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How certain are you about the facts of your experiences? Better yet, does it truly matter to be certain? Would you rather be right, or would you rather connect? Today Tony takes a look at certainty through the lens of 50 popular myths that many of us have grown up believing. Tony references the article "50 Well-Known 'Facts' That Are Actually Just Common Myths" https://bestlifeonline.com/common-myths/ and he references Dr. Robert Burton's book: On Being Certain - Believing You Are Right Even When You're Not https://www.amazon.com/Being-Certain-Believing-Right-Youre/dp/031254152X/ And if you're interested in hearing Tony speak in Utah Saturday, October 16th from 1 to 5 PM head to https://leadingsaints.org/tonyinutah for more information. Seating is limited.

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Visit http://tonyoverbay.com/magnetic to learn more about Tony’s Magnetic Marriage program, or visit http://tonyoverbay.com to take Tony’s free parenting course, or to learn more about his best-selling book; or only recovery program “The Path Back.” And please subscribe to “Waking Up to Narcissism,” Tony’s brand new podcast, which is part of The Virtual Couch podcast network.

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[00:00:15] Come on in, take a seat.

[00:00:22] Hey, everybody, welcome to episode two hundred and

[00:00:25] Eighty nine of the virtual couch, and I'm your host, Tony Overbay. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist, certified, mindful coach, writer, speaker, husband, father for ultra marathon runner and creator of the Path Back, an online pornography recovery program that is helping people reclaim their lives from the harmful effects of turned to pornography as a coping mechanism and go to Pathbackrecovery.com if you want to find out more. That group continues to grow and grow and its strength based and hold the shame and become the person you always wanted to be. That kind of that kind of a vibe. And yes, magnetic marriage course coming up soon. Go to Tonyoverbay.com and send me an email if you want to know more. And waking up the narcissism podcast is awesome and all those wonderful things, but I'm going to do a fun podcast today because we need a little bit of laughter. We need a little bit of levity. And the honest truth is, I'm also preparing for a big speaking event in Utah, which if you heard the bonus episode last week, I'm going to be there for the Saturday, Saturday, October 16, and you can go to leading Saints dot org slash Tony in Utah, I believe, and you can get tickets in that sort of thing, and I'm excited.

[00:01:32] I'm going to cover everything, everything that I can cover in four hours and bring your questions, and we're going to have a great time. So that is this Saturday. So in anticipation for that. I did not have a lot of time to prep for a podcast episode, but consistency. I am putting out an episode every week. That was what I wanted to do four or five years ago. And so I have some that I've wanted. I've been sitting on for a little while that I just think will be fun. And one of the things I will say from time to time in podcast episodes, as I love busting pop psychology myths, talking about how long it takes to really build a habit or talking about what punching a punching bag really does for anger. And I've covered a lot of those type of things in various episodes in the past,

[00:02:16] You know, to go a little deeper. I have received a lot of feedback from an episode that I did a couple of weeks ago, titled Give Yourself a Little Grace Change takes time. And on that episode, I talked about a book called On Being Certain Believing You are right, even when you're not by Dr. Robert Burton. And in that book, he talks a lot about memory and how certain we may believe we are about certain situations in our life. And in my practice, this is it's pretty significant because I'll save the gaslighting or the manipulative nature that can occur in conversations for my waking up the Narcissism podcast, and please go check that one out again. I'm just blown away by the feedback and the response, the downloads, you name it, just five episodes in there are actually. I know there are a lot of people finding comfort or peace and knowing that they aren't crazy or alone in those types of relationships. But I digress. But debating the details of a conversation is not going to be productive. What I mean is where somebody was sitting on the couch in a conversation two weeks ago or two years ago. Quite frankly, it's pretty irrelevant. And if anything, arguing about the details is more of a way to try and assert power in a conversation or basically the I'm right, you're wrong when the actual meaning of the conversation is not addressed, and if two people get caught up in the tit for tat or the back and forth or the minutia of a conversation, then we're not going to ever get to the actual meaning.

[00:03:37] So here's a quick example kind of just pull one out at the top of my head. So let's just say that a couple is telling a story about an interaction that they had had with the husband's mother in law and husband says, You know, then my mother in law starts to tell her daughter that she knew the entire time that she would be happier if she was single, and then she just goes back to eating her food like nothing ever happened. So then the wife sitting across from me says, Oh no, no, no, we hadn't even started eating yet. And the husband said, No, yeah, we had. Because I remember she asked me if I'd use cayenne pepper in the rub on the chicken, and I thought, Here we go again. Nothing I ever do is enough. And then the wife says, No. I remember very clearly that when she said that she was standing in the kitchen because her glass was so full that that I was just staring at it, I was worrying that she was going to spill. And so then the couple starts arguing about whether or not that this conversation or this thing that her mother in law said happened in the kitchen or at the table.

[00:04:29] And then they go on and on and it turns into an argument and it turns into the, Oh well, you have to be right. You're always right anyway. Or, you know, here's these other times where you've admitted that your memory isn't as good. And so then the couple ends up feeling bad and they end up retreating into their bunkers and they just shut down. So you can see, I hope you can see how that's just not very productive. That wasn't the point. The point was that their mothers or the husband's mother in law's narcissistic tendency to take credit for anything good that happens while she blames my clients for everything negative that happens. So there's the point, but we just have this need in our core to be right, even in the small things. So where does that come from? And overly simplified answer is, is attachment. I mean, we still have these deep seated fears and. Down in our bones and our DNA that if we're wrong about things in our life that our partner is going to think, Oh man, I did not plan on marrying a dummy. So I'm out of here. And again, it's subconscious, but our need to be right is pretty deeply rooted.

[00:05:27] And I was not necessarily was going to go deep on this.

[00:05:30] I'll spend just a minute, but in my four pillars of a connected conversation, my second pillar is that you can't put out the message of, I don't believe you or you are wrong to whomever you're talking to, even if you don't believe them or you really do think that they're wrong. Why? Because the goal in that situation is to have the conversation. The goal is to be heard. If you disagree with the details. I mean, actually, maybe feel the difference in these two conversations. So in the one, the husband says. So she says that to about my about our daughter, and then she just picks up her fork and she goes right back to eating. And then her wife in that scenario says, Oh man, I thought she had said it when she was in the kitchen because I could have sworn that she was holding this drink her hand. She was about to spill it. But if you remember that she was at the kitchen, I'm sure that I could be mistaken and versus the version I shared earlier where it was. In essence, na she was in the kitchen, which leads to the debate of the minutia until somebody finally says, OK, fine, whatever, you're obviously right and I'm wrong because now the conversation has devolved into a You never hear me or you think that you're always right? Or I give in to what you say because I know that it's not open for debate.

[00:06:34] So in that first example, the couple both feel heard, even if they disagree on the details, and that conversation is going to have a greater likelihood of one of them saying, Oh no, no, no, you're right, you're right. She was standing in the kitchen. If you argue on the details, you're trying to prove the other person is wrong and that you are right, then that's where we get caught up in the psychological reactants. This instant negative reaction of being told what to do. And I talk often about this concept. I call reactants hooks as soon as somebody says in a conversation, Well, you, you never. You never compliment me. You know the person saying, you never compliment me. They they obviously feel like they are not complimented. And maybe their love language is words of affirmation. But so if they're saying you never compliment me instead of their spouse saying, Oh man, I'm so sorry if you feel like I never compliment you, they hear you never compliment me and they're thinking of, I complimented you about a week and a half ago when you wore the new dress. And so just that goal of just being right is not going to get us far in a conversation. And that's why I just continually go back to to be heard as to be healed and really trying to just understand or be heard. And that will not shut the conversation down. If if you acknowledge you may be wrong, even if you're pretty sure you're not, you stay in the conversation.

[00:07:50] You both feel heard and then you or your spouse are more likely to take accountability or ownership of something if they do remember it, that they had the facts of the situation incorrect. And it really is an amazing way to communicate because honestly, how certain are we? We might feel like we're right and that there are things that we know. But as you will see in this podcast today, which myths were you sure that you were right about or you were you sure that they were correct? And I'll be honest, out of the 50 or so in this article, and I think I probably cover thirty or thirty five of them, I would say that I was familiar with most, all of them, and there were definitely a lot that I still thought were correct. So back to the book on being certain Dr. Burton starts off the book with an incredible study which shows that even with the most intense what? I'm sure that we would all assume these memories that would be seared into our brains or these experiences. Even then, we can't trust certainty. I'm actually just going to read this from one of the reviews from Jonathan Keats of Forbes magazine on the book on being certain, he said the day after the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, a psychology professor named Ulric Nicer had his students write precisely where they'd been when they'd heard about this explosion.

[00:08:59] Two and a half years later, he asked them for the same information, and while fewer than one in 10 got the details right. Almost all were certain that their memories were accurate and many couldn't be dissuaded, even after seeing their original notes. So for neurologist Robert Burton, the Challenger study is emblematic of an essential quality of the human mind and this evocative it's evocative of the psychology underlying everything from nationalism to fundamentalism. Forbes reviewer Jonathan Kiat says that in his brilliant new book, Burton systematically shows that certainty is more of a mental state. It's a feeling like anger or pride that can help guide us, but that doesn't dependably reflect objective truth. And so if you look at the fact that these people that literally wrote down what had happened to them the day after or what they remember the day after the Space Shuttle Challenger had exploded and then two and a half years later, they didn't. Even they disagreed with their own recollection of what they wrote the day after. It's a it's a fascinating study, so we believe that we are certain. We believe that we have these details down and those are things that I think are more of an attachment wound. And so we will often argue for about the details when in reality, we're missing this just beautiful opportunity to connect with another human being.

[00:10:12] And so today I just wanted to just. Track down, I found an article on Best Life online. This was from a year a little over a year ago, and it was just by the best life editors, and they had put together 50 well-known quote facts that are actually just common myths. And so I just wanted to comment on some of these. There are so many of them, and they were just a lot of fun. Now I could have gone very deep and controversial. There were also when I was searching a little bit of pop psychology myths and facts and things that we believe that maybe aren't as true. Ok, and ironically, I have done one, maybe even two podcasts in the last couple of months on the concept of truth or certainty. Based off this book by Robert Burton called on being certain believing you are right, even when you're not where that books mean mind blowing. I think I joked that it comes with a free existential crisis where we realize that just like I love talking about an acceptance and commitment therapy, that we're literally just these reactions of these three billion neurons that are in our brain that are reacting to any given situation based on everything that you have brought to that very situation. So I recognize that a couple of weeks ago, I'm saying, Hey, what is true? And now I'm saying, let me debunk these 50 things that we think are true.

[00:11:25] And one of the funny conversations is my wife and I get into often is just the if I say, Hey, new study says this. She's she will say, well, how long until there's a study that goes against that study. And that is a very fair point. So I'm going to share some things here and who knows how long they will last if they will be debunked, but they're fun for now. So no one in the fifty well known facts that are actually just common myths article and I don't think we'll have time to get through all 50. But here's here's the direction we're going today. Bulls get angry when they see the color red, and I don't know how many of us have heard that I sure have, and I've had a client or two that have either wanted to run with the bulls and Pamplona or who have. And according to the American Science Guide, bulls like other cattle are red green colorblind. So it doesn't really matter about red, but that the red has become more traditional or ceremonious. But what actually triggers the Bulls anger is movement of the Cape. So I don't even know how to end these. So there's a thing. How about that? And I feel like this is one of those things where if somebody is telling you their experience of running with the bulls in Pamplona, and it might not even be Pamplona now that I'm saying it out loud in Spain, if you say, Hey, do you know they don't actually see red, you might not be invited back to the party if we're being honest, but I think it's a fun fact.

[00:12:41] Here's one, though, that I do think is interesting. Goldfish The myth is that goldfish only have a three second memory. They have a reputation of having bad memories. And it turns out that that idea that they can only remember things for three seconds is a myth. And not only has this been debunked by several studies, and there's what I think is funny is that I can click on this link and look at several studies where people have spent a tremendous amount of time and research in trying to back up or debunk this myth that goldfish have longer than a three second memory. But some research even indicates that goldfish could have a memory span of up to five months long. So that's the thing, and I don't know if that's what's going to say after each one of these. That's a thing. I don't know if it's going to be a new catchphrase. Hey, there's the thing. I don't think so. But the number three, this one is one that comes up in therapy, a fair amount, and this is part of acceptance and commitment therapy. There was a piece that debunked this long ago there, but the myth is that we only use 10 percent of our brains and I've even had people in my office that have said the other 90 percent is what we're going to tap into in the great beyond or that type of thing.

[00:13:46] And there are people that can make a really good logical argument about that. But many people believe that humans only use 10 percent of their brains, and it's even the plotline for this 20 14 film Lucy starring Scarlett Johansson. However, that one's also been debunked on several occasions. There's nothing but a myth. Neurologist Barry Gordon told the Scientific American. He said that humans use virtually every part of the brain, and most of the brain is active almost all the time. And he says for more of these misconceptions, we can blame these movies, Hollywood, that sort of thing. And then there's a link to a whole article there. 17 health myths perpetuated by Hollywood that might need to be something that we tackle down the road. But I know in one of the acceptance and commitment therapy studies that I quoted in a previous episode, there was a lot of pretty neat information about when parts of a brain receive a traumatic brain injury and that you can shut down a part of the brain or a brain. Can part of the brain can be damaged? And then there's a tremendous amount of additional electrical activity in other parts of the brain, but that you can really take any part of the brain.

[00:14:47] And if you prod it with a nice little, poke it with a scientific poking device. There's got to be a name for those I'm sure electrode, something like that. But when you do that, that then it does react there. Isn't this 90 percent of the gray area, gray matter area of the brain that just is there doing nothing. So that one is a myth that we only use 10 percent of our brains. Now I have I've said on repeated occasions, and I'll probably talk about this when I'm speaking Saturday that there's there's some decent information data, although I probably need to. We'll look that up, too. Maybe I'll do that after Saturday, that talks about how we do want to conserve the electrical activity of the brain. I know that there's a professor, neurologist Reuben Gur, who talks about the brain at a resting state where you can view the electrical activity. So it's not that there are dead areas of the brain, but the brain had arresting state is conserving that electrical activity. A matter of fact, I talk. I do mention this when I speak to men and women together that this Ruben Gur talks about how a man's brain and a resting state. It can be observed as almost 90 percent dormant, where it's just relaxing. So if you look over at the guy and say, Hey, what are you thinking? And he just says nothing that that that's a scientific fact.

[00:15:54] But then he also says that if you look at a woman's brain and resting state, I know this sounds very gender stereotyped. But if you do in that scenario that they're still over 70 percent of electrical activity, that's moving. So when I go do a couple seminars, a lot of times I'll start with this. So then I'll say that if you do say to the guy, what are you thinking? And he's just sitting there watching TV or on his phone or whatever, and if he says nothing, that he's being very honest. And then if he has been trained well, I think is the second part of the joke. If I've seen him in a couples scenario and then he says, Oh, what are you thinking? And then if his spouse then says, Oh, I'm worried about the kids and homework and insurance and bills and Thanksgiving and trips and weather, and that's kind of more like it. Yeah. So we only use 10 percent of our brains is is a myth, and I'm not going to say so. That's the thing. So let's move on. Number four, this one's just interesting. Having finally seen Hamilton for the first time, I saw it a few weeks ago. I really did enjoy it a lot. I really enjoyed it, but I didn't realize that we were going to see people like George Washington playing a role there and actually having a very fascinating or stunning voice, which I don't remember reading about in the history books.

[00:17:01] And now I think I'm just kind of being silly making fun of that. But George Washington myth number four, George Washington had wooden teeth. And according to the article, it turns out the nation's first president was not rocking a pair of wooden chompers. That is what they said in the article. The historians at the Washington Library say that while George Washington did suffer from dental problems as dentures were composed of ivory, gold lead and other human teeth, but never would. And they believe that this common myth, because it was perpetuated in with other people, as well as the result of the ivory becoming stained over time, giving the fake teeth this appearance of wood. So I thought that was that was pretty fascinating. There's the next Smith has it talks about women that were accused of witchcraft and being burned at the stake during the Salem witch trials, and I thought this one was interesting, according to history. Most accused witches during the Salem witch trials of the late 17th century were hanged, while others died in jail awaiting for their trials. The myth that they were burned at the stake is most likely due to the fact that during the medieval witch trials in Europe, it was a common practice to execute the accused by savagely setting them on fire and to get rid of the more historical misconceptions.

[00:18:05] They have a link to another article that says Twenty three basic American history questions that most Americans get wrong. So it was more that in the medieval witch trials that there was more burning at the stake. And according to the source that most during the Salem witch trials were hanged or others died in jail waiting for their trials. But I did follow the link to the twenty three basic American history questions that most Americans get wrong, and my wife and I were on this long bike ride on Saturday just having an amazing time being present, just enjoying each other's company. And we were talking about the fact that I have a client that not too long ago took the test to become an American citizen and that when he was even share with me a few of those questions from the test that I felt was so silly that I was not, I wasn't able to get them right. And and then that even led to some research or found some data that talked about the percentage of current American citizens who would most likely not be able to pass the American citizenship test. And I remember at that moment, and I'm literally just remembering this right now, I vowed to get the test study and make sure that I knew the answers to those things and had not thought of that until right now. But we were talking about just looking at some other things online and someone who had talked about wanting to be a I think it was a para educator that there was some job listings or openings for that in the area because the schools are looking for people, jobs, that sort of thing.

[00:19:28] And just taking a look at what the parent educator test was and how. Here I am sitting here at the age of almost pushing 52, loving everything about my job have an advanced degree, that sort of thing. And I don't think I could do high school math to literally save my life. So if I had to take one of these peer educator exams so that I could be an aide in the classroom, in middle school, I think I would fail. So just just interesting. This is one that I boy, this one's in my head a lot lately. It's the sixth myth that they talk about. They need to drink at least eight glasses of water every day. So it says if you're struggling to get your eighth glass of water every day, don't feel bad. The quota isn't really a hard and fast rule for healthy living. According to the Mayo Clinic, the amount of water you need daily depends on a lot of different factors, like your overall health, your activity level. Where you live, and no single number applies to humans across the board. Some might be perfectly hydrated with fewer than eight glasses and others might actually need more.

[00:20:21] And I know that this is one that I tend to err on the side of over hydration to the fact of where between every single client session in the day, it is a quick trip to the bathroom. Too much information. But the myth there, the reason I am so curious about this and I better knock knock on wood right there was long ago, early 20s. This was before I think I had even run my first first marathon. That and I say that there's a lot of new listeners and and so that sounds so before I ran my first marathon. But then I went on to run 40 50 more marathons, another hundred hundred and fifty ultra marathons. So I just say that meaning that I remember this so well, but I remember being at a computer trade show talking with this guy. I remember he was in his 40s at the time. He was from Texas. I don't remember his exact name, but he talked about getting kidney stones, and he talked about being a runner and not hydrating enough and then getting kidney stones and I didn't go pull up. This was when the internet was pretty new and shiny. I probably still had my Encyclopedia Britannica on the shelf at home, but I didn't. I go, Look this up. I just took this as fact, and from that day forward, I feel like I have hydrated, hydrated, hydrated in hopes of never getting a kidney stone.

[00:21:27] And I feel like I need to erase this from the podcast right now so that I don't jinx myself because there have been a couple of people really close to me right now that have had some, some ginormous kidney stones. It depends. So the answer to that you need to drink eight glasses of water a day. It really does depend. This is one that I grew up just terrified by. I am not a strong swimmer, and there is a very true story that I paid for eight swimming lessons at the city pool in my area and had someone there that was just convinced they could teach anyone to swim. And after three lessons, they just said, Yeah, maybe not. Maybe some people just don't swim. And my wife is this she swam from Alcatraz to the shore seven or eight times, and these amazing contests, and she and I have done these decathlon where I will run the streets of San Francisco. And then she swims from the shore from Alcatraz. And and she is such a good swimmer. My kids are all good swimmers and I cannot swim well at all. And in that story, I have to tell you more about that. This was one of these summers where I was training for a particular ultra marathon 100 miler. I had several under my belt at that point and I was I wanted to do a triathlon.

[00:22:33] I wanted to do an Ironman. My wife had done a full Ironman and I thought, I want to do one of those. So I pay for these lessons and then I go to this pool. And they had scheduled me for the 30 minutes before all the kids swim lessons begin. And so by the time everybody's showing up and they're getting their towels off and they're just starting to put sunscreen on and getting ready to swim there, I am just kicking and screaming with a little floaty or one of those kick boards and not making it across the whole pool in. At this time, I think I was writing a humor column in the newspaper and my local newspaper, and they had featured a couple of the 100 mile races I've done, and I just remember feeling I could hear people say, Hey, isn't that the guy that does the 100 mile things or runs around the track for twenty four hours? And I can't, I just can't swim at all. And so I never had my refund for those five extra swim sessions. I think that was kind of the cost of my pride was the way I always looked at it. So the myth, though, is that you'll get cramps if you go swimming right after you eat. And though it is a commonly held belief that your muscles will cramp should you swim right after eating, it just simply isn't true.

[00:23:32] No matter how many times your parents told you it was. But the body does require a little bit of extra blood in order to digest, but not nearly enough to prevent the muscles in your arms and legs from working as they should. I thought that one was interesting. The eighth one is about Christopher Columbus. Everybody thinking that the world was flat in his day, allegedly around 500 B.C., the ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras was the first person to propose the theory that the Earth was flat, but not long after that in the middle of the third century and we're talking B.C., Aristotle then declared with a certainty that the Earth was in fact spherical, and though it might have taken a bit for everybody to come around to the reality that our planet is round, although you could insert flat earth theory there, Christopher Columbus wasn't one of the naysayers, so when he sailed the ocean blue in fourteen ninety two, he knew that the Earth was a sphere. According to historian Jeffrey Bertrand Russell, with extraordinarily few exceptions, no educated person in the history of that western civilized world from the third century onward believe that the Earth was flat so that that one was fascinating. The ninth myth is that dogs only see in black and white, and this one I don't. Isn't this funny? I feel like I could do a whole episode on the fact that I don't know if I believe the I don't know if I believe what they say here, even though I have nothing to back it up.

[00:24:46] So do dogs only see in black and white? No, your pup isn't seeing the world in black and white, veterinarians Barbara Royle explained to The Huffington Post that dogs don't see all the colors that we see, but they can actually distinguish between colors. And there's a whole pretty fascinating article of air that is worth looking up. And I'll have the link to this article in my in my notes. And I really think that while I just want to have fun and share some of these things and I want you to go and connect with. Your spouse and communicate about these fun facts, or did you know this or that sort of thing? It is interesting because I think you could do a pretty deep psychological dove on my experience with number nine that even as I'm reading that and I went and I followed the article to The Huffington Post that talked about the research behind that. It's funny that in my mind, I still think, Yeah, I don't know if I buy that one. So we could do a whole episode on that. Adding salt to water makes it boil faster. It's one that I actually never heard, so that one apparently is false that the difference between boiling water with salt and boiling water without salt is negligible. Middlebury College chemistry professor Lesley-Ann Giddings explained to Live Science that the temperature of salt water will get hotter, faster than that of pure water.

[00:25:52] But it still has a higher boiling point and the mass is still greater when you add the salt to the same volume of water. So this does not mean that salt water will boil faster. All right, this next one is a shout out to my son in law, Mitch, because when he I love everything about this guy. But if you give him a gum to chew, all of a sudden he's not chewing it anymore. Didn't throw it out the window. Didn't wrap it in a paper towel. It just eats it. And it takes seven years for your body to digest gum. Now, if you think about that, that's the myth. If you think about that, it doesn't make a lot of sense because of the stomach acids that you have and that sort of thing. So this says you no longer have to fret over that piece of gum you accidentally swallowed a couple of years ago. While it's often been said that your body takes several years, seven's the number that you've likely heard the most to digest gum. That's just a common myth, according to the Mayo Clinic. Your body actually can't digest gum at all, even in seven years, but gum doesn't even stay in your stomach. It moves quickly through your digestive system and exits through your stool.

[00:26:46] So there you go. I always wanted to skip number 12 that you swallow eight spiders a year while sleeping because I sleep with my mouth agape. So if eight is the average, I'm worried that what my my number of spiders consumed a year would be. But this article says you don't need to be in arachnophobia to be creeped out by the idea that you unknowingly swallow eight spiders in your sleep a year on average. But fear no more because there is no truth to that notion, according to Scientific American. Those eight legged webs spinners don't intentionally try to come into contact with humans. The vibrations from a sleeping person would probably frighten the spider. So while it is plausible that you could swallow a spider in your sleep, it's not likely. Nor is there any factual evidence that you gulp down a year. I'm going to skip through a few here because I think that this we're going to probably just wrap this up pretty soon. A penny dropped from the top of the Empire State Building could kill someone in the article says, We've all heard this one before. I have to admit, when I used to teach this about very early morning volunteer Sunday school class, I brought this up at one point and I felt like this was one of those where same concept is when I would say, let me get up on my soapbox. And finally, after two or three years of saying that, I would ask people, You know what I mean by that? And their most had no idea.

[00:27:56] So I don't know if this one is just there's an age-ist angle here. But most of the people that I talked to when I was teaching this early morning class did not had never heard this one. So that's a big, long way for me to say the first line that says we've all heard this one before, but it's just another myth to add to your list of fake facts. According to Scientific American, a penny is too small and flat for it to gain enough natural momentum to make any kind of fatal impact. At most, if you were hit, it might feel like being flicked in the forehead, but not even very hard. Lewis Bloomfield, a physicist at the University of Virginia, explained that in an article called Life's Little Mysteries, which was also in the Huffington Post number 17, Albert Einstein failed a math class. I have hung on to this one a little bit. It's it's only for the irony of it all, but it's fun to imagine that Albert Einstein was not a good student so much that he failed his grade school math class. But apparently that's not true either. According to an article in Time magazine, this rumor spread so wildly that it was the topic of a nineteen thirty five Ripley's Believe It or Not column.

[00:28:53] Einstein himself disputed the article, claiming that he was at the top of his class in primary school. He said Before I was 15, I had mastered differential and integral calculus, he added. So no truth there that even Albert Einstein failed a math class. So one of the things I I just absolutely love about my job is the fact that I get to talk with people that do all kinds of jobs, whether it's running businesses, stay at home moms, professors, doctors, lawyers, firemen, you name it. And I've also had several clients that are chiropractors. And I have to tell you, the irony is I literally just popped my thumb knuckles when I was when I was about to read this next part. And so this one says cracking your knuckles too much will cause a cause arthritis. So I will ask any, especially my chiropractor clients, if this is a true or false statement. Now, according to this article from Best Life, knuckle crackers of the world can rest easy, at least on the arthritis front. Because, according to Harvard Medical School, cracking your knuckles does not increase your risk of developing the painful joint condition of arthritis. That cracking noise actually comes from collapsing gas bubbles. However, cracking them too often may weaken the strength of your grip. Not to mention aggravate the nerves of the people around you. Which boy, what a story. That probably will go nowhere. But when I used to facilitate a 12 step group for.

[00:30:12] Pornography, addiction, pornography, pornography, passage, well, pornography, addiction support group that there was one night where I just became hyper fixated on how many people were cracking and popping things in the group, and I felt like at any given moment someone was popping or cracking something, and then I finally brought it up, brought some awareness to it. And everybody just let out this little bit of a sigh of laughter because I felt like it was this subconscious cracking competition and I couldn't. All you do is crack my thumbs and I gave it a good shot, but nobody could hear what I was doing. But again, so cracking your knuckles is not something that will lead to arthritis. According to this article, if you are a medical professional and know otherwise, feel free to shoot me a note, and it might be fun to do a follow up Someday. it's going to a little bit of a speed round number. Twenty five Georgia produces the most peaches of any state in the U.S.. Apparently, that is incorrect. That would be California, boy This one is one that we could talk about. Probably I need to do an episode on something like this and go back and do some more in the world of ADHD. But twenty six sugar causes hyperactivity in children. Many parents blame their children's rowdy behavior on an overabundance of sugar, but there's no actual evidence, and I have read this one on numerous occasions.

[00:31:21] A definitive 1995 meta analysis published in the Journal of the American Journal of the American Medical Association found that sugar in children's diets does not affect their behavior. It might, and I remember one of the follow up articles many, many years after that. It talked about that if people were consuming a lot of sugar than were they eating a fairly unhealthy diet to begin with, I know I am and I eat a lot of sugar. And so as I try to switch to more healthier options, there tends to be less sugar in there. And so that one is interesting. Twenty seven, again, we're doing speed round. Bats are blind, blind as a bat. Contrary to popular belief, Rob Miles, former executive director for the Organization for Bat Conservation, told National Geographic. Bats can see three times better than humans and OK, I was going to speed round. We were in Utah a few weeks ago visiting my relatives, my kids and some friends, and we're in this liquid nitrogen ice cream store and I should post this picture somewhere. But a bat just buzzes right by my head. I thought it was a cute little bird that they had because there was a lot of open air inside of this building. But then it does. Another dove bomb lands on the ground and a woman puts a cake dish top over the top of it and then is able to slide some cardboard under it and then releases the bat outside.

[00:32:32] But boy, it sure didn't seem like it could see twenty eight speed round again. Lightning never strikes twice. Nasa debunked the myth in 2003, reporting that lightning definitely strikes more than one place. In fact, it does so almost a third of the time. Twenty nine humans have only five senses this one's interested. Many of us were taught. Humans have five senses touch, taste, smell, sight and hearing. But those are the basic five senses. While the concept of five senses originated with Aristotle. Many scientists argue that humans actually have between 14 and 20 senses, so I think that will be a fun one. I should take that one on at some point. A speed round number 30 shaving hair makes it grow back thicker. I hear this one often from when I used to do a lot of work with teenagers. Shaving hair does not make it change in color rate of growth or thickness, says the Mayo Clinic. All that it does is give the hair a blunt tip, which might feel more coarse as it grows out, which I think made so much sense. There's one about chameleons. There's also something about bananas growing on trees, dogs sweating through their tongues, or a safety food that's been on the floor for five seconds or less. I watched a Mythbusters that that said that that was not the case, and this also agrees don't adhere to the five second rule or take your chances with food that's fallen on the floor.

[00:33:37] Researchers at Clemson University left baloney and bread on a surface contaminated with salmonella in twenty seventeen, and they found that a substantial amount of the bacteria transferred to the food and well under five seconds the odd win at number thirty six that all desserts are hot. There are some desserts that also experience brutal cold one found in Iran and then another found in northern. There's a myth about the sun being yellow. A misconception that the sun is yellow or orange or even red. But in reality, the sun is essentially all colors mixed together, which appears to our eyes as white if you are actually looking up there. But the reason we see the sun is yellow or orange is because those colored wavelengths, which are longer are the only ones that make it to our eyes. The other short wavelength color is green. Blue and violet becomes scattered by the atmosphere, which is what makes the sky look blue during the day. Just a couple more this one I actually had someone experienced this in their family not long ago. You should urinate on someone if they get stung by a jellyfish, and I think there's a lot of jokes that could be had here. And for the sake of time, we're not going to do them. But here's one fact you're probably relieved to hear is fiction.

[00:34:37] According to the Cleveland Clinic, the proper way to treat a jellyfish sting is with hot water. Not only is urine not an effective treatment method, but it can even worsen the sting, but it can also cause for a lot of giggles. I'm sure brown eggs are more nutritious than white eggs. Brown eggs are no healthier than the white eggs. The color of an egg shell is simply determined by the type of chicken laying them. And here's a fun fact chickens with white earlobes typically way way lay white eggs. Going outside with wet hair makes you sick. I feel like there's a bald joke here somewhere, but it might make you chilly. Might cause your hair to literally freeze, but you won't get sick. Colds are caused by a virus. They don't care whether your hair is wet or peanuts. A type of nut. Despite the misleading name, peanuts are actually a type of legume, though they're commonly served with nuts like walnuts and almonds are more more closely related to clovers and chickpeas. Fun fact the busting the myth of Twinkies having no expiration date. I have grown up hearing this one. But Twinkies are not going to fend off hunger during a zombie apocalypse, as Teresa Cogswell, former vice president for research and development at Interstate Bakeries Corporation and a self-proclaimed Twinkie fanatic, told The Washington Post that the sweet snack only has a shelf life of twenty five days.

[00:35:43] While still a long time. As far as pastries are concerned, it's unlikely that your Twinkie stash will make it through a nuclear winter. We're going to jump into other sugar causes headaches. It's not that the sugar itself is causing a headache, it's the rapid drop in your blood sugar levels that wreaks havoc on your head. For some people, eating a carb heavy meal can cause excess production of the sugar regulating hormone insulin, which in turn makes glucose levels drop and results in throbbing headaches. You may experience that after consuming one too many Twinkies, and we'll skip forty eight. Forty nine. The odds are always 50 50 in a coin toss. This one's kind of funny. A group of Stanford University researchers proved this common misconception wrong in 2007, when they flipped a lot of quarters and found that a coin was more likely to land on the face that it started on. The researchers, the researchers, put your actual odds at closer to fifty one point forty nine, so pay attention to which side of the coin faces the sky. When you make your call again, the coin is more likely to land on the face that it started on, and the 50th one is really interesting. The myth of every living thing dies. While yes, most living things do eventually die. There's one species of jellyfish that doesn't technically perish, known as the Treetops Dorney. This essentially immortal sea creature reverts back into a juvenile state after adulthood so it can live out yet another life alongside of its offspring.

[00:37:00] Whoa. I feel like that one's deep, and it's probably the reason why I am trying to eat less sugar and become more hydrated and do all the things that we just debunking these myths so that I can live a lot longer and be able to hang out with my offspring. So we'll leave you right there. I appreciate you taking the time to listen to this one. This might not have been as psychologically deep, but I hope that if anything, it just brings up the fact that a lot of the things that we hear that we do see as facts are often not the case. So I feel like that does lead to a little more curiosity. So maybe that could be the goal in the coming week. So if you are in Utah, you're not busy this Saturday, October 16th. I'd love for you to stop by and say, Hi, come, come see me speak. It's a Provo Canyon at a really cool place called Wahlberg, and but you do have to go. There's some tickets. I don't think if there's a cost, it's really, really cheap. It's for this nonprofit, but you can go to Leading St. Sawgrass Tony in Utah or Tony is coming to go to Leading Saint Story. I'm hoping they'll have a page there that would point you to it, but I hope to see you there. I hope you have an amazing week.

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