Happiness for Cynics podcast
This week, Marie and Pete talk about the thrill of Roller Coasters, good stress and when it’s time to put up your hands and just let go!
Show notes
The Science of the Thrill Marvin Zuckerman
4 personality types
- Adventure seekers
- New experience seekers
- People seeking to lose inhibitions
- People susceptible to boredom
Grey matter vs. white matter
Kelly McGonigal Ted talk on good stress
Transcript
[Happy intro music -background]
M: Welcome to happiness for cynics and thanks for joining us as we explore all the things I wish I’d known earlier in life but didn’t.
M: So, if you’re like me and you want more out of life, listen in and more importantly, buy in because I guarantee if you do, the science of happiness can change your life.
P: Plus, sometimes I think we’re kind of funny.
M: And we’re back!
P: Ta da! Here we are again. It’s like Groundhog Day.
M: Thanks?
P: Same day, same spot.
M: I thought this was bonding?
P: Yeah.
M: But you think of it as Groundhog Day?
P: Laugh, it is. I look forward to this every single week because we always do it at the same time. Laugh.
M: Same bat time, same bat channel.
P: [Pew] Laugh.
M: We age ourselves every week, you do know that, laugh.
P: Hey, I’m 48 proud of it. I’m not quite 48 but I’m nearly there. Laugh.
M: And I’m 28 and keeping busy.
P: Laugh! I went, I went with the real factor.
M: Laugh! So, what are we talking about today Pete?
P: We’re talking about roller coasters. Woo hoo, what fun!? Laugh!
M: Yay!
P: Who doesn’t love roller coasters? …Aah me.
M: Really?
P: Well actually, we have a mutual friend that converted me from a non-roller coaster lover to a roller coaster lover. God Bless him.
M: It’s all about opting in.
P: Yeah, it totally was. I got forced. I got dragged through the gates of a theme park and hearing “we’re going here!” And I’m like, “Oh, shit.” Laugh!
M: I wouldn’t recommend forcing people who are not inclined onto rollercoasters because it can be petrifying and that could actually be quite traumatic.
P: Exactly. Yeah, it was. It was, I was that person that doesn’t scream. I’m the one that just sits there with this panicked expression on their face, holding their breath for the three minutes.
M: Oh, I love watching those!
P: Laugh.
M: Because when you’re on the other side and loving it, watching people who are petrified is just like a whole other thing that you just don’t wrap your head around.
P: Laugh. It was, Jeffrey was very good, though. He took me on one that was indoors, which was great.
M: Nice.
P: Yeah, it was good. So, it was just black. We got out of the roller coaster and I said, “Did we go upside down?” He said, “I think so.”
M: Laugh!
P: We better, we better do it again just to check. So, we did, laugh.
M: Space Mountain? The best indoor, dark.
P: No, actually it wasn’t Space Mountain. It was something, something else. It was at the MGM one in Miami, and it had it had Aerosmith playing that’s all I remember.
M: Oh! The Aerosmith ride! That’s awesome!
P: Yeah, yeah. That one.
M: Ok. Alright, I’m with you.
P: That was my first roller coaster.
M: That’s a big roller coaster, too.
P: It is.
M: So, Space Mountain at Disneyland is small compared to Aerosmith.
P: Yeah, I take it hard core. Laugh!
M: So, I’m feeling happy just talking about roller coasters.
P: Laugh. There’s a reason why Marie, there’s such a reason why.
M: There is.
P: You are hard wired for this.
M: There’s a child inside me, I’m sure.
P: Yeah.
M: Disney, roller coasters, I’m there every time.
P & M: Laughter.
M: But please explain more. So, what is the draw of roller coasters?
P: Thrill seeking.
M: I’m down.
P: Yeah, we as humans are hardwired to go thrill seeking and have that almost petrifying response in our bodies because it does stuff to our system. And by our system, I mean our brain and also a physical system.
M: I feel like it wakes you up.
P: There’s a huge release of dopamine and adrenaline [epinephrine] and norepinephrine [noradrenaline] and all those lovely happy hormones –
M: Mmm hmm.
P: – after an event like this. And this is why we go seeking it, because that high that you have afterwards is intoxicating and you want more!
M: It’s legal drugs.
P: Yep, completely. There’s lots of science and research behind this.
M: And we don’t even have to pay for the drugs because the body produces them naturally.
P: Laugh, it does. And so, it’s that whole idea of having a hit, and we want to go and get more of it. And this comes from a real primal idea of taking on the woolly mammoth with a spear. You know, something –
M: The fight or flight response.
P: Yep, completely. It’s an absolute primal mechanism, which we love. And this is the weird thing, it’s the concept of the thing that may kill us but that doesn’t that actually makes us want it more. It’s like, ‘Oh wow, cool. I survived that. Let’s do it again!’ Laugh!
M: I love it. Well, actually, there’s a lot to this. So, when I was doing public speaking training, we learned that public speaking is one of the biggest fears.
P: Yes.
M: In the world. Number one fear for a lot of people, and there’s a way that you can train your brain to see that fear as not fear but excitement and your response that fight or flight reaction that your body has to a threat can be controlled and redirected into a positive psychological experience.
P: Ok.
M: So, someone who gets on a roller coaster and who is petrified and they’re the person at the front who somehow got shuffled into the front even though they didn’t want to be there and has a look of sheer terror and doesn’t scream.
P: Laugh.
M: Research shows that people who are enjoying themselves are the ones screaming the ones who shut up wish they weren’t there.
P: Laugh!
M: And so, with public speaking, you know you’re about to get up on stage, you check that you’re wearing your pants –
P: Laugh!
M: And you’re feeling jittery, and your stomach is tied in knots. And if you do some power poses – have we talk about power poses on the podcast before?
P: Is that the bicep flex in front of the mirror of the gym.
M: That works. Yes, it’s about expanding your stance. Spread your legs a little bit –
P: Oh! Oof.
M: Shoulders up, and make yourself big and do some jumping or exercise to get the blood pumping even more.
P: Yep, yep.
M: But you could be going down the wrong path if you’re directing this new energy or increased energy into more fear.
P: Yep.
M: And the big one, put a big smile on your face, even though you might not be feeling it.
P: Yeah, fake it. Laugh.
M: Right, So yep. And you’re going to tell yourself I’m excited, I’m pumped, this is going to be awesome. And if you do that enough with that big smile on your face, which starts to release those chemicals as well the positive chemicals, you can trick your brain into not thinking of your physiological reaction as fear.
P: Yeah.
M: Yet actually, start to think of it as excitement.
P: Mmm.
M: And so many speakers you’ll see come bounding onto the stage. Not because they’re just super cheery, happy, crazy over the top people who need more ADHD meds.
P: Laugh!
M: But because they’re trying to control their public speaking fears.
P: Yep, it’s the Tony Robbins effect.
M: Absolutely. Oh, I’m not sure. I think Tony Robbins actually might need those ADHD meds.
P & M: Laughter!
M: A lot of other people aren’t that naturally hyper, laugh.
P: Well, I don’t think he is. He’s not naturally hyper, but he gets himself into that hyper state. And the interesting thing that I think Tony Robbins has clocked is that he gets his audience into that hyper state. It’s all about the fluffer Marie.
M: Oh, the fluffer, we’re back to the fluffer.
P: The fluffer.
M: And for those of you who have joined us recently –
P: Laugh!
M: – there was a whole sidebar conversation very early on, where Pete had to explain what a fluffer does.
P: Google it, it’s fun.
M: I now know.
P & M: Laughter.
M: Back to roller coasters, laugh.
P: Back to roller coasters, so are roller coasters good or bad for us?
M: It comes down to the good or bad stress argument.
P: Ah, which is?
M: That stress is not bad or good. It’s both.
P: Now we’ve talked a little bit about this before in a previous episode about eustress and I love this eustress is spelt EU stress. I kind of think of it as European stress.
M: Laugh!
P: It’s like, ‘Eustress doesn’t kill me because I look fabulous while I’m smoking in my French beret and my Jean-Claude Gaultier T-shirt.’ Laugh.
M: Insert disclaimer here about smoking. Yes, laugh. Eustress got it. And that is the positive stress and roller coasters fall into that bucket, right?
P: There we go, yep. So, you don’t have to be a CEO of a company and thrive on having deadlines. You’ve just got to jump on a roller coaster.
M: Love it, or there’s a range of other things you can do. So, this isn’t just roller coasters. You can watch scary movies, for instance, and I’m out of ideas. [literally any thrill-seeking activity!] You got anything else? Laugh.
P: Bungee jumping.
M: Laugh, there you go.
P: Bungee jumping.
M: Laugh.
P: Well this brings me to a little bit of research that I found when I was looking at some stuff behind this of a gentleman by the name of Marvin Zuckerman. And Zuckerman has been studying The Science of the Thrill for the last 40 years. He started in the 1970’s, actually 1960’s and got through to the 1970’s, and he came up with the four personality types of humans.
Now, apparently, we all fit into one of these four types, and number one is the adventure seeker, and these are the people that seek physical challenges. The second is the new experience seeker. These are your travellers, the people that go to exotic places, try new foods, have chilli. Yeah, Marie’s ticking the box on both of these.
Right now, laugh.
M: I am. Especially the second one, but both laugh.
P: Laugh.
M: If you can do them together, I’m in.
P: Laugh, you usually do.
M: Laugh.
P: The third one is people seeking to lose inhibitions. Now I find this an interesting one.
M: I don’t have any of those.
P: Laugh. Neither do I, I get naked at a moment’s notice? I’m happy, you know.. let my inhibitions loose. Laugh.
M: I’d just like to say that Brené Brown taught me how to be vulnerable. Not that I have no inhibitions, laugh.
P: Laughter!
M: Moving on, yes.
P: Moving on.
M: Those people in that group they’re got no inhibitions – oh, they’re trying to get rid of their inhibitions?
P: They’re trying to lose their inhibitions. So, these are the ones –
M: Oh, ok. I love it.
P: – they thrive on making social connections, so they love the crowds, they love the groups. They like being in touch with people or dinner parties and things like that. They enjoyed meeting new people.
M: Mmm hmm.
P: Because it allows them to open themselves up a little bit more.
M: Yeah.
P: And the final group are the people who are susceptible to boredom. People who get bored easily.
M: I think I’ve got three out of four.
P & M: Laugh!
P: These people crave novelty. They crave new stimulus.
M: And so many people do. For anyone who’s ever been in a long-term relationship, you can’t tell me that you look at your partner 10 years later and feel the same butterflies and honeymoon excitement to that person as you did when you first got together.
P: Laugh.
M: It just doesn’t happen. If you do know the secret, though I’m all ears.
P: Laugh, that could be another episode.
M: Laugh, but it’s the reason why there’s a period called the honeymoon period, because when there is novelty with someone new that you click with and connect with.
P: Mmm.
M: That’s you know, I’ve just got this huge grin on my face, and I can’t talk now, right?
P: Laugh.
M: Like it’s a great feeling. It’s an absolutely amazing feeling to be falling in love with someone. But then, once you know that they never put their socks in the hamper and they like to go the bathroom with the door open –
P: Laugh.
M: Like all of that stuff, laugh.
P: Laugh, not naming any names, of course. You only have one husband, don’t you Marie?
M: Yep, only one. I’m working on that.
P: Laugh! We love you, Francis.
M: I do, one is enough.
P & M: Laugh.
P: So, Zuckerman talks about these four personality types and that, yes, we all fall in the middle of these, and you can be part of more than one. So, there is that type, but I think it’s an interesting one to put your if you had to choose one. It says something about your personality, but also something about your brain makeup.
So, there are certain – all our brains are different. We all have different ways of using our brain. Some of us have more grey matter than white matter. And I found this really interesting.
M: But what does that mean?
P: Being the newly developed scientist that I am.
M & P: Laugh.
P: So, grey matter are nerve cells.
M: Yep.
P: They are on the outside of our brain because they’re the neurons, the cells that do all the connections and make all the connections. Whereas the white matter is the axons they’re the terminals, the nerve conduction is they take the pathways through. So, our spinal cord has white matter on the outside and grey matter on the inside, our brain is inverted.
M: Ok.
P: It has the grey matter on the outside because we need all those neural connections to be firing off each other. We don’t want them protected by axons and tucked away where they can’t form connections.
M: And the grey matter is smarts?
P: …Well, yeah. If you’ve got more grey matter. So, this is why the human brain is more developed and say are primates and birds, for example, it’s the folds of our brain creates more surface area. And that’s why the grain matters on the outside of our brain because it allows us so many millions of connections, which is why our brains are so well developed.
M: Mmm hmm.
P: And if you compare a human brain with a chimpanzee brain, it has less folds. So, the dexterity of those connections is less. And then, if you look at a bird brain, for example, it’s almost smooth.
M: Mmm.
P: So, the ability to have those different connections is reduced by the shape of the brain if you like.
M: What’s the name of the dog breeds that have all the folds? [Shar-Pei]
P: Laugh. Oh, is it Shih tzu, no… what are they called? Oh, I can’t remember.
M: I’ve got a dog in my head, laugh.
P: Fluffy with wrinkles.
M & P: Laugh.
P: So, some of us have more grey matter than others, and that determines our personality type, so that might determine what kind of a thrill seeker you are. And if you’re, if you know someone that is constantly putting themselves in harm’s way, this could be the reason why they actually need that sense of excitement or that adventure of nearly dying to stimulate all those lovely fear and flight responses which do wonderful things for their happiness levels.
M: So, my risk taking, and lack of self-control is purely biological and not my fault.
P: Yep, yep. Completely, I absolve you of all responsibility Marie, Laugh!
M: Shar-Peis.
P: There we go! You are a Shar-Pei.
M: Love it.
P: Laugh!
M: So, there’s an actual physical need, then, for that novelty and thrill seeking.
P: Definitely, you can fall into that adventure seeker personality type, which means you have to be going, you should be going on roller coasters lots. Whereas if you fall into one of the other categories, like people who are susceptible to boredom. You don’t necessarily need to go and jump on to roller coasters, you could just read a new book or find a new game to play or take up a new sport. So, it’s different horses for different courses if you like.
M: Always. I do have one last, – before we wrap up – one last study that I thought was really interesting. Researchers put a bunch of asthmatics on roller coasters.
P: Oh, I like this one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, laugh!
M: I don’t know how they got permission to do this one.
P: I think there were some very enthusiastic volunteers.
M: Laugh.
P: It was like, ‘we’re going to take you to a theme park and study your brain, woo!’
M: Study your asthma reactions?
P: Laugh, yeah.
M: So, when asthmatics feel short of breath, that can be a really, truly traumatic feeling and can spiral into very negative feelings and reactions and physiological reactions that often lead to attacks.
P: Mmm hmm.
M: So, researchers took a bunch of asthmatics and put them on roller coasters to recreate that shortness of breath, but they wanted to see whether or not they would go down that negative thinking and physiological response.
P: Consequential response, yeah.
M: Or whether the release of – so this is the difference between good stress and bad stress.
P: Mmm hmm.
M: -the good stress from the roller coaster, whether the release of all the endorphins and the dopamine and…
P: Serotonin. [Not scientifically backed]
M: All of that would have an impact in another way. And lo and behold, it did.
P: Yay.
M: These guys had the same types of initial physiological reactions when they were excited. So, shortness of breath, faster heart rate, etcetera, blood pressure. But the positive emotions that we’re going along with it meant that they recovered and moved on. Got off the roller coaster went and got a hot dog.
P: Laugh. It’s good. There’s a positivity to stress, and I’ll throw this one in there as well. There’s a speaker called Kelly McGonigal, not Professor McGonigal out of Harry Potter.
M: Laugh, yep.
P: She does a lovely Ted talk that talks about the positive you eustress’s and how it’s all about our response to stress and how we can use stress in a real positive way. I really will put this in the show, notes Leandra, laugh.
M: He says that every week and then doesn’t, just so you know listeners.
P: Yeah, I know…
M: Laugh.
P: But she does actually talk about the Harvard University stress tests and how they turn stress into a real positive reaction for us. So that’s worth having a little look at if you’re interested in what we’re talking about today.
M: And on a final note on that one. If you are a procrastinator, like most students, a lot of students and you wait until the last minute to get your assignments or to cram for your exams. There’s two ways to view that.
One is ‘Oh, my gosh, I’m never going to pass. I have so much to do.’
Or two, ‘I’m G’d up and I’m going to do this and let’s just power through it and get it done.’
P: Yeah, I can fly by the seat of my pants, and I can still ace this, yeah.
M: Exactly. And again, I come back to all of that positive affirmation and positive self-talk and glass are full and we’re seeing themes here Pete.
P: Yeah, laugh.
M: You’d think our podcast is about happiness, wouldn’t you?
P: Laugh!
M: Absolutely. All right, well, that wraps up our discussion of roller coasters with a resounding yes.
P: Laugh and being a former/ newly subscribed person to roller coasters, I say go for it. Loads of fun. Go with a friend and just remember, screaming is obligatory, laugh!
M: Oh, absolutely. You’ve got to let loose, and you’ve got to let go. Hands up!
P: Oh, let loose! Let go! And hands up!
M: Hands up!
P: Have a happy week.
M: See you next time.
[Happy exit music – background]
M: Thanks for joining us today if you want to hear more, please remember to subscribe and like this podcast and remember you can find us at www.marieskelton.com, where you can also send in questions or propose a topic.
P: And if you like our little show, we would absolutely love for you to leave a comment or rating to help us out.
M: Until next time.
M & P: Choose happiness.
[Exit music fadeout]
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