It’s been touted as a way to boost your metabolism, reduce inflammation and improve your immune system. But does Cold Therapy really work? Dr. Francois Haman has been researching cold for more than 25 years. We talk the effects of cold on the human body, the positives and negatives of cold therapy and cryogenic freezing. Then, we countdown the Top 5 Worst Things About Christmas.
Dr. Francois Haman: 01:15
Pointless: 36:06
Top 5 Worst Things about Christmas: 47:14
Interview with Cold Therapy Expert Dr. Francois Haman
Nick VinZant 0:11
Welcome to Profoundly Pointless. My name is Nick VinZant Coming up in this episode cold and bad Christmases, so
Francois Haman 0:19
we're very good at dealing with this. In terms of cold, we're awful. We're probably some of the worst mammals, because the risks of going beyond two minutes are not worth it. And the damage that you're going to do to your tissues are not worth it. But there's that concept that you're never dead. Until you're worn and dead.
Nick VinZant 0:40
I want to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance, subscribe, leave us a rating or review, we really appreciate it really helps us out. If you're a new listener, welcome to the show. If you're a longtime listener, thank you so much for all of your support. So our first guest studies the cold, specifically, why cold affects us what we can do about it. And if cold therapy really works, this is cold researcher, Dr. Francoise um, on, what is it about cold in our body? Like why does cold have an effect on us? Well,
Francois Haman 1:21
that's an amazing question. Because when you when you look back at where we actually evolved, and where we come from, you realize that humans actually evolved in the African savanna. So we spend most over evolutionary time building these adaptations for heat for humidity, for dealing with high temperatures. So we're not really good in the cold, we're very good in tropical conditions, we're very good at dealing with heat, especially if we're in the shade. But as soon as we get into the cold, our vulnerability is tremendous. We have very little defenses, physiological defenses, and even biological defenses to be able to survive, and we have to rely on our minds. And we got to rely on our capacity to build shelters to build to make clothing to work together to get our basic needs.
Nick VinZant 2:08
What is it about the cold that does it to us, though, it's like what is happening kind of inside of our body that doesn't agree with the cold.
Francois Haman 2:17
So as soon as we get in the cold, we start losing heat very quickly to the environment. And our body's going to say we need to shut this down. Because if we keep losing heat to the environment, At that rate, our body temperature will start dropping. Humans are endothermic. So basically, we're made to survive at a specific body temperature, and it has to be constant. So 98 Fahrenheit or 37 degrees Celsius, we're trying to maintain our body temperature at that temperature in the cold, we lose a lot of heat, so we need to produce a lot of heat to compensate to avoid having our body temperature drop. So the first thing our body's going to do is as soon as you get into cold conditions, is going to shut off anything going to the periphery. So if your hands and feet and as you all know, when you work in cold places, your hands and feet become very cold, and wait before the rest of your body becomes cold. So this is very typical of the human response. And it just brings all the warm blood towards the core of the body and tries to keep the core at a constant temperature. But for humans, it takes a lot of energy to be able to do this and we're burning a lot of energy to be able to maintain that body temperature. When
Nick VinZant 3:26
would you say that our body starts doing that? Is there a temperature where our body says up? It's cold. Now,
Francois Haman 3:33
any temperature below 33 is the beginning of cold exposure,
Nick VinZant 3:38
I just looked it up 33 degrees Celsius is 90 degrees Fahrenheit. And I would consider 90 degrees Fahrenheit to be pretty hot. So we're essentially getting cold even in the middle of summer. Yes. Are we better than other animals that are adapting and dealing with the cold are we kind of No, we're kind of one of the worst.
Francois Haman 3:59
Definitely, we're very good at dealing with the heat, we got eccrine glands were able to sweat a lot from all over our body, which is a lot of a lot of animals are not able to do this. So we're very good at dealing with this. In terms of cold, we're awful. We're probably some of the worst mammals out there because our bodies are furless. And so that's a that's a big disadvantage. The other disadvantage is a lot of people put a lot of emphasis on fat as being an insulator for cold. In our case, we're not like marine mammals, marine mammals can actually isolate their their blood sugar or their fat from the environment. So having barely any blood flow going to the to the outside to the periphery, which means that we can regulate their temperature much better in the cold and we can for us our skin is a radiator no matter what. And we're always losing heat to the environment. We can have fat, the fat is going to modify your body shape and your body morphology. So the physics will be modified in the way you're losing heat to the environment. But we're we're still going to keep losing heat to the environment. so it doesn't provide that much of an advantage. So to put it on a scale in mammals, we're pretty awful.
Nick VinZant 5:05
You know, we start to get cold. And I would use the words technically, right? Because it's at 90 degrees. When that what temperatures? Will we kind of be like, Okay, now you're really in trouble. Like, you're not just uncomfortable. Now you're in trouble.
Francois Haman 5:19
It's not a difficult question to answer. But it's a very interesting question, because there's two ways of looking at it, I can tell you when you're troubled biologically, but there's also when you think that you're in trouble. And there's a bit of a distinction there. So I'll tell you biologically, biologically, you're in trouble if you keep losing heat, and you're not able to reward yourself. So there's two types of cold exposure, there's one type, which is compensable, which I could be shivering like crazy and producing a lot of heat, enough that my body temperature doesn't drop. So we call this compensable, it means that I'm losing heat to the environment, but I'm producing so much heat, that my core temperature doesn't change compensable cold exposure. But there's another type of cold exposure, that often happens in cold water, which is on compensable. And as soon as you get into cold water, you're losing heat so fast, that you're not able, you're not able to produce heat fast enough to compensate, which means that my body temperature just keeps dropping. So in cold water, you're always in trouble. Cold water, meaning below 18 degrees Celsius, again, is something we can probably look up in terms of Fahrenheit, but 18 degrees Celsius and below, you start losing heat very quickly to the water. And if you don't get out within an hour, an hour and a half, you're gonna become hypothermic in cold air, you could always compensate. So there's always ways of compensating but if ambient temperature becomes below freezing, then there's all kinds of risks that are added up. Some of these risks are going to be related to frostbite, your hand blood flow is going to drop your feet blood flow is going to drop and then your extremities become very at risk of any type of injury, any temperature is in between. It's also how you feel in that temperature, some people go into cold and they panic. And they're actually very scared of cold. And I've seen even in the lab, I've seen some people being terrified of being in cold temperatures, and thinking it was burning them and they weren't feeling good. And that's all mindset. And the more you expose yourself to these cold temperatures, the more your mind becomes used to it and you become more linked to the biology and late less linked to the psychology of dealing with cold. The reason why humans are like this, that they're fearful of cold is cold is a dangerous stimuli. And if you don't deal with cold and you don't make decisions, you could ultimately die or not be able to sustain your capacity to function and thrive, even feed yourself. So this is something where evolution made it in a way that we tend to be very concerned about cold. But you can also the train this where you can actually learn not to be that's what we do with the military, we actually train them to be able to face cold efficiently to be able to operate in cold temperatures.
Nick VinZant 8:08
18 degrees Celsius is 65 degrees Fahrenheit, just for a quick kind of refresher to the audience. That seems like man. So okay, this is a complete aside. But I've always wondered this, whenever you get in cold water, like why do we take that like? Like you start breathing like that, why is that
Francois Haman 8:27
there's a program in the UK, it's called that they've been trying to an intervention that they're trying to get everybody to understand is if you fall in cold water, you need to float first, extremely important. The reason if you don't float first, as soon as you hit that water, you will take a deep breath. And that's called Cold shock. And to cold shock response, it's a reflex. And if your head is underwater, you will drown. So the first thing more people have died of drowning in cold water, because of cold shock, they've actually died of hypothermia. So you need to float first. So essentially, there's their receptors right below the skin. And as soon as you hit that, that cold water, it will induce that, that the breath. And what again, you're gonna just take your full emulations about what liter of air coming in again, you get one liter of water in your lungs, you're done. So this is something it's just a reflex. And this is what again, we train coming back to the military. This is something we train because they do train to go into cold water. And we trained to actually not take that deep inhalation and actually to learn to exhale as soon as you hit the cold water. Because it's a way of regaining control.
Nick VinZant 9:38
I don't know if I'm going to be really be able to like kind of quantify this question very well, but I think it will make sense in the sense that like, Okay, if we do this kind of training, you mentioned you work with the military, if we do this kind of training to prepare ourselves for cold. Like how much better can we get at handling it? Would you say we get like you get a little bit better or Oh no, you can really, you can really change. Yeah,
Francois Haman 10:04
you can really change. So you can get even within one day get amazingly better if you learn how to do it. And what we do is we actually trained the soldiers to use breathwork. To regain control by understanding what's going on physiologically, understanding that reaction is normal, and knowing what to do with it, what you can learn then is how to almost embrace being in that cold, that cold water that cold does cold temperatures. And when you hit that cold water, you barely get any reaction because you regain control immediately. So this is very quick to train. And this training for cold shock can actually last even if you stop doing it can last for over a year.
Nick VinZant 10:49
What do I mean, when you talk about kind of training? Like, can you talk about what kind of techniques, things that people can do?
Francois Haman 10:57
So none of this is novel, it's been used for 1000s of years, and many cultures, and people have used cold water or any type of very intense stressor, to be able to learn to, to even meditate and be able to become in a zone that you keep control. And this is done mainly through breath work. It's done through even being self aware of the dangers that you're facing, and knowing that you can keep control even in these very harsh conditions. And so this is something where there could be many benefits in pushing your body outside of these limits, and showing that your body is able to respond in a very positive way.
Nick VinZant 11:43
Is this in any way, kind of like the old adage about exercise, right? Like my body starts telling me that I'm tired long before I'm actually really
Francois Haman 11:51
tired? Yes, it's exactly the same thing. When you look at the kind of training
Nick VinZant 11:56
is there any physiological changes that take place within people because of the training, or is it really just like, you just get used to it, like, it's just a mental thing. So
Francois Haman 12:08
muscles do change, when you expose muscle to cold, you're going to be shivering. And that's assuming it's kind of low grade exercise, and you will get some of the changes with cold exposure that you would get with low intensity exercise. And actually, some of the because cold is such a potent stimulator, a lot of these changes actually occurred much faster than what you could get during exercise and at much lower intensities. So cold has been known to actually improve even aerobic capacity and improve your your, your your muscles capacity to even deal with sugars with glucose. So these are some of the changes that that occur, another change that can occur. And again, this is something brand new. Basically, when I say brand new, I mean 2009, which might not be brand new for everyone. But for me, it's kind of brand new. Before 2009, we never talked about brown fat, and brown fat in adult humans was not even a conversation. So we said that anytime somebody would get into the cold, all the heat being produced was basically from shivering from the muscles being activated and shivering. So shivering is kind of very, it's not a synchronized movement of the muscles, it's just their muscles trying to produce heat. And that's the best way for humans to produce heat. But in 2009, there was three nominal papers that came out in New England Journal of Medicine that showed that adult humans have brown fat. So we knew that babies had brown fat, but we didn't know that adults actually retain that brown fat. So they found that brown adipose tissue and adult humans, and what we saw is when you call the climatized, some people increase their brown fat. So there's actually more and the brown fats role is just a furnace, all it does in the animal world is to produce heat. So it's not made to produce energy. It's made just to produce heat to keep your bodies warm. So this is something that no therms have. So these are tissues that do change in the cold. There could also be effects on the immune system and effects on inflammation. But this is not as clear as people seem to make it. So you look in the mainstream social media and people will say, get into the cold, it's going to improve your inflammation status, it's going to improve your immune system, this is actually not proven at all.
Nick VinZant 14:20
That's what I was going to ask you, right? It's about like kind of cold therapy seems to be all the rage. Is there any science behind that? Or is it like this thing is just taken on a life of its own and extremely
Francois Haman 14:32
important question because people seem to say that there's science behind it. And he kind of tried to say, Okay, this is what you do, and it improves all these parameters. Right now, there's very little backing up any of that these statements. So there's there is some research, kind of showing that cold could add multiple benefits and one of these benefits that is clear is cold as a stimulant. So as soon Like even taking a cold shower and cold bath will actually increase not only your dopamine but actually increase stress hormones and it gives you a bit of a rush. And this rush actually makes you feel good. And the dopamine makes you feel good. But the the rush also coming from just doing that cold exposure cold shower, you would do it too. And of course, if the person feels better, that's a very important result, right. So a person's feeling better. So for me, if you think about therapy, cold does does help. But now it's funny because it especially in North America, it was funny being in Finland, because the Finns tend to not go to these extremes in North America, what we love to do is as soon as we find something, we make it into the biggest thing on earth. And it's the magic bullet for everything, and it's going to fix everything. So and the issue that happened is people now started pushing the envelope. So they're using some of that code and making some statements about the effects on the immune system and inflammation. But cold is not even standardized in the way people use it. So just like if I would say, exercise is good for you. While you're going to ask me what type of exercise? How intense Should I do it? How long should I do it? How frequently should I do it? Well, we don't know for cold. And some people, if you say two minutes and icewater is good, they're gonna think that 20 minutes is 10 times better, because the risks of going beyond two minutes are not worth it. And the damage that you're going to do to your tissues are not worth it, we still need to consider some of the risks, you can just keep doing the these cold water depths thinking that I'm not damaging tissues. And again, there's two types of injuries you can have is like frostbite, depending on what temperature that you're doing these ice ice dips. There's also a risk of non freezing cold injury. And the non freezing cold injury was actually first documented in the First World War. And they were called trench foot. So trench coat is actually in neurological damage. And if you repeatedly exposed yourself to cold temperatures, you will damage your nerves and your hands and your feet. And this can actually be permanent. And this is well documented. And soldiers, by the way, in the UK and Canada, even in the US extremely well documented that non freezing cold injuries from repeated exposure to cold can actually be permanent damage to tissues.
Nick VinZant 17:15
I don't want to kind of put words in your mouth necessarily, but kind of sum it up for my understanding. It kind of seems like when we're talking about cold therapy, that we know that we feel differently, right. And we know that people kind of feel energized or feel whatever. But it doesn't seem like there's any actual proof that from a biological perspective than anything is happening.
Francois Haman 17:35
No, there's actually a paper that just came out in 2020 2023. I just looked at it. I found it yesterday. And it's from University of Bern in Switzerland. And they showed that actually the Wim Hof Method over 15 days and no cardio cardiovascular advantages. And this showed actually very few benefits, even with the breath work and everything that was going on. Again, I'm this is biologically right? Does it mean that people are feeling better? I'm not I'm not discounting and anecdotal evidence is still very good evidence if people are feeling better. I mean, this is good. If they're not getting injured doing it, this is good. Biologically, a lot of these methods cannot be backed up right now. And this is part of the work that I'm doing in my lab at University of Ottawa, we're looking at dosing cold in a way that's going to be beneficial, without going to the risks. And this is something that I want to bring to the military. So we can actually make it into real training program with cold and not be doing it the way it's being done right now, which is tremendously dangerous. And one thing that I want to mention is cold, especially ice water, would be like being struck by lightning, this is how dangerous it is to your body. And you get a vagal response, your vagal nerve is going to respond to this. And you can actually end up in cardiac arrest. The only thing, the only thing that can happen is also your blood flows being all diverted to the core. And your blood pressure just flies up. Again, large risk for cardiovascular issues. So it's not a safe practice. It's a practice that it's actually tremendously dangerous, if not well done. And people that stay longer than two minutes are putting themselves at risk, big time. Now
Nick VinZant 19:14
is that two minutes a day or two? Like two minutes for what kind of time period are we looking at because you know, somebody's going to be like, so
Francois Haman 19:21
I do cold dipping maybe once every two weeks. Some people do it every single day. The risks of doing it every single day are tremendous. There are risks and the rest is to damage your your your hands and feet. So I always tell people, you need to protect hands and feet you need to put gloves on, which is neoprene gloves. I use five millimeter gloves. I use five millimeter boots when I go into ice water. But again, what will be the benefits of doing this every single day. And none of this has been well documented. And I would say that the risks right now would be more of a concern to me than some of the metabolic benefits that I know I've been studying coal for the last 23 years. So I know about cold exposure. And I don't see the real benefits right now of doing this. And the only thing I see is a lot of risks of how people are actually doing it. So
Nick VinZant 20:14
looking at it, like why did we become obsessed with it then Right? Like, if it doesn't seem to really do much for us, and can be dangerous, why do you think we came, became obsessed with it, and everybody's got ice baths and cold therapy and nitrous, whatever, and all that stuff?
Francois Haman 20:30
That's a very good question. And I started doing my PhD in 2000. I never thought coal was going to become what it is now. And it's amazing where it went. And we barely talked about it. But we barely talked about it in 2009, when brown fat was found in adult humans, everybody went ballistic. And the amount of papers that were published from 2009, and on about brown fat is humongous. And people are just pumping out these papers saying that brown fat was the Savior for anything related to obesity, diabetes, was going to be the tissue that was going to solve any problems in the world. And of course, it didn't become that way. And it's a bit of a chimp that happened when you take something that might be good. This is very typical mankind or humankind. I don't know why we do this, but we take something that might be good at a very low dose. And we always make it to an extreme, we always need to push it as far as we can and say okay, now we got to do even longer, better, stronger, it's always kind of pushing the envelope, right? You know, you do a marathon, you do a triathlon, now you got to do the ultra triathlon. And it's always cold became a little bit of this. And I think this is where we need balance. And I'll just give you an example in the, the Ottawa region, there's, there's a few groups that do ice, water bathing, and I was I went to Whitman tonight to meet one of these groups, and some of the people there were so so focused on staying in the water as long as they could. And for me, again, coming in as a cold researcher, I'm looking at him going, Okay, this is interesting that people would even want to do this to that extreme. And I looked at their hands and feet, and they weren't protecting them. And the damage was tremendous. And I could see it. And I said, How are your hands and you can see that even, you know, they had no circulation in the in the hands and the feet were really damaged. And but it was such a focus for them that this is the solution. This is what I need to do. Anything done biologically, an excess, at some point will start hurting you. And I think cold is the same thing. So there's no risk by the way of cold air, unless it's below freezing where you could get frostbite. And with cold air, if you're well protected, you can go into the cold as much as you want. Cold showers is not a big deal either, because you're not exposing yourself to the heat loss ranges that you would find in ice water, ice water is dangerous.
Nick VinZant 23:01
This kind of leads us into some of our listener submitted questions. So are you ready for some harder slash listener submitted questions?
Francois Haman 23:06
Shoot away?
Nick VinZant 23:07
Let's start with kind of, I guess the the easier ones on that scale, right, like so what is frostbite essentially like what's happening when somebody gets frostbite.
Francois Haman 23:16
Kind of simple in a way, like if you put meat in the freezer, you will get ice crystals being created in that meat? Well, if you put that even in living tissues, you can actually add ice crystals that are going to be forming within yourselves. And the problem is that a living cell is going to rupture everything. So all the cell, organelles, everything, the membranes will all be destroyed. So you basically end up with cell death. So a frog by his different levels, depending on how deep it goes. So you can get a frost nib, which is just going to be kind of whiteness on your finger or you know, you can be on your nose, it's generally the periphery where there's less blood flow your ears, very typical. That's why with friends, when you go into very cold temperatures, always look at the person. And if you see anything related to frostbite, you need to protect yourself. So the first level is it would be a frosty if you're just going to see a bit of white occurring. There's second level, there's third and fourth level, which are much, much deeper type of damage. And but it's the same thing. It's just cell death from the ice crystal being formed, but it deeper in the skin. So we have the epithelium on the surface, and we have the DERM right below it. And basically you start damaging the dermis. And as soon as you start damaging the DERM you get, again, a lot of cell death occurring everywhere above. So and so that cell death is basically the tissues gone. Right? So agitations might occur and you're gonna get dark skin so the skin is going to everything would be falling off. So you need to basically cut it off. So it's just ice crystals forming in tissues.
Nick VinZant 24:49
Are there certain populations of people that seem to handle cold better than others?
Francois Haman 24:54
So this is a question that everybody seems to be very interested about. And I would say that physics dictates your risk for cold. So the way you exchange with the environment is going to be linked to your body shape and your body mass. Humans are generally not well adapted at all to cold. There's some populations, though, that would have morphological differences that would help them lose heat, not as fast, are they going to be less vulnerable to frostbite? No, typically, with the Eskimos, or in with like, we call them in Canada, the Sandy in Finland, and Scandinavia, would tend to with tend to be better adapted to cold temperatures, but a lot of what they do is behaviorally. So they're going to modify their behavior to be able to make sure that they don't get any type of injuries. So when I've worked with First Nations for many years in northern Canada, and the decisions they make are always about protection, they will not expose themselves and risk any type of injury. So it's very hard to separate what is biological, and what is linked to the behavior.
Nick VinZant 26:04
most extreme example, you can think of somebody surviving cold.
Francois Haman 26:08
So the only way in the cold that you will be able to see freezing will not do it, if you freeze the tissues, the tissues will die. So if it's extremely deep, and you've been outside, and your tissues are completely frozen, meaning that you're in ambient temperature, that is well below freezing, you're not going to survive, you're gonna die, you're gonna lose parts, at the minimum. But if you don't get out of that cold temperature, and your body temperature keeps dropping, you will die. But there's that concept that you're never dead, until you're warm and dead. So you still need to try to warm up the individual, because there's a chance, and it's been shown before, but it was mainly shown in cold water, where people almost went into they were dead. And when they rewarmed them from cold water, which again, has nothing to do with creating ice crystals, you don't get that tissue damage to the same level, the only thing you're getting is the cooling of the body. And this has been shown, even in infants, that if they fall in poor water, you do need to reward them. Because even after being rewarded that this is again, in animals, it's well known in the animal world that some animals are able to go to very low temperatures, they almost seem dead. They're basically dormant, and then you reward them, and they come back to life. Well, it seems that if you're able to cool fast enough in cold water, that you would be able to rewarm and come back to life. So there's that whole concept that you yes, there's that chance that you would be able to survive cold. But there's definitely no guarantees. And if it's below freezing, and you've got damaged tissues, you are losing this tissue. So again, your chances of surviving become less and less.
Nick VinZant 27:52
Are we like this cryogenic freezing work? Are we going to be able to do that?
Francois Haman 27:57
So it works for certain cells, and you need to kind of remove the water from the inside of the cell? And when you remove the water, then that you can freeze it? Could you do it for a whole body? That would be extremely difficult to do, it's still the same principle. But would you be able to survive and be as you were before freezing, you know, I kind of see the bullet a little bit like meat you put in the freezer, right? When you put meat in your freezer, and you leave it for, you know, two months, it's not a big deal. But if you leave it for 10 years, the meats not going to be very good. Right? It kind of still affects it to a certain extent. So I don't know much about that literature. I haven't seen too much about it. But in my mind, this would be extremely difficult. And I know some people have tried it to be able to bring back a body to the same state as the body was before freezing.
Nick VinZant 28:47
You don't think it's going to work? It's not going to work?
Francois Haman 28:49
I think it would be extremely complex. I think people will try it. I think people will try to see are we able to do this because we are able to do it with you know, reproductive cells, and it seems to be working really well. So it is possible to do it with these specific cells. Could you do it with all cells of the body in the same way, including your brain, which is very sensitive to these fluctuations, and especially changes in energy need and energy metabolism? You can destroy brain cells very easily even heart cells are very vulnerable. So would it be possible to do it with all tissues? I think it would be extremely challenging. So maybe we're going to be able to do it at some point. But right now I would have trouble seeing how we would be able to do it.
Nick VinZant 29:35
Are there any examples of people kind of like quote unquote, freezing to death and warm temperatures?
Francois Haman 29:40
Well, no, because it's physics, right? So because it's physics, you do need that grading and temperature
Nick VinZant 29:47
claim about cold therapy that drives you nuts the most.
Francois Haman 29:51
I think right now, what really bothers me is more about the immune system, because we kind of put The immune system is a very complex system. And we tried to simplify it by saying, Okay, it's going to improve the immune system. And a lot of people have looked at, you know, the changes in white blood cells, but there's far more going on in this. And even when you're sick, the blood cell count the white blood cell count changes. So people are making claims based on no evidence. And I think what bothers me the most is when people especially with no training at all, no formal training in any field, have taken a weekend course or, you know, a few few courses and the made these types of claims, again, based on neural science, or maybe based on a random paper from a predator journal that people are just trying to convince of the efficiency, the the efficacy of cold exposure, I think this right now with the immune system is what bothers me the most. And also the fact that we don't talk about the risks, right? This is something that bothers me into anything that we do. We never mentioned that linear, we can do this to the extreme. And there's never any risks. You know, it would be like saying, doing triathlons or your ultra marathons and during no risks? Of course, there are risks. Right, but we don't really want it we all say it's all about benefits. One cool num, there are risks. Same with heat exposure, there
Nick VinZant 31:19
are risks. What are you studying now?
Francois Haman 31:21
So right now, initially, when I started my research, I was mainly focused on energy metabolism, I was trying to figure out what does the body need and use in the cold to be able to survive and operate more efficiently. So this was most of my PhD work was related to this. And I studied shivering quite a bit, because I wanted to know how people shiver. And one thing that came up is with cold, because there's been so little natural selection around cold exposure, that it was more behavioral, we get a lot of different ways of responding to call. So we cannot generalize Cold Response and all humans honors. And even within a population that is very similar, there are a lot of differences in how people respond to cold. So But recently, so where I studied brown fat, so in 2009, I was part of a team with University of Sherbrooke and risky investment valid in Quebec City. And we built probably one of the top teams looking at Brown fat changes in humans and how exposing yourself to pull it regularly changed a brown fat, and what was the exact role of that fat. And we're continuing this word. So this is something we're going to keep looking at, for sure. Because we want to know what is the exact function of brown fat. But doing all of this, I kind of realized, especially through COVID, I started reading more and started doing some yoga, stirring, doing some meditation stuff breathwork. And I realized that cold also requires requires a certain level of mindset. When I get into the cold, my mindset has to be right. And I need to understand my limits. And I need to understand how far I can push. But there's also a whole aspect of using cold as a way of improving mindset, and your mindfulness, your self awareness. And a lot of the militaries around the world are actually looking at this and to be able to recreate the mind body connection, and to be able to use cold in a healing way where when I'm in the cold, there's nothing else I can think about. When I'm in the ice tub, what I need to focus on is to reconnect my responses. And so cold has been used quite a bit, even with pain management. So this some of the work I'm kind of doing in parallel to my more fundamental cold, cold research, because I do think there's a lot to learn and a lot to do when it comes to cold. And I think our bodies, if well done, can get a lot of benefits from cold
Nick VinZant 33:45
exposure. That is true, right? Right. When I'm cold, the only thing I think about it's being cold. I don't think about anything else. But the fact that I'm cold. I mean, it makes you tough. I feel like cold makes you tough, it
Francois Haman 33:58
makes you tough in a controlled way, it makes you tough in a situational awareness way.
Nick VinZant 34:03
That's pretty much all the questions that we have. Is there anything that you think that we missed or anything like that? No, I
Francois Haman 34:09
think we've covered quite a bit. Now,
Nick VinZant 34:11
you know, the one the only other thing that I would ask, right, like when you look at populations that kind of live in the cold, you know, that are in more extreme examples, right. Like, I know, you work with indigenous and native populations and worked in Finland, do they have a fundamentally different approach to it than other places than other people like somebody in the south of the United States would have like, did they look at it differently?
Francois Haman 34:37
Yes, and I think this is something I learned from the Norwegian officer, the amazing man that I met in Arlington at a NATO conference. And he said something and I don't know if everybody picked up on it in the audience, but for me being French Canadian, I've grown up and very on basis. My dad was in the military. My mom was also in the military. So I kind of grew up in north of Quebec City. And the temperatures were cold, much colder than what you get now because of climate change. But one thing that he said that really hit home with me and I know a lot of people in northern United States and even Alaska will understand exactly what I need. You said, to be able to do well, in the cold, you need to embrace the cold. And so, for me, I think this is the most important component of any culture that does well in the cold is cold is not a big deal. Cold is just something that exists. That is there. And in Finland, this is what you see, people don't panic around cold, and they actually enjoy the embrace it.
Nick VinZant 35:37
I want to thank Francois so much for joining us if you want to connect with him. We have linked to him on our social media accounts. We're Profoundly Pointless on Tik Tok, Instagram and YouTube. And we've also included his information in the episode description. If you want to see more of this conversation. The YouTube version of this episode will be live on December 21 at 12:30pm Pacific. Okay, now let's bring in John Shaw and get to the pointless part of the show. Are you a holiday person?
John Shull 36:13
I'm gonna say yes, but only really since I've had children. I don't really
Nick VinZant 36:17
like the holidays. Any holidays. I don't really care about any holidays, to be honest with you, other than the fact that I have it off. I'm not like yeah, Thanksgivings. Coming up, I enjoy the time with my family, I enjoy the time off. But if it was just another day, I'd be completely fine with it. I think.
John Shull 36:35
I think in some weird way, what you just said indicates that you do enjoy the holidays.
Nick VinZant 36:40
I guess I don't care about celebrating the holidays specifically. I mean, we didn't have Thanksgiving dinner on Thanksgiving, I wouldn't care. If we went to Subway, I'd be like, okay, cool.
John Shull 36:53
I think it's like, especially at Christmas time. I think it's many find it uncomfortable to give gifts and to get gifts. And I think like I could do without the gifting part of the holiday, I would be fine with that.
Nick VinZant 37:05
The only thing that I'm really looking forward to is seeing other people get the gifts that I'm going to give them I could care less about getting the gifts, there's not actually anything that I want.
John Shull 37:15
That's not true. There isn't one thing that you want.
Nick VinZant 37:19
There's not one thing that I want to get from somebody else. There's lots of very specific things that I would like to pick out myself. But there's not something that I would want someone else to get me unless it's exactly the thing that I sent them in an email with a link to get me
John Shull 37:34
while I'm still waiting on it. So
Nick VinZant 37:36
I sent you a Christmas card. Did you send me a Christmas
John Shull 37:39
card? No, we did not send out Christmas cards this year. Don't worry, it wasn't just you. No one else got them either.
Nick VinZant 37:45
You have an obligation. Once you pass once you have a family, if you have children, even if that is a dog, you have an obligation to send people Christmas cards to is in the Constitution. I don't even know
John Shull 37:57
how yours got to my house because you didn't close the back did you?
Nick VinZant 38:02
Oh, I have no idea didn't have anything to do with it.
John Shull 38:05
Well, then your wife may have been playing a joke on us because it was completely open by the time we got
Nick VinZant 38:11
it. Maybe somebody else was checking it see if there's money in there. Man,
John Shull 38:14
that brings up a good question, actually, that I have for you and everyone else listening to this. So we've been living in my house now for six years. We still we still get including as of last week mail for the prior owners.
Nick VinZant 38:30
Does it say their name or does it just say current resident?
John Shull 38:33
No, some. Now my new I don't want to sound like I'm a hoarding mail here. It's never been anything except either maybe like a Christmas card or junk mail. But in saying that, I am firmly under the belief that by now if you have not told people or I don't know Facebook them something your current address after a half decade of not living in that home, then that it's my mail at this point.
Nick VinZant 39:00
It's your mail. Yeah, that's fair game. If you get a Christmas card, have you lived there for six years, you can open that Christmas card and look at it. You can do whatever as far as I'm concerned into this into check that money is yours.
John Shull 39:10
Well, listen, that's a federal technically if I were to I don't open the mail, just FYI, because that's a federal offense. But I definitely would never open a piece of mail like that and see money and keep it because that's so
Nick VinZant 39:22
Okay. All right, dude. Yeah, people can watch this, but I know what you're really doing.
John Shull 39:27
Yeah, people can track this down. Right. Right.
Nick VinZant 39:29
Right, right. I'm a law abiding citizen. Pay no attention to me, sir.
John Shull 39:35
All right. Have you been out with your boys? And this goes anyone listening that has children? Have you been literally waiting in line for Santa or something? Or or orange or reindeer and one of your children? puts them on the spot and goes, Are you the real Santa? Are you unreal elf? Because that happened to me last weekend.
Nick VinZant 39:56
Oh, how'd you handle it?
John Shull 39:57
I backed away and so we Want to see some rain? You know, Santos reindeers? And the elf I guess we'll call her an elf. Because that's what she was portraying. She was I mean, you could tell she had done this before, but it made me stop and think that like, we need to give you know, we should give these people that are doing this credit. I mean, how many times in a day do they get asked? Are you there? Are you a real elf? Like, you know, are you the real Santa? Yeah,
Nick VinZant 40:23
dude, and you probably struggled to answer it like one or two times where they tell you when you start working and then you just repeat that answer. I don't think that it's like brain surgery every single time it's like this is what they told me to say. I do I don't know if he's representative like it's not like that hard.
John Shull 40:39
I do let's I do I think it's hard. I think it's a lot harder than we give it credit for man. I really do so much loved all you mall centers way
Nick VinZant 40:47
to back away and not take any responsibility for your own children by the way. I mean, what are you supposed to let somebody else handle this?
John Shull 40:54
I mean, listen, man up answer the kids question. That's where
Nick VinZant 40:58
you're supposed to step in. You're the parent. You're putting the responsibility on some like 16 year old kid. All
John Shull 41:04
right, Angela Moline. Appreciate you. Taylor RC Mason hunting. Mackenzie, and your Ramirez Stacey Johnson. Midnight Rider. I appreciate that. I only put this one on here because I think it's hilarious. But little big boy. I wonder why you say your little baby boy if you're it doesn't matter. Bob Chris manage appreciate you. Don Johnson. I don't think that's the original Don Johnson. Just FYI. And then Peter Masterson appreciate all of you. You all get the Silver Star Awards today. Or this episode.
Nick VinZant 41:51
I don't think there's enough Stacy's I think we need to make a concentrated effort to have more Stacy's Stacy generally tends to be in my opinion, like a good wholesome person but a little bit wild. Need more Stacy's?
John Shull 42:07
So somebody brought up a good point to me, once again, in an inebriated state, is that and this is more of a discussion than a question, but kind of a question. So I'm gonna ask you, if you're talking to someone about holiday movies, Christmas holiday movies, and they were to say, I've never seen this. Which movie? Would you say that's insane. Everyone's seen that movie.
Nick VinZant 42:34
The only one that I can think of are i Can you name a couple which ironically, I have never seen. I've never seen It's A Wonderful Life. I've never watched that. I've never watched any of the green Grinch movies. And I've never watched the one with the you'll shoot your eye out. But I would think those three home alone, and you can make an argument for Die Hard.
John Shull 42:58
So the last two home alone and Die Hard. Were kind of what we're like, if you haven't seen either of those. I think eyebrows get raised. I
Nick VinZant 43:07
would say Home Alone probably tops that list. Maybe it's a wonderful life for people of an older generation.
John Shull 43:15
I mean, I'm gonna go out of those three movies, It's a Wonderful Life would be my pick just because the message in the movie is fantastic. It's black. And well, there's a color version, but you have to watch the black and white version. If you've never seen it. Do yourself a favor and watch it. And then I'd say die hard. And then home alone. I'm not the biggest Home Alone fan. Like I'm more of a fan of Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern than I am of like anyone else in that movie? Yeah, I don't particularly care for it. The premise is a little if you actually think of the premise it's kind of a fucked up movie.
Nick VinZant 43:49
That's one of those movies that I think they like if reality if they did like the real version of that that movie ends in about five seconds. And it ends up with that kid dying and his parents going to jail because of neglecting him.
John Shull 44:03
Right they break in they murder him parents come back fight him. They the parents go to jail though they eventually catch the murders. It's over. Right? It's
Nick VinZant 44:11
right. That's the whole movie. Everybody in the real home alone movie. It's a terrible ending of the parents going to jail him dying and the other guys everybody going to jail baby.
John Shull 44:19
Alright, let's move on here because I just realized these are more topics and questions just fine. New Year's Eve. network coverage. Can you name me you know and that's what that's it. The Deke did Clark's New Year's rockin New Year's Eve, NBC does something blah blah, blah. Question is, can you name me any of the headliners for any of them.
Nick VinZant 44:41
I have never seen a single one ever, or even thought about it for a second in my life or paid any attention to it. I could absolutely care less and have never had any interest in it whatsoever. But I
John Shull 44:55
find it hard to believe and all of your New Year's Eve celebrations. I've been a part of a couple with you that you've never seen one of those shows ever. Never.
Nick VinZant 45:07
I mean, it boggles my mind that they even do it. Anytime I've ever seen like a promo for it or something like that. I'd been like, would they do that? Why?
John Shull 45:17
Third thing? This is completely different than anything. I've asked you the first two here. You're walking into, you know, Home Depot. And you take a look to your right, and there's the hotdog cart. Are you getting a Home Depot hotdog?
Nick VinZant 45:33
No, but I'll go Costco like you wouldn't believe I'll make a special trip to Costco. Costco has great food. You get a giant sundae for $1.50.
John Shull 45:44
I bet you never had their ice cream. Their pizzas are pretty big. Their chicken baths are fantastic. I'm
Nick VinZant 45:51
not sure what a chicken bake is. But I've had their hot dog which is a big size hotdog for a buck 99 I can feed myself and my two sons for 10 bucks.
John Shull 45:58
I actually got called out this week by somebody because I don't like to eat in front of people. And I got called out and it was a little it was a little disconcerting. But you know, I went with it. But I don't like to eat in front of people. I don't I don't get how that's weird or obscure.
Nick VinZant 46:16
I don't like to eat in front of people either. I would like to eat like by myself alone with no one talking to me or bothering me.
John Shull 46:24
Even my family and this is gonna sound weird. I could eat alone. Like I could make them dinner. sit at the dinner table. Why they eat they go to bed. And then I could eat after by myself and I would prefer that. I
Nick VinZant 46:36
think that's actually what I do. We sit down for dinner at six o'clock. My wife my two kids. And I later I eat at nine o'clock. I don't eat I just sit there. No, I'll have a little bit of something. And have like a drink. But I don't eat. I'll leave later by myself. Yeah, I want to be alone. Yeah,
John Shull 46:59
I just leave me alone in my rocking chair with friends on guy Oh, nothing else. I don't don't talk to me.
Nick VinZant 47:07
Just let me yell at clouds. I just want to yell at clouds. That's 100% Agree. So our top five is top five things we don't like about Christmas. What's your number five.
John Shull 47:20
I don't know how this is around the other parts of the world. But here in the Detroit area, we have a radio station that plays Christmas music from basically Thanksgiving until the new year. And I gotta tell you that Christmas music just isn't my jam. I'm going to put that as my number five.
Nick VinZant 47:38
Hmm. Okay. I have that higher on the list. I have that higher on the list. But I agree with you. I agree with you. My number five is untangling Christmas lights. No matter what you do. And I've got a system, they still end up a mess every time. untangling reorganize me like how the hell did I do that last year?
John Shull 48:03
I I'm gonna stay mom on that because I have that's higher up on my list.
Nick VinZant 48:09
Okay, okay. Number four.
John Shull 48:13
The obligation of going and seeing family. Like, it's like, hey, let's you know, let's get the family together that you haven't seen since last Christmas and pretend to give a crap about them. And you know, oh, what are you been up to Uncle Bobby? Well, blah, blah, blah, then he talks to you for 20 minutes when you could care less.
Nick VinZant 48:34
I have that also is my number four is seeing family. And I think that if you don't talk to a family member more than once a year, you don't have any obligation to talk to them.
John Shull 48:46
And it's okay, I'm trying to remain calm here because I get a little heated on this.
Nick VinZant 48:51
I'll get him fired up. Fired up. And I think I think people
John Shull 48:55
can relate to this. It's just you know, you don't hear from people ever. And then as soon as December 1. I was like, well, Aunt Mary's hosting a Christmas party. Okay, then three days later, Hey, you come in at Mario's Christmas party. Like, no, I don't even know where at Mary lives anymore because I don't talk to her.
Nick VinZant 49:15
I mean, I have family members blood relations that I probably haven't spoken to in 15 years. And that's fine. That's fine. Right. Like, that's okay. Yeah. They don't want to talk to me either. So everything's okay.
John Shull 49:31
All right, my number, my number three. And this is an old man syndrome. choice, but it's basically just not being able to go anywhere, to any store to any supermarket, anywhere. Two weeks leading up to Christmas and then like three days after, without just a being completely crazily packed. People are pissed off. There's no patience. So you take somebody like me with parking lot anxiety already. and thrust them into the situation and it's terrible. I'm just My nerves are shot for a month.
Nick VinZant 50:05
Hmm. I mean, I just do it online dude, it's pretty easy now. Like, I don't even have to leave the house. I don't have to associate with anybody. Um, maybe you've heard of the World Wide Web. My number three is breaking down boxes. I truly despise breaking down any kind of box. I hate it. You gotta open the box, cut the box, put the box away. I dread it. I hate breaking down boxes from I
John Shull 50:31
like it. I actually enjoy the challenge of breaking down boxes, because you're not not only are you getting them out of your house, but it's like how can I fit these into my recycling bin? Like creatively to get the most of them in there?
Nick VinZant 50:44
Oh, it's kind of like Tetris for you. Yeah,
John Shull 50:48
sure. You could. It's a recycling bin Tetris with, you know, cardboard boxes.
Nick VinZant 50:54
Now what do you do? What do you use? Do you use a box cutter scissors? Or do you use a knife? What's your strategy?
John Shull 51:00
Don't use any I usually appeal pills. They usually peel the tape with my hands or, you know, I don't want to talk about my big forearms. But usually I can just, you know, rip one flap open and then the other flap comes up or comes up and it's Yeah, I don't. I mean, maybe a box cutter if like if I need it, but no, I just usually use these. Me meat and meat hooks. The old me books.
Nick VinZant 51:23
Okay, I use a box cutter. The only one I really have trouble with is those boxes from Costco that are like impossible that like the whole couldn't rip apart. You know which ones I mean like that the fruit boxes and you're like, What the hell do I do with this? Well,
John Shull 51:39
because those are the ones where like the edges rip, but then like the, you know, the integrity of the the main part of the cardboard isn't ripping. It's just it's a pain in the ass. And they're
Nick VinZant 51:48
made of like the adamantium version of cardboard. Were like, what is this made of is like steel, cardboard. You can't do anything with it. Yeah,
John Shull 51:56
it's, it's terrible. Okay. So my number two is basically just everybody. I went from one extreme and go to the next here with my number two, that just everybody being fake, happy. You know, like, pretending to care pretending to be nice, pretending to give cheer. Like, I know, you really don't care about me. So don't give me some $7 bottle of wine and act like you really value me as a person. My
Nick VinZant 52:26
number two is kind of along those lines, but it's I hate pretending like I like a gift. Okay, yeah, I hate pretending like I enjoyed your gift. It's so awful.
John Shull 52:39
But do you? Will you pretend to at least enjoy the gift? You know, before you throw it away or before that person leaves the room or something? Yes.
Nick VinZant 52:49
And I hate that. I hate that. I think you should just be like, Oh, this is nice. I really appreciate it. Can I have the receipt so I can return it and get something I really like?
John Shull 52:58
Yeah, I'm, I just don't think I fake emotions very well. So it's Oh, great. Thank you. I love it. My number one is anything outside Christmas decoration related that can be from entangling lights to putting up inflatables to putting up Christmas lights to taking down all this shit. Like, it's all just it's all one big pain in the ass. And it's a bunch of reasons. I'll give three, and then I'll move on so you can talk. What is it's always super cold outside when you do it. Two ways. It's never worth the risk is never worth the reward ever, ever with this bullshit. And three, you have to take it down at least where I live. I'm speaking you know, we're living in Metro Detroit. You take it down in January, maybe February, and it's six degrees. The ground is frozen. shits frozen. It's just It's terrible. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it.
Nick VinZant 53:58
My number one is Christmas songs. I don't care about any Christmas songs or Christmas movies. I don't care about them. I don't want to hear him. I don't want to see him. I don't want to hear other people talk about them. I don't care about any Christmas songs or Christmas movies don't care at all. Don't enjoy him. Don't like them don't care. Yeah,
John Shull 54:16
I mean, I echo every all of that. They're like, there are some that I do enjoy. But like once, not every hour on the hour. And not one of the main bits that I have with Christmas songs is the same song has been done by 50 people. Hmm. And like the one person that I like singing it, they never play.
Nick VinZant 54:43
Anytime somebody says to me, like let's hear Christmas music. I always think No, I don't want to hear Christmas music on Christmas Day. I don't care. Don't care. Yeah.
John Shull 54:55
I want to see how I react. You know, coming up with the Christmas already marathon because I used to be something I looked forward to every Christmas. And now I'm like, the movie actually isn't even that good.
Nick VinZant 55:10
That's the thing. None of them are that good. None of the movies are really that good. Maybe a couple, but none of the songs are that good. No, don't care. Don't care. Don't care. Do you have anything in your own dimension?
John Shull 55:27
Yeah, there. Yes. Mall Santas. I've never been a fan of waiting an hour or two hours in line. For a Santa. I'm sorry. I know that disheartening. And I know they're hard workers. But like, we can just say, hey, dress me up as Santa and I'll be Santa. I
Nick VinZant 55:48
don't really care about any Christmas food. I don't particularly find any Christmas food to be that good. It's all like okay, it's all right.
John Shull 55:54
I have animal costumes. I have people who dress up their animals for the holidays.
Nick VinZant 56:01
I agree. I don't think that animals should be dressed up. I don't think that they should be dressed up
John Shull 56:06
right I don't want to see your fucking Greyhound dressed as a reindeer. I don't.
Nick VinZant 56:11
Oh, okay, that's gonna go ahead and do it for this episode of Profoundly Pointless. I want to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance. Leave us a quick review. Doesn't have to be some big thing. Just a couple of quick words really helps us out. If you're listening to this before the Christmas and holiday season. I hope that you have a wonderful Christmas and holidays. Thank you so much for your support for this year. I still don't like Christmas songs.