Do you really know?

Positive thinking is the attitude of seeing the bright side of things and expecting the best possible outcome. It doesn’t mean ignoring reality or denying problems, but rather approaching them with optimism and confidence. Positive thinking can help you cope with stress, improve your mood, boost your self-esteem, and even enhance your physical and mental health. According to a study that followed...

What are subliminals? If you listen to some people out there, they’ll tell you you can improve your self-esteem, change your eye colour, or become a mermaid simply by viewing or listening to certain clips on Youtube. Sounds far-fetched right? Well, the idea is based on subliminal messaging, so let’s discuss how realistic it is. It’s important to distinguish between audio and visual subliminals. Th...

What is poverty porn? Poverty porn is a provocative term of criticism which looks at how poor people and their living situations are portrayed in films, on television or on social media. Despite the film’s massive success, there were debates about whether it was poverty porn. Some suggested director Danny Boyle created it for a white audience looking for images of deprivation in a faraway setting....

Whether you’re the one being left or the one doing the leaving, a breakup always presents certain challenges. It’s pretty common to try to learn from the relationship that’s ended, in order to move forwards in a positive way. And those takeaways can help us gain perspective and avoid making the same mistakes in the future.  But when that kind of rumination becomes excessive and persists with time,...

All week long, we’re looking into 10 new terms and concepts that are certain to be on everyone’s lips in 2023! It’s nearly 11 months since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, and the war has reached somewhat of a stalemate. Many observers expected a swift Russian victory, no doubt including Vladimir Putin himself, but Ukrainian resistance proved fierce. Over the summer, Ukraine launched a cou...

Have you ever seen perfumes advertised as containing pheromones and therefore increasing your sexual attractiveness or libido? Sounds too good to be true, right? According to Healthline.com, pheromones are "chemical substances that are secreted outside of the body in fluids like urine and sweat." The portal explains that they’re produced by a wide range of animals and plants, but that it’s still n...

To celebrate International Women's Day, which falls on March 8th, Bababam is replaying Do You Really Know episodes which look at the struggle against inequalities between women and men. All week long, refresh your knowledge about ideas and concepts which promote female empowerment. What is the postpartum period? Many people wrongly assume that all women immediately find their feet after having a b...

We all know them and use them; so today let’s celebrate them. World Emoji Day falls on 17th July. Yes that’s right, a day has been set aside for honouring the little pictograms we use to brighten up our digital messaging exchanges. You can find them in emails, messaging apps, and on social media. Everywhere really. But we’re so used to them that we don’t really think about who created them to star...

According to a 2022 study by Direct Line life insurance, 71% of British adults fail to get the recommended 7 to 9 hours sleep per night. Many people struggle with getting to sleep, and if you use Tiktok, you may well have seen clips of people talking about methods for overcoming that problem. Brain tapping, as found on TikTok, actually combines two techniques. The first one was invented by Jim Don...

You may have heard that our ears and noses never stop growing, you may even have found yourself wondering if your ears are indeed bigger than they used to be. But there might be an answer, a study published in the British Medical Journal in 1993 took a very serious look at the question. The scientists measured the earlobes of 206 volunteers aged between 30 and 93. The result: the lobes lengthened...

It's back to school! DYRK is dedicating a special week to sport. Because moving and doing regular physical activity is important for our physical and mental health! Listen again to our episodes about sport! In the last 12 months, we’ve all spent more time at home than we expected. As a result, our use of computers or smartphones has increased to the point where many of us spend almost all day gazi...

What is a ghost kitchen? Thanks for asking! For many of us, it’s been a long time since we last set foot in a pub or restaurant. We’ve become more accustomed than ever before to navigating our favourite food delivery apps until we find something that catches our fancy. But do we actually know how and where our meals are prepared? Don’t they need a restaurant in order to prepare delivery food? So a...

What is art nouveau and how did it flourish around the turn of the 20th century? This aesthetic movement dominated many artistic fields in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was influenced by nature and used trademark organic shapes and sinuous lines, moving away from previous limits to create new kinds of design objects. Let’s take a few minutes to reflect on where art nouveau came from,...

The menopause is the period in a woman’s life when she stops ovulating and having periods, due to lower hormone levels in the body. Despite the fact that it can last 10 years or more and all women go through it, the topic has long been something of a taboo and even seen as an illness.  Western medicine only really started paying attention to it in the 18th century. Medical journals and psychiatric...

What is reality shifting? This trend took off among teenagers on both sides of the Atlantic during the first round of lockdowns last year. It found its home on TikTok, all starting out with the #ShiftingRealities hashtag, which went from 170 million views to over a billion in just a few months. Shifting implies moving one’s own consciousness to another alternative reality. It could be very similar...

Why is Elvis known as the King? Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis Presley biopic hit UK cinemas on 24nd June 2022, starring Austin Butler as the King of rock and roll himself, and Tom Hanks as his controversial manager Colonel Tom Parker. Let’s look back at how Elvis became a global superstar from the 1950s through to the late 70s. Elvis Presley earned his reputation as the King for a seemingly endless list of...

It’s common to feel a little anxiety on a Sunday evening as your relaxing weekend draws to a close and you start thinking about your return to the office the following morning. Indeed, a YouGovAmerica survey published in 2021 found that 58% of workers said Monday was their least favourite day of the week. With that in mind, American startup founder Marisa Jo Mayes created and trademarked the Bare...

Do you consider yourself a clumsy person? For some of us, accidents just seem to happen more often than for others, despite our best efforts to be more attentive and focused. We might drop and smash a glass in the kitchen or bump into things while walking along the street for example; and it can really get frustrating when that kind of thing happens over and over. And in actual fact, it’s not just...

November is synonymous with Black Friday, great deals but what cost? Over consumption is endangering our already fragile planet. Is it time to change our ways? This week Do You Really Know is highlighting concepts and initiatives about reducing our consumption. You might not be able to afford a Balenciaga coat, a Prada bag or a Chanel suit, but you could probably stretch to a branded baseball cap,...

In our increasingly urbanised world, it’s important to make time for reconnecting with nature. The latest study to grab our attention in this area was conducted by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health and published in December 2022. It looked into the so-called 3-30-300 rule, which was theorised by Spanish forest researcher Cecil Konijnendijk in 2021.  It's made up of three criteria, which ea...

What is myopia? According to a 2019 study from the Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science journal, almost 60% of all humans will have some form of myopia by 2050. That means as many as 5 billion people will be short-sighted, unable to clearly see objects more than 5 yards away. And that’s not at all; already one in three people suffer from myopia, a figure which rises to nearly 50% in some...

Have you ever felt like your horoscope was written just for you? Or a fortune’s cookie advice seemed incredibly relevant? You may be surprised, but it’s actually not such a coincidence after all. This psychological phenomenon is known as the Barnum effect. It’s a cognitive bias that occurs when people believe that generic personality descriptions and statements apply specifically to them. It may e...

The idea might seem like something out of a fantasy, but “Foreign Accent Syndrome” is a genuine, albeit very rare, neurological condition! It sees a person begin to speak with an accent different to the one they had prior to having a stroke; one which makes them sound like they come from an entirely different country! Since the first case was discovered in France in 1907, there have only been abou...

This week, we're looking back at 10 words and phrases that have been on everyone's lips in 2022. From the Uber Files leak to "shrinkflation" in stores or "quiet quitting" at work, refresh your memory on some of the events and phenomena that best sum up the year gone by. Little did Eminem know when he invented obsessed super fan Stan for a track on The Marshall Mathers LP in 2000, that over two dec...

American psychiatrist Stephen B. Karpman coined this social model of human interaction in 1968. It describes the roles that we take on in unbalanced social relations. Relations which lead us to take one of three roles within Karpman’s triangle. These are three roles in Karpman's triangle. These are the victim, the persecutor and the saviour. And the role we take on unconsciously leads someone else...