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The University of Victoria is home to a handful of hardworking graduate students doing trailblazing work in their field. In this series, CFUV correspondents sit down with UVic graduate students to learn more about the work they do in a conversational setting.
Hello, you're listening to the Beyond the Jargon Podcast on CFUV, 101.9 FM. Before we begin, I'd like to acknowledge with respect to the Lekwungen speaking peoples on whose traditional territory the university and CFUV stands, and the Songhees, Esquimalt and was Wsanec peoples whose historical relationships with the land continue to this day. I'm a guest on this land and I'm extremely grateful for the experiences and the life it has given me while I've been here. Welcome to the show. My name is Sam Kaiser. I use he him pronouns and I'm a master's student studying music technology in the final semester of my studies, my research is mainly focused on the implications of the growing popularity of immersive audio formats on popular music. This is the third episode of the 10th season and I'm super excited to get right into it. For any new listeners. Here's a quick little rundown of what we do on the show. Beyond the jargon exists to give a platform to graduate students at UVic, so they can discuss their research in an accessible and non formal way. I'll be interviewing graduate students from various faculties at different points in their academic careers, asking them about their research topics, their experiences as grad students and what their future plans may be. Today's guest is Tara Cooper. Tara is a second year Master's student in the Department of Psychology, specifically in lifespan, health and development.
My name is Tara, Tara Cooper, I'm in the I'm in the department of psychology and lifespan, health and development, and you're in your second year, second year master's. Since
we're in a radio station, I've been sort of asking variations of this question. What are you listening to right now? Like, what kind of music Yeah, what kind of music are you listening to right now?
I'm a big hip hop fan. Okay. Yeah. I've been listening to a new album by Kaski called Cadillac music. Okay. Which has been really good. I really like that. I don't know if I've ever heard his Kaski. Yeah, he's a West Coast rapper from I think LA region. Cool. Yeah, he's been. He's been independent for a long time. And yeah, I really liked music.
I'll check it out. Yeah. So what brought you to UVic? Or Victoria? And where are you coming from before this.
So I did start my undergrad at UVic. And I chose you back originally, because it's just Victoria is such a beautiful city. I really enjoy it. I enjoy it for the biking too. Like my plans always been to kind of use biking as my main transportation. So it's a great city for that the campus is really cute. Just like a ring and everything just kind of goes inside. It's very i i understand it. And I also wanted to stay close to my family. Most of my family lives on the island now. And so staying close to family being able to see them on weekends. Yeah, spending time meant a lot to me. So that's why I chose UVic.
And you're from Victoria or you're from
Toronto. Yeah. So I grew up in Toronto, and I finished high school, the last two years of high school on the island, and I've just been here ever since. So it's going on 11 years now that I've been here.
Yeah, it is a great place. I was also in Ontario for a while I did my undergrad at Queen's Oh, nice. So I also kind of came from there to here. Yeah, I do also really enjoy Victoria, especially in comparison to some ways different vibe, different vibe. It's nice. It's not the weather's a lot more mild. Yes.
A different kind of cold though, like, yeah, it's like a to the bone. Like, growing up in Ontario. It's like you'd go out outside and Toronto in the winter. And if your hair wasn't like completely dry, like you're gonna get icicles, and it's not like that here. But it's like a different kind of damp, cold. Yeah, in the winter and
is so yeah. Was there anything about the program specifically at UVic that brought to your attention? I think we can kind of talk about this question a bit differently to like, what made you stay at UVic? For your graduate degree too, right.
Yeah. So what made me come back? Well, of course, it's just like I, the location is something I really wanted. But the reputation that the Department of Psychology has in aging research is what brought me back and the opportunity to collaborate with the clinical program. And there's also an institute for aging and lifelong health that's associated with the university. And so all those things, given my interest in aging research was what brought me back to UVic.
Let's dial it back a little bit. We'll get into your research a little bit more later. But I was curious about the application procedure for your program. It's a specific program within the Department of Psychology, right. Yeah. So that's lifespan and health. Yeah.
lifespan, health and development, lifespan health. Yeah, that's
what it it was great. So were there any like interesting prerequisites or associate activities with applying to this specific program?
Yeah, um, prerequisites because it's more of like a read search based program, the most important prerequisite that I needed was just evidence that I enjoyed or participated in research. And so it didn't necessarily have to be an honors thesis in my undergrad, but some sort of like self directed research project was a prerequisite. And then, in terms of the application process, it was pretty standard, like it was, you know, a letter of intent, transcripts, letters of recommendation, the part that was the most challenging was, in addition to the application, I decided to apply for federal funding, so that in my application, I could say that I had applied and that I'm hoping to bring funding with me, because I had been someone who advised me that I should do that as to, to kind of better my chances of getting in. And that process was really hard, because you basically have to come up with, there's this, these three agencies at the federal level, and they fund research in Canada. And master students can apply for it and PhD students and postdocs can apply for it. And the application process is pretty rigorous, you have to come up with a proposal for research. And then there's a CV that you have to put together through this really, like antiquated portal that they have, it's just like, doesn't really work that great is like just, you know, you have to remember a number and then put it into this other website. And that that was a that was a hard process. Because you basically have to come up with a proposal for research. And the point is, is that you can demonstrate that you can think like a researcher, that you can put together something that could potentially work. And it's not that easy to do, especially when you have a couple months to put it together. So that was the hardest part of applying to grad school. But it was a good experience for sure.
And this was I always get them mixed up. Or I maybe just don't know all of them. There's shirt grants, there's insert grants. And then there's another one
which yeah, there's a CIHR, which is like the health care that was the one that you apply for I applied. So I apply for all three at this point. Okay, I started with an circ because my original so coming into my master's, I had a proposal that kind of fit more in the it was kind of more about like, neurophysiology and how you could measure pupillary diameter to correlate it to attention and see how that relates to cognitive decline. And so kind of like fit into this natural sciences kind of area is answers Natural Sciences and Engineering. Yes, exactly. Yeah. And so it kind of fit into that area. So I applied for that one. And then I applied for shirk, last year, and then I applied for CIHR this year.
Okay. Yeah. So and just so people if people don't know, shirk is social sciences and humanities, I believe. Yes. And then CIHR is, you know,
Canadian Institute for Health Research. Okay. So it's really
just focused in on health. So yeah. Also, like in medicine, I suppose people are more in the research category. Exactly.
Yeah. So very medicine based on like, how do we improve our healthcare systems? How can we improve the delivery of health care? Like diagnosis? That kind of stuff? Screening? That kind of stuff? Yeah,
amazing. Again, yeah, I messed up the three because I don't think I'd ever heard of that third one. Yeah, I've heard of insert grants and short grants, because we're often encouraged to apply for these things, even as we start our studies. I'm sure you've heard that. And we can maybe talk about this too. You're wanting to start a podcast or you're in the process of starting a podcast at CFUV. About this sort of process you want to kind of talk about Yeah, Adam, what inspired you to do that as well?
Yeah, I'd love to Yeah. So over the summer, I was just kind of thinking about ways that I could contribute back to my community and share my experiences. I like to follow people on YouTube who are on different career paths and watching them accomplish their goals. And it's inspiring to me, and the advice that they have to give is always helpful. And so I was thinking, like, how could I do something like that? And it came to me that maybe a podcast would be a different medium that I could share that kind of information. There's stuff that you can find online, like blog kind of bass, there's, there's videos and there, I kind of scoured like Spotify to see what there was in the audio medium, and there wasn't very much. There was one podcast, but I thought that I could contribute a little bit more. So yeah, the idea is that, and I got a grant for it. So it's not just an idea anymore. It's like I have to do it. Yeah, I gotta it's happening. It's happening. I'm hoping I'll record my first episode during reading break. But yeah, the idea is that I want to show people first of all that you can start anywhere and end up in grad school. I want to share exciting research that's going on right now in the department of psychology. So give people that kind of educational piece, if they're interested in that and then I want to give People advice on different aspects of grad school things that I hadn't really thought of that might help them make their decisions like things like I want to touch on funding, I want to touch on finding supervisors, the interview process, I want to bring perspectives from groups like parents who are in grad school and like what it's like to be a parent and being in grad school, if you're an international student, what that's like like acclimatized to a new city and like, that kind of stuff. So yeah, I think there's a lot of potential to for a lot of different topics. But right now, yeah, I've had I have a plan for five. So five, episode five episodes getting started with that
five interviews, five interviews. Yeah. So it's kind of like a focus as well, for each one. Yeah,
I've kind of tried to make it a kind of season based, like, there's a general topic. And I think the the first five episodes kind of touch on like, getting into grad school. So all of the different processes that come with getting into grad school, like tri Council funding, yeah, that kind of Sure.
Yeah. Cuz it is difficult to like, just want to go to grad school, but then feeling daunted by like, all of the associated finances, and then like, thinking, I'm gonna be a full time grad student, like, I probably won't have time to work, or I won't have time to work very much. So to think about alternate avenues for income for myself, but also for my research. Exactly. Yeah.
It's a really overwhelming process. And it's a commitment to like, you're committing the next at least the next two years of your life. Sure, if not, like even seven. And so yeah, it's a pretty big choice to make,
of course, yeah, it sounds like a great podcast. It sounds like it's a great idea, especially for Canadian students, because the Canadian process is different as well. Right? Yeah. And we talked about these grants, like short grants and cert grants, ci, ci HR grants. And we know them because we hear about them. But I had never heard of these things in my undergrad in my in my high school, like, just thinking about these things that just come up. And suddenly people know about them, and you have to kind of catch up. So it'd be a great resource it sounds like and talking about just like the medium. I think podcasts are great for learning because you're able to do other things while you listen, I find like watching YouTube videos, reading blogs and things, you have to be really engaged and listening all the time or listening and watching or reading. But I like passively listening to podcasts a lot of time. I feel like I learned a lot more to some ways. And I also feel a lot more productive. Yeah, in some ways, too. So I think, yeah, there's definitely room for this podcast, which I think is a great idea.
Totally. Yeah, I've I've almost like, you know, slice my finger watching something on the TV while I'm cooking. But that doesn't happen when I listen to podcasts are very focused, like I could do both things. Yeah, there's something to be said about like the coupling of like, the medium and you have to keep your eyes on it. And as opposed to like audio, you can just like kind of wander around. For
sure. I think that's also why podcasts are so popular these days, too. Because we're busy people. Everyone's busy. So it's
your to multitask. And podcast for sure.
Totally. Awesome. Headphones on vacuum. do my chores. Yeah,
me too. Laundry. Yeah, meal prep. Yeah, totally. Yeah.
All right. Let's go back to talking about your research a little bit. If you could sum up your research goals, your individual research goals, or maybe also your cohorts goals, the program goals. In one sense. I know that's a tough ask, what would it be?
In one sentence?
You can take a couple of you need? Okay.
Um, no, I think I can do it. Okay, I think you can do it. So my goal with my research ultimately, is to help people live healthy lives for as long as possible. So my focus right now is cognitively healthy lives for as long as possible. So trying to extend that health span for as long as possible before we all die.
So what made you interested in this in this sort of topic,
I'd have to say, a lot of it is driven by my personal experiences. I grew up with my grandparents in high school. And as an only child, I've spent a lot of my time with my parents and their friends, and they're all aging. And so that's, I mean, there's something kind of like personal there where I want to be able to help and find solutions and help them live healthy lives for as long as possible. And my grandparents, my my grandmother had a dementia. And so watching that happen for her was, it was really hard, obviously, as many people probably know, but it also inspired a lot of curiosity in me like, as I started learning about psychology and about the brain and the, you know, structure function, relationships, thinking about how the brain is kind of like the basis of our behavior and why we why we why we do things the way we do, why we think the way we think and also how our lifestyles and experiences that we have over the course of our life might shape how we are as we age, you know, like my grandmother was a really active person, and kind of understanding that riddle like, okay, so why is it that this was the outcome? When the life's experiences and lifestyle, your lifespan was pretty healthy? That's kind of a riddle that I'm, you know, interested in solving a puzzle that's, you know, kind of fun to think about trying to figure out like, what are the pieces that make this happen? For sure.
So you mentioned like cognitive health, cognitive health to extend the lifespan or to kind of just keep an active and healthy life in many ways. So it's keeping your brain healthy. So essentially, what that means, essentially, yeah, so there, I'm assuming the things that you study are like certain factors that seem like they might not affect your brain health, but might in some ways, like your grandmother lived a very active, healthy life. So it doesn't point to this happening, right? What are some of those factors? Maybe if you're able to share things that you've come across in your research?
Yeah, well, I'm just, I'm still learning all of this stuff. But some of the stuff that I'm focusing on as factors are like social determinants, so I'm not in a biology based program, I don't have that background. So those are the questions that I can't really answer or ask. So when it comes to like genetics, or like cell mechanisms, that's for a different department. Yeah. But like, for me, like my perspective is the social determinants. So including, like physical exercise, but things like social interactions, education, occupation, those types of lifestyle behaviors, or lifestyles that result in kind of similar behaviors towards your health, and similar behaviors in terms of engaging you cognitively. And how that might extend the amount of time that you have with a healthy cognitive frame or with a healthy body, physical body. Because the two are really related, like you said, it's comes down to brain health and physical health and brain health go hand in hand, cognitive health and brain health go hand in hand. And so it's kind of yeah, all of these really complicated pieces, trying to understand the role of mental health and cognitive decline, like what, how does depression relate to having your onset of cognitive decline? Does the timing of that depression make a difference? Like when it happens in your life, things like post traumatic stress as well, or just trauma in general is like an underlying risk factor for earlier cognitive decline? Yeah, that kind of stuff.
Oh, yeah. I mean, I think about these things, I guess, like in terms of you hear, like, being social is such a key thing and like being healthy. But I guess when I think about those things, I think it's just like, it makes you feel better to be social. Like, that's the necessity. But I guess I'm sure like you're saying these studies show that it actually has an impact on your brain, being social, being active, talking to people, it actually changes the way your brain works totally, and pushes back the decline in some ways, right?
Yeah. That's kind of what I'm interested in. Is that kind of resilience? Like, how do you continue to have like this positive outcome, despite the fact that you're starting to face adversities? There's like a really interesting study that looked at out like drinking, and its relationship to your cognitive health. And kind of like, you would think that, you know, drinking is, is negative, but it is when it's when you're drinking too much. But people who drink socially there's actually like a protective effect. And that's because it's probably because you're socializing. Socially. Yeah. Like you're going out, you're maintaining social relationships, you're staying active. And the drinking is just like a proxy, kind of like, of, of that behavior that's really driving the relationship.
For sure. It's, it's not really the drinking. No, yeah, you're with people. Exactly. I
mean, there's research has shown that like, having a glass of wine a day, like is has some sort of generally tected cardiovascular effect. Sure. But there's also like, the social aspect of it, that's like, you know, like, you probably know, people who are social drinkers, as opposed to like, have a problem with drinking, for sure. And yeah, it's it's kind of taps into that kind of lifestyle aspect of drinking and social drinking, recreational drinking, and what it means for your relationships or how often you interact with other people. And yeah,
I guess I never really thought about that, either. Yeah, it's kind of like that nuanced,
you know, it's like, well, it's not all bad. It's not all good. There's like a sweet spot and all of these different kind of categories of our behavior,
beneficial in some ways. Yeah. beneficial in some ways, even if they're detrimental in other ways. Totally. Some to some degree. I guess. It's just the balance. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So in your like, individual research like your graduating work, what is your primary focus? Is it the social determinants?
Yeah, yeah, it's, it's the social determinants. And I'm kind of applying it to the context of ADHD. And so there's a lot of people and this was my Shirke application last year was about how people with ADHD and this is at the group level, I'm not saying like, individual, if you have ADHD, you're at higher risk for dementia. But there's research that's showing like at the group level, they seem to have an earlier onset of dementia and a higher risk. And so my master's thesis is trying to kind of explain that in terms of the lifestyles that come with having ADHD, especially if it's untreated. And that includes like difficulty with education, having trouble holding jobs, having trouble in social with social relationships. And so using all of those different factors that put together somebody's that piece together somebody's life, like how can that make an impact on somebody's risk for dementia? And because those things are happening more frequently in ADHD? I'm trying to use ADHD as like a case in which I can study that
for sure. Sort of like a control all the people that you're studying have ADHD. Yeah. So you're able to see like, if there's any brain deterioration, I guess this is a word to use. Yeah, word. That's yeah. And then examining these social determinants you're talking
about? Yeah, yeah. Because the social determinants, like there's kind of a characteristic that comes with ADHD, I can kind of create a group of people with ADHD that probably have similar social characteristics and compare it to the group without ADHD and see like, do those characteristics accompany an earlier or a risk higher risk for dementia?
Again, I'm like, I just feel like, I'm rethinking a lot of these things that prior perception of people with ADHD, for example, to like growing up, like in high school and things like there's a few kids in your class or whatever your grade who have ADHD, maybe, and they're just very hyper always engaged in some way. Yeah. Or can be at least. So I guess, like, my misconception there is that people with ADHD tend to be more social. But that might be the total opposite, because they become more isolated because of the way they experience things maybe become more burned out by social interactions as well. Possibly,
yeah, it's like, the reason why I think it's an interesting group to study is because because I'm studying aging, like the people who are above 65 today, and who meet a diagnosis for ADHD, when they were kids, that diagnosis didn't exist. And so it's very likely that a lot of them didn't never got treated, like they were like, the problem kid or something, right. And because ADHD is like considered neurodevelopmental, you can assume it's had effect on the person's life throughout their life. And so there's this kind of like, yeah, this just carry enduring characteristic of the person that might, might have a relationship with how they age. And the thing that I like about the theory that I'm working from is that it's not deterministic, like I'm not looking at it from the perspective that, you know, because you have ADHD, there's like, you know, because of that all of these things accompany it, and it results in this higher risk for dementia, what I'm looking at is like, you could have ADHD, and there's variability and like, how your, what your outcomes are, and let's see whether or not people who have ADHD and whose characteristics are you know, that they've achieved more educationally or have gone further in their occupations or have maintained really good social relationships, it hasn't been as impairing, if that might be an impossible outcome that relates to better cognitive outcomes later in life. Because all of those things can be modified. Like I just saw the other day, there's this program. It's like a high school experiential program. It's a private school, but where people can meet their credentials for high school, but it's all in an outdoor setting. And something like that. So adaptive, like, not everybody can sit in the classroom, not everybody can focus for, you know, however long a school day is these days, like seven hours, you know, that doesn't work for everybody. And the curriculum doesn't work for everybody. And so if you're adaptive to the person, like the individual, like, maybe you can, maybe their outcomes can be better, despite the fact that they might have this condition that's impairing, or that this disorder that can be impairing, but there's like a really important environmental piece that can be changed, modified to improve the outcomes, of
course, yeah, so I guess, like trying to sum up what I'm understanding from your research, you're looking at a possible trend between people with ADHD and dementia, like who develop dementia later on, but non stigmatizing like that. ADHD portion of this, but by acknowledging that people with ADHD can be affected by the social determinants that make it more likely in some ways for dementia, but not because they have ADHD. But because of the way that society works, especially older populations back then totally untreated people with ADHD, who were perhaps even isolated further, because they were, as you mentioned, like, outcast in some ways from larger normal. I'm doing air quotes, social situations, social groups. Exactly.
Yeah, that's exactly it. So like today, you know, there's a lot more understanding, I think about ADHD, there's more adaptation for those individuals. Yeah, our whole, like, society is kind of coming along with its understanding and awareness of mental health conditions and all that stuff. But like back then it was a different environment. And so yeah, it's that environmental piece that I'm interested in because it can be modified. And so if it can be modified, this can be better. And it's not, like, I know so many people with ADHD who are like in my program, who are like really doing incredible work and who are really flourishing, and you know, they got it going on. And that can be the case for more people. That is the case for a lot of people with ADHD. And so I like that, because it's kind of taps into that resilience, like, even though you have this adversity, there's these positive outcomes and could come out of it. So that's cool. It's
a really optimistic thesis. Yeah.
I'm hoping I haven't seen the data yet. Yeah,
I don't know. I think especially with health, and with even psychology, it feels like sometimes research can be maybe, maybe depressing isn't the right word, but can feel heavy. Yeah, difficult. But this sounds like a really optimistic project. And it definitely changed my opinion, in terms of like, looking at cognitive health, from a different standpoint, like not from a purely biological standpoint, not from like a purely genetic standpoint. But looking at a specific case of people who have environmental difficulties like humans. Yeah. Yeah. And looking at how that affects cognitive health. That's amazing. Yeah, it's awesome. Thanks.
Yeah, I'm hoping that, you know, like, this semester, the goal is to do all of my data. Yeah, my, my goal is to defend first week of August, so I'm just working towards that.
Yeah, best of luck. Thank you, I think it's, I think it sounds great. If I was on your panel, I would be super interested. And yeah, maybe I'll track up. You mentioned your peers a little bit, I'm just curious about the work of your peers, and if they've influenced your own research, and how maybe other scholars in your field have also influenced the way that you look at your own research, or the way you research or things like that. Yeah,
so a lot of my, some of my peers are also working in the space of prevention. And so I draw inspiration from them, because they're looking at kinda like the same, the same idea, but in different populations. So I have one friend looking at it and people who have, who are exhibiting non suicidal self injury. And so comparing notes and ideas, it's kind of, it's nice to have a cohort of people who are also thinking along the same lines, as you, we all have very developmental perspectives, which means that we like to consider all of the interactions that are happening between the person and the people around them, and the environments that they live in, and the point in time that we're in, and how all of these different factors come together, to make the person who they are, are, like, how we see them, how we can measure them. And so my peers, you know, inspire me in that way. And they're also just all such hardworking people. That always pushes me to strive and try a little harder, because, you know, it's, it's inspiring to see people immersed in work, and kind of like, you know, like, when you see somebody in in that state of flow, you're like, oh, yeah, they're really doing some work right now. And that inspires me. And my peers are really disciplined people. And so it brings the best out of me.
Yeah, I feel the exact same way, like seeing the people around me. Excel, or just even just putting the effort makes me want to put in the effort totally, just because it just, you want to be at the same level as the people you're around, especially if there are people that are your friends, and they're spending a lot of time with them. You're spending, you could be spending up to like two, three years with them. Totally. So you want to see each other succeed. And you also don't want to let them down. Right? Because they want to see you succeed.
Yeah, so we often collaborate. I mean, there's a lot of collaborations that go on, not just in my cohort, but across cohorts. And there's kind of a sense of accountability with that. A lot of grad school is like working on projects. Yes, as opposed to undergrad like undergrad was a lot of just like studying, taking exams, just like checking off the boxes like this assignments, do you know that exam has to be done then. But in grad school, it's just completely different. And I did well with the undergrad model, but the grad school model is like way better. Yeah, you know, it's you collaborate on projects, it's a lot of just like discussion based. A lot of my classes have been seminar style, where, you know, you're asked to read, and then you come to class with your ideas, and you just talk and you talk about the methods and all of these pieces that you might not have thought of, but it it by sharing ideas, you kind of you learn a lot. So yeah, I'm really lucky to be around such productive people.
That's amazing. What do you think is a common misconception about your field or your research, you could talk about psychology, you could talk about health. I
think one Miskin chips, misconception is that growing old is no fun. Like that it's inevitably terrible, and that you're just gonna end up being disabled. And I think that's a misconception. I don't think that that's necessary. I don't think that that needs to be the case. Every now and then you see this news story of 100 year old canoeing or something, you know, yeah. And I think that could be or even the, that Netflix documentary that came out that everybody was talking about for a while the blue zones. Oh, so like, there's this phenomenon across the world, there's, I think there's maybe seven different Blue Zones. And they're called Blue Zones. I think that that was just a weird reason why it was called Blue Zones. But what it what it's referring to is like these little areas, regions across the world, where people seem to grow old, and stay very healthy, more often than not, so like people living to 100 years old, and they're like, very healthy. They're cognitively very healthy, they're physically healthy. And it's just, it's cool. It's really cool. But it just speaks to like the fact that, that can be the case for everybody. It's like, lifestyle, a lot of it is lifestyle, like these people are physically active, they eat a good diet, they're social, they have community connections, and relationships, that keep them healthy. And so I think that people growing, growing old and staying healthy, all the way to the end of their life is a possibility for everybody. And I often hear people say, or anticipate their older age as if it's going to be something that they're, yeah, they're dreading, you know, like, oh, once the golden years are over, you know, it's all downhill from even like, when you turn 25, it's like, oh, it's all downhill from there. It's like, oh, no, come on. It's gonna be great.
I mean, also, I think growing up now and being this age that we are now and looking at the future, it's a lot more optimistic, in some ways, I think to then people 50 years ago, you know, like, yeah, because of cognitive health stuff, too. But also, health care for us. And like, knowing more about our bodies, more about what can keep us healthy for longer, but now also keeping an eye on our cognitive health and knowing what can make our brains healthy for longer too, as opposed to just our bodies. I have a kind of an interesting question. You may not know anything about this. But just to spray something on you because you mentioned these blue zones. I grew up in Hong Kong. So Hong Kong, as of right now has the highest average lifespan in the world.
Really? Yeah. I didn't know that. It
is It's Hong Kong, I think Macau and then Japan. I think those are the top three, it changes, different stats or whatever. Yeah, they're all very high, like up in the high 80s. Was there any like research into these? Like, what was the reasoning for these blue zones? Like you kind of mentioned, like more of these social determinants, very social, active lifestyles, things like that. Yeah,
I think I didn't watch the documentary. But I've seen other. I've seen a similar documentary to it. And I think that basically what they're getting at is like that these people live very healthy lives, and that that's contributing to their lifespan. I think that there's a risk that people might think that they have to live there to live to grow old. Yeah,
it's not the place. Yeah. geographical location. Yeah, it's the social, it's the culture maybe in these places, too, right. Yeah, it's
the culture. It's like, maybe it has something to do with geography to like, you know, like, we're, like I said earlier, like you or I, like, we're, we're just like, a product of everything that is around us, right? Like, if it's like altitude, like maybe that makes a difference. I don't know. But I think pollution has a big part to play in our longevity and our health and a lot of the Blue Zones are like pretty low density population areas where there isn't a lot Have like exhaust from like trucks and cars and all that kind of stuff. But that's not the only thing obviously. Yeah,
I mean, that's why I was so surprised. But Hong Kong Yeah. Me too is so dense. Yeah, there's like a decent amount of pollution like the air quality. Yeah, it's pretty bad. No, yeah. So yeah, I don't know, in the social determinants must be a big thing there too because I feel like Hong Kong people family is such a big thing like keeping close social connections is a big thing. I think food is probably also part of it too. Like, yeah, like keeping your body healthy in some ways, too. But yeah, I don't know, I guess I never really thought about like, how the social aspect of Hong Kong people would affect their lifespan. Yeah, I
wonder what I mean. I wonder if somebody's like, looked into that. Yeah, I have no idea. Maybe it's really interesting. Yeah.
It's in which apparently, Japan has like rural areas, but also very dense cities. So yeah, super interesting. Yeah.
I don't know what Okinawa looks like. But that's one of the Blue Zones. Okay. Yeah. Japan, I don't know what the density population density
looks like, lower. I think it's more of a rural rural region still. Yeah, that's
pretty interesting. I think it's a powerful concept, just to think that like, yeah, it's like the environment that we're in, that can really improve our healthspan and our lifespan. And that's, some of that is in our control. Some of it isn't. But the stuff that is like, you know, we might as well try to exercise that to Yeah, yeah,
I guess what I learned from today, at least, is that I guess I've always thought about lifespan and longevity as, mostly due to keeping your body healthy, eating good food. And just like staying healthy, like keeping the physical portion of your body healthy. Of course, I've heard like I mentioned before, like, you have to see a social stay alive, like humans are social beings. Yeah. But I thought that was more of just like a bigger, you feel better kind of thing. But I never really thought about these social determinants, and how important they are, and how much of our lives are extended. And also just like, kept alive, not just surviving. Right? Like, yeah, so many years. Yeah, exactly.
Like, I think a lot of people. Right now, a lot of people live like the last, I don't know, like, decade, two decades of their life in some sort of like, with some sort of disability. And that's, yeah, that that, you know, like people might have, with with attention paid to like diet and like, exercise is a, I think, a really important one to, like, kind of shortening that disability span. Yeah. is of interest to me, for sure. So
you're defending hopefully, in August, that's kind of the goal, and you have this podcast kind of on the way, what do you think is indexed after your defense?
That's a good question. I'm gonna take holiday. Yeah, but after that, I'm looking towards doing a PhD, I need to know a bit more about what that would look like. And what I want to commit myself to, in terms of research, something that I want to explore with the podcast for myself and for others is career options after grad school. I think that that's something that isn't always that obvious, especially when you're in like a research based program, and especially in psychology, as opposed to the clinical program, like, by the end of the clinical program, you know, you'll be a clinician or you'll be a certified clinician, you could also be a researcher, if you want, but you have a career that's waiting for you at the end. Whereas with research, there's a lot of different avenues that aren't all that evident. And so, yeah, I, I'm looking towards doing a PhD. Not sure what I want to study yet. But yeah, I want to explore with my podcast, like what career paths there are after that, because like I said, I'm really interested in this prevention stuff. So something along those lines would be, I think, a really rewarding career. But yeah, understanding what that could be still yet to be determined, I
guess. Yeah. Who knows? Maybe your podcast blows up.
Yeah, maybe that's my that's my thing. Sure. Yeah. People totally their whole lives these days. Yeah. Yeah. Well,
thank you very much, Tara for being here. Yes. Is there anything else you want to say to anybody listening? Or
do you have a title for the I was gonna plug in the title there? Yeah. It's, it's called the grad cast grad cast. And it's in partnership with CFUV. So it will be on there like, streaming platforms. But yeah, the grad cast. Amazing.
Awesome. Thanks so much. Awesome. Thank you. Thanks again to Tara. I invited Tara on the show because I wanted to hear a little bit more about her own podcast premiering soon on CFUV. And I'm so glad I did. Because I feel like I've learned a lot more about cognitive health, especially thinking about my own cognitive health and the social determinants that may be affecting it in my day to day life. Keep an eye out for the grad cast coming soon. Thanks for tuning in. This has been beyond the jargon on CFUV 101.9 FM and I hope you'll tune into our next episode. Once again, my name is Sam Kaiser. Thanks very much for listening