How much of communication really is nonverbal? Why is darkness faster than the speed of light? How can you tell if you’re burned out — and how do you recover? In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories from Curiosity.com to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes: Burned Out? This Research-Backed Quiz Could Tell You Darkness Is Faster Than the Speed of Light Body Language Is Overrated If you love our show and you're interested in hearing full-length interviews, then please considersupporting us on Patreon. You'll get exclusive episodes and access to our archives as soon as you become a Patron! Learn about these topics and more onCuriosity.com, and download our5-star app for Android and iOS. Then, join the conversation onFacebook,Twitter, andInstagram. Plus: Amazon smart speaker users, enable ourAlexa Flash Briefing to learn something new in just a few minutes every day!
How much of communication really is nonverbal? Why is darkness faster than the speed of light? How can you tell if you’re burned out — and how do you recover?
In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories from Curiosity.com to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes:
If you love our show and you're interested in hearing full-length interviews, then please consider supporting us on Patreon. You'll get exclusive episodes and access to our archives as soon as you become a Patron!
Learn about these topics and more on Curiosity.com, and download our 5-star app for Android and iOS. Then, join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Plus: Amazon smart speaker users, enable our Alexa Flash Briefing to learn something new in just a few minutes every day!
Full episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/how-to-get-over-burnout-darkness-is-faster-than-light-and-how-much-communication-is-nonverbal
[MUSIC PLAYING] CODY GOUGH: Hi. We've got three stories from curiositydotcom to help you get smarter in just a few minutes. I'm Cody Gough.
ASHLEY HAMER: And I'm Ashley Hamer. Today, you'll learn how much of communication really is nonverbal, why darkness is faster than the speed of light, and how to tell if you're burned out, and how to recover.
CODY GOUGH: Let's satisfy some curiosity.
ASHLEY HAMER: Have you ever felt overworked and underappreciated? People can get burned out at work or even with social events-- volunteering or your favorite hobbies? Today, we'll help you understand the different types of burnout and some ways to cope with it. Cody, have you ever felt burned out?
CODY GOUGH: Sure, I have. It's not a fun feeling.
ASHLEY HAMER: No, it's not.
CODY GOUGH: But it's different than stress.
ASHLEY HAMER: It is.
CODY GOUGH: Which is interesting to me.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah. Well, you know that I just quit a band.
CODY GOUGH: You did?
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah.
CODY GOUGH: That's right. So you can get burned out, even if it's not work?
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah. I love playing music. But if you do too much of anything, you can start feeling burned out about it I had to look at my schedule and pull back and go easier on myself. For some background, the word burnout came from psychologist Herbert Freudenberger in 1974.
According to the mental health resource, HelpGuide, burnout is a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress. So it's actually different than stress. While stress can make you anxious and over engaged, burnout tends to blunt your emotions and make you disengaged and depressed.
When you're on the road to burnout, you might start to notice that you're always tired. You feel like nothing you do makes a difference and every day is a bad day. But not all burnouts look the same. Researchers have identified three different types of workplace burnout. And they're defined by how you cope with it. First, there's frenetic burnout. That happens to high achievers who push themselves too hard and don't have enough self care or compromise.
This is a typical workaholic who might skip meals and personal plans so they can get ahead at the office. These people tend to cope by complaining about their boss or the way the company is run. Then there's worn out burnout. That happens to people who aren't emotionally invested in their work.
While people with frenetic burnout will see obstacles as challenges to overcome, worn out people see obstacles as oppressive and tend to lose motivation. They cope by throwing in the towel. And in between those two types of burnout, there's boredom burnout. These people don't find the job very engaging or interesting, even if they used to. And they do the minimum to get by.
So how do you get over burnout? According to HelpGuide, one of the most effective ways is by reaching out to other people. Open up to someone you trust and tell them how you're feeling. Socialize with your coworkers. Stop spending time with people who make you feel lousy. And set healthy boundaries and learn to say no.
Remember that every no lets you say yes to something you really want. You can find a link to a psychology survey in our full write up on curiositydotcom and on the Curiosity app for Android and iOS that could help you understand your level of burnout even more. Like with any online quiz, you shouldn't take it as medical advice, but it might help you understand what's happening a bit better.
CODY GOUGH: You and I are frenetic burnout people, aren't we?
ASHLEY HAMER: We absolutely are.
CODY GOUGH: OK. Hey, want to know what's faster than the speed of light? The speed of dark? No, really. It's a thing. Let's have a fun little physics lesson. And we'll preface this by saying, please don't get mad at us. We promise it's true even if it's kind of hard to wrap your head around.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yes. This is the second time we run this article and we got a lot of emails about it before, and I have done my due diligence. This is absolutely for sure true.
CODY GOUGH: All right. Here's how it works. Even though nothing can move faster than the speed of light, shadows can still move faster than the speed of light. Imagine you have a light that's powerful enough to reach the planet Jupiter, OK? Got that. Now, imagine that it casts a beam in a cone that's broad enough to cover the entire diameter of the planet.
When you pass your finger over that light, the shadow will cross the entire diameter of the planet. That's a distance of more than 86,000 miles. The speed of light is 186,000 miles per second. So if it takes you less than half a second to move your hand that distance, then that shadow will have broken the speed of light.
Remember how we said that nothing can move faster than the speed of light, well, that's the key. Shadows are nothing. A shadow is a not thing. Shadows are the absence of something. Specifically, photons or particles of light. Since there's nothing that's actually traveling the distance, the only thing that's moving is an area where photons aren't.
There's no information that's being transmitted faster than light, only a blockage or lack of information. That means you're interplanetary shadow puppet show, doesn't break any physical laws, which means we're right and we hope you're not upset with us for this brainteaser, but we promise it's true.
ASHLEY HAMER: Another way to think about it is that the shadow only has the illusion of moving. It's actually the region that has light and has no light that is changing.
CODY GOUGH: Right.
ASHLEY HAMER: So it's not physically moving across the planet.
CODY GOUGH: Right.
ASHLEY HAMER: It just looks like it is.
CODY GOUGH: Right. You love this article but you hate it too. Is it?
ASHLEY HAMER: Oh, yeah. Oh, definitely. It's a love/hate relationship.
CODY GOUGH: Today's episode is sponsored by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Everyone knows about the risks of driving drunk like you could get in a crash or people could get hurt or killed.
ASHLEY HAMER: But let's take a second to look at some surprising statistics. Almost 29 people in the United States die every day in alcohol-impaired vehicle crashes. That's one person every 50 minutes.
CODY GOUGH: Even though drunk driving fatalities have fallen by a third in the last three decades, drunk driving crashes still claim more than 10,000 lives each year. And many people are unaware that driving while high can be just as dangerous. In 2015, 42% of drivers killed in crashes tested positive for drugs. Not so harmless after all, is it?
ASHLEY HAMER: And get this, from 2007 to 2015, marijuana use among drivers killed in crashes doubled. The truth is, driving while high is deadly. So stop kidding yourself. If you're impaired from alcohol or drugs, don't get behind the wheel.
CODY GOUGH: If you feel different, you drive difference. Drive high, get a DUI.
ASHLEY HAMER: Drive sober or get pulled over. You've probably heard the saying that 80% of communication is nonverbal or 90% or 75%, the numbers vary. But is it actually true? The answer is actually complicated. But in general, the answer is no. What you say really does matter.
CODY GOUGH: This is really good news for me because I'm a podcaster.
ASHLEY HAMER: All right. Well, the idea that what you say matters less than how you say it comes from a pair of studies from 1967. In one study, participants had to guess the emotion behind spoken words. And they tended to value the tone as more important than the words' meaning.
In the other study, subjects listened to recordings and looked at photos of women speaking. Then they were asked to guess the emotions in the recordings, the photos, and both together. The photos got the more accurate responses than the voices. These studies were both led by Psychology Researcher Albert Mehrabian and he came up with this conclusion.
When it comes to feelings, 7% of a message is in the words spoken, 38% of a message is in how the words are spoken, and 55% of a message is in the facial expression. But in the study and in the years since, Mehrabian has said there are limitations in the results. He wrote that quote, "Unless a communicator is talking about their feelings or attitudes, these equations are not applicable." Unquote.
So where did sayings like 93% of communication is nonverbal come from? Basically, like a giant game of telephone, the finding was warped and watered down over time. And recent research supports this. More recent studies show that people are surprisingly good at interpreting emotion and tone of voice.
But looking at facial expressions and body language, not so much. Now, we're not saying that gestures, facial expression, and posture don't matter. But it does mean that when it comes to venting your problems or expressing joy, a phone conversation might actually be able to do the trick. Just don't break up with someone via text message. That's still a no, no.
CODY GOUGH: Yeah. That's not cool. Read about these stories and more today on curiositydotcom. And if you're able, leave us a rating and review on whatever podcast app you're using to listen to us. Please do that. Hint, hint, Apple Podcasts. It really helps us and will really help other people see our show. Plus it makes us feel really good.
ASHLEY HAMER: It does. 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.