0:03

I've always been attracted to stories

0:06

of the macabre, strange.

0:09

I enjoy stories

0:11

about paranormal occurrences.

0:17

Stephen King has written some of my

0:20

all-time favorite books, The Stand,

0:22

It, Misery. And you

0:25

may not realize this, but he has been

0:27

scaring readers now for nearly 50 years,

0:30

almost my entire life. I

0:32

spent so many college summers totally

0:35

immersed in his books, and I still feel

0:37

a little scared just thinking about characters

0:39

like Pennywise, who by the way, is

0:42

what my daughter is dressing up for Halloween this

0:44

year. What I still think is most

0:46

remarkable about Stephen King's books

0:49

is his ability to make the ordinary

0:51

parts of life so ordinary

0:53

that even a little something out

0:56

of place, a wood chipper in

0:58

a basement, suddenly feels

1:00

terrifying.

1:02

First time I read a Stephen King book,

1:04

I had a hard time sleeping for a week, which

1:07

may make you ask, why would

1:09

I do that? Well, we're going to discuss that

1:11

a bit today. The frightened brain, the

1:14

scared brain, why some of us

1:16

love feeling that way.

1:21

What you may know if you're a long-time listener of the show

1:23

is that I love Halloween. I

1:26

love the entire season. But I

1:28

also love the ability for people to step

1:30

outside themselves in costume. I

1:33

spend weeks designing a spooky forest in

1:35

my yard every year for my three daughters.

1:37

It comes complete with ghosts and goblins

1:40

and whispering witches and cauldrons of smoking

1:42

concoctions, sprinkled with little

1:44

scary surprises throughout.

1:47

Even as my girls have aged, our

1:49

spooky forest is one thing that

1:52

has never grown old. You

1:54

know, my love of all things creepy started

1:57

kind of early. Growing up, I was usually first

1:59

in line to get a ghost. line for the latest horror flick,

2:02

I love the rush of excitement from

2:04

a jump scare in the extra cyst or

2:06

getting goosebumps when I'm surprised by some

2:09

terrifying twist.

2:10

I know that fear is mostly viewed

2:13

as a negative emotion,

2:15

but I also know that it serves a purpose. It

2:17

activates certain regions of the brain, including

2:20

the amygdala and the hypothalamus.

2:22

That prompts the release of hormones that trigger

2:25

what you call a fight or flight response.

2:28

Now what happens in our body during

2:30

that response? Our cortisol levels

2:32

spike, our heart rate and our breathing accelerate,

2:35

we start to sweat, even your digestive

2:38

system starts to slow down. All

2:40

of that had a purpose and served our ancient

2:42

ancestors well when they were trying to

2:45

escape whatever was threatening them. But

2:47

here's the thing. Most

2:50

days, we don't really need those

2:52

innate survival instincts. So

2:54

why do some people like me still

2:57

have what is called a quote, sensation

3:00

seeking personality? That

3:02

is a personality that craves stimulation

3:05

and the dopamine rush that fear

3:07

releases. So in

3:09

honor of the haunted season, I'm going

3:12

to explore the frightened brain with

3:14

the King of Horror himself, Stephen

3:16

King.

3:18

I like the idea of modern

3:20

horror and things that connected

3:23

with the world that

3:25

I understood, because to me, that

3:27

made him scarier.

3:29

His latest book is called Holly, and

3:31

instead of rabid dogs or murderous

3:34

prom queens, it revolves around

3:36

something very real, the COVID-19 pandemic.

3:40

Today on the podcast, why do so

3:42

many of us treasure terror?

3:45

What do we get out of it? And what really

3:48

scares one of the world's most prolific

3:50

horror writers?

3:52

I'm scared to death of these murder

3:54

wasps, and I think that that

3:56

would make a great subject for

3:58

a horror novel.

3:59

That's Stephen King and I'm

4:02

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN's chief

4:04

medical correspondent. This is

4:06

Chasing Life.

4:12

Do you like being scared yourself?

4:14

Like if someone were to come in the door behind you right now,

4:17

creep in and suddenly scare you. I

4:19

mean, is that a feeling you like?

4:21

No, I like to be in control. I

4:23

like to be in charge of the scares.

4:26

I don't necessarily like... For

4:29

instance, here's

4:31

something. It was about four

4:34

years ago, my

4:36

wife said to me, I

4:38

think there's someone in the house. She

4:40

had heard this loud crash

4:44

and I did

4:45

the manly thing. I

4:48

got up and I grabbed

4:50

something. I can't remember what it was and

4:52

I went downstairs and it had been

4:55

this big ornamental mirror that had

4:57

fallen off the wall that chose that

4:59

moment to fall off the wall. But

5:01

no, I don't like to be scared myself.

5:04

But I think that

5:06

everybody enjoys a

5:09

dress rehearsal for

5:11

really scary things so

5:13

that you can go to

5:15

a movie and you can see the Leatherface

5:19

guy or Michael Myers or one

5:22

of those

5:26

guys in the hockey mask and

5:29

say, well, this is just

5:31

pretend, but it gives you a chance

5:33

to sort of test drive

5:36

those emotions of fear. We

5:38

enjoy roller coasters and we

5:40

enjoy the fun house and that's what

5:43

I do. I build fun houses.

5:45

It's interesting that the dress rehearsal

5:47

component of it, like I think is... Like

5:50

that's a human thing, right? I mean, animals,

5:53

for example, you can scare an animal, but that's

5:55

because the animal thinks there is a legitimate threat.

5:58

You can't sort of... Are humans unique

6:01

in this regard? Is it an indication of higher

6:03

cognition to be able to be scared

6:05

by a Stephen King novel?

6:08

I think it is.

6:12

You have to say to yourself, do

6:14

other animals have an imagination?

6:18

They may have a limited one, but

6:20

we have

6:21

these imaginations that can see

6:24

forward, that can see

6:27

what might happen. Alfred

6:30

Hitchcock used to say, if a

6:32

bomb explodes on

6:35

the screen,

6:36

you get five seconds of

6:39

horror. But if you know that

6:41

the bomb is under the table, you

6:44

get 10 minutes of suspense because

6:47

the human imagination is able to

6:49

see

6:50

forward

6:52

a little bit.

6:53

In Psycho, we know that

6:56

Mother

6:57

is in the fruit cellar and

6:59

we know that eventually Vera

7:01

Miles is going to go down there. We

7:04

don't know what's going to happen, but we

7:06

do know a little bit

7:08

more than the characters know. And

7:12

that's scary. That can be really, really

7:14

scary.

7:15

This idea that it's a dress rehearsal

7:17

in some ways makes it sound like, hey, we can

7:19

be prepared, should the

7:21

real thing, at least psychologically, be prepared.

7:24

We've gone through a dress rehearsal. But

7:28

it still doesn't seem like something that would be enjoyable.

7:31

I'd rather not go through something that

7:33

is painful just to be prepared. People

7:35

seek out a roller coaster. They seek out a Stephen

7:37

King novel, a scary movie, whatever it might be.

7:40

Why? What do you think it is? Have

7:42

you thought about that? What's going on in the brain that

7:45

someone would actually enjoy that?

7:47

Well, I think it's

7:49

because there are so many things in

7:51

life that are really

7:54

scary.

7:56

We're afraid of

7:58

getting sick for a day. instance.

8:01

And so if we go to see

8:04

a David Cronenberg movie where

8:07

horrible things just sort of postulate

8:09

out of the human body, or

8:12

if we go to see Alien where

8:15

all at once this horrible monster comes

8:17

out of this guy's

8:19

stomach, then we say

8:21

to ourselves,

8:22

oh, this is

8:24

a dress rehearsal. This

8:27

is why

8:28

I'm afraid of, for instance,

8:31

if I get acid indigestion, we

8:34

don't think that there's going to be a monster that's

8:36

going to come out of our belly. But

8:39

we can see the worst case scenario.

8:42

So whatever's going on with us

8:44

isn't as bad. And

8:46

I think that it gives us a chance to

8:51

express

8:53

fears

8:55

that may be inside

8:57

us.

8:59

What scares you the most today?

9:00

Alzheimer's disease. I'm

9:03

afraid every time that I

9:05

have to search for a word, my

9:09

mind is my tool. It's

9:11

my major tool, and

9:14

it's also

9:15

what

9:17

makes me enjoy life. Everything

9:20

from my imagination to

9:23

reading books to going to movies

9:26

to watch something that's streaming on

9:28

TV. And the idea

9:30

of losing that or losing my

9:32

family terrifies me. I

9:34

have a book coming out next year, a book

9:37

of short stories that are mostly new.

9:40

And a lot of

9:42

them have to do with people

9:44

who are old, people with brittle

9:47

bones. There's a scene

9:49

in one of the stories where an old

9:52

man is walking along a fence

9:56

and examining his flowers. narrator

10:00

hears

10:01

a crack,

10:03

like a pistol shot almost. It's

10:06

the guy's hip breaking and

10:08

he goes down and there's a lot of pain involved

10:10

with that. So I have a tendency to

10:12

write about what worries

10:15

me. And right now, what

10:17

worries me is the

10:19

drawing away of

10:23

all your faculties

10:26

and your physical being, little

10:28

by little, you know,

10:31

the song says time takes your jump shot.

10:34

It takes everything really.

10:35

When you're writing a book, are you thinking about that

10:37

that there is a larger message in here

10:40

maybe for the reader as well?

10:42

No, I don't. I

10:44

think of something that would scare

10:47

me. And a lot of times

10:50

it's body horror. It's

10:52

the idea of somebody being trapped,

10:56

like the Torrance family

10:58

and the Overlook Hotel and the Shining.

11:02

I think of those things and I really

11:04

want to bring

11:07

the reader in there and make their pulse

11:09

pound and

11:11

basically scare the hell out of them if

11:13

I can. But I don't think ahead. That's

11:16

interesting. How long, I'm curious, how long does it take

11:18

you? I mean, I'm sure different

11:21

books, I mean, the stand is 1100 pages,

11:23

if I remember correctly, but

11:26

I think it's a different length of time. But do you have

11:28

a pace of writing? Do you write at a certain time

11:31

every day?

11:32

Well, yeah, I write at the same

11:34

time. I usually sit down after

11:36

a morning walk, which

11:39

kind of clears my head. And

11:42

I'll start work around 8.30 or 9

11:44

o'clock and

11:48

work through until lunch. And then there's a lot

11:51

of thought time involved too.

11:56

Before I go to sleep at night to...

12:00

I could be in the shower and think

12:02

of a connection or think of a scene

12:04

that I want to write because it's so

12:07

dark and so fetal in there

12:09

somehow. It's hot and it's just,

12:11

you know, it's a great thing to

12:13

think about. But the actual

12:16

writing time, I would say about

12:18

three hours a day. And I used to be

12:20

able to do about 2,000 words in

12:22

that time. And now I

12:25

would say it's more like 1,500 or 1,200.

12:29

So I've slowed down a little bit. What

12:31

about you? What's your schedule? How

12:34

hard is it for you to write? I'm not always

12:36

curious about that. Well,

12:37

most of what I've been

12:40

writing has been non-section. And

12:42

in some ways... Yeah, but still. Yeah,

12:45

no, but I think, you know, what I think

12:47

is interesting is it's more

12:50

procedural in this way. So I

12:52

do have time that I set aside for writing. And it's usually

12:54

morning time. I'm a very early riser. And

12:57

I usually find that I can get my writing done. And I'll

12:59

force myself to write every

13:01

day a little bit. Sometimes

13:03

I think of it as a taxiway

13:06

where I can get some speed up to

13:08

where I want to

13:09

really start, you know, filling

13:12

up that white space again. And

13:15

little by little, I kind

13:18

of click into the story.

13:21

So sometimes I

13:23

find things that will surprise

13:25

myself. And lines

13:29

that delight me actually doesn't

13:32

happen too often. But

13:35

sometimes it does. And that's

13:39

the mystery of creation.

13:41

But

13:41

to the point of where I sit down

13:44

and I say, well, I

13:46

have to pick up this dead fish again today

13:49

and see how it smells. But

13:51

by the end of the session sometimes, you

13:55

know, my wife will call me and say,

13:57

Steve, it's lunchtime. I

14:00

don't want to stop.

14:03

I guess she must be

14:06

able to appreciate that about you. If you're in your

14:08

groove, if you're in your flow state at that

14:10

point, that's the last

14:12

time you want to stop. Yeah,

14:14

we've been married a long time. She understands

14:17

me

14:17

probably better than I understand myself.

14:24

Well, who knew? My wife

14:26

and Stephen King's wife share that in common.

14:29

They know us better than we know ourselves. We're

14:32

going to take a quick break

14:33

here when we come back, dealing

14:35

with the horrors of modern life.

14:43

This week on The Assignment with me,

14:46

Adi Cornish, we're going to talk about some

14:48

of the things people turn to for comfort when

14:50

times are tough. Romance

14:52

is the best selling fiction genre

14:55

in America. How did that happen? And

14:57

how have those stories evolved to match

14:59

the desires and concerns of

15:02

a new generation of readers in this

15:04

post Me Too era?

15:06

Listen to The Assignment with me,

15:08

Adi Cornish, on your favorite podcast

15:11

app.

15:14

We're back with Chasing Life

15:15

and the King of Horror,

15:18

Stephen King. I don't

15:20

know if you read this fact recently, but

15:22

there was some recent research showing that people who

15:24

love horror were also more

15:27

resilient during the pandemic.

15:32

These are hard studies to do. I just want to be totally

15:35

transparent about that. So I think we got to be careful

15:37

about how much we read into it. But do

15:39

you see any connective tissue between those two things?

15:42

People who love horror having more resilience?

15:44

Well, I think

15:46

that your average horror fan is

15:49

somebody who has honed their imagination

15:53

a little bit more than people

15:55

who don't. Let's

15:58

say that somebody who just

16:01

looks at the evening news and calls

16:03

it good. This is not your

16:06

cable news junkie. This is not

16:09

somebody who just wants every

16:12

now and then a Netflix, a

16:14

rom-com, something like that, but something

16:17

that's a little bit scary,

16:19

a little bit strange, off

16:21

the beaten track, that kind of thing.

16:26

You have more of a tendency

16:29

to see the consequences, the

16:31

possible consequences. That

16:33

is to say, if

16:37

you at the height

16:39

of the pandemic, the

16:41

news was showing some

16:44

hospitals where there

16:46

were refrigerated trucks

16:49

for bodies. I

16:51

think that a lot of people would say,

16:54

well, that could never happen

16:56

to me. I'm not too worried about

16:58

that. That's always the other guy.

17:01

Whereas the person who reads

17:03

horror fiction or goes to horror

17:06

movies says, yes, that

17:08

will probably happen to me. I'll

17:11

probably wind up in a refrigerated

17:13

truck.

17:14

But these same people are more resilient

17:17

in a way as well. Does this get

17:19

back to the dress rehearsal component of what

17:21

you were saying? If you are someone who

17:23

loves horror and you're less likely

17:25

to be crushed by the events of daily

17:27

life, you have more resilience to that. By

17:30

the way, that's how I often think of a healthy brain

17:32

or a strong brain. People ask me that. You

17:34

know what a strong heart is, you know what a strong

17:37

liver is. You can measure the function of those things.

17:39

The brain, you ask 10 neurologists,

17:42

you'll get 11 answers as the joke goes. But

17:45

I think one thing we can say is that

17:48

there are some people who are crushed by the events of

17:50

daily life and there are some people

17:52

who are in fact strengthened by it.

17:54

So metaphorically, the brain is more like a muscle

17:57

to them. It actually gets strengthened by these

17:59

challenges. people who, at least

18:01

according to this research, people who are horror lovers, were more in

18:03

that latter category. They were more

18:05

resilient, more likely to, dare

18:08

I say, draw strength from those challenges.

18:11

I think that there's

18:15

a difference, maybe

18:18

small but crucial, between the

18:20

brain, intelligence,

18:23

and the imagination. I

18:26

think that the imagination can be

18:28

honed, and it can turn

18:30

into a kind of muscle. In

18:33

one of the books that I've written, I said

18:36

the imagination is a

18:38

muscle that can move the world, like

18:40

Archimedes' leather. I

18:43

think

18:44

that

18:45

speaking directly to the pandemic,

18:51

the person with the imagination

18:53

says, okay, what

18:55

I'm going to do, like

18:58

Holly, in the novel, I'm

19:00

going to get vaxxed, I'm going to get double

19:02

vaxxed, I'm going to wear

19:04

a mask. When I take

19:07

my change from the drive-through, I'm

19:09

going to wear a glove, a

19:11

nitrile glove.

19:14

The person who doesn't have that

19:17

strong imagination may just say,

19:20

well, I'll probably get

19:22

it anyway. I think that's sort

19:24

of the attitude of a lot of people who

19:27

don't have that same... I mean,

19:31

imagination is a two-edged sword,

19:33

because you can

19:39

be in a situation where you can say, here

19:43

are the precautions that I can

19:45

take to avoid getting

19:48

sick from this disease or some

19:51

other disease. But at the same time,

19:53

the imagination may

19:55

be such that you

19:58

become obsessed with it. obsessive compulsive

20:01

and you feel like you must wash your hands

20:04

every 10 seconds, every 10 minutes,

20:07

you must wash your hands. You

20:09

can't go out of the house.

20:12

Everything is out to get

20:14

you. You see,

20:15

that's the dark side of the imagination.

20:18

But the good side of it is, and I think

20:20

that horror fans may

20:23

feel that way, is that you're

20:26

able to take reasonable precautions

20:29

and watch out for either

20:31

coronavirus or from

20:34

Jason in the Friday the 13th movies. They

20:37

both go together.

20:39

You know, it's very

20:41

interesting to say to someone,

20:43

you need to have the appropriate amount

20:46

of fear to something. First

20:50

of all, aside from this conversation, I mean,

20:52

fear is probably not a particularly great motivator

20:56

for people. Fear alone

20:58

fires up the amygdala of the brain,

21:00

your emotional centers of the brain, but the actions

21:03

that result from the amygdala oftentimes

21:06

bypass the prefrontal

21:08

cortex, the area where you actually have executive

21:11

thinking. So it's like a lot of emotion with

21:13

not as much of a plan that comes out of

21:15

that. But what is interesting, I find, like

21:17

if you look at people who are very fearful, for example,

21:19

of the vaccines, it's

21:22

a heterogeneous group of people. They're just

21:24

going to like kick up dust for the heck

21:27

of it. There's other people that may have some other

21:29

motivations for why they're behaving financially

21:32

otherwise. But there are some that

21:34

I think are people who just

21:36

have their antennas raised really high. If

21:39

we were all just like plant creatures, they'd

21:42

be ones that had their antenna raised above everyone

21:44

else's, which means that maybe

21:46

they see things before

21:49

everyone else does. But

21:51

that also means they are

21:53

likely to see things that don't really exist as

21:56

well. Sometimes I wonder, Steve, if these

21:58

two things go hand in hand a little bit.

21:59

I don't know if there's a question there.

22:02

I'm just curious what you think. Well, I

22:04

think that fear without imagination

22:06

equals Fox News.

22:09

That people who

22:11

are not really strong

22:14

in the imaginative field

22:18

are people who have a tendency

22:21

to grab the

22:24

latest Internet fear. Maybe

22:28

the most

22:31

powerful phrase to

22:34

come out of the

22:36

last century

22:39

is fake news. The idea

22:41

that you can just sort of dismiss

22:45

the facts of the situation and

22:48

not have to think about that or

22:51

fake news. It's

22:54

just fake news and

22:56

then you're all good to

22:58

go. You can worry about Q

23:01

or the idea that the

23:03

vaccines are going to cause heart

23:05

attacks or that sort of thing.

23:07

If you were to look at climate change reporting

23:10

or just climate change stories, one of

23:12

the criticisms that people will raise is

23:15

that those are the stories that are trying to

23:17

frighten us. You're trying to frighten

23:20

us with these cataclysmic projections, apocalyptic

23:23

sort of scenarios and that sort of thing. You're

23:25

the ones who are frightening us. It's

23:28

not our lack of imagination. It's these unfounded

23:31

fears.

23:32

Of course,

23:34

there is that element. It's

23:36

just simple practicality.

23:40

You use your imagination in

23:43

a way that's going to be

23:45

productive. I think

23:47

that hard as it may be, you

23:49

have to follow the science. You have to

23:52

say to yourself, do you really want

23:54

to go up the stairs in that spooky old

23:56

deserted house or not in reality?

23:59

The answer is no.

23:59

No, I don't. I want to get out of the house.

24:02

Right, right. I

24:04

want to talk about Holly, Holly

24:06

the character and Holly the book. What point

24:09

did you decide that you wanted to write a

24:11

book about the pandemic and the politics

24:14

of the pandemic? It's extraordinary.

24:17

Again, I read it. Everyone should read it. I

24:19

don't want to give away too much of what the book's about, but

24:21

what made you go there?

24:23

Well,

24:25

Holly was supposed to be a walk-on character

24:27

in Mr. Mercedes. She was this introverted,

24:33

almost on the spectrum woman

24:36

who wrote poetry and

24:38

pretty much stayed in her room and didn't

24:41

want to have a whole lot to do with people and

24:43

was kind of this muttering

24:46

little plain-faced woman.

24:50

There was a scene in that book where

24:52

it turned out that she knew

24:55

quite a lot about computers from

24:57

her own work

25:00

as a poet and as somebody who had

25:02

a business background. She

25:06

meets another character and they

25:08

work together. She

25:11

opens up. She brightens up. All

25:13

at once, you see this

25:15

potential in this person. I

25:19

love that, but what I liked

25:21

about Holly was that with every

25:24

book, you see her come out

25:26

of her shell more and you see

25:28

the combination of this person who

25:30

is timid and a kind of OCD.

25:34

As I say, she's almost on the spectrum,

25:37

but at the same time, she's

25:39

bright and she's brave.

25:42

So, I like those two things

25:44

working together. I enjoy a

25:46

character that has more than one facet. Yeah.

25:49

Well, in the beginning, you talked about this earlier. Over

25:52

the beginning of the book, we do see this scene

25:54

where she's attending a Zoom

25:57

funeral for her mother. Her mother

25:59

died of COVID. COVID, did

26:01

not believe much in COVID, was

26:04

not vaccinated. And there's all these notes

26:06

that you're striking there about that.

26:09

And there's this, and you have Holly

26:11

who is just flabbergasted

26:13

at the fact that her mom would not abide

26:16

by these basic public health precautions.

26:20

Politics and the pandemic. There's

26:23

a lot in this book, but

26:25

that issue, what made you decide to go

26:27

there? Well, I wanted to write about

26:30

the COVID period in a very

26:33

realistic way. Because Holly

26:35

was set

26:37

in the

26:39

year 2021, which was the height

26:42

of the COVID epidemic, I

26:44

had a choice. Either I could ignore

26:46

that, which would not be realistic

26:48

at all, or I could lean into it. And

26:50

I thought to myself, I really want

26:53

to do almost

26:55

like a time capsule of what

26:57

those years were like. And there's some character who

27:00

says, nobody

27:02

would believe what

27:05

we went through. And Holly says,

27:08

nobody would believe it at all. And

27:10

that's, that's the case. The funny thing

27:12

about Holly is she

27:15

is very punctilious

27:18

about wearing her mask. And she's got

27:20

a pocket full of gloves. But she's

27:22

a smoker. Because

27:24

she's nervous. And she

27:29

wants that cigarette to calm her

27:31

nerves. The situation is

27:33

what the situation is. So I just

27:35

tried to write a good

27:38

story that had COVID

27:40

in it, because that's the time

27:43

that the story was set. It wasn't

27:45

any attempt to try and propagandize

27:48

anything.

27:50

I'm an entertainer. I'm not a politician.

28:00

You have a way of getting into the dreamscape

28:02

of people's lives. That's

28:04

good.

28:08

You know, sitting down to chat with Stephen King was

28:10

a long time dream of mine. And I have

28:12

to say, reading his latest book

28:14

was really meaningful for me as

28:17

a journalist who covered and is still covering

28:19

the pandemic. He makes the case that

28:21

real life can be just as scary

28:24

as fiction. But I find that artists

28:26

and authors like Stephen King, what

28:28

they really do is they make our deepest fears

28:31

a little bit more tolerable. So

28:33

that's it for this episode of Chasing

28:35

Life. Next week on the podcast,

28:38

Long COVID and its effect on

28:40

the brain.

28:42

Long COVID is an infection associated

28:44

complex chronic illness. That means

28:46

that depending on your genetic history,

28:49

depending on your infection history,

28:51

depending on your past medical history,

28:53

you will present completely different from

28:55

the last person with Long COVID.

28:58

That's next time. I do have one more thing, though.

29:01

We're about halfway through this season of the podcast.

29:03

I want to hear from you. Have you been using

29:05

any of the tips that we suggested for increasing

29:07

your attention? Paid more attention to

29:09

how much you rest or caffeine you consume?

29:12

Maybe you have questions about the brain that

29:15

we haven't yet answered. Let

29:17

us know. Record your thoughts as a voice

29:19

memo and email them to asksanjay

29:22

at CNN.com. You can also give

29:24

us a call at 470-396-0832 and leave a message. We

29:30

might even include your response on an upcoming

29:32

episode of the podcast.

29:34

Thanks for listening.

29:40

Chasing Life is a production of CNN

29:42

Audio. Our podcast is produced

29:44

by Aaron Mathewson, Madeline Thompson,

29:46

David Rind, and Grace Walker. Our

29:49

senior producer and showrunner is Felicia

29:51

Patinkin. Andrea Cain is

29:53

our medical writer and Tommy Bazarian is

29:55

our engineer. Dan D'Azula

29:58

is our technical director and the executive... producer

30:00

of CNN Audio is Steve Licty.

30:03

Special thanks to Ben Tinker, Amanda Sealy,

30:06

and Nadia Kunang of CNN Health.