Something You Should Know
Proven Techniques for A Great Day Everyday & The Mysteries of Dog Behavior
Thu, 10 Apr 2025
It sounds weird but there is strong evidence that wearing certain clothes can change your thoughts and behavior. Here’s one example: wearing a white lab coat like a doctor wears can boost your score on a test. But it gets even more interesting. Listen as I explain. https://www.fibre2fashion.com/industry-article/9410/enclothed-cognition-we-are-what-we-wear What if you could have a great day every day? That’s the goal of Therese Huston, PhD, a cognitive scientist at Seattle University. Therese has some proven techniques to help you take charge of your day – particularly on those days when things don’t seem to be going your way. She joins me to explain exactly how to implement them. Therese is author of the book Sharp: 14 Simple Ways to Improve Your Life with Brain Science (https://amzn.to/4jgEOSe). Dog behavior can be difficult to decipher. Why do some dogs bark incessantly? Why do others jump on people when they come to your home? How can you get your dog to do what you want them to do? And how can you figure out what your dog wants from you? Here to help decode all this is Annie Grossman. She is a journalist-turned-animal trainer who has written about dogs for the New York Times and the Boston Globe, and other publications. She run School For The Dogs, an acclaimed training facility and retail store in NYC and she is host of the podcast, https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-to-train-your-dog-with-love-science-dog-training/id1355439730. She is also author of the book, How to Train Your Dog with Love + Science (https://amzn.to/42kt3DN). Bad breath is something everyone worries about sometime. This episode begins with some facts and myths that will help you keep your breath fresh as a daisy. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/cure-bad-breath_n_1126196 PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS!!! FACTOR: Eat smart with Factor! Get 50% off at https://FactorMeals.com/something50off TIMELINE: Get 10% off your order of Mitopure! Go to https://Timeline.com/SOMETHING INDEED: Get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at https://Indeed.com/SOMETHING right now! SHOPIFY: Nobody does selling better than Shopify! Sign up for a $1 per-month trial period at https://Shopify.com/sysk and upgrade your selling today! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: How can clothing influence your mindset and performance?
Well, if there's one thing that I want people to know, it's that you can queue up your best day at a moment's notice. Neuroscience has revealed some great strategies that help you make the most of the brain you've got, given the day you've got.
Also, some facts and myths about bad breath to help keep you minty fresh. And understanding dog behavior and how we sometimes unknowingly reinforce the bad behavior.
Too often what I see happen is, you know, dog barks and then someone's like, Stella, stop it, stop it. And then the dog's barking and it's like, I think the dog is like, oh, I barked and then that got intention from her and now she's barking and now we're all barking together. It has like the wrong effect.
All this today on Something You Should Know.
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So how in the world could the clothes you wear make you measurably smarter, stronger, and give you better posture? Well, you're about to find out as we begin this episode of Something You Should Know. Hi and welcome. So if you want to be smarter... you wear a white coat. You just have to make sure it's the right kind of white coat.
In an experiment, volunteers were given an intelligence test while wearing a white lab jacket. The group who believed the jacket belonged to one of the doctors scored higher than the other group who were told that the jacket was a painter's smock. The study had some other interesting results. Women wearing a white blouse looked and felt more innocent. Men in black t-shirts were a little stronger.
People had more energy when wearing bright colored clothing. And those who wore formal attire had better posture, grammar, and more poise. And that is something you should know. Some days just go better than other days. On some days you're on top of the world. Everything goes well. It's a great day. Other days, you struggle. Things don't go your way. The motivation's not there. You make mistakes.
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Chapter 2: What are the techniques for having a great day every day?
If only there was a way to smooth things out, to make the day go better, go more your way. Well, there are some things actually, proven techniques to help you in the moment so you have a better day and better outcomes throughout the day. Here to explain what they are and how to use them is Therese Houston. She is a cognitive scientist at Seattle University.
She was the founding director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at Seattle University. And she is author of a book called Sharp, 14 Simple Ways to Improve Your Life with Brain Science. Hi, Therese. Welcome to Something You Should Know.
Thank you so much, Mike. It's a real treat to be here.
So you have an interesting message because, you know, I have good days and bad days. I think most people do where, you know, you're just on your game. Things are going great. Other days, just kind of struggles to get through the day. So what's your message here?
Well, if there's one thing that I want people to know, it's that you can queue up your best day at a moment's notice. So often we feel like our best day is subject to whether or not we got a good night's sleep or whether everything's going well at home. But the truth is neuroscience has revealed some great strategies that help you make the most of the brain you've got given the day you've got.
And I just want to communicate as many of those strategies as possible.
Well, that's a great idea because how many of us have had days that just didn't go so well, didn't turn out too well, even with the best of intentions. But maybe you have to be more than just intentional. Maybe you have some things you can do that will help you have a better day.
Exactly. We all want to show up. and do our best in most situations. And yet it can feel frustrating. You know, there's this phrase, work smarter, not harder. And I say that tentatively because I've always been confused by what that means. If your manager says that to you, it can feel like extra pressure and you're not sure how to do anything differently.
So I want to give people as many quick techniques as as possible, things you can do in five minutes or 10 minutes or less, just to ensure you have the best day you can have.
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Chapter 3: How can breathing techniques improve your stress and decision-making?
Sure. So why don't we start? I would love to do a demonstration of a technique that actually both reduces stress and improves decision making, which seems as though those two would be very different parts of your brain or that they would require different techniques. But the beauty is neuroscience shows this one technique can actually kill two birds with one stone and be so effective.
So would you mind, Mike, if we do a demonstration of this? It's going to be a breathing technique and people can follow along if they want to. So what we're going to do is a breathing technique that is sometimes called skewed breathing or 5-2-7 breathing. So you're going to inhale for a count of five, and I'll count out loud.
You'll hold that breath for a count of two, and then you'll exhale for a count of seven. And if you find any of that hard, for instance, if it's tricky to inhale for a count of five, just inhale for a count of four and then hold your breath.
then do the exhale it's the long exhale that's the most important and it can help to breathe out through little pursed lips like you're sipping through a straw that can help slow your exhale if that's tricky and we'll do it we'll do it twice two rounds of it and what you should find well I'll ask you when we're done the impact on you so are you ready to try
Sure, absolutely.
Okay, great. So exhale. And now inhale, 2, 3, 4, 5. Hold, 2. Exhale, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. And inhale, 2, 3, 4, 5. Hold, 2, 3, 4, 5. Exhale, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Okay, how do you feel?
I guess more relaxed. I mean, I took my mind off of what we were doing and got my head into that, and it just kind of slowed everything down because I was working on breathing rather than anything else. Yeah, it feels good.
Feels good. Yeah. Well, so what the research indicates is if we just did two cycles that took less than 30 seconds, what you would want to do is about six cycles of that. So that would last about two minutes. And researchers find that that objectively improves decision making. And part of what it's doing is, as you noted, it's making you feel less stressed, more relaxed.
It's actually activating, that slow exhale is activating part of your body called the vagus nerve. And the vagus nerve is part of your parasympathetic nervous system, which helps your body relax. And the reason, well, first of all, that's nice for relaxation, right? You can do this anytime. You can be sitting in a meeting and you can do this, you know,
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Chapter 4: What role do binaural beats play in enhancing focus?
And so one of my favorite techniques for this is to do something called binaural beats. It's Latin for two ears. And basically what you do with binaural beats is you put on a set of headphones or AirPods and you look for, YouTube has plenty of these videos, and you type in binaural beats 40 hertz, H-Z, or you can spell out hertz, H-E-R-T-Z.
And you put on your headphones and you start the recording and you listen to it. You don't have to watch what's beautiful about it. These are videos, but they're basically audio recordings. And it will take you from scattered thinking to incredible focus within minutes.
So if you have some task you need to do, put on your headphones, turn on the 40 hertz binaural beats, and within minutes you will be so focused you will think, wait a second, how is this working? And basically what you're going to hear are two different tones. Each ear will hear a different tone, but it will just sound like one tone because your brain will do a subtraction.
So if one ear is hearing 410 hertz and the other ear is hearing 450 hertz, your brain does a subtraction, so you hear 40 hertz. That's why it would be called 40 hertz binaural beats. And what's almost magic about this is that 40, when you listen to binaural beats at 40 Hertz, your brain electrical activity starts to synchronize with that. And 40 Hertz is kind of an optimal focus
for brain activity. And so, you're basically, you know, you're getting in and you're reaching into your brain and tuning a dial so that you have optimal focus. And it helps me every time on days when I'm feeling unfocused. I've taught this technique to many people and it's the one that people write back to me most about to say, I can't believe it. This works.
And it's now my go-to on days when I feel a little fuzzy headed.
Oh, that's cool. Well, I want to try that later. That's an interesting, I had never heard of that before. So that's great. It is.
It's surprising. And it's one of these things that I'm not sure why more people don't know about it. The one tip I would offer on this, if you're going to try it, don't do it for longer than 20 minutes, especially the first time. For me, I'll get so caught up in a task that I'll forget to turn off the binaural beats.
And what can happen if you listen too long, it can make you feel a little nauseous.
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Chapter 5: Is multitasking truly effective for productivity?
Excellent. So that was single tasking. You were doing counting, you were focused on that, and then you did the alphabet and you were focused on that. So now we're going to multitask. So what I want you to do is say a number and then say the letter and move down from 1 to 7 and from A to F. So the first one would be 1A, go.
1A, 2B, 3C, 4D, 5E, 6F.
There you go. Good job. It's so much harder, right?
Yeah, it is. But it is misleading because I do feel like I'm just doing one thing. I'm doing that task.
But the reality is you're rapidly shifting back and forth, just like you did between the alphabet and the numbers. And the result is you don't do either task nearly as well.
Research indicates that your brain activity for whatever the main task is, so let's say your main task is you're trying to get this email done before dinner, but you're also talking with your partner or your kids while you do this. your brain activity for writing that email goes down by on average 37%. So you're really not performing as well and mistakes will go up by as much as 50%.
Because the brain can only do one thing at a time.
We can make motions, we can do something that doesn't require any attention. I can adjust in my seat as I'm talking, I can move my hands. Those things I can do simultaneously because moving my hands, adjusting in my seat, that doesn't take any attention. But something that does take attention away from whatever we're trying to do, that we're switching back and forth.
We may not realize it, but we're doing these little tiny micro-switchings and all those micro-switches
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Chapter 6: How can you manage acute stress effectively?
Listening to other people's favorite songs doesn't do this the way that listening to your favorite song will. And so, you know, you can make a dopamine playlist, a list of songs that when you listen to them, it moves you. And that can be something that you can turn to in those moments when you're feeling unmotivated.
Listen to one or two songs and then dive back into that task that you need to work on, that you're dreading, and you will feel renewed focus.
See, I would never think to do that because I would feel guilty like I'm, you know, I'm not doing what I'm supposed to be doing. I'm off listening to music and that's kind of like pleasure and recess. So shouldn't do that.
Exactly. There can be this sense that the thing we need to do needs to be on task every minute, right? That that's going to improve our motivation or focus. And in the case of both doing a brisk walk outside or listening to music that moves you, what's beautiful about them is you don't have to do them for very long. The walk can be 10 minutes. The music can just be one song, maybe two songs.
But what's beautiful about it is because it's increasing dopamine in your brain, that is going to last for a while. And so now you get back to the task that you're dreading and you've got a burst of motivation that you didn't have. And chances are once you then start working on that task, you'll be able to stick with it.
One thing I think a lot of people struggle with is remembering names when you first meet someone. Somehow the name just evaporates. I don't know why. I have that problem. And you have a way to help prevent that, so I'd like you to talk about that.
So I'll be going into a situation, it happened just this weekend, I was going to an event on Saturday where I knew I was gonna meet a bunch of people and I wanted to be able to remember their names.
And sure enough, I got into the situation and I found myself saying hello to someone, they'd say their name and I would forget it instantly, in part because I was moving on to meeting the next person at the table, right? And I would just move around and each person's name, I'd say it out loud and yet still it wasn't going into the memory bank.
we've all been there so how can you improve your memory for particularly if you know you're about to walk into a situation where you're going to want to remember as many names as possible and the strategy here is to do A 10 minute mindfulness meditation before you walk into the situation. I'm a big fan of the Healthy Minds app.
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Chapter 7: What are simple ways to boost motivation?
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Whether you own a dog or not, you certainly see them everywhere, you likely interact with them to some extent, and you notice how different they are. Some are very well behaved, some seem out of control, and a lot of them are somewhere in the middle. Some dogs are mellow, others are hyper. Dogs come in a wide variety of temperaments and intelligence.
And since we are around dogs so much, how can we best get along with them and train them? Here to discuss that is Annie Grossman. She's a journalist turned animal trainer who has written about dogs for the New York Times and the Boston Globe and other publications. She runs the School for Dogs, which is an acclaimed training facility and retail store in New York City.
She's host of a podcast called How to Train Your Dog with Love and Science. And she is author of a book with that same name, How to Train Your Dog with Love and Science. Hi, Annie. Thank you for coming on Something You Should Know. Thank you so much for having me. So I guess I'd first like to know, what's your philosophy about dog behavior and training dogs, getting them to do what you want to do?
Where do you come in on this topic?
I think as someone who is passionate about the science of behavior, what's amazing to me is how few people even recognize that there is a science of behavior or know that there is a science of behavior.
So much of training over the last century has been about sort of dominating a dog and having a certain kind of energy and tuning into like your inner dogginess, which if you ask me is kind of all a bunch of malarkey. At the end of the day, Behavior is part of evolution.
So I guess you could say my philosophy is is the science of behavior and behaviorism is both a science and a philosophy in that I think once we can understand the basics of what I think is a really interesting concept.
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