Tagged with kate hakala …

Dec 31 2012
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Real Kates, Trivia

ExpliKate: Feels like you’ve read this somewhere before…

By Kate Hakala

You head to a bar one night in an area that’s completely foreign to you, in a state you’ve never visited. As you walk in, you decide to get a martini and order from the barkeep. Then you turn around and notice, standing in the corner, a drag queen in a pink leotard holding a fiddle. Suddenly, you get a shiver done your spine, as this all seems overwhelmingly familiar. Too familiar. Unless this is one of those rare jet-setting drag queen troubadours, there’s no way this could have happened before. But you swear it has. You, my friend, have a major case of déjà vu.

What is déjà vu? Hint: It’s not just your favorite Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young album. Déjà vu is essentially an experience where there is an unexplainable sense of recognition, but with no real pretext or awareness for this genuine yet indescribable feeling. The term was first coined by French psychic Émile Boirac and literally means “already seen.”  Since it was first talked about in the 1800s, neurobiologists have worked hard to contend with this ephemeral topic; there seems to be over fifty theories floating around about the cause of déjà vu.  It’s not just a phenomenon for Frenchies. What makes déjà vu such a spooky, unsettling occurrence is that it can’t be verified or observed objectively, but it still remains a common and almost universally reported experience.

Don’t fret. There are some things about déjà vu that we do know for certain. About 70% of the population has reported experiencing it at least once, but in many cases multiple times in their life.

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Dec 17 2012
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Trivia

ExpliKate: I don’t know why I am crying

By Kate Hakala

Do you remember laying flat on your bed, eyes gushing like Old Faithful, unsightly snot dripping down way too close to your open mouth? This is you after your dog died. This is you after a break up. This is you after failing to assemble an Ikea chair.

This image comes frighteningly close to what I was doing this week. My best friend and roommate moved to another state and an onslaught of huge life changes came my way. While making like weeping roadkill, Kate Bush’s song, “Suspended in Gaffa” came through my head. “I don’t know why I’m crying,” Kate croons.

“Wait, I don’t know why I’m crying,” I thought to myself.

So, I did my homework.

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Nov 19 2012
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ExpliKate: Why can’t I sing well?

By Kate Hakala

My new roommate pointed out something peculiar about me recently that I never quite noticed — I sing in the shower every day. This would be cute, maybe even pleasant, if I did not have a singing voice that could drown small nations. And yet, still, I feel compelled to sing, it feels like a natural and joyful expression, and who can’t say the bathroom acoustics don’t help you out, after all? But I have to wonder: why is it that I am so vocally cursed if I have all the same throat anatomy as Adele? Why are some people great singers while others aren’t?

A look into how singing came to be reveals a lot about why some people’s singing is just as painful to listen to as Mitt Romney’s rendition of “America the Beautiful”. Language always had a precursor–singing. We have sung since our beginning, making calls that reflected the sounds we heard in nature. Speech first came to be through natural selection for better ways of representing our increasing intelligence coupled with the natural selection for the human ability to sing. Because we first sang, words came out of the neural respirational control and physical equipment previously only used to sing. Children’s ability to learn song facilitates their ability to acquire language. Children pick up melodic recognition of tone, pitch, and patterns. So by learning the music of words, children can speak.

Why do we sing, then? It establishes bonds with our group. Think about songbirds, wolves, gibbons, and whales–the songstresses of the wild. Their evolutionary ability to sing is a trait that gives them solidified relationships with their pack, family, etc., so they have a greater chance of survival. While the vocal signals of other animals, for example, apes, less closely resemble our songs.

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Nov 05 2012
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Real Kates, Trivia

ExpliKate: Why should I volunteer?

By Kate Hakala

This week has been devastating, sobering, and complicated. We are all reeling from the tragedy and destruction left behind on the East Coast from Hurricane Sandy. But it’s times like these when I am reminded of the indelible resilience of people, and of the simple and undeniable power of community. I want to take a brief departure from my usual look inward in ExpliKate and talk about how a look outward can actually do astounding things for our bodies and minds.

Let’s all use this time as an opportunity to volunteer — our time, attention, and energy. Why? Because others are in need. But, also: Because it can help you, too.

Volunteering has been correlated with positive social psychological factors, like imbuing one with a sense of purpose, and positive social psychological factors are associated with lower risks for health problems. This is even true for the elderly. An article published in the Japanese Journal of Public Health found that senior citizens who did volunteer work had greater mental health overall. The work demanded their physical energy and attention in a way that exercised functions they might not ordinarily employ. Volunteering was shown to halt the loss of purpose that many people develop as they get older and no longer feel needed as a parent or a wage earner. In fact, volunteering can reinstill a sense of identity.

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Oct 22 2012
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Real Kates, Trivia

ExpliKate: Can I boost my immune system?

By Kate Hakala

Right now, I’m in no state to be writing. I’m getting flashes of hot-cold, breaking out in a thick sweat, have a sore, raspy throat, and a nose that is set currently on “leak”. I may just have the common cold, but when we’re ill, even for a day or two, it feels like we are a half-shade of the person we once were. This sick person doesn’t want to entertain friends, it doesn’t want to walk to the grocery store, it doesn’t care about their romantic life, and it certainly doesn’t want to work. So, we beg, we buy, and we try all sorts of boxed, bottled, and jarred remedies in order to avoid these less-than-carnival-fun-time instances in life. “You need to boost your immune system with [insert x amount of y],” we’ve heard from just about everyone. While I’m convalescing, dare I be the one to ask, is there truly anything that can boost my seemingly weak immune system?

If we have a plethora of concoctions and pills and herbs that presumably boost the immune system, then why are we still getting sick every year (and, you know, not superhumans)? It’s not exactly easy target practice. The immune system is not one entity; it’s a system (as advertised).

First, let’s settle what the immune system is, since it’s really a blanket term.

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Oct 08 2012
2 Comments
Real Kates, Trivia

ExpliKate: Sometimes the clothes DO make the man

By Kate Hakala

If you’re like me, on Wednesday night you were barraged with social media doling out criticisms concerning the presidential debate, hitting on everything from domestic policy, facial expressions–and of course, sartorial choices. My favorite quip offered by one of my friends was that President Obama’s tie was too distracting because it was moiréd. News anchors even compared the size of the flag pins rested on the candidate’s lapels. This commentary, though entertaining, had literally nothing to do with the abilities of the two men, but rather, everything to do with our perception of their abilities. This talk got me thinking: How does our clothing choice change our behavior?

Think about how we’re drilled to “dress for success” for a job interview. Think about how we want to wear something sexy or showy for a date. Think about how much we use clothing to mine out the identity, social status, and opinions of those we don’t know well. Now think about how you feel a little more reckless when you dress up like Amy Winehouse for Halloween, or how you feel smarter trick-or-treating as Albert Einstein. As it turns out, clothing shapes not only other’s perceptions of us, but our perceptions of ourselves and our state of mind. You might not be the same person in a pencil skirt that you were in your Levi’s.

The scientific term for clothing shaping how we think is called enclothed cognition, a theory built out of the idea of embodied cognition, or that the physical body effects the nature of the human mind. The effects of clothing on cognition skills have only recently been highlighted in the lab.

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Sep 24 2012
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Real Kates, Trivia

ExpliKate: What’s with all the butterflies in my tummy?

By Kate Hakala

This week I had a job interview for a position that I so badly desired. Because I actually gave a crap, I had what many know to be anticipatory butterflies in the tummy. Only, these butterflies seemed to have taken some amphetamines and enrolled in jazzercise lessons, because there was some weapons-grade fluttering. This is an unpleasantry that we all have experienced–whether it’s before a job interview, on the first day of school, or when we’re reaching the door to our partner’s parent’s home for the first time. It’s a sickening feeling that can even lead to unlucky trips to the bathroom where these restless nerves work their way out of whatever end your body so chooses.

But it can also be a good feeling. Conventional wisdom has it that if you don’t feel winged insects in your GI tract when you meet your girlfriend or boyfriend, they’re probably not the love of your life. So whether it’s your heart swelling or just plain old trepidation, butterflies happen. Why? What good does it to have our body feel so poisonous before landmark life events?

The simple answer is that the butterflies in your stomach come from a reaction to your body’s fight-or-flight response. But that’s just the SparkNotes version.

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Sep 10 2012
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ExpliKate: Are you feeling bored?

By Kate Hakala

Fall has arrived. September is just the first stop on the long road to knitted sweaters, copious amounts of chai tea, common colds, and of course, boredom. For most of us, this season is synonymous with the beginning of school and the return back to the 9 to 5, beach-free, cubicle crack down. In order to assure we don’t go completely mind numb and sink into our own solipsistic cesspools, we go on Facebook every 20 minutes and enjoy the onslaught of Instagrammed pet photos while at our respective desks. But while we whine that “work was so boring” and thus not worth our time, in fact, it may be in these moments of watching water boil and pondering drying paint that our brain finds creativity and inspiration.

Boredom is the state of feeling we have nothing to do or lack stimulation. Though not a unified concept across cultures or individuals, boredom is very much felt when the mind no longer needs to be actively engaged in something. It hits when you’re waiting in line or when you feel a deeper rooted Rolling Stones-esque sense of dissatisfaction with life. I’ve heard the the old adage, “if you’re bored, you’re boring,” too many times. And I’m here to tell you that it just isn’t true! In fact, bored people might seek out the most meaningful tasks of all.

That’s because the newest studies show that activity in numerous brain regions increases when our mind wanders due to boredom. In fact, when we daydream, our brains are much more active than when they are focusing on routine tasks. In a recent study, subjects were put in an fMRI scanner and were asked to a push a button when they saw numbers on a screen — a very boring task, indeed. The study found that daydreaming allows us to unconsciously turn away from mundane tasks and instead focus on our inner lives. That means being bored puts to good use the brain’s default network, which is a system linked to routine and basic activities.

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Aug 27 2012
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Trivia

ExpliKate: Why am I so addicted to chocolate?

Why am I addicted to chocolate?

By Kate Hakala

I am certain that I am a woman. Here’s proof: these two mammary glands, my monthly menstruation and, oh yes, I am utterly addicted to chocolate.

The way I eat chocolate — the way I fiend for it — you’d think there was some Darwinian motivation behind it. Throughout my life, I have always kept a bar in the freezer or surreptitiously brought the chocolate chips back to my bed for a midnight to three a.m. snack. And I’m not alone; the US consumer eats about 12 pounds of chocolate a year.

So, why am I craving the brown stuff almost every day? I know people dub themselves “chocoholics,” but is there any proof that doing cocoa is actually physically addictive? And if we’re chowing down the 3,400-year-old treat like it is going out of style, is it really that bad for us? It seems like I had only heard conflicting reviews of my go-to taste bud charmer, so I wanted to sit the jury down myself and get a verdict once and for all.

Meet Theobroma cacao, chocolate from the tree, in its purest form. Theobroma is Greek for “food of the gods”, and they weren’t lying. What is in this devilish dessert that makes it so heavenly? Chocolate contains a small amount of caffeine but also theobromine, a stimulant closely related to caffeine, that effects us as a mild stimulant, a diuretic, and a muscle relaxant for the bronchi in the lungs. This magic alkaloid also dilates blood vessels and so can be found in medicines prescribed to treat high blood pressure. Add up the stimulation of caffeine, sugar, and theobromine and that explains the get up and go you feel when you eat a chocolate bar.

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Aug 13 2012
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Real Kates, Trivia

ExpliKate: You give me the chills

By Kate Hakala

This week I went to Cape Cod and opted for a grueling yet discounted returning bus ride home to Brooklyn. In the seat directly in back of me, there was a lanky man with bushy eyebrows and a cutting stare. During the four-hour freeway stretch, he did all of the following: took off his sneakers, sang along with his music player, did yoga in the aisle, and ate a raw pepper while standing up. As he was munching on his curious snack, I glanced up only to find him hovering over me and meeting my stare. I got this sudden terribly cold feeling and a shiver down my spine. The willies? The chills? Call it what you will, but this dude was a certified creep.

Safe at home and armored with my laptop, I was itching to know why I felt so icy back there. If a “creep” is a widely understood descriptor, what social cues set off the physiological responses we feel after a close-creep-encounter? And if it’s not below freezing, why the chills?

The chills, the bumps, and the hair-raising hysterics are an evolutionary relic from our harrier days. It was first a biological reaction to being cold. By raising your hair, you trap an insulating layer of heat closer to the skin. Somewhere along the way, a cold ancestor realized that their poofy body scared away a predator because it made them appear much larger. Raised hair also extends the skin’s tactile range, giving us just a little more awareness of new stimuli surrounding us. Henceforth, hair-raising became a survival response to both fear and attack. It follows that fear or uneasiness often translate to feelings of being cold. They trigger the same ‘fro-friendly defense mechanism.

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Jul 30 2012
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ExpliKate: Why we need to laugh

By Kate Hakala

What’s making you laugh right now? In my corner, it’s pretty consistently Louis C.K., misheard lyrics, and stories about wayward bodily functions.

But the truth is, scientifically, most of what you laugh at and why you laugh strangely has nothing to do with farts, Jon Stewart or banana peels — hilarious though they might be. It does, however, have a whole lot to do with your socialization.

A few weeks back, I wrote about why you cry, and we learned that crying is an evolutionary tactic to illicit sympathy and forge bonds — and surprise, surprise, scientists say laughing might be its own social survival mechanism. Much like crying, laughter is a global phenomenon in need of no translation. And while we can fake laugh or cry on command, the genuine tears and giggles only happen when we’re unconscious of the behavior.

All You Playas: It’s no coincidence that you feel sort of chimpish when snickering, because laughter is an evolutionary gift from the apes. All signs point to laughter being an instinctive rather than learned behavior. Robert Provine, leading giggle-expert at the University of Maryland, cites the origin of laughter as, “the sound of labored breathing from rough and tumble play,” first heard amongst chimpanzees. As we’ve developed, human play has transitioned largely from the physical to the cognitive, though our first hee-haws can still be heard through the labored breathing of games like tickling and tag. Laughing often signifies discovery, surprise, and social engagement. Because of the hilarity of novelty, babies laugh a reported 300 times a day compared to the average 20 times of a stick-in-the-mud grown adult. Once we grow up, giggling transitions from a reaction to playing with cereal into an interpretation of much more sophisticated cultural marvels like, you know, Tyra Banks.

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Jul 16 2012
5 Comments
Real Kates

ExpliKate: A hangover cure, please.

By Kate Hakala

On some unfortunate Sunday mornings, as we stare into the depths of our toilet bowls after a long hurl session and put a palm to our throbbing heads, most of us repeat the mantra, “I am NEVER drinking again!” Though temperance would be the global cure for our perpetual hangovers, drinking also seems to give us amnesia, because we forget about our promises, and we keep coming back for more.

So, the lush in me and the boozehound in you wants to know: What’s happening to our bodies after we drink? And, if we don’t want to become teetotalers, are there any cures for the ultra-humbling, apocalyptic phenomenon that is a hangover?

A hangover, or veisalgia for fancy folk, is that horrific nest of sensations experienced after a night of heavy drinking. It can often involve a collection of symptoms like headache, vomiting, dizziness, nausea, diarrhea, the spins, sensitivity to light and sound, tremors, fatigue, cottonmouth, and an overall sense of bodily dread. Golden ways to produce a killer hangover include drinking on an empty stomach, drinking after a night of poor sleep, being dehydrated before you drink, being sick to start with and increased physical activity, such as getting a little too groovy on the dance floor while drunk. In order to best surmise how to undo the damage in the morning, scientists are trying to uncover exactly what kind of harm we are doing during our few hours of revelry.

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