Chapter 1: What role does sighing play in our health?
Today on Something You Should Know, why you sigh a lot more than you think you do, and thank God you do. Then, understanding optimism and how to be more optimistic. People don't really understand this, but optimism is not a personality trait. It is a trainable psychological skill, and it is something that can be learned, and I look at optimism like a muscle.
Also, some important information if you use mouthwash and everything you need to know to be a better butter cook and a better butter buyer. Salted butter tastes really good. So if you want to have butter on your toast, it's nice to use a salted butter.
Also, if you're using butter in savory cooking preparations like finishing a sauce or adding butter to your pasta, that extra salt is only going to make everything taste better. All this today on Something You Should Know. You know, I'm a sucker for a good mystery.
Chapter 2: Can optimism be learned or is it a personality trait?
Like, in the 1950s, a flight from New York to Minneapolis just disappeared over Lake Michigan. No wreckage, no answers. Or the Dietlof Pass incident, a group of experienced hikers found dead under circumstances so strange people still debate what really happened. There's a podcast called Expedition Unknown from Discovery, hosted by Josh Gates, and this is what he does.
He doesn't just tell these stories. He goes there. He's hunted for priceless artifacts stolen by the Nazis in World War II. He's traced the final flight of a pilot who vanished mid-mission and searched the Great Lakes for a ship that disappeared without a trace. If you love the unanswered questions of history, you know, the stuff that makes you lean in, you're going to love this.
Travel the globe with Josh Gates as he investigates humanity's greatest feats and most iconic legends.
Chapter 3: How can real optimism improve resilience and decision-making?
Listen to Expedition Unknown wherever you get your podcasts. Something you should know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. When was the last time you let out a big sigh? Probably more recently than you think. And that's what we're going to start this episode talking about today.
Hi, I'm Mike Carruthers. Welcome to Something You Should Know. So human beings actually sigh about once every five minutes. That's roughly a dozen times an hour. And it's not just an emotional reaction to frustration or relief. Scientists have discovered that sighing is a built-in maintenance system for your lungs.
You see, inside your lungs are millions of tiny air sacs, and over time, normal breathing causes some of them to collapse. A sigh, which pulls in about twice the air of a normal breath, pops those sacs back open and keeps the lungs working efficiently. In fact, researchers at Stanford identified a specific neural circuit in the brainstem... whose job it is to trigger sighs automatically.
Without that mechanism, those air sacs would gradually collapse and breathing would become less effective.
Chapter 4: What are the secrets to choosing and using butter effectively?
So sighing isn't a weakness or exasperation. It's your brain giving your lungs a reset. And that is something you should know. Optimism has a bit of a reputation problem. For a lot of people, the word sounds like wishful thinking, pretending everything will work out, forcing yourself to stay positive or ignoring the hard parts of life.
And when things are actually difficult, that kind of optimism can feel very unrealistic, even annoying. But what if real optimism has nothing to do with blind positivity? What if it's actually a psychological skill, something grounded in real science that helps you stay flexible, resilient, and open even when life is uncertain or painful? My guest says optimism isn't about denying the dark.
It's about learning how to see your way through it. Dr. Deepika Chopra is a psychologist, also known as the Optimism Doctor. She studies resilience, emotional well-being, and how people recover from difficult experiences.
She is a recurring guest on the Today Show, and she's author of the book, The Power of Real Optimism, a practical science-based guide to staying resilient, curious, and open, even when life is hard. Hi, Deepika. Welcome to Something You Should Know. Hi, I'm so happy to be here. So what is optimism to you, someone who studies it? How do you define it?
Basically, I think a lot of people have this notion that being an optimist is someone that is experiencing bliss 24-7 or always looking through the world with rose-colored glasses, immediately seeing silver linings, and just always seeing the world with that half glass full. And a lot of times, I think optimists get this rap of not being rooted in reality.
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Chapter 5: How do mouthwashes impact oral health beyond fresh breath?
And that just couldn't be further from the truth Someone that is truly optimistic is someone that is deeply and mindfully aware of the roadblocks and the setbacks and the less than ideal situations. And the caveat is they just see those setbacks as something that is temporary and something that they have the ability to overcome or persevere, even if they don't know how or when.
But that is mainly based on personal historical resiliency. And having gone through effectively their hardest days, all of them thus far. And I also really equate optimism to this idea of curiosity. So even if you're not really sure how things will turn out, just being curious as to how they will be different than they are now, but at the very same time, holding space for hope.
It does seem, and I've certainly been in this situation myself, where I didn't feel particularly optimistic. So I know what that feels like. There's this rush to the worst case. Like it's when something goes wrong, you think the world is ending. Or if something looks like it's going wrong, you look at what the worst thing that could possibly happen, and that becomes your reality.
But it could turn out better. In fact, when you look back, I think for many of us, things never worked out as horribly or seldom worked out as horribly as you thought. And often things work out OK. That's right. And I think that there is a lot of reasoning for that. So from an evolutionary standpoint, we were actually built to be more in that world of pessimism and worst case scenario.
A long, long time ago, our ancestors who were running away from saber-toothed tigers had to imagine and play out the worst case scenario so that they would survive. And then that got passed down. But what we know about today's modern world, we definitely still have predators. They don't look the same as saber-toothed tigers.
But what we know about the modern world and how we live today, chronically and consistently imagining worst case scenario is not helping us survive or thrive. And we have to do a more intentional job of coming up with different scenarios. And that sort of brings me to this place of, and I think people don't really understand this before, but optimism is not a personality trait.
It is a trainable psychological skill. And it is something that can be learned. And I look at optimism like a muscle. But do you think there are people who are just naturally optimistic or that they train themselves to be optimistic? Is it a temperament?
So there is a genetic component to it, but the good news is, and there's varying research, but the most that we've ever seen allotting a genetic component to it is about 25%. So the majority and the rest of it is actually something that is learned. To which I'm sure people have said to you, but if you're looking at other scenarios, you're not looking at the worst case scenario.
You're ignoring the possibility of a worst case scenario. And it is a possibility. And you need to look at it because if you can handle the worst case scenario, then you can handle anything better than that as well. So that's so interesting.
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Chapter 6: What makes cultured butter different from regular butter?
And a lot of people will look at that or people that practice it and say, yeah, of course, you just constantly imagine the best case scenario, what you want to And you put that out there into the universe. And I know a lot of people talk about this idea of manifestation.
But actually, what a lot of people are missing is when we do the real sensory based visual imagery work, and when we're talking about real optimism, as well as imagining how you want something to go. I also have people in their visual imagery imagine all the different setbacks that could happen and how they may behave in those so that they are more prepared.
We cannot ignore reality and that's just it. None of us are immune to struggle. No humans are immune to you know, the setbacks and the worries. And so we, I always say optimism doesn't deny the dark, you know, real optimism, the way we're defining it doesn't, you know, negate the dark. It just gives us tools and a way to see within it.
Well, I know you said that it's not a character or it's not a personality trait, but it seems like it is because I know plenty of people that seem to be very pessimistic that they just, you know, everything is hard. Why does it never work out for me? Why is it that, and that it seems like that's who they are.
Well, they have absolutely, there is that small bit that is predisposed, but it really is mostly about what they've been exposed to. And so of course, and I also want to say that optimism, like I don't believe anyone is an optimist or a pessimist. Optimism really lives on a continuum like so many other things. And it depends.
For me, I'm more naturally optimistic in various aspects of my life, like global issues or when it comes to...
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Chapter 7: Why is the fat content important in different types of butter?
even stuff that's like professional and work-related and even little moments like missteps or mistakes or when things don't go so well, I can see and hold hope that this is temporary and something's gonna change. But when it comes to health, my Achilles heel, I run so pessimistic. And partly that is something that I believe I was probably likely predisposed to.
But the majority of it is I have a collection of evidence through my life and the way that I've looked at certain circumstances that have happened to me, with me, around me. And I've now formulated this self-belief that... If something is going to go a little bit wrong health-wise for me, it's going to go a lot wrong. And this is sort of my work in where I use the tools to help me.
Yeah, I think I have that too. I think, yeah, every time I get like something goes wrong, I think, oh God, this is the end. Yes, it does borderline on hypochondria and sometimes a little neurotic. And you know what is the issue is a lot of times when I've gone to that direction before,
I've actually been validated because I now tell myself, oh, well, if I wasn't so anxious about it and I didn't go to that level, I wouldn't have gone to the doctor and I wouldn't have found X, Y, and Z. And there are plenty of times and experiences where my mind jumped to those worst case scenarios.
And literally, not only did nothing occur, but something better might have even happened health-wise. And it's a cognitive bias. And I know that's one of mine. And it's sort of what we talked about at the beginning of this. You can have five experiences that just go right by you. But one that just cements because it really...
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Chapter 8: How does the history of butter influence its use in cooking today?
It really glues itself to a thought or a belief you already so strongly feel. And your brain loves to collect evidence to make whatever you think is true more true. And then you blow that up and you highlight that. And that becomes, again, part of your identity. So for me, that's where my real work lies. I'm sure you've heard people say things like, yeah, but you don't know my life.
It's one thing to be optimistic when most of the time things are going well, but I've had some really tough times in my life, and that's why I have a more pessimistic view of the world.
Yeah, but I think that what I see when I'm speaking to a large audience of people and I'm really describing what real optimism is, I see so many people just like their shoulders come down and they say, you know what? I actually think... I am a real optimist so much more than I ever thought I was.
And I think we're just defining it incorrectly because again, right now we're polarizing it and sort of being like, well, if I've been through really hard things and bad things happen, to me, then it's understandable why I'm a pessimist. And only if good things happen to me, I can be an optimist. But again, we only cultivate our optimism through the perseverance of our struggles.
That is where it is cultivated. So I would say, yeah, I know you've been through really hard things, myself included. And I'm sitting here today. The circumstances don't change. And I still don't wish upon myself any of those terrible things, but I have gotten through them and things did change within them.
So all I know at this point right now, which is a very real optimism type of view and mindset to have, is not that I know what the future holds or that things are going to be amazing and wonderful and better all the time. It's that I truly know that I can get through hard things. And that is like a very... very big pillar of being a real optimist.
You know, one of the things I've wondered about is, is one of optimism's biggest enemies worry? And I want to get your thoughts on that. This episode is brought to you by Pocket Hose, the world's number one expandable hose. You know what I've always hated about garden hoses? It's how they manage to get all twisted and kinked up right where the water comes out, right at the faucet.
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And the other thing that surprised me the first time I used it, and now I use it all the time, when you shut the water off, the whole hose just shrinks back down to like pocket size. So there's no winding it up or wrapping it around your arm or wrestling with it. You just pick it up. I mean, you just pick it up and you're done.
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