The Science of Dreaming & Simple Rules That Could Add Years to Your Life

Then, the fascinating science of dreaming and the power and importance of your nightly dreams.

“We are as dream-deprived as we are sleep-deprived, and during sleep, it's thought that dreams help strengthen memories.”

They help us process difficult emotions, and they help us prepare for life's dangers. Also, an interesting quirk of the human brain that may be costing you money, and a few simple things that could drastically improve your health. The first is, stop drinking sugar-sweetened beverages like sodas, because there are 140 calories, 10 teaspoons of sugar, and zero nutrition. Fortunately, the American public's been doing that, but we have to do more of it. All this today, on something you should know.

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In before, there's a very good chance you will sit down in the same place you sat before. Why is that? Why do people do that?

“Well, that's what we're going to talk about as we begin this episode of something you should know.”

So this phenomenon of sitting in the same place you sat before is called psychological ownership. It's that feeling that something is mine, even though you have no legal ownership of it. Research shows that people quickly develop attachments to physical spaces simply by occupying them repeatedly. Over time, the space becomes associated with comfort, familiarity, and identity. Sitting in the same place reduces cognitive load because your brain doesn't have to process new environmental variables.

It also creates a subtle sense of control and territorial security. There's also something called place attachment. It's a well-studied phenomenon in environmental psychology. Humans form emotional bonds, not just with homes or neighborhoods, but with micro locations, desks, chairs, corners of rooms. These spaces become predictable anchors in an otherwise variable environment,

which explains why it losing your seat to someone else can feel strangely disruptive. It's not about the chair, it's about the routine, control, and identity. And that is something you should know. Every night you enter a world that feels real, sometimes joyful, sometimes terrifying, and often completely bizarre.

You can fly, you can relive the past, you can solve problems, or you can wake up shaken by something that never actually happened.

Because it's all just a dream. But what are dreams, really? For decades scientists debated whether dreams are just random, electrical noises in the brain, or something far more meaningful. Why do some dreams feel trivial while others leave a deep emotional scar? Why do certain dreams repeat?

And what is your brain actually doing during those hours when you're unconscious, but your mind is very active?

Karen Van Kappen is an award-winning health and science journalist, and author of the book The Brain Never Sleeps.

Why we dream and what it means to our health? And she joins me to explore what modern neuroscience has uncovered about why we dream, what those dreams may be doing for us, and how understanding them could change the way you think about sleep itself.

“Hi Karen, welcome to something you should know.”

Thanks for having me. Well, this is such a fun topic because I think everybody has their own personal relationship with their dreams. And one of the things I wonder about is, why I dream what I dream, something seem obvious, right? Something happened today and you dream about it that night, or you're looking forward to something.

But a lot of times dreams creep in that are about people you haven't thought of, things that have never happened, things that seem completely unconnected.

Yep, for sure.

“I'm always as fascinated by, you know, the fictions of my dream as much as the reflections of waking reality.”

And some of the things that we dream about, it could have to do with recency.

So let's say we had an experience, let's say we're learning something new at school or at work. If something emotional happens, it's almost like they jump the cue and they have priority to be dreamed about. And then what's really interesting is that to strengthen new experiences, new memories.

“One idea is that it associates new experiences with say old memories that are, you know, filed stored away in our brain and our catalog of memories.”

And that's that might be the reason why you have these sort of strange associations during dreaming.

Well, what we dream about, like you say, if there's something important going on that that jumps the cue, that's a great phrase to describe that. But so often the dreams just come out of nowhere, it seems or like you might dream about somebody you haven't thought about in a long time or a place or like you wonder it seems very random and probably difficult to figure out or study, but what has anybody tried. That was one of the questions that maybe you want to write this book and maybe want to research dreams is why is it that I'm going to suddenly dream of someone.

That's I haven't seen for decades or someone from my past and so one idea is that there might be some associations, some unique association with this person or with this time in your past with something that's happened recently.

“So that's one idea that's one possibility that's what I've always been fascinated about why do we choose to dream certain things at different points in our lives.”

Well, when you say choose see that's I don't think I choose my dreams. Oh, right. Why does the dreaming brain choose why does our brain choose to pick those thoughts or feelings or experiences to dream about. But you make it sound as if the brain has its own brain like that's our brain right it's our brain so if our brain chooses it we choose it. So let's say we're we're lying down we're going to fall asleep and there's things that are going through our minds as we're drifting off. Often times something we're thinking about will jump the cue or it will be tagged in our brain in our mind and then might we might revisit that idea or that experience later in our dreams.

Sometimes people have bad dreams. Well, I'm everyone has bad dreams nightmares and sometimes they recur they come back again and again and what is that and and and is there anything you can do about it other than just hope you stop doing that. Sometimes nightmares you can have a current nightmares and they can follow you for for years and it can affect people people become afraid to fall asleep. They don't want to go to bed because they're afraid they're going to have a nightmare. The thing is is that dreams can affect to have a very powerful influence of how we feel the next day if we carry it with us into the next day just like in just like a waking experience our dream experiences can affect our well being and how we feel.

So there's there's several things that you can do for for nightmares. Great, so tell me how that works. I so since I was a kid I've had this dream where I just pictured myself I was on the top of this metal scaffolding and then suddenly I trip and I'm falling and just before I hit the ground.

I always bull to wake and I was told by a dream researcher that that's the ultimate avoidance strategy because I'm never getting a resolution to the dream so the nightmare lives on.

So one way to combat nightmares is to do something called imagery rehearsal therapy so during the day oftentimes you don't want to do this you don't want to think about your dream. You're bad dream but if you think about it then you try and rewrite it you rescript whatever part of your distressing dream is upsetting you so for me it's the ending but for some people it could be a detail or a person and so you reimagine your dream you rescript your dream and you practice it I think it's something you know a couple minutes a day for a couple weeks you think about this new version of your dream.

So I understand that dreams are very closely related to your life but I get very skeptical when I hear about dream interpretation that you know if you were falling in your dream it's because your life is out of control in some way.

“Because if you ask 10 dream interpreters you what a dream means you'll get 10 different answers so I just I don't really buy it.”

One way to look at it is you know ultimately we're the best interpreter of our own dreams so if we just want to see a dream as you know face value what it is or if we want to interpret it in a different way. I spoke with one dream researcher and he said that he often has these exam dreams before he's let's say he's preparing for presentation or he's working on a grant and he said one idea is that you know exams test our competency.

So that might be a theme but you know so I the way I look at it is we can look at dreams and use our dreams however we'd like to and and ultimately we're the best interpreter of our dreams.

Like that I like that because it just seems so random to ask somebody you know what is my dream mean and how would they know how are they how would they any idea what it means. It was interesting I joined a dream salon in which I shared a dream and then I had different people offer their thoughts and interpretations of the dream. What happens is you share your dream and then people will say you know if it was my dream I might think of this or this or this and that was really interesting.

“And it gives you different perspectives on how you might see your dream and then you know and then I think you know it's all it's up to all of us how we how we see our dreams and how we use our dreams.”

I mean you know no one's telling us we can dismiss our dreams or we can focus on them and try and use them in our waking and in our waking lives. There's something about dreams where it crosses a line where I mean most of my dreams you wouldn't be able to tell I'm dreaming if I'm you looked at me sleeping but sometimes. I say something or I'll scream something or I'll you know there it comes into reality my wife will wake me up and say you're having a dream wake up.

“What what what's going what is that line that you cross when it stops being silent and it becomes reality.”

You can have nightmares or night terrors and sometimes if it's a terrifying dream you might scream or bolt awake during a night terrors that's at different stages of the sleep cycle. And you know I find it's interesting for me I'm really fascinated when I dip in an out of sleep and I might notice something you know a noise and then I dip back into sleep and then I go in and out and how. The dreaming and waking world there isn't that sharp divide it just it it flows from from wake then into different stages of dreaming and sleep I should say.

Talking about your dreams why you dream what you dream and I'm speaking with Karen van Kampen she's author of the book that brain never sleeps why we dream and what it means for our health.

You're a master by the story also this school of philosophy just to get something to talk and then I hope that it's a dream. If Bravo drama pop culture chaos and honest takes are your love language you'll want all about Terry podcast in your feed hosted by Roxanne and Chantal this show breaks down real housewives reality TV and the moments everyone's group chat is arguing about. You know that experience where you're having like a really great dream and then you wake up and you think oh man you know I want back in I want to get back in that dream I can't do that you can't get back.

You can't get back in that dream I can't do that you can't get back in exactly so that is I mean I would love to be I've never been able to do that either.

But some people that goes into the area of lucid dreaming right so lucid dreaming is when you're in the dream state and you're realizing you're dreaming as it's happening.

And so I have this I'm able to recognize that I'm dreaming like all sometimes talk to a dream character and say oh I know why you're doing that because I'm thinking about this or something.

“And then the person will say yes, but you still you still have to keep going with the dream and then but I can't control the dream I've never been able to to lucid dream that way.”

Well every time I'm in a dream and I realize I'm in a dream I would just wake up I just yes I can't I can't stay in it once I've made the determination that I'm dreaming.

I had this dream and I was in this in this bar and I had to pay for a drink and my credit card like I tried to tap and it wouldn't work.

And so I said to the waiter oh I'm dreaming this because I'm planning a vacation and I'm concerned about about money and then the waiter said yeah you still have to pay me. So then it's great but I wanted it but so I can't switch and try and control what's going to happen next but it's it's definitely mind expanding.

Yeah well I've heard that I've heard that you know dreaming can be a source of inspiration and creativity but I've never been able to really.

“I've had things happen in a dream and I think this could be a good idea but in in the light of day it turned that wasn't such a great idea.”

Right so there's this area of of this new sort of I look at as the next frontier in dream science and it's called dream engineering and one thing you can do is you can try so it's all about guiding your dreams learning to guide your dreams and often it's using technology to do this. So as you fall asleep when idea is as you fall asleep you're thinking of an idea but then you do these voice recordings and as you're going into sleep on set which has been called it's like a creative sweet spot dream researchers a group of dream researchers called it this creative sweet spot.

So as you're going into sleep on set a voice recording will play like you've created this voice recording and it will say you know remember to think of whatever you want to. You know get some creative inspiration about and then this recording will play at different times of sleep on set to try and you know sort of guide your dreams to this new area that you want to explore. Why why would you be able to come up with something in a dream that you couldn't come up with yourself in reality because it's still you it's it's the same thing and I've asked this question before like I've never understood why you can be surprised in a dream it's your dream.

But what you can be scared and surprised and shocked and like I don't understand why you can't figure this all out. It's fascinating because you think you know like we create these dreams these these reals these fictions for our own you know curiosity and wonder and we've created them yet as we're dreaming. They are we are surprised and it's because there's real to us is waking experiences so as we're having this dream experience we just get taken along. On this adventure that we've created for ourselves I agree that's I find it so fascinating and it makes me think you know when we're disconnected from all those demands and the distractions from the day.

And our dreaming brain can can wander and maybe you know sort through this catalog of memories that we have stored and it plucks all these different things and mashes them together.

“And does almost like this highlight real that's what I just find it so fascinating what our our dreaming brain can come up with and create.”

To people if the I don't know if anyone surveyed people to see but my guess is that people have like one or two or maybe three recurring dreams that is that pretty common. Yes recurring dreams are common and. And nightmare recurring nightmares recurrent nightmares are also common. I have a recurring dream that is so weird because it is so irrelevant to me anymore.

I was a goal tapes that you put in the machine or a CD that you put in a machine wasn't all on computer and I would come in and start be on the radio and I couldn't find any songs to play.

“They were somebody had taken them and and I'm freaking out trying to find a song to play and it happens right I have it over and over again it has no relevance to my life today.”

But for whatever reason I keep dreaming it. So I when I spoke with different dream researchers you know you can have this dream from years ago.

And again it brings up that why did you dream it now it makes sense if it's something to do with.

It makes sense that it might find its way into your dreams if it's something that you the repetition like if you it's something you did all the time.

“If you were working in a certain place but you can have these dreams that just reappear after many years and it's really interesting to think to try and ask yourself why like why is it appearing at this time.”

So knowing what you know and you've researched about dreams what do we do with all this information it seems like we have so little control over this what can we do.

We spend they say about a third of our lives asleep and a great portion of that time dreaming and you know we can not pay a second thought toward dreams and just go about our lives.

But you know if we tap into our dreams and we look at them more closely or if we try and use our dreams to improve our waking lives there's many ways that we can use our dreams to improve our well being. Well I'd like to hear those. Okay one idea is that dreams identify our waking preoccupations and concerns so it's not that dreams are a replay of what happens in our waking life. It's almost like they're a highlight real of what is weighing on our minds and is saying you know hey it needs more attention so this could be.

And an issue it could be maybe something it worked maybe it's a person that we maybe want that keeps showing up in our dreams and so one easy way is to write down your dreams just before you you know before you get out of bed when there's still swirling around in your head or maybe make a voice recording. And I found it really interesting one dream researcher said you know connect it if you want you can also do a journal if you keep a date like a day journal and connect your dreams with what's going on in your waking life.

“And another thing is that it's really important we talk a lot about how we're sleep deprived but I read this study and it says we are as dream deprived as we are sleep deprived and it made me wonder you know why do dreams matter on their own.”

And during sleep it's thought that dreams help strengthen memories they help us process difficult emotions and they help us prepare for life stangers those are three ideas of benefits during dreams. I've heard people say that they don't dream or they don't dream much what what is the science a about how much we dream who dreams who doesn't dream all of that. Most people dream so we dream during non-remen REM sleep throughout the night and our most vivid intense emotional dreams often happen during REM sleep closer to when we wake up in the morning.

And do everyone's dreams seem nonsensical to some degree I mean does anybody dream just perfectly normal like it's reality or as everybody having those weird bizarre dreams. All dreams have that reflections of reality fragments from our waking life and then it's mixed with these bizarre elements that seem to make no sense as well and that sort of that fiction part of our dreams. It's really interesting to I'm always thinking why did I come up with that and it's almost it makes me wonder it's you're creating this this story or this script and how did I come up with that it's so interesting to think how our imaginations have created this.

What's your sense about people's involvement in their own dreams because I find this topic fascinating but I admit I you know I don't log my dream to give them a whole lot of thought later in the day but how to how to most people do this. You know it's changed my view it's almost opened up my own dream world to see how other people are thinking about and using their dreams so yeah you can just not even think about your dreams or there's many people who reflect on their dreams trying to understand maybe you know why was I dreaming that.

And you know a lot of the benefits that we get from dreams happen whether we remember our dreams or not happen whether we think about our dreams or not we're gaining all of these different benefits from dreams.

“Well it's such a universal topic and yet it's also a very personal topic everybody has their own thing about dreams and I love to hear explanations as to why it is the way it is.”

I've been talking with Karen van Kampen she's an award winning health and science journalist and the book is called the brain never sleeps why we dream and what it means for our health and there's a link to that book in the show notes Karen thanks for explaining all this okay thanks so much. Hey it's Hillary Frank from the Longest shortest time an award-winning podcast about parenthood and reproductive health we talk about things like sex ed birth control pregnancy bodily autonomy and of course kids of all ages but you don't have to be a parent to listen if you like surprising bunny poignant stories about human relationships and you know periods the longest shortest time is for you.

Find us in any podcast app or at longest shortest time.com.

“Taking care of your health can feel overwhelming one expert will tell you cut carbs another says lift weights someone else tells you fast.”

Track your sleep avoid this do more of that and don't forget your screenings. Let's know wonder people are confused but what if living a long healthy life isn't nearly as complicated as we've made it. What if beneath all the noise there are just a few core principles that truly matter rules grounded in solid medical evidence. Dr. Zika manual is an oncologist professor at the University of Pennsylvania and one of the most widely cited voices in medicine and public health. After years of studying what actually extends life he argues that we've overcomplicated the formula he boils it down to six surprisingly simple rules that may challenge what you think you know about diet prevention and even indulgence.

He is author of the book each or ice cream six simple rules for a long and healthy life.

“Hey Dr. welcome to something you should know. Great to be here. Thank you. So you say wellness should be simple but I don't think that's most people's perception of wellness that it's simple that it sounds like it should take a lot of work.”

So explain what you mean by that. Well that's part of the wellness industrial complex. I want you to think it's complex so that you pay attention to what they're telling you and all the little adjustments. But my view is it's six things and most people already know those six things one is don't take unreasonable risks. The second is be social interact with people it's the best thing you can do for your wellness third is stay mentally sharp and engage fourth is eat well fifth is exercise and six is sleep and the last three the diet the exercise and the sleep we already know we get.

We get inundated with all sorts of information about those the first three we might know a little less about but intuitively we know what we should be doing.

So those last three diet exercise and sleep as you say we've heard a lot about it but a lot of what we hear is contradictory is changes it's good for you this day but bad for you that day so it's confusing. I mean just take diet there are two things we should stop doing and two things if we should probably focus most of our attention on there are many other things once you have these four elements under control the first is stop drinking sugar sweeten beverages like sodas because there are 140 calories 10 teaspoons of sugar and zero nutrition.

Fortunately the American public's been doing that but we have to do more of it second we have to stop eating so much ultra process foods about 60% of our calories are ultra process foods.

The Italians are at 20 which is where most people should be so that the most important thing is stop eating package cakes cookies pretzels and snacks that has that those package items have increased to 500 calories a day for most people.

Is eat fermented foods things like cottage cheese yogurt kimchi sour crab those are really good for you not only do they give you protein and other items but they improve your microbiome and that is critical to good nutrition and the second thing I would say is 90% or more of Americans don't get enough fiber. We need to eat more fiber those are basically pre biotics those are the things that bacteria in your gut grow on and we can easily do that by eating fruits and vegetables not by going out and buying those expensive packaged pre biotics and those four things they'll get you pretty far.

“All right well let's let's go back and talk about what you because you talked about snacks and things the title of your book is each ice cream which is not a healthy food typically in most people's mind so reconcile that for me.”

Well ice cream is actually a dairy product yes it does have a fair amount of sugar.

And if you eat it occasionally as a celebration once a week it's fine but dairy part of it is quite good we know that dairy has associated with a decreased risk of diabetes even though it has some sugar.

“It's associated with decreased color rectal cancer probably because of its impact on the micro biome it also makes people taller it's got a lot of advantages it does have some disadvantages it can raise some kinds of risks of some kinds of cancer.”

But net net it's actually a good thing plus you know wellness is something you're going to have to do for years and decades and if you make it all about self denial and punishment and you know doing things you don't really want to do you will not sustain it. You have to make wellness a good habit you like and a habit you can therefore integrate into your life and look forward to pursuing you know having an ice cream one or two times a week as a sort of nice dessert is something you can look forward to and it's got some health benefits.

Wait wait did you say a minute ago did you say dairy makes you taller yes if you look at the tallest people in the world like the Dutch or the Daines they're taller than Americans and they are big consumers of dairy and we know that the more dairy you eat especially as young children the taller you get is there an explanation for that.

“There are variety of theories no one knows for sure probably the proteins and the fats help there's some theory that it might be the hormones in dairy because it comes typically comes from cows who have just had calves but no one knows for sure.”

And we know that it leads to longer you know the main way you measure heights across populations is by thigh length and but the Dutch for example in the mid 19th century were among the shortest people in Europe. They are among the biggest consumers of dairy they have a famous good achieves they eat a lot of yogurt a lot of milk. They are now the tallest people in the world by a long shot three to four inches taller on average than Americans. It's a little more about this the about the microbiome because you said that eating fermented foods but you know that the list of fermented foods is pretty short it seems and not all of them are sound all that delicious to me so.

There's an ideal breakfast for you if you have a bowl of berries or some kind of fruit so you get your fiber in you put on granola that's got oats and dried fruits add yogurt and hemp seeds both have protein as well as Omega 3 and 6 fatty acids that is a pretty optimal breakfast. It's actually have that every day and I add to it again a half if I'm making an omelet or two eggs also come with a lot of nutrients and especially 12 to 14 grams of protein you have had pretty much an ideal breakfast to get you going in the day and a very healthy dose of fiber.

Is that help your microbiome so you've got the fiber from the berries is helps the bacteria in your microbiome grow and it's a variety of fibers it's not just one over and over again so that different bacteria need different kinds of fibers and yogurt has bacteria in it and again improves the diversity of the bacteria in your gut.

So one of the things you didn't talk about in talking about diet was things like fats saturated fats meat vegetarian and all that so throw that in the mix.

If you're a muscle mass need a little more protein if you're competing in races you will need more protein as you prepare for that. But most of us who aren't doing those kind of things we get perfectly fine amount of protein just by eating regularly and we don't have to really count on how much protein we're eating we don't really have to focus on it we eat too much meat.

12 ounces of meat per day per American that is too much you can get your protein in many other ways whether nuts or beans as I mentioned eggs.

Yogurt and dairy products and meats have excessive amounts of saturated fats and we also know that they're associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease increased risk of early mortality. So we should cut back on our meat I make a recommendation that probably about six ounces, six to eight ounces a week is in the right range not 12 ounces a day. So the first thing you mentioned was don't take unnecessary risks is that is that a big problem for people we still have a lot of smokers we have a lot of people who drink too much and we do a lot of things that are.

“excessive in the risk category ride bicycles without helmets place sports that are not very good for the brain you know and I think that there are lots of things people are pursuing especially people who might have money that are really.”

excessive risk just take climbing Mount Everest is one of the riskiest things you can do you pay a hundred thousand dollars to go up Mount Everest and the chance of dying is for all comeers including expert mountaineers is one and a hundred and if you're over 59 it's one in 25 that strikes me as pretty. you know what I what I notice is that there are people who like make this an effort that like that they they're going to get fit they're going to get well. So they're going to do things that they haven't done and it's all very effortful as opposed to people who morally more or less adopted as part of their life it becomes their life rather than fights their life.

“I think that's a great way of putting it when you make wellness and living a long time the focus of your life you're making a mistake.”

The focus of our life should be something bigger than ourselves not just a sort of narcissistic obsession with I've got a little long time that will not be a very fulfilling life as a matter of fact we know that part of what makes life fulfilling is not focusing on living a long time but focusing on giving to the world. I talk about Ben Franklin one of the greatest people who's ever lived actually and was world class in so many ways world class scientists world class diplomat world class publisher world class journalist world class writer world class politician.

He was driven by three principles one was curiosity he was curious about the world it kept his mind young the second was moral growth recognizing he wasn't perfect.

“He made mistakes he had prejudices and trying to overcome those flaws and the third and I think the most important thing is he was constantly thinking about how to be useful and by useful he meant how do I make the world around me better.”

He was a consoment civic improver he created the University of Pennsylvania he created the first hospital in America Pennsylvania hospital he created a lending library he created an insurance company he created a volunteer fire brigade he created a learned society the American philosophical society he just made the civic items second.

His view is I'm giving these to the world I've made some improvements other people will take my inventions and improve them even further and the world will be a better place.

“And that's what motivated him that should be the goal of everyone how do we make the world a better place and that will make us much more fulfilled and what also live longer.”

There has been a lot of talk about this whole idea of social connection and as it relates to health but I'm not sure I really understand the connection of how it makes you healthier.

But I think your puzzle and effects a lot of people so we think you know social connection it makes me feel happier it's all in my head.

Well, it's not all psychological it's very much physiological just take one element when you interact with someone you actually. Activate the hypothalamus pituitary access that decreases your stress hormone cortisol secreted by your adrenals that is a direct physiological response lowers your heart rate lowers your stress levels lowers your blood pressure. In addition when you interact with someone you actually get a release of actually toast in the so called love hormone in the brain you get an increase in dopamine and serotonin which also makes you happier.

“All of these things are actually quite important physiological responses to social interaction and we know that human beings are social animals.”

You know that they like interacting there's this very wonderful experiment by a professor from the University of Chicago Nick Epley where he took commuters before they got on the train in the bus and said for the next week force yourself to talk to someone on the commute not just to sit there and read your book or play with your iPhone talk to someone and it turned out that after a week people were after every.

Commute but also after the week people were much happier they were much feeling much better whether they were extraverts or introverts by interacting with people.

So it actually plays on your physiological and your brain and that is why social interaction actually is critical to wellness and interestingly most books on wellness whether it's outlive or some of the others. Do not talk about social interaction as important and that's a big mistake. So talk about movement and exercise because I think again there's a lot of confusion of how much is enough and what do you do and all of that. The amount you should get here are two important rules. Video is exercise getting your heart rate up to 75% of your maximum so you're a little breathless you should be doing that about 75 minutes a week that's you know for me it's three to four 20 minute exercise sessions on the stationary bike when it's cold.

“During training you should do a few times a week you want to get your muscles a little fatigue don't go overboard one of the things I think.”

Influencers want you to do is exercise more and more you know Peter at the talk to about 10 hours a week that is excessive after about 150 minutes two and a half hours to three and a half hours a week a vigorous exercise you get no benefit in terms of wellness and longevity and you run the risk of repetitive motion injuries and spending time that could be spent more productively doing. Other things on exercise so there's a plateau of benefit both physically but also in terms in many other ways. Well with all of the complicated advice and contradictory advice that you so often hear it's good to just you know hear the basics and hear it from someone with your credentials.

That make you realize it's just not that complicated. I've been talking with Dr. Zika manual. He's a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He is an oncologist who's regularly in the media and he is author of a book called each or ice cream six simple rules for a long and healthy life. And there's a link to his book at Amazon in the show notes. Zika thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much.

Take the price fifty nine dollars and ninety nine cents. Now you know that's basically sixty dollars but your brain doesn't process it that way.

“Research and behavioral economics shows that we anchor heavily on the digit farthest to the left so that five of fifty nine ninety nine.”

Quietly tells your brain this is a fifty something purchase not a sixty dollar purchase that tiny shift lowers what researchers call the pain of paying.

But here's the twist not all prices work that way study show that precise prices like twenty nine dollars and eighty seven cents.

“That signals calculation and competence people make the assumption that the seller did the math on this that works especially well for practical purchases.”

But for emotional or luxury buys round numbers are better of forty dollar bottle of champagne feels right.

So pricing isn't about sense it's about cognition retailers aren't just adjusting numbers they're adjusting your perception and your brain is doing most of the work for them. And that is something you should know.

“This podcast is produced by Jeff Havison Jennifer Brennan and the executive producer is Ken Williams. I'm Mike her others thanks for listening today to something you should know.”

Hey, it's Hillary Frank from the longest shortest time and award winning podcast about parenthood and reproductive health. There is so much going on right now in the world of reproductive health and we're covering it all birth control pregnancy gender bodily autonomy menopause consent sperm so many stories about sperm. And of course the joys and absurdities of raising kids of all ages if you're new to the show check out an episode called the staircase. It's a personal story of mine about trying to get my kids school to teach sex ed spoiler I get it to happen but not at all in the way that I wanted.

We also talked to plenty of non-parents so you don't have to be a parent to listen. If you like surprising funny poignant stories about human relationships and you know periods the longest shortest time is for you. Find us in any podcast app or at longass shortest time dot com.