Brain Yapping

Why is Fight-or-Flight still a thing? Our brain’s unhelpful primitive reactions to modern stresses. As a listener points out, a lot of the stress we experience in modern times, and the subsequent harm this does to our mental health, can be pinned on our brain’s fight-or-flight response, reacting to things unnecessarily. But if we now live in a world where physical threats don’t lurk around every corner, and fighting or flying are rarely any use, why do we still have this reaction at all? Dean and Rachel get into how the brain really evolves, and the time scales it requires, as well as unpicking the way modern lockdown life sets off our brain’s stress systems, in the second episode of Brain Yapping: Battle Damaged. Support the podcast, and the Cosmic Shambles Network by subscribing at patreon.com/cosmicshambles

We’re often told we should reach out and seek help when going through periods of poor mental health. But does this still apply when literally everyone else is in the same situation? This is the reality that the pandemic and lockdown has forced upon so many people. Particularly Dean, who experienced great personal tragedy in 2020 and found himself unsure about how to deal with it when everyone else had struggles and concerns of their own. He and Rachel thrash out what you’re supposed to do in such situations, and how it can affect people, in the first episode of Brain Yapping: Battle Damaged. Support the show and gets loads of exclusive content at patreon.com/cosmicshambles

We’d write a tag for this episode, but we can’t be bothered… In this final episode for the series (or was that season?) Dean and Rachel talk about procrastination, laziness, risk and reward and the “gift" of emanating mess. Rachel and Dean will be back after summer, if they get round to it, (they will), with a brand new bunch of episodes for you. Support the show, and everything at the Cosmic Shambles Network, by visiting and pledging to our Patreon at patreon.com/bookshambles

Travelling can be rewarding, exciting, mind expanding, and also, a little odd to wrap our brains around. Rachel and Dean talk about the weirdness of culture shock, from small differences (did you know Americans don’t use kettles) to cavernous shifts (in Mexico, according to Dean, you may find yourself on a bus, with people carrying chickens in boxes) and why it can feel so discombobulating. Support the show at patreon.com/bookshambles

In a society where you can summon food at the press of a button, how can anyone be hangry? Dean and Rachel talk about how low blood sugar can make us boil over and why evolutionarily, that's a good thing! Also, the curious fact we’ve universally accepted that “blue liquid” is the perfect stand in for all gross bodily fluids. Support the show, and everything at the Cosmic Shambles Network, by visiting and pledging to our Patreon at patreon.com/bookshambles

Rachel and Dean discuss misophonia and how to not tackle people to the ground when they do perfectly normal things that make sounds you find infuriating (keyboard clacking, anyone?) Also, finding the sweet spot in the world of sound between the random and the predictable and giving pigs a fairer go. Support the Brain Yapping podcast and blog by pledging at http://patreon.com/bookshambles

It’s already episode 8 of the Brain Yapping podcast and in this week’s episode, Dean and Rachel cringe at the sound of their own voices and tell us why we’re not who we hear we are… Support the show, and everything at the Cosmic Shambles Network, by visiting and pledging to our Patreon at patreon.com/bookshambles

Enjoy this week’s episode all about being in autopilot, which Dean and Rachel assure us they were not when producing it (though they couldn’t for the life of them describe how they got home). Support the show, and everything at the Cosmic Shambles Network, by visiting and pledging to our Patreon at patreon.com/bookshambles

Recently on Twitter, Rachel was set upon on Twitter by some particularly nasty followers of a certain British TV presenter. So this week on Brain Yapping Rachel and Dean talk about tribes and jibes, memes from the mean and why changing our mind can be so hard. Support the show by pledging on Patreon at patreon.com/bookshambles

In this week’s episode of Brain Yapping, Rachel and Dean stand on the precipice of compulsion as they discuss what happens in the brain when we have intrusive thoughts (no cats were put in bins during the making of this episode, but if one had been, we couldn’t really explain why. NB - Listeners are advised that this episode contains some discussion about suicide and OCD. Support the podcast and the entire network by pledging at patreon.com/bookshambles