Sleep Psychologist Dr. Jade Wu helps people fall asleep and stay asleep. We talk the latest science on why sleep is important, what happens to us if we don’t get enough sleep, and why when you sleep is just as important as how long your sleep. Then, it’s Lions and Tigers vs, Bobcats and Cougars and we countdown the Top 5 Cats.
Dr. Jade Wu: 01:04
Pointless: 26:41
Top 5: 47:33
Interview with Sleep Psychologist Dr. Jade Wu
Nick VinZant 0:00
Nick, welcome to Profoundly Pointless. My name is Nick VinZant Coming up in this episode sleep and cats,
Dr. Jade Wu 0:20
there are just so many things that sleep does for us that's absolutely fundamental to our health and well being, and then you're scraping the bottom of the barrel all the time and forcing your body and your mind to run on fuel that just isn't there. There's some evidence that the regularity of the timing of your sleep may be even more predictive of your health. I
Nick VinZant 0:43
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. So I want to get right to our first guest, because she helps people fall asleep and stay asleep. This is sleep psychologist, Dr Jade Wu, starting with the basics. I know sleep is important, but why is sleep important? It's
Dr. Jade Wu 1:09
helpful for not just helpful for but fundamental to our physical and emotional health. We repair damaged tissue, we release hormones, we fix the wear and tear on our bodies. We boost our immune systems. You know, we are literally growing and flushing out the toxins from our brains. So janitorial work, repair work, all of that. And also during sleep, we're consolidating memories. We're practicing the things that we're learning during the day, where processing our emotions, making sense of events, making sense of relationships between different events and different emotions, and that's where dreaming comes in. So I mean, I could go on and on, but there are just so many things that sleep does for us that's absolutely fundamental to our health and well being.
Nick VinZant 1:59
When someone is not getting enough sleep. What kind of goes first like, what are the signs and symptoms of like, you're not getting enough the
Dr. Jade Wu 2:07
best way to tell is that they're able to become sleepy during the day. So there are some caveats, though, because we humans do have a sort of evolved nap culture, like we have that circadian dip, that body clock dip in early afternoon. So if you feel like drowsy enough after lunch that you could take a nap, that doesn't necessarily mean that you're not you're not getting enough sleep. But if you're like in the morning, feeling sleepy in the late afternoon, feeling sleepy, you're falling asleep while reading a book, you're falling asleep during meetings. You're falling asleep while driving or watching a movie, or even if you just feel so drowsy that you could fall asleep while you're stopped at a red light, that that's the surest sign that you're not getting enough sleep, or not getting enough quality sleep, is it pretty obvious? Yeah, there. It's not like there are subtle signs that you have to hunt for. And like, you know, all these things have to line up for you to figure out that you haven't slept enough. Like, if you haven't slept enough, your body will tell you, you
Nick VinZant 3:10
know, I think, like myself included, pretty much addicted to caffeine. How much does caffeine just cover all this up? Like, normally, I would be ready to go to sleep at 10 o'clock in the morning, but because I had caffeine, I just power right through it. So even with the amount of caffeine that we're drinking, would we still notice that? Or does caffeine cover this whole thing up? That
Dr. Jade Wu 3:35
is a very good question. That is another big caveat, is sometimes caffeine covers it up, and that's actually why, when you drink too much coffee, you actually end up being more tired, because you've basically tricked your brain into thinking that you're not sleepy when you really are, when you haven't gotten enough of that physical recovery, when you haven't gotten enough of that emotional and mental mental recovery. But the coffee papers that over, and then you're scraping the bottom of the barrel all the time and forcing your body and your mind to run on fuel that just isn't there. So you end up going into the deficit and really, really becoming chronically tired.
Nick VinZant 4:17
Is there other signs besides being tired?
Dr. Jade Wu 4:20
Well, not to split hairs, but there is a difference between sleepy and tired. So sleepy is a sign that you're not sleeping enough. Tired is could be anything. Could be you had too much coffee, so like your body's running on fumes. Could be that you're bored, you're stressed, you haven't gone outside today. Not enough fresh air, not enough sunlight, not enough laughter, fun, you know, etc, etc. So tired could be from any source of things. And a big mistake that often, many of my patients make is, when they feel tired, they think there's there's they think that's because they didn't sleep enough. So then they go to bed really early. They try to take a nap. Up, and then they can't fall asleep because they're not actually sleepy, and then they're getting more anxious because they're like, see, even when I'm tired, I have insomnia, I can't fall asleep, but that's tired, that's not sleepy. So only when you're sleepy Are you missing out on sleep. And then if you're asking about other signs, so you may find yourself being more irritable, more cranky, more agitated, more anxious, because your body wants to tell you one way or another, you're not getting something that you need
Nick VinZant 5:30
when, when we look at kind of the effects of it, right? Like, is it immediate effects you didn't get enough sleep on Monday night, Tuesday you're going to feel a certain way, or is it you didn't get us enough sleep on Monday night and it's gonna kick in on, like, Wednesday? Is it immediate or delayed, or kind of both?
Dr. Jade Wu 5:48
It's kind of both. But I think people tend to overestimate how much immediate effect there is. Like, usually the way we talk about it is like, well, I didn't sleep well last night. Today, I'm screwed, but sleep doesn't really like we should not really measure someone's sleep health on the scale of 24 hours of the scale of nights or days or hours. We really should be measuring it on the scale of weeks, months, years, decades, because sleep is very resilient and dynamic. We don't have to sleep the same way every day, every night, in order to have overall good sleep health, just like you don't have to eat exactly the same number of calories a day, or eat, you know, exactly the same balance of different types of nutritions each day in order to have a healthy diet, like if your overall diet is diverse and has all the macro nutrients and micro nutrients that you need, you're probably good, right? So with sleep, it's the same thing. It dynamically changes based on the season of your life, that you're in, the time of year, that it is, the time of the month, that it is changes based on what you did during the day. Because, you know, sleep is ultimately a a recovery from the burden that you put on your body and brain during the day. So if you did less today, you probably will need less recovery tonight. If you did more today, you probably need more recovery tonight. But it can also be drawn out over the course of, you know, a longer time period, like if you're really needing to meet a work deadline, so you're going really hard on a work project. You can push through for like, 2345, nights in a row and still be functioning and still be okay, but you'll probably crash after that, right? And we don't, probably don't want to do things like that all the time, but once in a while it's not a big deal.
Nick VinZant 7:37
How, like, how big are the differences in the sense that, okay, let's say I need seven hours, but if I get six hours and 45 minutes, am I fine? Like, when do we start to kind of like, Oh, that's not enough.
Dr. Jade Wu 7:52
I'm gonna be a little annoying and kind of dodge the question a little bit, because I think the question implies that we can control exactly how much sleep we get and whether it matches what we think we need, right? So you started with the the premise that you need seven hours. So what if you get six hours or 45 minutes? Well, how you know you needed seven hours? And also, like if you do end up getting 645 minutes. So what? What were you going to do, like somehow, force yourself to sleep an extra 15 where would that come from? You know? So I think maybe the if we start with the premise that our bodies know how much sleep we need, and this need is ever changing, and it's different between you and me, then we let go of these rigid expectations about it should be seven hours. It should be eight hours and 12 minutes, like we should let those specific numbers go, and instead, just listen to our bodies for what we actually need, because our bodies are very good at telling us for the most part, and your body cannot produce more sleep than it needs. It just won't. And if it's if you're getting less sleep than you need, it'll tell you by making you sleepy. So you don't need to control it, just you just need to follow along to what your body tells you that it needs.
Nick VinZant 9:17
Are people that different, or are we all kind of the same? People
Dr. Jade Wu 9:24
are pretty different. I mean, there are people who need five hours of sleep and there are people who need 10. So we often, I think, put place too much pressure on we need to make this amount of sleep happen, or else bad things will happen. But it's more like sleep is a, is a is a signal. Sleep is a canary in the coal mine. Maybe sometimes that tells us the overall status of our health, and if our sleep is very extreme or very off or doesn't feel. Good, then it's a sign that something else is going on that we need to address.
Nick VinZant 10:05
Oh, well, that's good. Great. Like, oh no, there's another problem.
Dr. Jade Wu 10:11
Well, you know, but, but at least, at least then you'll be targeting the right thing, right? So often I see people with insomnia who are like, I cannot fall asleep. I I'm having so much trouble with sleep. My sleep is terrible. Sleep, sleep. They think that they have a sleep disorder, but it turns out it's like something totally else that is, yeah, making it so that they don't fall asleep when they go to bed at the time that they think they should be falling asleep, and then they're putting all this pressure on themselves to fall asleep at that specific time, and then they they don't, because that's just not what their body wants or needs at that moment. And that pressure that they put on themselves ends up turning into anxiety that fuels further insomnia. So what started out as like an anxiety problem, or started out as a depression problem, or started out as a not being physically active enough problem, or not drinking enough water problem has now become a sleep problem. The
Nick VinZant 11:08
big question, right? Like, how can people sleep better?
Dr. Jade Wu 11:13
Oh, that is a really big question. I think it depends on what their sleep problem currently is. And this is not me dodging the question this time. This is because the solution to different sleep problems can sometimes be polar opposites. So for example, for someone who is purposely, you know, pulling all nighters, burning the candle at both ends, not giving themselves enough opportunity to sleep, I would give them advice, like, hey, let's set a reminder on your phone to, like, start winding down at a certain time in the evening. Or, like, let's put away work and like, put away your phone and like, protect your space and time for sleep, right? Those are the more typical things that you hear, like, sleep hygiene type things. But if someone has insomnia and they're anxious about sleep and they're going to bed too early and causing more insomnia for themselves, the last thing I'm going to do is say, go to bed earlier. Put away your phone, you know. Like, protect time for sleep. Instead, I'm going to say, like, no, stay up. Watch that show. Like, scroll Instagram, have fun, you know, do whatever. It's okay. Read a book. Don't go to bed until you're sleepy. Get on your phone. It's okay. Watch a show. It's okay. Any stimulation you get from the light is going to be way worse than the stimulation of you being anxious and and like, doing the math in your head about how much sleep you're going to get so, you know, depending on what the sleep problem is, I may give opposite advice.
Nick VinZant 12:46
Do the problems? Do the difficulties? They seem to be pretty solvable. Yes,
Dr. Jade Wu 12:51
sleep problems do tend to be very solvable. We have excellent treatments for all types of sleep disorders and sleep related disorders, and for insomnia, for example, cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia is considered like one of the crown jewels of CBT, because it's so effective and so safe and so lacking in side effects and so brief. You know, as far as therapies go, it's usually like four to eight sessions, and someone is done. You know that it's, it's just, it's considered the first line treatment for insomnia disorder, ahead of any medication, ahead of any sort of sleep hygiene education. CBTI is the gold standard treatment for insomnia, and most people don't know that. So I think the sleep field, we have a marketing problem. We don't have a effective treatments problem. Marketing
Nick VinZant 13:47
problem in the sense that like, people don't like. What do you mean by that? Exactly,
Dr. Jade Wu 13:51
people don't know that there are treatments that work. Are you
Nick VinZant 13:55
ready for some harder slash listener submitted questions? Sure. Is it just about the time, or is it about when people should sleep? Excellent
Dr. Jade Wu 14:06
question. It's both, and there's some evidence that the regularity of the timing of your sleep may be even more predictive of your health down the line than how much sleep you get, and that's because we have circadian rhythms, which are our close to 24 hour body clocks that we have in all of our cells and our biological systems that really run the machinery of our body. And it those rhythms are so powerful that when they get confused, then everything just gets derailed. Everything goes out the window. So you know the your sleep wake pattern, for example, if you usually get up at 6am on weekdays, but then you get up at 9am on weekends, that's like flying yourself from New York to Los Angeles and back every weekend you're jet lagging yourself across the whole continental United States. Uh, and your circadian clocks are going to be very confused about what time it is. And as a result of that, worse sleep, of course, at night, worse functioning during the day, worse energy levels, worse mood and even worse metabolism, higher likelihood of high blood pressure, high blood sugars, things like that. So you know, if we take good care of our circadian rhythms. Take good care of our body clocks, then we take good care of everything.
Nick VinZant 15:25
Does it matter in the sense of when I go to bed, and maybe to put numbers on it, let's just say psycho argument, I need seven hours. Does it matter if I get that seven hours from 10 to five, or if I get it from midnight to seven.
Dr. Jade Wu 15:40
It depends on your corona type. So your corona type is your personal, biologically hardwired tendency, or biological preference to be sleeping and waking at certain times. So some of us are hardwired to be night owls. So you know myself, I'm an example of that, where I am really alive in the evening, and I think my best, and I wrote my whole book, you know, between the hours of eight and 11pm that's like when I'm most my creative and productive self, and I sleep well when I go to bed late and get to sleep in late. That's like my ideal. If I can live on that schedule, I will get my best quality sleep those same hours, but shifted like several hours earlier, for example, which I'm having to do now because I have young kids, is not as good quality sleep. So even if the number of hours is the same, it's not going to be as good if it doesn't match my natural Corona type. So that's kind of bad news for a lot of night owls, because, you know, this world is designed for morning people, but there are tools we can use to pretty much most of the way, if not all the way, shift our circadian chronotype so that we become like or or wait, we at least mimic having an early Corona type and can function well as a morning person.
Nick VinZant 17:08
Are there differences between men and women
Dr. Jade Wu 17:12
in terms of sleep? I guess
Nick VinZant 17:16
there's. There is no more specific version of that question.
Dr. Jade Wu 17:19
Okay, well, women are more prone to insomnia. Women are about time and a half as prone in general, in large part attributable to hormonal changes. So starting at puberty, girls are having more sleep problems than boys already, and then during like pregnancy, postpartum perimenopause, women go through these hormonal roller coasters that really can mess with sleep. So most of my or not, most of my patients, maybe at least a good half of my patients, are women who are in their mid 40s, early 50s, going through menopause, perimenopause, and they're experiencing significant sleep changes at that time. But men are more likely to have sleep apnea. Lighter
Nick VinZant 18:04
question, what do you hate? More caffeine, alarm clocks or phones at night. But is there a thing that you're just like as a sleep professional? You're just like, God, they gotta get rid of those. I hate those things,
Dr. Jade Wu 18:19
like, if you have one of those, yeah, like digital clocks that shines like really angry red numbers at you that says, like, 2:45am that's probably my least favorite one of the of those options. Like, there are cultures that drink coffee after dinner, and it's fine. Phones, I use my phone in bed. I scroll. It's just if you're in your bed for like, hours, Doom, scrolling probably that's not helpful.
Nick VinZant 18:46
Oh, so it's not, it's not the object. It's the emotion the object makes you feel that is kind of the problem. It's the
Dr. Jade Wu 18:53
baggage that comes with the thing. Like, if your phone is just for like watching puppy videos and like chatting with your friends. It's probably fine, you know, like, dim the screen. Don't make us super bright in your face in the middle of the night. But if you like to read the news and, like, scroll, you know, like, read it, but like, it's, it's like, only the angry subreddits. Like, probably not. So it's, yeah, it's the function of the thing.
Nick VinZant 19:22
How long should it generally take you to fall asleep?
Dr. Jade Wu 19:26
Excellent question. So falling asleep is not like turning out a light. It's not like falling off a cliff. It's like going down a gentle slope. So you're actually starting to go down that slope probably even before you get into bed, like your body temperature is probably falling, your cortisol is probably falling, your melatonin is rising, your muscles are relaxing, your brains getting a little foggier. So like you're already going down that slope, and you're going down it gradually, and like you might do a little like blip up, and then you go down again, you know, kind of like that. So. So you know, if it's taking you, like, like, 15 minutes, half an hour, to fall asleep, that's the a pretty reasonable ballpark. It's okay if it's sometimes longer, it's okay if it's sometimes shorter, but if it's, like, consistently a lot shorter, like, your head hits the pillow within couple minutes, you're out. That means you're probably sleep deprived and you you're not getting enough opportunity to sleep, because you're not supposed to fall asleep that fast. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 20:25
no, this, I
Nick VinZant 20:28
feel personally attacked.
Dr. Jade Wu 20:30
Sorry. That
Nick VinZant 20:30
is, yeah. That is like, Yeah, I'm I'm down, and I'm probably down in 30 seconds. No, so
Dr. Jade Wu 20:38
between, between that and the you like, really needing your coffee in the morning. I'm guessing you're probably sleep deprived. Oh, now I'm sorry, yeah, sorry to be the bearer of bad news. What, like,
Nick VinZant 20:50
what would your advice, though, to be to some, to people in our society where the kind of thing is like, okay, for me, well, you just power through it. Like, there's no more hours in the day. Like, what would your advice be to somebody? Like, do you just have to suck it up? Or can you really make these kind of changes? Suck what up exactly you're going to be tired for the rest of your life. That's just how it's going
Dr. Jade Wu 21:15
to be. Because you're you're choosing to prioritize other things. So you're like, intentionally saying, like, sleep is lower on my priority list, so I It's okay if I'm getting, not getting enough.
Nick VinZant 21:27
Yeah, would my life be better not to make this about me, right? Like, but would somebody who is kind of, I'm going to be chronically sleep deprived, and that's just how it's going to be, because I don't want to give something else up. Would their life be better if, no, you should just get the sleep and then maybe these other things, your body would operate more efficiently.
Dr. Jade Wu 21:48
Um, I think, I think I understand what you're getting at. So often, people find that when they sleep better, they end up being more efficient and productive during the day, so they might be getting done two hours worth of work within an hour, let's say so in that case, they're not really losing time. They might be gaining time, or the quality of their work is better. They're more creative, or they're the quality of their relationships might be better because they're, you know, less cranky, or something like that. So, you know, I, I don't like to come in and wag my finger and say you should get more sleep, because that's not my like, that's not my life, right? That's not my value system that I'm I don't want to impose on someone else. So I very much support people making their own value judgments on Okay, I am given this one life, what in it is most important to me, and what am I willing to prioritize or sacrifice to overall live a life that aligns with my most cherished values? I think that's what it comes down to. And while you're doing that decision making process or like, shuffling up the priorities. Just remember that if you're worried that sleeping more will cause you to sacrifice other things, maybe do a little experiment for just a short term to see if you sleep just a little bit more, does it really reduce your work quantity or quality or or other areas of life, quantity or quality, and maybe be open to the possibility that sleeping closer to meeting your needs with sleep can actually help you to live the other aspects of your life more fully and more aligned with Your values.
Nick VinZant 23:39
You've convinced me was all it took. It's so weird how sometimes somebody just pointing something out to you is like, oh, yeah, I should do that. It's kind of stupid, the way that I just keep stubbornly doing. What are we still trying to learn about sweet sleep? Like, is there something oh, we're still trying to figure out,
Dr. Jade Wu 23:56
yes, and this is going to sound crazy, but we're still trying to figure out just exactly what sleep is and why we do it. We have some answers, but we don't have the full answers, like, Why do some animals sleep? You know, 22 hours a day? Why do you know those penguins sleep micro sleep? Like 10,000 micro naps a day, whereas we have more consolidated sleep, you know, and that there are animals that can sleep with half of their brain at a time while they're flying in the air or while they're swimming, you know. So it's like there's just so much that we don't know about sleep, and the factors that affect sleep, and the, you know, the way sleep changes. It's a huge mystery. Like, we think, like so many patients come to me and say, like, Okay, I think I figured out that if I do this during the day and I do that, and if I cut off coffee at this time, and if I exercise exactly this amount, then I will have, like, done the perfect algorithm to to buy myself a. Perfect night of sleep, and it's like, no, you've probably controlled four out of like, 10,000 factors. And we don't even know what most of those factors are, and if, even if we did, you probably can't control most of them. So, you know, chill out about it. We don't need to control everything about sleep.
Nick VinZant 25:18
Wait, penguins sleep 10,000 times a day. Not
Dr. Jade Wu 25:21
all penguins. There's this specific species of chin they're called chin strap penguins, and they micro nap like seconds at a time, or even less than a second at a time. So they're just constantly in and out, in and out, in and out of sleep, which sounds exhausting to me. I wouldn't want to do that.
Nick VinZant 25:42
Sounds like a bad strategy. Um, that's pretty much all the questions we have. Is people want to learn more about you. I know you got a book all that kind of stuff. Where can people find it? Yeah, so
Dr. Jade Wu 25:51
can I show my book? Oh, yeah, 100% here. So here's my book. Hello, sleep. Um, it's for people with insomnia, and they can find me on my website, Doctor Jade woo com. The doctors spelled Dr so dr Jade woo com, and I'm I'm around. They can find me. They can reach out through my website and whatnot. I
Nick VinZant 26:14
want to thank Dr Wu so much for joining us. If you want to connect with her, we have linked to her on our social media sites. We're Profoundly Pointless on tick tock, Instagram and YouTube, and we've also included her information in the episode description. And if you want to see more of this interview, the YouTube version will be live on March 27 at 12:30pm Pacific. Okay, now let's bring in John Shaw and get to the pointless part of the show. I've got two big questions for you today.
John Shull 26:47
I'm sure they're big. Do
Nick VinZant 26:49
you think that you have ever made a decision that has completely changed someone else's life? The only thing that I could think of for myself was like, if I decided to take or not take a job, that that decision could completely change somebody else's life who I've probably never even met.
John Shull 27:07
I think it's all What's that movie from the 90s? I think it's all Butterfly Effect stuff, though. Let me start this way. Have you ever had one of those instances where you know, if it was a minute before or a minute later, you would have been the person in the car accident. Or, you know, were you supposed to get on that plane that crashed, but you overslept?
Nick VinZant 27:28
Oh, I think about stuff like that all the time, and I think it could be the simplest thing in the world, like I decide to go to the grocery store at two o'clock instead of 215 and because I go at two o'clock, I walk across the crosswalk and a car has to stop, and because of that, they're a slightly late and miss something, or something happens to them. Like the smallest changes that somebody else makes can have a huge effect on you, and you would never even know it.
John Shull 27:58
I would argue to say that you probably change someone's life inadvertently, probably every day, you just don't know it. That's why I don't understand people
Nick VinZant 28:07
who think that luck isn't probably the biggest single factor in where you are in life.
John Shull 28:14
I mean, I think people don't want to associate luck with where they are in life, if that makes sense, feel like, oh yeah, hear the word luck. You think that? You know, I don't know, you just walked into a pile of money or something. You know what I mean? Like, it's not like the little things, yeah,
Nick VinZant 28:32
that's why I can never understand people who, when they're asked about success, like any of these kind of self help interview things or whatever, when they get asked, like, how did you achieve your success? The first answer should always be luck, and if the first answer isn't luck, that person has no idea what they're really talking about.
John Shull 28:48
I will say what has always fascinated me, and I kind of touched on it briefly a few minutes ago, was are the stories of people who would have been involved in tragedies, who, for whatever reason, don't, like I said, don't make the flight, don't get on the ship. Like, I find those, those people, to be more life defining than maybe some of the events themselves.
Nick VinZant 29:10
I think the famous one is, like, there's an actor who I don't really like. I know exactly who it is, but like, they were supposed to be on one of the planes involved in 911
John Shull 29:20
Yeah. I Yeah. I mean, I feel like there's multiple people, but I You said you don't like the actor, so I'm assuming you're not going to say their name.
Nick VinZant 29:27
No, I'm not. So let's just move on. Oh, my other question is the other big question. The other big question that I had is, what do you prefer more sour cream or guacamole?
John Shull 29:37
Oh, easy. Oh, on its own, or like, with something.
Nick VinZant 29:45
Oh, good question. Well, guacamole would be my number one on its own, because I would never just eat sour cream.
John Shull 29:53
I mean, somebody on this podcast may have done it once or
Nick VinZant 29:56
twice. You just eat sour cream by itself. I.
John Shull 29:59
Uh, once or twice, not, not, not large amounts. Uh, what
Nick VinZant 30:04
do you mean? Like, you just, like, you know what, I'm gonna have, like, a couple of spoonfuls of sour cream by itself? Well,
John Shull 30:10
you know, like, sour cream goes good with, like, cucumbers or, yeah, carrots, and you'll have some level, and you just eat it,
Nick VinZant 30:21
I don't know, but how many spoonfuls Are you just eating by itself? In
John Shull 30:25
less than two probably, but it's still solo sour cream eating. Yeah,
Nick VinZant 30:30
no, that's gross. I got a problem that's just like eating mayonnaise by itself or just eating ketchup or mustard. Do you do that?
John Shull 30:38
Man, if there's enough left over, sure, I'll, I'll, I'll lather it up.
Nick VinZant 30:46
No, no is the only thing that I have to say to you about that
John Shull 30:50
mayonnaise, not so much. Not a, not a big Mayo fan, unless it's on something. There's
Nick VinZant 30:55
not a single condiment that I would eat by itself. Okay, for sure, are there any condiments that you would eat just by themselves? Like you would just eat that condiment by itself?
John Shull 31:11
Yeah, mustard.
Nick VinZant 31:14
You would just have, like, a spoonful of mustard? Oh, No way, dude.
John Shull 31:19
I mean, and I mean, I not only would I have regular mustard, but then I'd have, like, horseradish mustard and spicy brown mustard, you know, and spicy mustard, like,
Nick VinZant 31:30
that sounds absolutely disgusting to me to eat any kind of condiment just by yourself, like, just a scoop of sour cream or a scoop of mayonnaise or ketchup, like, Oh, no. So
John Shull 31:43
I'll also say, probably an unpopular choice to eat by itself. But I absolutely love it is wasabi.
Nick VinZant 31:51
Oh, for some reason, I feel like that might be more common than than my reaction would say it is. I feel like that. I that's the only one I could, for some reason, give you a little bit
John Shull 32:00
out of all the spicy stuff I've had in my entire life, and I've had tons of spice, wasabi still gets me to a place that no other spice can get me.
Nick VinZant 32:11
Wow, okay, it's making it sexual.
John Shull 32:15
I just, I've never, I've not every time I have wasabi, I've don't it's like an experience all unto itself. It's incredible. Wow. Maybe
Nick VinZant 32:24
you'll have to try this out. I guess I've been missing out a little bit.
John Shull 32:28
Well, I think it back on it. It does sound kind of sexual, but it isn't. I swear, I swear, yeah, you made that awkward. Okay, all right, that would be, was it? I don't know if it was awkward, um, awkward
Nick VinZant 32:39
for me. Well, that's what I'm
John Shull 32:44
doing anyways. Alright, let's give some shout outs here for for the past week, which the week felt like it took forever. But here we are. We'll start off with Martin cam check. Katie Chernoff, Sandy Garcia. Martin brolofsky Isn't prolos Isn't brolofsky? Like, one of the South Park kids, last names,
Nick VinZant 33:08
something close to that. So I kind of know what you're talking about,
John Shull 33:12
but not really. You weren't a South Park guy. Were you?
Nick VinZant 33:16
No, I think that that shows really good. I'm always really impressed, like I think that they do social commentary better than almost anybody that I've ever seen. But I don't particularly, I'm not a fan of it. I don't watch it. I don't really watch any shows, to be honest with you.
John Shull 33:29
All right, let's see here. Uh, Nadine Kelly, uh, Jacob Hoffman, Elian, baruga, Muhammad, McCabe, Justine, Isabella, Casey, guyeski and Jack Shanahan, nice.
Nick VinZant 33:50
Way
Unknown Speaker 33:51
to go, dude. Way to go.
Nick VinZant 33:55
You keep that. Proud of you for that.
John Shull 33:56
Keep just keep it. Check out our stuff. I don't know what else to say. I don't, I don't know if I've ever duplicated a name. Yeah,
Nick VinZant 34:05
seven years, all the time. No, I don't. Yeah, all the time. Dude, no way.
John Shull 34:09
I duplicate names all the time. No, you're just, you're just doing that. Um,
Nick VinZant 34:14
yeah, our boy, Vern, you duplicate that all the time. Oh, well, because
John Shull 34:18
Vern, Vern is one of the few. Yeah. I mean, he's been around since the inception of
Nick VinZant 34:23
this thing. He gets a special case, okay,
John Shull 34:25
uh, let's see two, two different Trump related things this week. Oh, boy, here we go. One is, it's not really what is related to him, but it's more or less. Linda McMahon, I don't think I've ever felt more sorry for somebody appointed to a position than her, and I say that in saying obviously, they're starting to dismantle the Department of Education, which is she, she's the head of and they're expecting her to go on all these interviews and like, answer questions about the Department of Education. And when there isn't going to be one, like, what a position to put and listen, I'm not, I'm not standing up for her. She knew what she was getting into. But like, just what a shitty position to be in this,
Nick VinZant 35:10
to take this out of the political realm, always reminds me kind of of the job interview question where they're like, why do you want to work here? Why do you want me to lie to you? Why do you want me to lie to you? Like, what are you just seeing? How good of a liar that I am.
John Shull 35:27
I've no, man, I've, I don't even know that. Once again, I don't know what answer you would give whoever was interviewing her, I'm guessing the president, but he probably didn't interview her.
Nick VinZant 35:36
I know I wouldn't think so. Man, uh, anyways, though, like, yeah. Moving
John Shull 35:41
on to something else that I know I love, which is, so you know how the White House does an Easter, Easter Egg Roll every year for Easter, yeah? Well, this year, Trump is Trump is wanting sponsorships with the promise of local and branding opportunities. Oh, my God. And the sponsorships prices range between 75 and $200,000
Nick VinZant 36:08
who's getting the money? I didn't read like, who's who's getting the money for it, right? Okay, this is my thing, right? To make this a little bit political, my thing with what is going on right now, even if you believe that the way that the country is going and the things that are going to be the things that are being done or the right things to do, I don't think that you can make any kind of a logical, rational argument that that's the way To do it like that's my issue. Okay, you okay? All right. You believe that this is the way that things should go, but you can't possibly believe that that's the way to do it, right? Like you think that we should downsize the government, okay? All right. Do you think that we should fire the people with the nuclear codes? Oh, no, we probably shouldn't do that. Should we fire the people who are researching a potential another epidemic that is going to come? No, we probably shouldn't do that. So even if you agree with what's being done, I can't have a logical, rational, critical thinking analysis conversation with anybody who thinks that that's the way to do that. And that's the problem. Like, you can't do that thing that way. It's like, I want to lose weight. What's the plan starve myself and not eat anything, or do large amounts of cocaine? Like, it's good that you want to lose weight, but maybe that's not the way to do that. Like, cut off my leg so I lose 60 pounds. That's not the way to do that.
John Shull 37:44
That might actually be one of the best like side by side analysis that I've heard so well done.
Nick VinZant 37:51
Oh yeah, it's not. It's like you can't do it that way. So there's my rant. I think our live stream, by the way, how sad. Well,
John Shull 38:01
God dang it. How do you stop clicking buttons over there? I don't
Nick VinZant 38:05
know what I did. I did something. Didn't do it right? Okay, whatever.
John Shull 38:08
Well, let's, let's just restart. Then, oh no, it's fine. It's still going.
Nick VinZant 38:13
Just kidding. Ah, I got things to do today, man. I gotta go to the grocery store. Ride my new scooter round.
John Shull 38:19
Okay, you want to talk about your new scooter. I do want
Nick VinZant 38:22
to talk about my new scooter. So I've been eyeballing a stand up electric scooter for a while. I've been thinking to myself, I'm going to get a stand up electric scooter. It's going to be bad ass. And I bought it and it's bad ass. Will you stop saying bad ass like that? No, I won't, because it's bad ass what I'm doing with this scooter, it's incredible.
John Shull 38:46
Was that it was that it I thought I was expecting more. You
Nick VinZant 38:48
know, how quickly I got to the beach and back, I took my son, got him on the scooter, both of us helmets on, got to the beach, which is two miles away, got an ice cream cone. Got back from the beach, which is two miles away, including eating the ice cream cone at the ice cream store. 10 minutes. 10 minutes. I'm like the matt fucking flash.
John Shull 39:13
What's the max speed of this wonder bike I got? I can check. Do you
Nick VinZant 39:17
want me to check? I mean, on, hold on. Well,
John Shull 39:22
it's not street legal, right?
Nick VinZant 39:24
Oh no, it is. I don't, well, it's unclear. It's a gray area enough that don't have to worry about it 36.2 miles an hour. I got it up to 36.2 miles an hour. This is actually a little bit scary. On a electric moment with no suspension, when you hit a little some hits and bumps. It's a little it's a little
John Shull 39:41
bit scary. I mean, listen, good, good on you. Do you want to talk about how you endangered your entire family last night by getting it up to certain miles an hour inside of your home?
Nick VinZant 39:52
I may have had some edibles and a drink and tried to see how fast I could get the scooter going in my own house, and I got it up to seven miles an hour. I.
John Shull 40:00
Was there, like, a point when you were trying to go get it up to a certain speed where you, like, where you were thinking to yourself, maybe this isn't a great idea,
Nick VinZant 40:09
no no, because, like, I got it up to seven, but I never really, like, saw what it was capable of. Like, I did it all within the safety parameters that I was comfortable with, so I wasn't worried about it.
John Shull 40:21
Well, you know, there is today, what I think you should try to get to 10 today. Oh, maybe I'm
Nick VinZant 40:30
not, though. No, I've reached my limit. I've reached my limit. That's as fast as I can get it to go. It's as fast as you should get it to go. You
John Shull 40:37
should, like, the end the podcast on this episode, you should just get up and just like, Scooter out, out of your door, and just leave, just leave the stream up.
Nick VinZant 40:46
It's actually heavy as it's it's really, really, really heavy. It's
John Shull 40:49
good for you. Man, good bit too heavy. Well, let's go from fun to, we didn't have an we didn't have a rip last episode. Well, we had George Foreman
Nick VinZant 40:58
died.
John Shull 40:59
Yeah, George Foreman died.
Nick VinZant 41:04
That's all, yeah. Okay, all right, yeah,
John Shull 41:05
no, that's what I want to talk about. Man, oh,
Nick VinZant 41:07
okay, I didn't, I didn't realize that's what you were going for. Yeah,
John Shull 41:11
I had a couple of questions regarding George Foreman to you that I thought about when thinking of big George and more or less, when you think of George Foreman do you think of him as a boxer or as a, you know, Foreman Grill guy?
Nick VinZant 41:28
I guess I think of him for the Foreman Grill first, to be honest with you. Oh yeah, I definitely think of him for the form for the Foreman Grill first.
John Shull 41:40
I was reading a statistic, and I don't know if this is an actual statistic or not seemed real, but apparently his product of grills have sold over 100 million items since the company came out in the mid 90s.
Nick VinZant 41:56
Oh, that's huge. And that's like what we were talking about, all right? Well, we were talking about at the beginning of this episode the idea that your decision could potentially change somebody else's life. I think they reached out to somebody else first for the George Foreman grill. I don't think he was the first celebrity spokesperson that they were looking at. I think it was someone else.
John Shull 42:18
I mean, without actually looking, I'll, I'll agree with you, but no good. It was one, one thing, one little nugget that I didn't know is what it was actually supposed to be called the fajita Express, but George Foreman, because of who he was, apparently didn't need a lot of fajitas. But said, if you can kind of change it to do burgers, I'll attach my name to it. So
Nick VinZant 42:43
that was like everybody had, everybody had a thing for everybody had a George Foreman grill. Well, they
John Shull 42:50
were relatively cheap too, by the way. I mean, it's, you know, 3040, bucks back then wasn't a whole lot for something that was going to take all the grease and fat out of your meat and make it healthy for you, which isn't truly accurate.
Nick VinZant 43:03
Oh, okay, but all right, all right, all right. This is the problem is that the person who claims to have been approached first is kind of a notorious liar about things like this,
John Shull 43:15
right? Oh, is it the pillow guy? The pillow guy? Mike, no,
Nick VinZant 43:20
no. So George Foreman Hulk Hogan says that he was initially approached for the George Foreman grill, but Hulk Hogan has turned out to buy be a notorious liar about things.
John Shull 43:32
And I, I say this with as much love as possible. I wish that wasn't the case, because he was, you know, he was a hero to all of us young boys growing up in the 80s and 90s. But yeah, he's turned out not to be a very good person.
Nick VinZant 43:44
Oh yeah. He's like, and some of his lies are ridiculous, like the idea that he wrestled 400 days a year, there's 365 days. Well, don't even start. Don't even try it. It's already been analysis to have my boy, Jim Crockett. Is his name? No Name. Jim
John Shull 44:01
Cornell. Jim,
Nick VinZant 44:02
it's not Eddie Cornell Cornett. Cornet
John Shull 44:06
Yes. Sorry, yeah, Jim Cornette, and I gotta tell you, he's about as big of a liar as, oh, don't you besmirch
Nick VinZant 44:12
Jim Cornette on this show. It's my boy. I'll
John Shull 44:18
just move on. But okay, that may actually be accurate. Um, I think one little known thing about George Foreman, if you don't know how great of a boxer he truly was, he fought 81 fights, and he only lost five of them. I mean, that's, that's, I mean, he's good. I just like sir. I just Well, I just say that to say I feel like he became a clown in his later life, when he was actually a bad man, like he was a I mean, he was up there with the Tysons of the world in terms of boxing efficiency and how great he was. Oh
Nick VinZant 44:53
yeah, because he didn't look like a boxer as much like he didn't look like a mean guy like Mike Tyson. Look like a guy who's going to eat your heart. You know, there's enough. Ali looked like a guy who's going to whip your ass. But George Foreman looked a little bit like, he didn't look like a mean guy. And,
John Shull 45:11
I mean, you know, he became, I mean, he, he did so much the Foreman Grill. He was a chef. He had restaurants. He was a a minister. I mean, just what a life. You know,
Nick VinZant 45:23
it's busy man, busy man,
John Shull 45:27
as you said, changing lives inadvertently. He, he did tons of that. Okay, all right, uh, all right. Would you rather go to the bottom of the ocean, explore it, or go into space? Go
Nick VinZant 45:39
into space. I don't want to go to the bottom of the ocean. Bottom of the ocean creeps me out. I don't really even want to go into the water. To be honest with you, I don't like anything where I can't see where my feet are.
John Shull 45:52
Wow, that was an exact answer. Like you, there was no God doubting you on that.
Nick VinZant 45:57
No, no. Because, like, think about this, right? Like, if something goes wrong in either place, you're probably going to be dead. There's really no hope for you. It's going to be a bad death. You're not going to like it, but at least if you're in space, like, you can see everything around you, like, if you die at the bottom of the ocean, you just die in complete cold darkness.
John Shull 46:20
I mean, either or you're probably not going to have very many seconds to realize it. So I don't know, you know, I do think you bring up a great point, though, about not, you know, like rivers and things. I mean, those are murky, most of them, and you have no idea where, even if you're in waist length or waist high water, like you have no idea what you're stepping in, or you know what you might be stepping on. It's, it is kind of eerie
Nick VinZant 46:45
when you I don't like it. I don't really like to get I love water, but I don't really like to get into anything where I can't see where my legs are. Like, if I can't see what's beneath me, I don't want, I don't want anything to do with that.
John Shull 46:59
Nope. So I guess on our Profoundly Pointless cruise, you won't be going in the water. I guess we'll be going
Nick VinZant 47:08
on the cruise, and you'll never get me on a cruise. I will never go on a cruise. I went on a cruise one time, and I will never go on a cruise again. That was the worst experience of my life. No, it was the worst vacation experience. Wow.
John Shull 47:22
Do you want to tell us more?
Nick VinZant 47:23
I just hated it. I just hated it, hated it, hated it, wow. Well,
John Shull 47:28
that's, that's all I kind of had for this episode.
Nick VinZant 47:31
All right, so our top five is top five cats, not like house cats, but like types of cats, like lions, tigers, not bears, but maybe it's not a cat. Osellaxes,
John Shull 47:47
what? So can I ask a question before we get going? Yeah, what? What sparked this idea? Just, What? What? What sparked it?
Nick VinZant 47:55
I don't know something just like, Let's do cats.
John Shull 47:59
I just didn't know if this might have been you on your scooter going crazy, and you're just like, we're going to do best cats,
Nick VinZant 48:05
no, dude, when I'm on my scooter, man, I'm not thinking about anything but the wind in my hair and the freedom in my soul. That was great. What it I have so much fun on that I have, I mean, don't make me get my son in here to be like, What do you think of the scooter? And he'll be like, it's
John Shull 48:24
badass. You truly seem happy with your scooter. So
Nick VinZant 48:28
I really enjoy it, man. There's nothing funner in life, and just going
Dr. Jade Wu 48:31
on we I'm,
John Shull 48:35
I'm legitimately happy for
Nick VinZant 48:37
you. Good. You should get your scooter. Maybe I'll send you one. All right, my
John Shull 48:41
number five favorite type of cat, I'm going with the Black Panther.
Nick VinZant 48:47
Oh, okay, Black Panther didn't make my list, but that would be really up there. It's cool.
John Shull 48:52
It's, I mean, could you imagine I so I tried putting myself in situations with all of my top five, and how scared of scared of shit, I'd be. So here's walking through the jungle, and you just stop, and you just hear a snarl, and you look to the right or the left, and there are just these yellow eyes just staring at you. And then you're dead.
Nick VinZant 49:12
You're dead. The Oh, the I don't Okay. I don't know specifically if it was a grizzly bear, but I know it was a really big bear that I ran into once when I was out hiking. And I was like, Wow, that's awesome. And then I thought to myself, oh shit,
Unknown Speaker 49:30
yeah, dude, I
Nick VinZant 49:31
don't like people who say I want to see this in the wild. Like, No, you really don't. You really don't. No,
John Shull 49:38
I there was that video that service a couple years ago, the guy in the woods and the brown bears chasing after him, and like the brown bear is fast as hell and waiting away from it, yeah, like, No man, I'm good. I'll pass
Nick VinZant 49:52
my number five is a snow leopard. I think a snow leopard is just like the coolest thing, like mysterious. Is rare. I have it on my
John Shull 50:06
honorable mention. It's a cool cat, cool looking cat. I agree, maybe underrated.
Nick VinZant 50:10
Yeah, yeah. The only thing I think that keeps the Snow Leopard down a little bit is just because it's not as popular. Yeah, people aren't as familiar with the snow leopard. Uh,
John Shull 50:21
my number four, and I think this, this may be the most overrated big cat, but it's the cheetah. Oh,
Nick VinZant 50:31
my number four is what I think is the most overrated big cat, which is the lion. I don't like, okay, overrated. It's just big, like, what's it really doing? It doesn't compete with the other big cats. It doesn't have, like, a cool feature, like the other ones do just the biggest I
John Shull 50:50
actually think that lions probably have the coolest feature, which is the main That's badass,
Nick VinZant 50:56
yeah, but the lion s is actually more badass than the lion. He's just got a mane. We're
John Shull 51:05
splitting hairs there. Okay, three. My number three is a speaking of a lion. Is a mountain lion. That's
Nick VinZant 51:13
my number three. Two is a mountain lion. I've seen a mountain lion in real life, and thought to myself, I better get to hell
John Shull 51:20
out of here. I so I've never seen one, obviously, with where I live. But, I mean, I'm guessing they truly can scale the side of a of a mountain, like, it's like, just incredible to see. You
Nick VinZant 51:33
know, that's not why they call them the mountain lion, right? Like, it's not like, I
John Shull 51:37
have no idea. I have no idea,
Nick VinZant 51:38
no idea. Do you live in the world.
Unknown Speaker 51:41
I have no idea.
Nick VinZant 51:43
It's probably because they're found at like, higher elevations. Is assuming why they probably called a mountain lion. But I believe I may be wrong here, but I believe a mountain lion, a cougar and a puma are all the same thing, just depending on where you are, but mountain lions are crazy, like, that's an animal you don't want to mess with, but I'm saying of an animal
John Shull 52:03
that they're not mountain lions, because they don't climb mountains. No,
Nick VinZant 52:06
I'm saying they're not. They're like, they're just called different things in different areas. Sometimes they're called a cougar, sometimes they're called a puma,
Dr. Jade Wu 52:13
okay,
John Shull 52:14
alright, uh, my number two is just the standard, atypical lion.
Nick VinZant 52:21
Oh, I bet our number one's gonna be not saying that. My number two is amazing. My number two is my number two is a cheetah, fastest land animal on earth. Like, just cool,
John Shull 52:35
uh, they are cool cheetah. I just feel like I said earlier. I feel like that's all they have to go on is that they're fast. If you take away their speed, what are they? You know what I mean? Well,
Nick VinZant 52:46
if you take away a lion's size, what is it?
John Shull 52:49
They're just another they're just another cat, you know, just another house cat walking around. What's your number one? So it's a tiger, but it's specifically a white tiger.
Nick VinZant 53:01
Oh, I didn't go that far. I just went Tiger, but I could go Bengal tiger,
John Shull 53:08
yeah, I have, I mean, I'm fascinated with white tigers. They're blue eyes. They're like Alaska Malamutes, like the dog to me, like, I think they're just absolutely beautiful creatures. Okay? All right, anyone who wants to gift me one, I'll send you my address, a white tiger. Oh, that'd be
Nick VinZant 53:31
Would you ever have it? Would you ever keep an exotic animal as a pet? No, no, I wouldn't either, but
John Shull 53:38
not because I don't want to, but because I know, like, what would happen, I'd say, take care of it, and then I wouldn't. Or, like, you know, yeah, I just, yeah, it just wouldn't work out.
Nick VinZant 53:51
Yeah, I would be, I wouldn't want to take care of it. Or be like, Wow, that's a lot, and that's not really worth it. Like, it's not like, the Tigers ever gonna like, hey, come watch him sit next to me and let's watch a movie.
John Shull 54:03
Well, and then, you know, we both have little kids like, you know, that's an issue. You know, neighbors will be over. It's all a liability thing at that point. The
Nick VinZant 54:13
only thing that I really have in my honorable mention is a bobcat and a lynx. I think a lynx is kind of cool. But other than that, I don't really care about, like, ocelots.
John Shull 54:25
Care about Jaguars. You know, I had one one on that's kind of obscure, but it's called a savannah cat. And basically, they're, they're, they're large, like snow cats that live in snowy regions, obviously, let me look it up. But yeah, it's, it's, technically, I believe it's, yeah, I believe it's considered like the tallest, biggest, like domestic cap read, but the. Wild. They're just like a really big wild winter cat
Nick VinZant 55:03
is the savannah cat is a type of hybrid cat developed in the late 20th century from crossing a serval with a domestic cat. I don't really know what a serval is. They're very tall, though,
John Shull 55:14
but okay, do we say Jaguars? By the way? I feel like Jaguar needs to get a shout out too. I
Nick VinZant 55:22
don't know what a jaguar is. I know what a jaguar is.
John Shull 55:28
A jaguar, Jaguar.
Nick VinZant 55:31
Try to get Come on. You can do it. Jaguar,
John Shull 55:34
Jaguar.
Nick VinZant 55:37
It's getting worse.
John Shull 55:40
Jaguar, like,
Nick VinZant 55:41
say war, holy,
John Shull 55:43
it's not Jaguar, is it? No wire. Say
Nick VinZant 55:47
gore. No, just listen, let's work through this. Okay? Say war, war, Jaguar, Jaguar. There you go, Jaguar. I don't know if that's actually a power to pronounce it, but that's how I pronounce it. Well,
John Shull 56:03
it's not Jaguar that I just realized. Thank you. Okay,
Nick VinZant 56:07
I think it's best to just stop this. Oh, okay, that's gonna go ahead and do it for this episode. Profoundly Pointless. I want to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance, leave us a quick review. We really appreciate it really helps out the show and let us know who what. Let us know who you think, or what you think, what you think are the best cats, or should it be, who you think are the best cats? I really don't understand English that much. Do.