The Secret Life of Gases & Why We Get Hooked - SYSK Choice

0:00Today on something you should know, what the drinks you drink can do to your teeth and what you can do to prevent it. Then the fascinating world of gases. You don't think about gases very much but you wouldn't be here without them. We rely on gases for music. We rely on gases for hearing in general. That's the waves going through gases is what we call sound. We rely on gases to get around pneumatic tires without them, bites and cars won't exist. Also the shoes you should and should never wear when you drive. And are we all addicted to something? The way I describe addiction is when we use something outside of ourselves to change the way we feel. Social media, shopping, you know there's obviously the drink, the drugs but we really can be addicted to anything. Call this today on something you should know.

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2:04So maybe it's time to stop waiting for someday. Download the Vinted app for free and start listing with no seller fees. So you keep everything you earn. 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 my carothers. Yes, hi, welcome to something you should know. I want to start today by talking about your teeth. Did you know that some of the drinks that you drink can literally erode your teeth according to a study? Little erosion is what this is called and it can be subtle and hard to spot at first, but over time too much of the wrong beverages erode the enamel, leaving you with thinner teeth, more sensitive and more vulnerable teeth. Among the biggest dental offenders are soft drinks, fruit and sports drinks, some herbal

3:05teas, lime flavored beer and celtzer fruit drinks. All of these drinks are acidic and will eat away at your enamel. If you do drink any of these corrosive beverages, you're better off using a straw and be sure not to brush your teeth right after drinking them. That just compounds the problem. You should rinse your mouth with water or a mouthwash to get that stuff off your teeth. And that is something you should know. I'm sure you know you have a sense of what a gas is. You probably cook with natural gas. Oxygen is a gas. Carbon dioxide is a gas. Gases are everywhere. We wouldn't be here if it weren't for gases. But there are things about gases you likely never knew that are really interesting and affect you in ways you're about to discover. My guest is Mark Miodovnik. He is a professor of Materials and Society at University College London.

4:08He's the author of a book called Stuff Matters, which was a big bestseller. And his latest book is called It's a Gas, the Sublime and Illusive Elements that Expand our World. I'm Mark. Welcome to something you should know. Hi. Thanks for inviting me. So I understand obviously you find the topic of gases interesting. But why are we talking about it here? Why is it important for people to know and understand more about gases? Well, they are our life support system. I mean, that's an obvious, I suppose, so what? Which is that we're breathing oxygen now. And without it, you die very quickly. But it's more than that. The emergence of oxygen on this planet was not, it's an unusual current. I mean, if you see oxygen on planets out there in the universe, it's a very good sign that there's life. And oxygen itself is intertwined with living organisms. And it's a very reactive molecule. So if you look at the evolution of this planet and how life came to be, oxygen's a big

5:12part of that, but not just oxygen, of course, carbon dioxide. For carbon dioxide is the original molecule and still is a very important molecule for all life on the planet. And of course, you know, plants breathe it and many bacteria breathe it. And so, you know, we've got this dance with the stuff that we breathe. And we live at the bottom of 100 kilometers of atmosphere. So we're in a way, we're at the bottom of a sea of gas. You know, you can think of us as little scuttling creatures above us is the ocean of gas. And that weighs down on us, actually. It has a weight, 100K of gas, even though it's so light, you can't really feel it with your fingers. It has a weight. And that weight is called the atmospheric pressure. And that really affects the weather. So you've got life itself, you've got the weather. And then you just go into this whole world of gases that without which we would not have any other technology we have today. So we rely on gases for music, we rely on gases for hearing in general, of course, that's

6:15the waves going through gases is what we call sound. We rely on gases to get around pneumatic tires, you know, without them, you know, bikes and cars won't exist. We of course, the gas technology of gasoline. And of course, there's jet engines going to a hospital, you'll find loads of gases there, going to any scientific lab, we wouldn't be able to do our work without gases and we wouldn't be able to do our work without vacuums getting rid of gases. All the silicon chips in the world, pretty much all the kind of advanced technology relies on getting rid of gases during manufacture and having very, very pure vacuums. So yeah, they're interesting. But you mentioned gasoline. Now gasoline is a liquid in my world and yet it's called gas, a lean to explain that. Well, there you go because, you know, we pump it as of liquid and actually one of the great things about it is that it has a high vapor pressure. So, and what does that mean and vapor?

7:17Well, vapor is when you get the molecules of the liquid going into the gas form at a normal temperature, our temperature and they and they do it very readily. And so when you take the vapor of the gasoline from your fuel tank and you mix it with oxygen through the carburetor, that is the thing that gets put into the cylinder of the engine and it's the gas form, the vapor form that's doing all the work. It would, it doesn't work when it's liquid in that phase. In fact, you can throw a match into a liquid gasoline and it won't ignite. It's only the vapor that ignites. And in fact flames and and candles and all, they're all gas technologies. You know, if you see a flame or you see a fire, you're looking at a gas. You just said that if I throw a match into a liquid bowl of gasoline, it will not ignite. No, it'll go out. Yeah, you need, you need a mixture of oxygen and the vapor of gasoline. That mixture is what will ignite because what is ignition?

8:19What is an explosion? What is fire? It's not, it's not just the molecule in this case gasoline. So there's a hydrocarbon, a sort of small hydrocarbon. It's basically a molecule with lots of carbons and hydrogens, you know, kind of attached to it. It's that reacting with oxygen. So for a long time in the history of the world, people didn't understand what a flame was. They thought it was actually a type of matter. And in fact, go back to the ancients and they thought that, you know, they were, the elements were earth, you know, air, fire and water and fire being an element. We now know that fire is a combustion. It's the reaction of oxygen with a vapor or with a gas. And so that's what you have to get. And that's why the hydrogen balloons that became the zeppelines. The first airline ever existed was a hydrogen balloon going from Germany to France. And then across the Atlantic to America. That was the first airline. That's in the in the in the early 20th century, late 19th century.

9:21It's, it's an enormous blue full of hydrogen. You'd think it was the most dangerous thing in the world. But because there's only hydrogen there, it's not going to explode. It's only when it mixes with the air under certain proportions. And then you get a spark. That's when it becomes dangerous. But the liquid weight, but, but you hear about, for example, in a fire, gas tanks exploding. That's liquid gasoline blowing up. That's combusting. It's not a vapor. It's a liquid. Well, the liquid becomes a gas. The liquid itself isn't going to explode. It has to mix with oxygen. And then that has to encounter a high temperature, a spark. If it doesn't do that, it won't explode. And that's what an explosion is, by the way. An explosion is the formation of a lot of gas, like an enormous amount of gas in a very short space of time. So if you, in a millisecond, you go from having a liquid to having something a thousand times bigger than that, which is what gases tend to be. They tend to be a thousand times less dense than their liquid.

10:21So you go from something the size of a bottle to something the size of a room in terms of the volume of that material in a millisecond. That's an explosion. So explosions are the production of a large amount of gas. So living creatures like human beings, all living creatures create gases, right? Sometimes in embarrassing ways, but we create our own gas. Yeah, I know that's the beauty of this topic, isn't it? No, because it's so human, not really. You know, like you can't write a book about gas without having odors and smells. You know, these are all the gases that are also like I encounter in the book. And, and, you know, they're all part of our lives. And they're all either funny or, you know, crazy or weird. Or, but they are a big part of our emotional life. And I think that's the one of the things I really want to make the point. Gases as a subject is not just about technology and it's not just about science. It's about very, it's very much about the senses.

11:21First of all, most gases don't smell. Most gases are invisible. Most gases you can't taste smell, sea or touch. And that's an incredible thought because they're so important to us. For instance, methane, methane is invisible and odorous. It's not methane you're smelling. And in fact, if you're wondering why you can smell gas coming out of, you know, a gas leak. It's not because methane has a smell. It's because they intentionally put in a garlic smelling odor into the methane supply. In all of that, we can all detect the smells, the leaks of gases. And so, so the gas in my gas stove is a gas, is it, can you make that or is it all natural? Because it's called natural gas, but is it all natural or can you manufacture it? You can manufacture it. There's a huge amount of manufacture of methane. So methane is the smallest hydrogen carbon. So it's got one carbon and four hydrogen. And it's, it's very related to gasoline.

12:22It's much smaller than the molecules in gasoline. So it, because it's smaller, it just has a higher boiling point. And so it's at room temperature, normal temperature, it's a gas. And so you pump it through pipes and you can either make it, you can make it from, you know, oil and gasoline, but it is a naturally occurring. So that's why they call it natural gas in saying where the oil is naturally occurring. So they occur together generally and that's the gas form. It sits above the oil. You, in the old days, before that happened, because methane has a really interesting history, in terms of use, because it wasn't used for heating first. It was used for lighting and it was used as a form called, you know, coal gas. So they were getting wood and coal and heating it up. And that, and it breaks down the carbon and molecules break down and they have a hydrogen there. And they, and it gives off a gas and that is methane, but it also gives off hydrogen. And that was being pumped around the cities of London and Paris in the early 1800s

13:23as the first gas lighting, as the first lighting city lighting. Before that, you know, all these big cities and towns and villages were dark at night. And they were very dangerous places and especially London, you know, there's so much history where people were getting killed and raped and assaulted and robbed. And it all happened at night in small alleyways in the dark. And the citizens of London were absolutely desperate for lighting. So they can have it this wonderful city at night and not be, and not be mugged. And it was methane piped through the, through, through the streets onto lamp posts. That provided that light. And it was only much later that we started using it as a form of heating and as form of cooking. And now today there's talk of banning gas cooking. So I want to ask you about that. I'm speaking with Mark Mio Dovnik. He is author of the book, it's a gas. The sublime and elusive elements that expand our world. So Mark, help me understand this whole thing about banning gas stoves.

14:25I've heard a lot about that lately. And there are a lot of people who are upset about the idea of banning gas stoves because gas is the preferred cooking method for a lot of people. So why is there a push to ban gas stoves? So, so coming back to what the flame is, you see that blue flame. When it's mixing with oxygen. So it needs to mix with oxygen and you get that blue flame. But but every single methane molecule coming out of the tap is not combusting with an oxygen. So there's always a small proportion that are not doing it. And they're becoming other stuff. They're becoming things that carbon monoxide. So and that's a very poisonous gas. Or they become small such particles which which circulate and and you inhale. And there's all sorts of, you know, a different nitrogen molecules that happen at high temperatures. And so you start inhaling, if you're indoors and you're cooking by your gas stove, you're inhaling these. And you know, I think until recently we didn't think it was a very big risk

15:27until we had smart meters that could measure air quality. No one was really thinking about it. But you put an air monitor that you use to measure the street quality of the air. And you put it next to your stove and the red light will go off alarm. It's the worst quality air you can breathe. So that's why people have started. I think we've just sort of lowered or increased. Is that the right word? We've increased our desire for lower risk in our lives. Right? We don't want to be polluted by the technology we cook with or light our or drive around in. You know, all these all these technologies now under pressure because they have these side effects. Well, that's really interesting because I think I grew up believing because I think the industry told us that gas was a very clean burning fuel that you were, unlike other things, it all burned and so it all disappeared and you were good to go. Yeah, I think it's all relative, isn't it? So it's clean compared to what?

16:29So it's not clean compared to an electric hub, right? You're having, if you take the same meter, we do it in my kitchen because we got rid of our gas hub for this reason and now the meter is green in our kitchen when we cook because we've changed our way. You said, but if you compare that to a coal or wood, yeah, I mean, it's more far better. I mean, the amount of, I mean, wood fires are terrible in terms of pollution. And also the other thing, and this is a key gas point, is that the harmful things in it are all invisible. The nitrous oxides are invisible. The little carbon-sub particles are invisible. The carbon monoxide is invisible. I mean, that's a really deadly killer. Well, since you swapped out your gas stove because of this, do you know, because I think people will think, well, it's okay because I turn the fan on above the stove, so I'm good. Yeah, that's definitely a good idea. But where does that fan go? You know, I've looked at a lot of those fans and some of them are really literally just go through a filter paper and then they recirculate it in the room.

17:31And that filter paper is not going to absorb those molecules. It'll absorb the little droplets of oil from your pan, which is the other thing it's catching. Yeah, so unless the fan is basically taking that air and venting it to the outside, you're not doing yourself any favors. So what is a gas that we haven't talked about yet that you think is really interesting and we should talk about? The one we haven't mentioned that's the big one, which started the whole industrial revolution off is steam. And really the steam story is so fascinating. I couldn't do justice to how incredible it is because like you just have to write a whole book on it. But steam is this moment in history where we're trying, you know, there's loads of inventors out there who understand that if you can make a machine that can do the work of a horse, or you can make a machine that can, you know, you put energy in and it'll pump things or rotate things that you change everything. But no one could get one to work.

18:31And then 17th, 18th century little inventors in Britain and in France because it's where, you know, a lot of the work is being done. Suddenly crack it and you get this early, very clunky steam engine that are just pumping water out of minds. And the reason why pumping water out of mind is important because these are very deep holes, which where we're mining coal, we cut all the wood, we cut all the trees down. So we need wood for cooking and for heating. So we're starting to burn coal, you've got to get coal, you've got to make a mine, but if you live in Britain, they fill up with water because it rains a lot. So you have to pump the water out of mind. If they're doing it with horses, then they found actually you can make a steam engine do it. If you make this gas, you create this gas by just heating up water, it pushes a piston, well actually it doesn't, it sucks a piston because of atmospheric pressure. And this is the big discovery is that you turn it from a gas to a liquid by cooling it, that creates a vacuum, that sucks the piston down and then you push gas back in. That's the condensing steam engine.

19:32And then, oh my god, then they suddenly realize, whoa, we can just do much more than and pumping. We can start to go places. And the thirst for a car, a steam car happens in the 18th century, it takes a hundred years to make one and along the way they find out something else. Actually, the best way to use steam for transport is not a car, that's really difficult because it's a big engine, it's very heavy and the roads are bad and you can never get it to work and it's taken so long. But what worked was go on water because water can take the way, doesn't make any difference. And there's a big advantage to be able to go against the wind with steam. And so you get you get mass travel. Then suddenly people go across the Atlantic from London to New York, from Paris to and it opens up the populations idea of what it is to be human. You can travel the world and of course get mass migration into America notably. And this changes the whole trajectory of America, you know, like all these people coming from

20:32Europe. But then the railways are born. And so then you get onto solid ground and it turns out not you don't want a car, you actually want a railway because the iron rails can take the weight of these massive engines. And it's much, much later than the car comes along. And by the time the steam car is born, it can really do it. They got the technology down gasoline comes along on the internal combustion engine blows it out of the water. And steam disappears. But it's such a shame because it basically for a hundred years was preeminent. And if you think, well, God, I love steam and and it's true. I think if I, and there is something about a steam engine that is that really delights the engineer in me. And I think everyone is, it's got a very human quality to it, the steam engine. It's it huffs and puffs and you know, like us, you know, it mits things. It seems to have emotion. So, you know, yeah, I think steam is definitely one that we should never forget. I was surprised to learn that nitrogen is so important and it's a pretty interesting story. So tell that. So half the people on the planet alive today owe their lives to a gas that's in the air.

21:40And it's called nitrogen. So when you breathe it in every breath, but it's only the oxygen that you're taking the nitrogen you breathe out again. But we need nitrogen because look DNA like proteins, you know, it's all made of carbon hydrogen and nitrogen, right? So we need nitrogen, all life needs nitrogen. So where do we get it from? We don't get it from the air. We don't breed. We don't metabolize it by breathing it in. There are only a very few organisms that can actually do that. And there are these sort of bacteria that exist in the soil. And all our nitrogen comes from them metabolizing it, dying and being, you know, made into plants, plants being eaten by arse or by animals. And that's how we get our nitrogen. Now, basically once you've used up your nitrogen from the land like that, you start to starve. You know, this is a problem for all high density populations because they end up basically exhausting the the nitrogen in the land. And it was recognized in the 18th and 18th century as a real problem. And they started using bird poo from places like Peru and Chile, like digging it from these very dry places and

22:43shipping across the world. And when that ran out, they started mining the small areas of the world where there's a mineral nitrate minerals. But again, they ran out. And there was a guy, German, who basically worked out a way of taking nitrogen from the air using a chemical reaction, very, very dangerous one and making it into fertilizer. And his achievement, he's a very checkered figure. And in fact, he's also the father of chemical warfare. So, you know, well, well, one, you know, he's a, but now today, you know, that process of making fertilizer from the air is, you know, it's put on almost all the agricultural land. The end of the stuff it's not put on is organic farming. And without it, I mean, the latest calculations are that half the population of the world would not be able to believe, like, we would not have enough food without that, that one discovery. Okay. Well, now I understand why you study this and why you write about it and want to talk about it, because there's a lot to learn in what you said about natural gas stoves and why

23:49you switched yours out is certainly something for people to consider. Mark Mio Dovnik has been my guest. And he is a professor of materials and society at the University College in London. An author of the book, it's a gas, the sublime and elusive elements that expand our world. And there's a link to that book at Amazon and the show notes. Great to have you on, Mark. Thanks. Yeah. Thanks very much. Can you really be addicted to social media or shopping or playing online games or even can you be addicted to your work? And these are things that consume a lot of your time. They're often hard to stop doing. And you do them for not always the best of reasons. Sure, there are addictions to drugs and alcohol. Those are true addictions. But are these other things really addictions? Or they just a way to pass the time and are hard to stop? That's what Tolita Fosh is here to talk

24:52about. Tolita is a psychotherapist who works primarily with addiction and she is author of a book called, Hooked, Why We Are Addicted and How to Break Free. Hi, Tolita. Welcome to something you should know. Thank you so much for having me. So let's start with what an addiction is because I think of an addiction like drugs, alcohol, nicotine. These are things that your body really needs and it's hard to break free. Whereas, you know, the social media or shopping or spending too much time at work, they don't feel like addictions to me. They just feel like ways to avoid doing something else and maybe you're getting something out of it. But it's not a true addiction. So help on Tangle this. Well, I think that in today's society, there are so many things that we can get a hit out of, you know, any kind of high. The way I describe addiction is that when we use

25:54something outside of ourselves to change the way we feel. And so if we're looking at it from that perspective, it can really be, we can really use anything to change the way we feel. So social media shopping, you know, there's obviously the drink, the drugs, but there is, you know, even there is this doctor called Dr. Lemke who talks about the fact that she was addicted to romance novels. And she realized that she was addicted to them because in between her patients, she would pick up her romance novels as a way to distract herself because she was, you know, having uncomfortable feelings. So if we look at it in that lens, we really can be addicted to anything. Video games is another one. Because all these things that we have that are so accessible to us, they all change the way that we feel essentially. So I wonder where, though, is the line? Like my son plays video games. He loves to play video games, but he can stop and, you know, we'll go do some. I mean, it doesn't seem

26:58like an addiction, but maybe if I left him alone, he'd play all day, but he doesn't. So the way, I mean, because obviously, you know, it's important that we have things that we use to sort of take our mind off stuff, you know, if we've had a hard day, you know, playing a video game isn't a bad thing. It becomes a problem when it makes our lives unmanageable. So when we're unable to do the other things in our life that we like to do because we're stuck playing video games. And video games is a great example because, you know, obviously it's increasing in popularity. And it's one that is sort of acceptable. Oh, I'm just going to play my video games. But actually, if you're not careful, you slowly realize, okay, I'm going to choose to play my video game rather than going and seeing my friends. And then I choose it again and again. And before I know it, I've become very isolated or I don't manage to get my homework in on time because I'm playing

28:01my video games. It's those kind of unmanageabilities that with what we call behavioral addictions is much harder to see at the beginning because obviously with drinking drugs, when your life becomes unmanageable, you know, it's quite obvious, you know, because you're drunk or you're high. But with behavioral addictions like social media or gaming, as you say, they're, you know, the problems can start off a bit more subtle. And I guess also, if you think about, if it's causing problems and you're still doing it anyway, then obviously it's also become a problem. Yeah, I like that definition. If it's causing a problem and you're still doing it anyway, then you got a problem. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, yeah, if it's destructive and you know that it's wasting your time or causing you pain and causing other members of your family and friends pain, then I'd say definitely, you know, it's making your life unmanageable and that it's probably a problem. But it does seem that there is a difference between physical addictions like drug and alcohol,

29:07where if you do stop, there are physical symptoms you go into withdrawal and it's really horrible. Versus if you stop playing video games, pretty soon you kind of forget about them and you go off and play baseball or whatever you do. Yeah, that those are very different. Absolutely. I mean, obviously with the drugs and alcohol, there's a chemical addition, you know, in our brain chemistry that's being altered. And so when you stop that, you do go into a much more severe withdrawal. However, when we are engaging with any type of behavioral addiction, we are also releasing dopamine. Now, that dopamine is obviously going to be less from the behavioral addiction than what we are getting from if we're using drugs and alcohol. But pain and pleasure come from the same part of the brain. So every single time that we get a hit of dopamine or every single time that we get pleasure from something, at some point we will get we will experience pain,

30:12which is what we've called a withdrawal. Now, as you say, these levels will vary. But in order for the brain to get back to what's called homeostasis, which is the sort of level playing field, this kind of, yeah, the equilibrium, we will at some point experience pain. I mean, I think about using social media, for example, then I have clients who do this where, you know, you get stuck scrolling. And even though you don't want to be scrolling, you keep scrolling and it's really hard to pull yourself away from your phone or from the scrolling, even though it's way past your bedtime and you don't really want to be doing it anymore, you feel like you can't. And actually, to pull yourself away from it can feel like a bit, you know, you can experience sort of apathy or you can experience a bit of a low. And that is usually because you've released all this dopamine with the constant swipe or the constant scrolling. And then eventually, you know, you will have to

31:13feel that kind of, oh, God, that withdrawal in order for your brain to level out. Now, sort of, there's not a time frame as to how long it takes for your brain to kind of come back to homeostasis. But a lot of people say, I mean, obviously with alcohol and drugs, it's sustaining for good. But with behavioral addictions, it's about 30 days for your brain to come back to that homeostasis, for your brain to come back to that level playing field. So 30 days without gaming, 30 days without your phone. But in that time, it's a very interesting experiment if you think that you have, that you are addicted to something or that you use something a little bit too much to try and abstain from it for 30 days and see what happens. And is that the prescription? If you have a behavior that's causing you trouble, the best thing to do is just stop cold turkey. Yes. I mean, obviously, drugs and alcohols are very different and I have to sort of, obviously, disclaimer, if you are sort of thinking of abstaining from that and you need to seek

32:17medical advice if you've been using it for a long time. But I'd say, I mean, yes, let's say a broad prescription would be to stop for 30 days so that you're able to notice as well when, when you stop something, you're really able to notice why you might be doing it or what feelings that you might be experiencing that might be causing you to do it in the first place. Because if we sort of go back to this definition of addiction that we're using something to change away, we feel we need to know what's going on underneath. And 30 days is a good, is a very good time to start with. I mean, I would always say probably a bit longer, but brain chemically, I'd say that start with 30 days and see how you go. And actually, if I think about the example from this doctor that I was talking about who was addicted to romance novels, she started reading before, after she had given birth, she started reading these romance novels to help her kind of go to sleep. They sort of soothed her. And then she before she knew it, she was taking them into

33:22work and reading them every 10 minutes she had in between patients. And I think the question was, oh gosh, she eventually took time away from these books as she had, I think, 30 days or something. So she was able to figure out, okay, what else is going on underneath? Okay, I'm struggling with being a mom or, you know, struggling with all my hormones and feelings. But the only way she was going to figure that out was if she took time away from these books. And eventually, that's not to say that she, I'm sure she's reading books again. She could, it's not that she can never read them again. But it's a very good sign of perhaps what might be going on underneath and something to explore. So I often wonder, well, first what I wonder is, are people scrolling on their phone and playing video games because it makes them feel good or it prevents them from feeling bad about something else? And the second part of that question is, and if they stopped and thought about it, do you think most people would know the difference? That's a very good question. And I think it's

34:26probably a bit of both with lack of awareness, if that makes sense. So we start doing something because it makes us feel good. And then we continue doing that thing because it probably makes feel good, but it also distracts us from other things that are going on in our life. I mean, if I use myself as an example, because the reason I started working with addiction is because I'm an addict myself and I'm coming up to 10 years clean. And for me, it started off with food, changing my food, restricting my food. And it made me feel good initially to do that. But the reason I carried on restricting my food was because I then realized, oh, this gives me a sense of feeling and control. This is distracting me from other areas of my life that are perhaps difficult at the moment. And then at one point, it takes over and it becomes very difficult to then stop. But I think it's probably a mixture of the two. Something I think people wonder, I wonder

35:32about this sometimes because I will sometimes be in bed maybe starting to scroll through social media. And I know I should go to sleep, but I kind of can't stop. But it doesn't happen very often. But when it does happen, I think, God, what have a problem here? And then when I put it down, it's fine. It's like, well, why didn't I stop 20 minutes ago? You know, nothing great happened in the last 20 minutes. I should have stopped a long time ago. It's very occasional. But then you think, well, gee, that means this, what's going on here? Well, it's a good exercise when that happens, because I usually find this for myself. There are times where I can be on social media for, I can pick up TikTok, for example, or Instagram and have no intention of being on it. But be on it for a couple of hours and then think, oh, my God, that's not what I wanted to do. That hasn't been a very successful evening. I had plans. What I usually then ask myself, and I'll ask

36:35clients to ask themselves, is what went on that day? Was there something that's been going on that day, that week that you needed to numb from? It might not be anything in particular, but we are so automatic to pick up our phones anyway, that sometimes there might be no reason, but sometimes it might be like, okay, we needed to numb ourselves a little bit more today, because we're feeling a little bit stressed about work or sometimes if anything, it's, oh, I'm feeling a little bit more tired, ironically, because we're still on our phones. But it really helps, I mean, I'm not sure of you've experienced this, but it really numbs us out. When we're swiping and scrolling on our phone, we're really not thinking about anything else. It's just these constant bits of content that are giving that hit of dopamine, especially on TikTok now. There's sharp bursts of content are designed to get us experiencing more and more dopamine. So it's very

37:40difficult for us to take ourselves away from it, to pull ourselves away from it. But if you find that there's a time or one evening, it's harder than another evening, it's worth figuring out, okay, or worth asking yourself, is there, am I more tired today? Am I more stressed about something? Do I need to talk about anything? Do I need to express anything? Those kind of things can help us, because there is sometimes no reason as to why that happens. When it does happen, when it does seem like it's more than just an occasional thing, when it does seem like you're asking yourself, do I have a problem with this? Abstaining is, it isn't a matter of trying to cut back. It's kind of like, I kind of reminds me of like cigarette smokers trying to smoke fewer cigarettes. It's just, yeah, that doesn't really work that well. Unfortunately, with, as I said, with alcohol drugs and cigarettes, abstaining is really the only way forward, abstaining completely, because as soon as you've had a sip of alcohol

38:45or any kind of, or a toe of a cigarette, you've activated that addiction again, and it's very unsafe, you know. So that, well, if we're talking about chemicals, drugs and alcohol, nicotine, to abstain for good is obviously the only way into recovery. It's a little bit more, sort of, there's a bit more of a gray area with behavioural addictions, because, you know, we have to be on our laptops to email, we have to, you know, a lot of, we have smartphones are everywhere. So it's about sort of starting for, I'd say to start for 30 days, but also there are other things that you can do to help minimise the kind of exposure you're getting to the behaviour. So, for example, you know, if you are addicted to a smartphone, I had a client who was addicted to smartphones, and all the apps and everything, you know, being very activating and triggering all the time, to getting an old-school flip phone, you know, one that doesn't have all the

39:47thousands of apps on it, that can be a really good way. You know, with like food disorders as well, you know, we have to eat, it's not black and white. So it's about, okay, how can we come up with a programme, like a plan, like an abstinence plan, it's called, to put in place something that you stick to, that you don't, like, basically boundaries with yourself, that you stick to with the help, with the help of the therapist or the help of the rehab or whatever, that you don't break, so that you have an abstinence plan that makes you, that makes you feel safe and keeps you staying away from engaging in any addictive patterns, basically, or destructive behaviours. But if you don't feel that your life's that unmanageable, but you'd like to try, you know, abstaining for 30 days, definitely a good, a very good place to start. And just to notice, you know, notice what happens, how you feel, notice your, the cravings, because you'll get cravings. I mean, I certainly notice,

40:47when I put my phone down, but I'm like, okay, no more phone for the rest of the day, I will notice myself trying to look for my phone automatically, you know, it's like, where's it gone? Is there any sense, or do you know, or do you have a feeling since you talk to people who suffer with this, that if you have one, you probably have more than one of these kinds of addiction? I believe that if you suffer with some form of addiction, whatever it is, then it will most likely pop up in other areas of your life. I mean, that was certainly my experience. And with most of the, in fact, I think it's safe for me to say all of my clients that I work with, who suffer with addiction of whatever kind. Once they put one addiction down, another one will pop up. They can be less severe. So, for example, putting down alcohol, you know, your addiction to alcohol, and suddenly becoming addicted to exercise. Obviously, the addiction to exercise is much less

41:49harmful than the addiction to alcohol. Any idea why some people have no problem, and others do, why some people don't fall victim to, they can play video games and stop on a diamond, say, sure, yeah, that's not a problem. And other people cannot. It's a great question. For me, it always comes down to nature versus nurture. There is proof and research to show that it can be genetic. So, with alcohol, for example, there are different genes that can make you more susceptible to being an alcoholic. So, that's definitely part of it. And if, you know, people call it an addictive personality, if that runs in your family, then of course, you're much more likely to fall victim to that. The other part of it is the nurture element to it. And this is all really about childhood and growing up and how your needs were or were not met. Because, you know, between the ages of eight and twelve, most specifically,

42:51we're developing our sense of self, who we are, what we like, what we don't like, how we interact with our peers. And at that point, if our emotional and physical needs are not met, we make it mean something about ourselves. We think we're not good enough, we don't believe we're loveable, and we develop these negative belief systems about ourselves. And what I've seen so many times is that these things happen, you know, our emotional needs aren't met when we're younger or physical needs. And then as you grow older, you take these negative belief systems with you. And then, you know, we're then not going to behave in ways that are kind to ourselves or that are loving. We're going to we end up behaving in very self-destructive ways because of these negative belief systems that we carry. If I give a very simple example, if you're upset about something as a kid and you go to your parent or caregiver and say, you know, let's say someone was mean to you at school so and so said this to me at school and I'm really upset about it. And a parent or caregiver says, oh, well, don't be silly. You shouldn't feel like that. That is an emotional need

43:53not being met. The child needs to be validated in some level, on some level, and feels very confused by the fact they're being told not to feel a certain way. And we internalize that and we think, oh, my God, there must be something wrong with me. What's wrong with me? I'm unlovable, etc., etc. And these things do stay with us. These negative belief systems, unless they are challenged, later on down the line. Well, I still wonder if scrolling on Facebook or shopping is really an addiction or it's just something to distract yourself so you don't feel bad about something else or you know, and as you say, it is a sliding scale, but well, it's a lot to think about. Tolita Fosh has been my guest. She is a psychotherapist and the name of her book is Hooked, why we are addicted and how to break free. And there's a link to that book in the show notes. Thanks, Tolita. Thanks for coming on. Oh, great. Thank you so much. The type of shoes you wear when you're driving really can make a difference and there are several

44:59types of shoes you really probably want to stay away from. Probably the worst type of shoes to drive in are flip flops or really any kind of sandal because they have the potential to just come right off your foot and then the flip flop or the sandal can get stuck under the pedal and that can cause all kinds of problems. Thick-sold shoes aren't so good either. Thin-sold shoes keep your feet as close to the pedals as possible, making them better suited to helping your feet gauge the proper amount of force needed to work the pedals. When you drive with thick-sold shoes like wedges, platform shoes, or even heavy boots, it could cause you to miss a pedal or press two pedals at the same time or use the wrong amount of pressure. High heels are kind of a nightmare too and considering how cumbersome high heels are to walk in, it probably comes as no surprise that they're not very good to drive in either. When you're wearing high heels, you only make contact

46:00with the floor at a very tiny point, a very small surface area, which means the shoe could slip. Plus, high heels force you to position your feet in unfamiliar positions and the shape of the shoe can make it also difficult to apply the necessary pressure. Well, also you might be tempted to drive with no shoes, but when you're used to driving with shoes, driving without them can feel foreign, and that's not what you want when you're driving. Barefoot driving requires you to put more pressure on the pedals than you usually do when you're wearing shoes. So what should you wear? Well, ideally something like sneakers or flats or loafers, those are the best shoes to drive in, and that is something you should know. You know, every new listener we get is so important, and you can help us by sharing this podcast with someone you know by just using the little share button on the platform you're listening to this on right now. I'm Mike Herothers. Thanks for listening today to something you should know.