How do mood rings work? - podcast episode cover

How do mood rings work?

Feb 28, 20145 min
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Episode description

Mood rings claim to reflect changes in your emotional state -- and, in a way, they do. Discover the science behind mood rings in this episode of BrainStuff.

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Transcript

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Audible dot com is the leading provider of downloadable digital audio books and spoken word entertainment. Audible has over one hundred thousand titles to choose from to be downloaded to your iPod or MP three player. Go to audible podcast dot com slash brain stuff to get a free audio book download of your choice when you sign up today. Welcome to Brainstuff from hastaff marks dot com where smart happens. I am Marshall Brain with today's question, how do mood

rings work? Mood rings were first seen as an extremely popular fat in the late nineteen seventies, and they resurface regularly. The idea behind a mood ring is simple, wear it on your finger and it will reflect the state of your emotions. The ring stone should be a dark blue if you're happy, and it supposedly turns black if you're anxious or stressed. While mood rings cannot reflect your mood with any real scientific accuracy, they actually are indicators of

your body's involuntary physical reaction to your emotional state. Let's see how that works. The stone in a mood ring is either a hollow glass shell filled with a thermotropic liquid crystal solution or it's a clear glass stone sitting on top of a thin sheet of liquid crystals. These liquid crystal molecules are very sensitive. They change position or

twist according to changes in temperature. This change in molecular structure affects the wavelengths of light that are absorbed or reflected by the liquid crystals, resulting in an apparent changing color of the stone. For example, as the temperature increases, the liquid crystal molecules twist slightly in one direction. This twist causes the liquid crystal substance to absorb more are the red and green portions of the visible light and reflect the blue part. This causes the stone to appear

dark blue. When the temperature decreases, the molecules begin to twist in the other direction and reflect a different portion of the spectrum. The metal ring conducts heat from your finger to the liquid crystals in the stone. The color green, which signifies average on the mood Ring color scale, is calibrated to the surface temperature of a typical person about

eighty two degrees fahrenheit or twenty eight degrees celsius. If your temperature varies far from that norm, then the liquid crystals in the stone alter enough to cause a change in the color reflected. If you take the mood ring off, it will normally change to black unless the ambient temperature in the room is eighty two degrees fahrenheit or higher. Here are the mood ring colors and the mood they represent.

The colors are listed according to the change in temperature they represent, with dark blue being the warmest and black being the coolest. Dark blue means supposedly happy or romantic or passionate. Blue means calm or relaxed blue, green means somewhat relaxed. Green means normal or average. That's the skin temperature that a person would normally have. Amber means a little nervous or anxious, Gray means very nervous or anxious,

and black means stressed, tensed, or feeling haired. If you take a moment to think about the moods represented by the colors, you'll see a definite correlation between your body's surface temperature and the color of the liquid crystal. When you're in a passionate mood, your skin is usually flushed. This is a physical reaction to an emotion, causing the capillaries to dilate and release heat. This brings about a

slight change in the surface temperature of your body. When you're nervous or st us, your skin may feel clammy. This physical reaction to your emotional state causes the capillaries to constrict, causing the surface temperature of your skin to drop. Do you have any ideas or suggestions for this podcast? If so, please send me an email at podcast at

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