Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories to help you learn something new in just a few minutes: Your Mind Wanders Half the Time You're Awake Your Dog Really Loves It When You Smile Richard Branson's Secret to Productivity and Success Is Simple: Work Out Follow Curiosity Daily on your favorite podcast app to get smarter withCody Gough andAshley Hamer — for free! 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.
Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories to help you learn something new in just a few minutes:
Follow Curiosity Daily on your favorite podcast app to get smarter with Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer — for free! 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.
Full episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/how-often-your-mind-wanders-smiling-at-dogs-and-richard-bransons-productivity-hack
[MUSIC PLAYING] CODY GOUGH: Hi. I'm Cody Gough.
ASHLEY HAMER: And I'm Ashley Hamer.
CODY GOUGH: We're from curiosity.com, and we've got three stories to help you get smarter in just a few minutes.
ASHLEY HAMER: Today, we'll talk about why your mind wanders, how your dog understands you better than you think, and Richard Branson's secret to productivity and success.
CODY GOUGH: Let's satisfy some curiosity.
ASHLEY HAMER: All right, listener, I want you to do something. Clear your mind. Think of absolutely nothing. You can even put this on pause for a second. We'll wait. Are you done? Great. What went through your head? Probably not nothing. You probably thought about a lot of things, a lot of random stuff-- maybe some song lyrics, maybe what you want to eat for dinner. And that's really normal.
CODY GOUGH: You're saying it's normal to think of something when you're told to think of nothing?
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah. It's actually really hard to think of nothing. And that's because a wandering mind is actually your default mode, literally. That is what scientists call it.
CODY GOUGH: You like can't turn off your brain, basically?
ASHLEY HAMER: Pretty much. You can turn off your brain, but it takes a lot of effort. Your natural state is your brain going all over the place. Curiosity researched this. And scientists have known that the brain does this for a lot longer than they've actually been able to identify it.
So in the early 1900s, when scientists would do brain studies, they would have people think of nothing as the control. And then when they would have them do something, there would be brain activity. But they noticed that, when they had them do nothing, there was a bunch of activity in their brains. And they didn't really know why. And they chalked it up to a mistake, or they didn't really-- they were like, whatever that is, that's not what I'm studying right now. So I'm going to ignore it.
And then, in the 1970s, there was a Swedish researcher named David Ingvar, who was like, hold on. Let's look at this. Let's find out what's actually going on here. And so, he took scans of the brain's blood flow during rest. And he noticed a spike in activity in specific areas, especially in the frontal lobe, which is the center of memory, learning, and cognition.
And it wasn't until the early 2000s that researchers actually pinpointed the exact areas of the brain that do this. And they called it the default mode network. So, literally, your mind wandering is your brain's default mode. It's absolutely normal if your mind wanders. That's how your brain is wired.
But just because it's natural, doesn't necessarily mean it's good. Different studies say different things about mind wandering. It depends on what you're doing. If you're trying to be really creative, mind wandering's great. You can come up with a bunch of ideas. You can really get some out-of-the-box thinking.
But of course, if you're trying to focus, we all know that mind wandering is the absolute opposite thing you want to do. So a way to fix that is actually through meditation. Meditation's a great way to work on focusing your mind.
CODY GOUGH: Is there a particular type of meditation?
ASHLEY HAMER: So, there's this type of meditation called focused attention meditation. And for a 2012 study, a neuroscientist had people sit in an MRI scanner while they meditated and had them push a button every time they noticed their minds wandering. And the scans showed the brain's default network just lighting up.
But when the meditators noticed it, they were able to refocus their attention much faster than people who hadn't been meditating before. So meditation's a great way to focus your mind. But don't feel bad if your mind's all over the place most of the time because that's how we all are. It's totally normal.
CODY GOUGH: Good to know.
ASHLEY HAMER: So, what else are we talking about today?
CODY GOUGH: Well, what animal is man's best friend?
ASHLEY HAMER: Dogs.
CODY GOUGH: Right. And you know how it feels like your dog gets you?
ASHLEY HAMER: I am a cat person. But I could understand, yes.
CODY GOUGH: Well, for the dog people out there, there's a study that's been published by Brazilian and UK researchers. Dogs can recognize emotions in humans just as they can recognize emotions in fellow canines.
ASHLEY HAMER: Wow.
CODY GOUGH: Being able to recognize the emotions in humans is a feat that no other non-human species has been known to do. So in the study, dogs were shown images of dog and human faces expressing different emotions along with sounds like angry, or happy barking. And an unfamiliar human speaking happily, or angrily. In Portuguese, which is a language none of the dogs had heard before.
ASHLEY HAMER: You don't want them to just interpret what was said.
CODY GOUGH: Exactly. So, basically-- yeah, it might show a happy human face. But it would be an angry voice or a happy voice accompanying in it.
ASHLEY HAMER: Got it.
CODY GOUGH: Well, the dogs looked significantly longer at the human and animal faces that matched the emotion of the vocalization. So they could recognize, oh, sad face but happy voice doesn't make sense. Being able to mash visual and auditory information together like this is considered a higher cognitive talent.
And in a study released just last month, researchers from the National Autonomous University of Mexico put dogs in an MRI scanner and showed them photos of faces. When this happened, a happy human face actually triggered a signature in a dog's brain that was distinct from any other emotion. The happiness pattern was so distinct that a machine learning program could use the dog's brain activity to predict when it was looking at a happy human.
ASHLEY HAMER: Wow. That's pretty solid evidence there.
CODY GOUGH: Yes.
ASHLEY HAMER: It's nice.
CODY GOUGH: So your dog actually loves when you smile.
ASHLEY HAMER: I think the next study is going to say cats do the exact same thing. Just saying.
CODY GOUGH: We'll see. Well, try smiling at your dog, and see if your dog wags its tail. Could be a fun experiment for our dog lovers out there. And I've got one question for you that has nothing to do with animals. What's the simplest advice for productivity and success?
ASHLEY HAMER: Bring baked goods everywhere you go.
CODY GOUGH: It's really good advice. However, not the advice we're going to talk about today. Curiosity regularly looks at some of the world's most successful people to see what they're doing. We write about Elon Musk and Benjamin Franklin and basically everybody in between. Today, we found something cool from Richard Branson. His net worth is more than $5 billion, so he's a pretty successful guy, one might say. He has a very simple tip for staying productive and successful. Two words. Work out.
ASHLEY HAMER: Bam.
CODY GOUGH: That's it. He claimed he can accomplish twice as much in a day by keeping fit. And if you want to take another page out of Branson's book, you can wake up early and take your workout routine to the next level. He actually wrote in a blog post that he kite surfs every day that he's on his Necker Island. He says, quote, "It's great exercise, recreation, relaxation, and stress management. I 100% recommend it to anyone with access to the water. After all, life is a lot more fun if you can make time for sports", unquote.
ASHLEY HAMER: Anyone with access to water and their own private island, of course.
CODY GOUGH: Sure, of course. He also enjoys cycling, playing tennis, and swimming, which are a little more accessible than owning an island. And a 2011 study found a correlation between going to the gym and a higher salary. So he is on to something. Numerous other studies have shown that regular exercise can improve memory and thinking skills, mental sharpness, and other generally wonderful brain things.
ASHLEY HAMER: Awesome.
CODY GOUGH: All of which you can read about, in addition to these stories, on curiosity.com.
ASHLEY HAMER: Join us again tomorrow for The Curiosity Daily, and learn something new in just a few minutes. I'm Ashley Hamer.
CODY GOUGH: And I'm Cody Gough.
ASHLEY HAMER: Stay curious.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
SPEAKER: On the Westwood One Podcast Network.