Today you’ll learn about how being close to the ones you love makes your physical health better, how broken heart syndrome is actually real, and how walking for as little as five minutes every half hour can reverse a lot of damage caused by sitting.
Today you’ll learn about how being close to the ones you love makes your physical health better, how broken heart syndrome is actually real, and how walking for as little as five minutes every half hour can reverse a lot of damage caused by sitting.
Find episode transcripts here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/social-rewards-broken-heart-syndrome-5-min-walks
Social Rewards
Broken Heart Syndrome
5 Min Walks
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[SFX: INTRO MUSIC/WHOOSH]
NATE: Hi! You’re about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from Discovery. Time flies when you’re learnin’ super cool stuff. I’m Nate.
CALLI: And I’m Calli. If you’re dropping in for the first time, welcome to Curiosity, where we aim to blow your mind by helping you to grow your mind. If you’re a loyal listener, welcome back!
NATE: Today you’ll learn about how being close to the ones you love makes your physical health better, how broken heart syndrome is actually real, and how walking for as little as five minutes every half hour can off-set a lot of the damage caused by sitting.
CALLI: Without further ado, let’s satisfy some curiosity!
[SFX: WHOOSH]
NATE: It might seem like intuition that spending time with someone you love can be soothing. But now science has actually proven that spending time with loved ones can make your mental and physical health better.
CALLI: I mean, you're right. That is intuitive. But what you're saying is, if your friend is going through a hard time or something, giving them a hug might be better for their health?
NATE: It looks like it. Any time you've ever felt more relaxed or even less stressed out, when you're around somebody you love, you're experiencing something called social buffering. And what you're being buffered against is stress of all shapes and sizes.
CALLI: I get why being around someone you love would make you feel more comfortable. But how is it actually good for our health?
NATE: Years and years of research support the idea that any kind of social relationship will provide benefits for our mental and physical well-being. Humans are social creatures. We rely on language, social cues, news, romance, all sorts of things that we can really only get from other people. And all of these things, all this social interaction gives our brains a bit of a rush of excitement. Actually, social interaction is so exciting to our brains that it triggers similar chemical reactions to when we do drugs, eat good food, or make a lot of money.
CALLI: Okay. But literally all of those things can be abused in some way, though. So is there a world in which being social can also be bad for us?
NATE: Not necessarily. Of course, there are things like social burnout, but that doesn't seem to affect our health as much as our energy, if that makes sense. Because this craving to be near loved ones is attached to a need to belong. Which is why the rush comes especially from being around someone you love. Take, for example, a study that linked adults’ lower blood pressure with the amount of time someone spends with their significant others or even their relatives. It's very likely this means that there's a link between being social and heart health. Plus, if you're an adult that's getting ready to do anything stress inducing, but you're doing it with a good friend. It's said that you'll have lower levels of cortisol, which is a stress hormone compared to if you prep alone, which is good. Excess cortisol can lead to worse heart health, an easier chance of getting sick in the long run, and even changes to the way your brain works.
CALLI: Okay, so you keep saying this in the context of adults. Is social buffering only effective for adults or children? Or how is this working?
NATE: It's not just for adults. Studies have come out in the past few years in regards to how social buffering works on infants, kids and teens. And we've learned that in year one of an infant's life, the caregiver's presence inspires a decrease in cortisol. Whenever a baby is getting their vaccine, just as long as the baby has a loving relationship with the caregiver. There is also another study about prepubescent kids and social buffering, where some children were sent to prepare with parents before having to speak publicly, and some were sent to prepare with a stranger. You can probably see where this is going. Cortisol increased for the kids who prepped with a stranger, and it stayed stagnant for the kids who did the same with a parent.
CALLI: Okay, so social buffering works for everybody then?
NATE: It does. But it doesn't work in the same way because after or during puberty, things start to change a bit. For instance, mid puberty, parents seem to actually stop acting as a buffer for cortisol. Which leads us to the newest study on social buffering that asks a simple question: If parents aren't good for social buffering, then how about a teenager's friends? The experiment was conducted just like the last one, with subjects preparing with parents in one group, but with their friends in another. And the answer to that question actually turns out to be no.
CALLI: Way, really.
NATE: I mean, think about it for a second before I even hop into the evidence. You would probably expect a teenager to feel more comfortable around their friends than their parents. It's a pretty universal feeling for people when they're growing up. To feel embarrassed by their parents. And embarrassment is pretty closely tied to feeling stressed out. But the reality is these teens head way higher cortisol levels than any of the kids who had to get ready with mom and dad.
CALLI: I mean, I guess I get that. But I mean, I'm still curious as to why.
NATE: The researchers still aren't 100% sure, but they assume that ironically, it's because of why teens would be embarrassed by their parents in the first place. They're much more self-conscious around their friends. They've got that constant worry of, Oh, no, what will they think about me if I embarrass myself? No matter what the reason is, it threw the researchers off a bit, so they need to do a bit more testing to figure out who can be a good social buffer for teenagers and older kids, for instance, maybe a sibling or even possibly a pet. In any case, they want to find out soon because teenagers have a much higher likelihood to develop worsened mental health than other age groups. So the sooner we figure this out, the better.
CALLI: Okay, so what should my takeaway from the study be?
NATE: Keep your romantic partners and your friends close to you. They decrease your stress levels, which can improve your heart health and your mental health in meaningful ways. If you have an infant, be there for them. Social buffering from someone who loves you is helpful until the middle stages of puberty and can help children from being exposed to more stress. Even if we don't know what a teen's social buffer is right now, we can at least be there for them and let them know we support them for the time being, even if we're not decreasing a teen stress levels. At the very least, we can try our hardest not to increase them.
[SFX: WHOOSH]
CALLI: Okay, So I'm just going to be entirely honest here. I hate cheesy romance movies like a lot. And one way to make me roll my eyes when I'm watching one of these movies is when someone says that someone died from a broken heart. It just feels tacky and frankly, cheap and a way to get the audience on your side. Turns out Hollywood wasn't just trying to tug at your heartstrings, though. Broken heart syndrome is a real and deadly thing.
NATE: Yeah. You think Padme just fell over? No.
CALLI: I mean. Yeah.
NATE: Okay. Broken heart syndrome. Are you sure that's not a band that was on Warped Tour with Fall Out Boy and the Used?
CALLI: No. Okay, listen, I'm actually serious. It's an actual heart related condition with the super complicated name. Stress cardiomyopathy or Takotsubo cardiomyopathy. What happens is the bottom parts of your heart start slowing down their movements and in some cases, stopping altogether. This actually prevents the heart from doing what it normally does, which is pump blood to and from the rest of your body.
NATE: Okay. So we're not talking about like the cartoon image where the heart is like, physically torn in half with a jagged line.
CALLI: I mean, no, not literally, but it might feel that way. It has a lot of the same symptoms as a heart attack, meaning that it's hard to tell them apart. Broken heart syndrome symptoms include a sudden burst of pain in your chest, lightheadedness, shortness of breath, or randomly passing out from the stress this is causing you. The two conditions are so similar that many doctors can't even tell them apart. Your blood levels will show elevated heart enzymes for both a heart attack or this condition in an EKG. And the only real way to tell is to perform a complicated surgery.
NATE: That all sounds pretty wild. Yeah, but what causes broken heart syndrome? It's not just being really sad, right?
CALLI: No, it's. It's the body's responding to extreme emotional stress. Like, if you've never dealt with the death of a parent or child or a romantic partner. Broken heart syndrome can occur because of the physical and emotional stress that kind of trauma can give us. But it can also be a natural response from the heart to something more physical, like a terminal illness, some kind of traumatic injury, or really anything that causes you to be extremely physically stressed.
NATE: Gosh. Okay. So what if all of those things happen to you, like at the same time? Is your heart going to break every time? And most importantly, can you actually die of a broken heart?
CALLI: I mean, normally, no, but broken heart syndrome only happens under extreme stress, and it usually only happens once. Recovery means being placed on medications and removing stressors from your life. And after an 8 to 12 week recovery process, you should be fine. Just as long as the stressor has been removed from your life. As far as people who die from a broken heart, it is possible, but it's only happened in roughly 2 to 3% of all cases. There's a really crazy story about a woman who recently died of broken heart syndrome, actually.
NATE: All right, I'm listening.
CALLI: It was a 36 year old woman named Danielle Collins who loved cats. She had a bit of a12 punch recently where she raised a litter of kittens, had to give them up, and then her dad died. Then her car was stolen. She was already stressed out. But then she hit her breaking point when she somehow managed to see a cat having surgery performed on it. Out of nowhere, she got lightheaded and dizzy, went home and crawled into bed with her husband, who noticed she wasn't herself. When they asked her what was wrong, she said her chest was hurting. So we took her to the hospital where the doctor said she was having a heart attack, which was unusual. Danielle was 36 and have a clean bill of health before this. Yet all signs pointed to a heart attack, but unfortunately, they took too long to get her to the hospital and Danielle died.
NATE: That's less of a really crazy story and just a really sad story.
CALLI: Okay. We remember how we said the story was crazy.
NATE: Yeah.
CALLI: Danielle was only dead for 75 minutes before she jolted back to life. Even more amazingly, the doctors took a look and discovered she had experienced no brain damage whatsoever, which is a very common side effect of being medically dead for more than an hour. But upon examining our heart, they discovered that it wasn't actually a heart attack that did this. It was stress cardiomyopathy. Our old friend Broken Heart Syndrome, had come to town to feed on Danielle’s stress. So you remember how we were talking about cortisol, the stress hormone in the last story? There are other stress hormones known as catecholamines that specifically attack the heart when you're extremely stressed out, which can cause spasms that make the blood and oxygen in your heart basically get locked out. That's exactly what happened to Danielle, who is thankfully on the way now to a full recovery after the doctors boil down her lack of brain damage to sheer luck.
NATE: That is an absolutely wild story. I should have never doubted broken heart syndrome. And I guess from here on out, I never will. What should we do to prevent this?
CALLI: I mean, honestly, just pay attention to what your body's telling you. Chest pain and shortness of breath should be a telltale sign that something is wrong. So if you're experiencing those, hit up your doctor and get it checked out immediately. If they're extra bad, don't be afraid to head to the emergency room either. It could be a heart attack. It could be a broken heart. But no matter what. Something could be wrong with your heart. And you need to make sure you take care of it.
NATE: The existence of this illness is not nearly as interesting as the woman who died for 75 minutes.
CALLI: That is fascinating.
NATE: Yeah, I've heard, like, 2 minutes just in a hospital, like she's dead. And then, like, over an hour later, the doctor comes out is like, Hey, your wife's doing much better.
CALLI: She's breathing, then dead.
NATE: She's doing better than dead. Much better as in no longer dead.
CALLI: That's amazing.
[SFX: WHOOSH]
NATE: New research shows that walking for as little as 5 minutes every half hour can offset a lot of the damage caused by sitting.
CALLI: Okay, that seems like a no brainer. I mean, we all know sitting for long periods can be pretty bad for you. So I guess it makes sense that moving more often would help, right?
NATE: Absolutely. But the results from this research are actually a bigger deal than they appear on the surface.
CALLI: Oh. All right. Well, maybe I should sit down for this one.
NATE: No, definitely don't do that. Like you said, we all know that sitting for long periods is pretty bad for you. But few of us realize just how bad. Some research shows that even if you exercise every single day, sitting too much for long stretches can supercharge your odds for cardiovascular disease.
CALLI: Holy crap. Okay, so exercise doesn't matter.
NATE: Well, it's not that exercise doesn't matter because it does. Most recommendations say you should still get your 30 minutes of exercise per day. But by some estimates, adults in the United States are sedentary for 6 to 8 hours a day. If you're over 60, add at least an hour to that number and 30 minutes isn't going to completely overcome that. In fact, sitting too long could be associated with an increased risk of diabetes issues with insulin and a higher risk of early death from, well, any cause.
CALLI: Okay, so I'm doing the rest of this podcast standing up. Thank you.
NATE: Good. Because even though there's not much research on exactly why sitting is bad, the point is our bodies were built to move. And when they don't, bad things happen. And that's why the five minute walk research is so important. Dr. Keith Dieser, an exercise physiologist at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, found that simply taking that five minute walk every half hour may eliminate many of the dangers from sitting.
CALLI: So I'm going to set a timer to power walk every 30 minutes and then I'm good.
NATE: Not so fast. Literally not so fast. You don't have to walk so fast. He found that blood sugar spikes could be reduced by up to 60% with just a five minute stroll.
CALLI: What about a meander?
NATE: That's probably good, too.
CALLI: And an amble, a mosey, a saunter. Oh, a trudge. Trudge trudging, you know, trudging to judge the slow, weary, depressed, yet determined walk of a man who has nothing left in life except the impulse to simply soldier on.
NATE: Trudging sounds good. Yes. The thing about the city this way it may be less about the good that exercise does and more about the damage that sitting causes. This study is simply saying sit less, move more.
CALLI: And specifically, don't sit for more than 25 minutes at a stretch.
NATE: Exactly. The longer we sit, the more profound the damage. In fact, this five minute amble is not meant to replace exercise. But guess what? Another study has found that taking a brisk 11 minute walk every day or for about 75 minutes every week can also lower your risk of stroke, heart disease and some cancers.
CALLI: Okay, so walking is good.
NATE: But more importantly, maybe is that sitting is bad. So many of us feel hopeless because we have to sit for work all day. But this research is saying there's an easy five minute fix.
CALLI: All right. Get out there and trudge people.
NATE: Maybe even mosey.
CALLI: Meander.
[SFX: WHOOSH]
NATE: Let’s recap what we learned today to wrap up. Feeling stressed at the party, but then your loved one walks in and you feel a cool rush of joy? That’s because of a phenomenon we know as “social buffering,” where stress hormones actually decrease when we’re around someone we love. We see it with adults and romantic partners, with infants and parents… but interestingly, NOBODY seems to be able to decrease a teenager’s stress level yet. Researchers are hard at work figuring out why, but for the time being, if you have a teen in your life, let them know you care and that you hope you’re not stressing them out more!
CALLI: “Dying of a broken heart” isn’t just a cheesy cliche; it’s an actual medical condition! Stress cardiomyopathy is a condition characterized by the lower chambers of your heart not processing blood or oxygen the way they should be, and have very similar symptoms to a heart attack; however, the key difference is that it’s provoked by heavy levels of stress. The solution: if you feel what you suspect is a heart attack, contact your doctor. Because even if it’s not a heart attack, it could be quite deadly nonetheless.
NATE: Sitting for too long during the day can lead to cardiovascular disease no matter how much you exercise. But according to a new study, even as little as a 5 minute walk every hour can reverse the effects that come with sitting for over 6 hours a day!