqAtezRHbJy-XB4gXmescwvJY /edit?usp=sharing
Does seeing someone fidget make you annoyed, anxious, or angry? If so, you’re not alone. Scientists from the University of British Columbia recently discovered that roughly a third of the population might suffer from misokinesia [MEE-so-kin-EE-zee-uh], or a “hatred of movement.”
You’ve probably heard about “misophonia” — that’s an extreme sensitivity to sounds like slurping, chewing, or the ticking of a clock. We talked about it on Curiosity Daily in July. And it’s estimated to affect between 6 and 20 percent of people.
In the last few decades, scientific research on misophonia has grown, but its close cousin misokinesia has flown under the radar. The two disorders are closely linked and seem to often occur together. Think about someone constantly clicking a pen or tapping their fingers on a table. The noise and repeated motion can be equally triggering, though some people are only affected by one or the other.
Todd Handy is the senior author of a new study into this phenomenon. And he became interested in misokinesia after a date confessed that his fidgeting was stressing her out. This is
the first study ever to examine misokinesia specifically, so Handy and company started by trying to figure out how common it was. That’s why the team conducted three separate experiments involving a total of 4,100 participants. And they found that about a third of them had a strong emotional response to seeing people fidget. Their reactions varied from mild annoyance to frustration so intense that it made them avoid social events. Older people seem to be especially sensitive.
People fidget the most when they’re nervous, and the team thinks this could explain why squirming is so distressing for people with this condition. Our brains’ mirror neuron system helps us understand other people’s intentions and behaviors by mimicking their actions. Even if you don’t actually mimic what you’re witnessing, those areas of your own brain activate as if you’re making the motions yourself. Mirror neurons are also key to feeling empathy. If you see someone get hurt, you’ll wince because your brain mirrors their experience and emotions. When it comes to fidgeting, misokinesics are picking up on the stress that the squirmer is feeling.
So if a coworker’s incessant swiveling in their chair drives you to distraction, know that your feelings are real — and shared by more people than you might think.
Here’s Why Fear Of Blood Makes You Faint When Other Phobias Make Your Heart Race by Ashley Hamer (Ashley)
When you’re scared, your body tends to jump into action: your heart races and your blood pressure rises. This is true for all phobias, whether it’s a fear of heights or spiders or clowns. All, that is, except for one: a fear of blood. I’m talking about blood/injury/injection, or BII, phobia. And when people with BII phobia encounter their fears, their heart rate and blood pressure drop, sometimes so much that they faint.
Here’s what’s going on. Most people with phobias experience what’s called a phobic reaction, which starts in the brain and moves into the sympathetic nervous system as a part of the body’s fight-or-flight response. Along with a spike in heart rate and blood pressure, the response can lead to sweating, trembling, and tense muscles. But sufferers of BII phobia, which triggers when they see blood, anticipate an injury, or get a shot? They have a different reaction. They experience what’s called a vasovagal [vay-zoh-VAY-jill] response, which is triggered by the vagus nerve as part of the parasympathetic nervous system. When that nerve goes haywire, it causes a drop in heart rate and blood pressure that in turn causes dizziness, sweating, tunnel vision, nausea, and fainting.
So why does this happen? There isn’t a clear answer, but plenty of experts have ventured a guess. Some researchers think that fainting at the sign of blood is an evolutionary leftover from the instinct to play dead in the presence of danger. Others point to a different evolutionary origin: if our ancestors were stabbed with a spear or mauled by a lion, a drop in blood pressure
would have helped keep blood loss to a minimum and ensure their future survival.
And this is no obscure phenomenon: BII phobia affects three to four percent of the general population, which translates to nearly 13 million people in the U.S. alone. That’s a lot of extra difficulty when it comes to people cutting themselves in the kitchen or getting a COVID shot. Luckily, science says BII phobia can be cured: a 1991 study showed that after five sessions of being exposed to their phobia trigger while tensing muscles in their arms, torso, and legs, up to 90 percent of people stopped experiencing the majority of their symptoms.
But if you’ve ever wondered why a blood phobia makes you faint while other phobias make you freak? Well, it may just be your body trying to protect you from bleeding to death.
Got a Ghost Problem? It Might Just Be Infrasound (Ashley / Cody Intro)
CODY: We talked about infrasound on Monday, in a story about how we might be able to use birds as an early detection system for natural disasters (since those disasters can produce infrasound). Well that got us thinking about whether humans could ever detect infrasound — and that compelled us to dig up this Curiosity Daily clip from 2018, just in time for Halloween. Here’s Ashley with the spooky story.
[ASHLEY: Clip 2:43]
RECAP
Let’s recap the main things we learned today
1. ASHLEY: Misokinesia is a newly studied condition where movements like fidgeting, finger tapping, or leg shaking trigger a strong emotional response. This might be because of mirror neurons in the brain that mimic people’s intentions and behaviors: people fidget when they’re nervous, so people with misokinesia can’t help but feel nervous when they see people fidget.
2. CODY: Fear of blood, also known as blood/injury/injection phobia or BII phobia, is the only phobia that makes your heart rate and blood pressure drop instead of rise. While other phobias activate your sympathetic nervous system — aka, your fight or flight response — this phobia activates your parasympathetic nervous system, which can lead to dizziness, sweating, tunnel vision, nausea, and fainting. If this happens to you, a study showed that exposing yourself to your phobia trigger while tensing muscles in your arms, torso, and legs can help to stave off those unpleasant symptoms.
a. Aside: BII phobia is probably genetic. More than 60 percent of sufferers have a first-degree relative with the phobia, and studies have shown that identical twins are more likely to share the phobia than fraternal twins. (Ashley has a lot of them in her family!)
3. CODY: If you think you’ve got a ghost problem, then before you call the Ghostbusters, maybe check for infrasound. That’s sound below the range of human hearing but that
our bodies can still feel. And it’s pretty creepy. Humans may have developed the ability to detect it because some predators like lions can produce infrasounds.
[ad lib optional]
ASHLEY: Today’s writers were Steffie Drucker and Reuben Westmaas.
CODY: Our managing editor is Ashley Hamer, who was also a writer on today’s episode. ASHLEY: Our producer and audio editor is Cody Gough.
CODY: [AD LIB SOMETHING FUNNY] Join us again tomorrow to learn something new in just a few minutes.
ASHLEY: And until then, stay curious!