Should you add snail slime to your skincare routine?

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Should You Add Snail Slime to Your Skincare Routine?

Podcast: What's That Rash? (ABC News)
Episode Date: March 17, 2026
Hosts: Norman Swan & Dr. Chris Smith
Episode Theme: Investigating the claims, evidence, safety, and ethics behind using snail mucin ("slime") in skincare products.

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Main Theme & Purpose

This episode dives into a rising trend in skincare: snail mucin (a.k.a. snail slime). Hosts Norman Swan and Dr. Chris Smith answer audience questions about snail mucin’s efficacy, safety, and ethics. They dig into the science, history, and manufacturing processes behind products that boast snail slime as an ingredient, aiming to separate viral marketing from clinical evidence and to help listeners feel good about what they put on their skin.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What Is Snail Mucin?

• Definition: Not exactly "snail snot," mucin is a thick, protective substance snails secrete mostly from glands on their "foot" to aid mobility and shield themselves from harm ([03:36]).
  • Dr. Chris Smith: “There are probably three different types of glands on the snail that produce this stuff. …One function of the mucus is to help the snail traverse the land.” ([03:36])
  • Snails can even glide across razor blades unharmed due to mucin ([04:11]).

2. Historical and Cultural Use

• Ancient Practices: Snail mucin was used in Ancient Greece for colds, infections, and skin irritations. Similarly, in Cameroon, it treated burns, headaches, and infections ([04:44], [04:58]).
  • Norman Swan: “Hippocrates… allegedly crushed snails and used the byproduct to treat skin inflammation.” ([04:58])
• Modern Trend: 1980s Chilean escargot farmers noticed softer hands and faster-healing cuts from snail handling, sparking skincare interest—especially in South Korea ([05:53]-[06:21]).

3. Social Media & "Slugging"

• Comparison: Snail mucin isn’t the same as "slugging," a TikTok skincare trend involving Vaseline as a moisture barrier ([07:00]).
  • Norman Swan: “Slugging does not involve molluscs, but… you put a layer of Vaseline on your face to trap the moisture in overnight.” ([07:04])
• Snail mucin naturally creates a barrier to keep snails moist; the idea is mimicked in skin care ([07:25]).

4. Scientific Evidence: What Do We Actually Know?

• Stage of Research: Most snail mucin studies are in test tubes or animal models—"in vitro," not yet robust, peer-reviewed human trials ([08:23]-[09:45]).
  • Dr. Chris Smith: “Most of the research… is actually test tube type work, which is the very earliest form of research…” ([08:23])
• Claims Investigated:
  • Antimicrobial/Antibacterial: Lab studies confirm mucin has antibacterial properties—logical, given snails’ exposure—but strength and clinical relevance are uncertain ([08:54], [09:57]).
  • Anti-Inflammatory: Logical, as snails must tamp down constant inflammation, so mucin likely has compounds that calm inflammation ([10:17]).
  • Anti-Aging: Claims are based mainly on test-tube data; little human evidence ([09:17]).
  • Wound Healing: Some studies show snail mucin ointments may speed skin healing and reduce pain in burns ([15:27]).
  • Anti-Cancer: Sparse, early data suggests potential for helping trigger programmed cell death (apoptosis) in some cancer cell lines and as a possible aid to immunotherapy triggers in melanoma—emphasis remains on “early” and in vitro ([13:44]-[14:28]).
    • Dr. Smith: “There seems to be an apoptotic effect from one of the compounds in snail mucus.” ([14:19])
• Comparison to Other Products: There’s no robust evidence mucin is superior to other moisturizers/barrier creams ([09:45]).

5. Safety and Ethics of Snail Mucin Products

• Safety for Humans: No strong evidence of harm—mainly potential for allergic reaction or contamination common to animal-derived cosmetics ([16:43]).
  • Norman Swan: “We can't find any evidence of harm. Except to the snail.” ([16:43])
• Safety for Snails & Animal Rights: Extraction involves stressing snails—often via machines that "milk" them. Animal recovery periods are necessary; some extraction methods (breaking shells) are distressing. Not regulated ([12:01]-[13:15]).
  • Norman Swan: “Most of the slime comes from the common garden [snail]…they excrete mucin in response to stress.” ([12:31])
  • Dr. Chris Smith: “The cracking of the shells just seems gross to me.” ([13:35])
• Product Quality Risk: Potential contamination or improper purification process, plus risk of allergic reaction ([16:59]).

6. Bottom Line for Listeners

• For Typical Skincare Use: No strong evidence of harm (apart from animal concerns). No convincing clinical evidence of benefit over standard moisturizers.
  • Norman Swan: “You're probably naturally beautiful enough on your own. But don't let that put you off using snail mucin if you really, really want to.” ([17:27])
  • Dr. Chris Smith: “But if you've got cancer, I'd be going for chemotherapy. Yeah, I'd be going for the strong stuff.” ([17:36])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Snail Mucin’s Origins:

  • Norman Swan: “I’d never really thought before this week…about how you would milk a snail.” ([02:52])
  • Dr. Chris Smith: “It's a huge issue when it comes to snail snot.” ([03:03])

• On Ethics:

  • Norman Swan: “You don’t have to be like a full-on animal rights activist to maybe feel a little bit uncomfortable with the fact that you’re really stressing an animal out to collect something that…there isn’t great evidence that it’s actually that effective.” ([13:15])

• On Evidence:

  • Dr. Chris Smith: “Whilst we often cast off at this sort of mad stuff and cosmetics…natural biological material can and often does contain something that is active…” ([15:11])

• On the Bottom Line:

  • Norman Swan: “You’re probably naturally beautiful enough on your own. But don’t let that put you off using snail mucin if you really, really want to.” ([17:27])
  • Dr. Chris Smith: “But if you’ve got cancer, I’d be going for chemotherapy.” ([17:36])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:56-02:30]: Audience questions introduce the snail mucin topic
• [03:36-04:11]: Explanation of what snail mucin is and where it comes from
• [04:44-05:25]: Historical use in ancient Greece and Cameroon
• [05:53-06:43]: Modern origins in skincare and spread via social media
• [07:00-07:49]: "Slugging" versus snail mucin in pop culture & skin biology
• [08:23-09:45]: Level and type of current scientific evidence
• [12:01-13:15]: Extraction practices and animal welfare discussion
• [13:44-14:28]: Preliminary anti-cancer claims explored
• [15:27-15:45]: Studies on wound healing and burns
• [16:43-17:41]: “Bottom line” summary and recommendations

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Tone & Style

Conversational, witty, and a bit irreverent—Norman and Chris inject humor and pop culture references (e.g., naming the snail “Swirly,” referencing TikTok trends) while keeping their focus on clear, science-based answers. There’s a warm, skeptical, and open-minded vibe.

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Key Takeaways

• Snail mucin is probably safe for most people (except those with allergies), but the evidence for skin benefits is early-stage—mostly test tube studies, not robust human trials.
• Ethical and animal-welfare concerns exist due to the way mucin is collected.
• If you want to use snail mucin, go ahead—but don’t expect miracles, and don’t use it in place of proven treatments for medical conditions.

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For questions or feedback, email: [e-mail]

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Transcript

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[Norman Swan]

ABC Listen. Podcasts, radio, news, music and more.

[Sisonke Msimang]

It's hard to get your loved ones to change their habits, let alone change world history. But that's exactly what happened with apartheid.

[Dr. Chris Smith]

A demonstrator has run right through the play.

[Sisonke Msimang]

Australians and millions of others took a stand and helped to bring the racist South African regime to its knees. I'm Sison Kim Simang and join me for the fight to end apartheid. ABC Rewind. Boycott. Search for ABC Rewind on abc. Listen or wherever you get your podcasts now.

[Norman Swan]

Norman, you and I in the same room as each other for a rare WhatsApp rash recording in person.

[Dr. Chris Smith]

It is. It's fantastic.

[Norman Swan]

And I was a little bit nervous, so I brought a chaperone along. Would you like to meet them?

[Dr. Chris Smith]

Yeah.

[Norman Swan]

Look at this guy. Can you please describe to people what I'm holding here?

[Dr. Chris Smith]

You are holding a snail on escargot.

[Norman Swan]

Escargot. I fel. Oh, yeah, I just pooed on mania.

[Dr. Chris Smith]

Well, is it poo or is it mucin?

[Norman Swan]

Mucin. Well, it just felt like fate that I saw this little.

[Dr. Chris Smith]

It's a slime bag.

[Norman Swan]

It's a slime bag indeed. Which, incredibly, is actually directly relevant to what we're talking about today on what's that Rash.

[Dr. Chris Smith]

The podcast where we answer the health questions that simply everyone's asking. Including escargot.

[Norman Swan]

Not what I thought everyone would be asking about, but truly, we have had multiple questions about snail mucin. Lynn says, my daughter has discovered snail mucin and believes it has anti aging effects. Is there any medical evidence that supports this belief? And Georgina says, I love your show. I listen to it every week since the Coronacast days. I'd like to find out if snail mucin that is found in cosmetics is safe to use. I can't say that I had heard about this in detail before we got these emails from Lynn and Georgia.

[Dr. Chris Smith]

It was entirely new to me too. Just shows you what bubbles we live in.

[Norman Swan]

I know, right?

[Dr. Chris Smith]

And you know, our skin is just glowing without it.

[Norman Swan]

I mean, yours is. Naturally. I've had to bring in my friend. I feel like we should give this guy a name.

[Dr. Chris Smith]

Oh, just for everybody's benefit. Here. Who's not watching this on video? Cause we are videoing this. It's living in a pot of celery.

[Norman Swan]

Celery. I thought it meant with. Was mean to. We will get into the humaneness or otherwise of how you harvest a snail. I'd never really thought before this week, Norman, about how you would milk a snail.

[Dr. Chris Smith]

Yeah, it's a huge issue when it comes to snail snot.

[Norman Swan]

We're actually gonna get into it in quite a lot of detail. I suppose a good place to start is. Oh, no. We're gonna name our friend. I feel like Swirly the snail.

[Dr. Chris Smith]

Okay.

[Norman Swan]

Cause it's got that little. What's it called?

[Dr. Chris Smith]

And your kids would love that name.

[Norman Swan]

Swirly. They would love that name, actually. All right, so we've got Swirly the snail in studio. We might ask him or her some questions. Actually, that's quite interesting. Are true hermaphrodites. We'll ask them some questions in a bit. But I feel like we should probably start with a definition. Snail mucin. Is this just a fancy way of saying snot?

[Dr. Chris Smith]

Look, depending on the research that you get in this area, there are probably three different types of glands on the snail that produces this stuff. And I'm not sure that you can say it comes out of the nose. So if your vision of snot is stuff that comes out of your nose, then probably not. And one function of the mucus is to help the snail traverse the land.

[Norman Swan]

It comes out of their foot. Right. Like the body of a snail that we see. Most of the thing it uses to walk around is called a foot.

[Dr. Chris Smith]

And there are glands that secrete the mucin, which help it get over rough ground and stop it damaging itself. They say that a snail can go across a razor blade without damaging itself because of the mucin.

[Norman Swan]

A razor blade.

[Dr. Chris Smith]

So they say.

[Norman Swan]

Swirly. You're such an amazing creature.

[Dr. Chris Smith]

I wouldn't put our lovely little pet adhere to that.

[Norman Swan]

I'm not gonna put swirly on a razor blade. So it's a protective thing. It helps it traverse around the place. How on earth have we gotten to a point where we look at something and go, you know what? I'd like to put that on my face.

[Dr. Chris Smith]

Oh, it's the ancients. A lot of it's the ancients.

[Norman Swan]

It always comes back to ancient Greece. Yeah, the Greeks did use snail mucin. They actually used it to treat colds and infections. Hippocrates. We cannot have an episode of what's that rash? Without mentioning at least one of the Ye.

[Dr. Chris Smith]

Oldeans Hippocrates put snails up his nose.

[Norman Swan]

He allegedly crushed snails and used the byproduct to treat skin inflammation. So, like an irritation. And it's not just the Greeks in Africa as well. People in southwest Cameroon have used terrestrial mollusk, which is just a fancy way of saying snails and other related creatures to treat burns, alleviate headaches, and prevent infectious diseases such as scabies and ringworm, which makes me think there's something to it here.

[Dr. Chris Smith]

Well, we shouldn't be surprised about that. You know, there are lots of medications, lots of pharmaceuticals that started as natural products. Aspirin is the classic example. Antimalarials.

[Norman Swan]

Willow bark. Yeah.

[Dr. Chris Smith]

Cinchona bark. There's no reason to assume that there's nothing in the natural world that's not therapeutic. The question is exactly as our WhatsApp rashers have asked, is it safe and is it effective? And there's just beginning to be some research in that area.

[Norman Swan]

So one of the things that I think has made this take on in more recent years, we're not talking that recently, the 1980s, there was some anecdotal evidence from Chilean farmers who noticed their hands became softer and their cuts healed faster when they were handling escargot for the French food market. So they're breeding them for food. And they saw this. This thing happen, and that really kind of set the ball rolling, at least in South America.

[Dr. Chris Smith]

Well, they created a cosmetic industry.

[Norman Swan]

That's it exactly. So there's a Chilean skincare brand that launched in 1995 that incorporated snail mucin. And then the skincare capital of the world, South Korea, has also really jumped on board with this. And I think there is something social media friendly about the idea of putting snails or something from a snail on your face, because it's just a funny image.

[Dr. Chris Smith]

And we'll come back to the question later about is it ethical? Because how do you produce the mucin that gets to your face?

[Norman Swan]

So the other thing is. Cause I was talking about this with a friend, she was like, oh, is that like, slugging? Is snail mucin like slugging? And I'm like, that sounds gross and possibly rude.

[Dr. Chris Smith]

I'm beginning to regret having had lunch before we come into the studio.

[Norman Swan]

Slugging does not involve molluscs, but it involves mimicking. It's where, like, if you've got super dry skin, this is another thing that's like, big on skincare talk, whatever. And you put like a layer of Vaseline on your face to, like, trap the moisture in overnight. So you haven't put Snell on Oh,

[Dr. Chris Smith]

so you end up with like a slug skin.

[Norman Swan]

You look like a slug because you're so shiny.

[Dr. Chris Smith]

And there is a form of skin just on the slugging. There is a form of. In the biology of the snail, they produce a form of mucin that helps them hibernate, go through dry periods. And it is a barrier mucin which keeps the moisture inside the snail. So again, this is not mad stuff. The snail, little twirly here, whatever you

[Norman Swan]

call her, the snail is going into hibernation mode at the moment.

[Dr. Chris Smith]

And so in theory, there could be a form of mucin that is in fact a skin barrier.

[Norman Swan]

Okay, well, let's talk about the science. We've talked a lot about the vibes. Now it is time to actually talk about the evidence. So there's a couple of things that I've heard about when it comes to snail mucin that the two questions that we've had are about skincare, broadly. I think we could kind of put that in the anti aging bucket. There's also claims around being antimicrobial. There's claims around wound healing, there's even of course, anti cancer claims. So let's just step through what's been studied and what we actually know.

[Dr. Chris Smith]

Some of the research is in reasonable journals, the Nature group of journals, not necessarily from major research institutions, but that's me being a snob. But even if the research is right, a lot of it, if not most of it, is actually test tube type work, which is the very earliest form of research which might lead to a

[Norman Swan]

human product in vitro rather than in vivo. Well, I mean, technically swirly is in vitro in that he's quite literally in glass right now. So you're saying that this isn't legitimate.

[Dr. Chris Smith]

Swirly would be considered preclinical and animal research. But most of the research that is in there in the journals is actually, does it have an effect on bacteria? Does it have an effect on the immune system? And the answer is, unsurprisingly, given that you've got an animal that's creeping over the ground, liable to get infected and wanting to protect itself. There are antibacterial, there are antimicrobial compounds in the mucin. So the answer is yes, there are test tube effects, reflecting a lot of the claims, as there are, for example, for anti aging compound. A lot of the anti aging supplements that we use are based particularly on test tube research, some in animal research, but mostly in test tubes. And you know, they haven't made the full transition in many cases to animal research.

[Norman Swan]

So even in the in vitro experiments, even in these experiments that are happening in test tubes, what kind of level of an effect are we talking about? Is it a miracle substance? How does it stack up against other things that we might be using?

[Dr. Chris Smith]

So the answer is that yes, there are antimicrobial effects. How strong are they? It's unclear from the research. There's not a lot of comparison being done. So here's the interesting thing about the snail. The snail does not have a very effective immune system. So it operates on a snail version of what in humans you'd call the innate immune system. And for those people who've been listening to us for many years through coronacast, you kind of know there are three levels of the immune system. The first is really a broad barrage that the immune system sets up because it hasn't yet learned what is invading. So that you haven't got the targeting there. Well, the snail doesn't have a targeting immune system, it's just got the barrage. And that barrage is really what we would call inflammation. So it would also have concomitantly anti inflammatory aspects to it because once the barrage has been set up, it's probably got quite powerful mechanisms for settling it down because the snail would not want that sort of inflammation or that its version of inflammation to continue. So it's completely logical that it might have anti inflammatory effects. And so what you may find here is that over time, and when they refine these compounds, you might well have some quite potent compounds, particularly if you add medicinal chemistry to change them a little bit to make them quite effective and novel in the area. Whether slapping on snail mucin is actually going to make a difference. Quite possibly it could settle down some inflammation. But is it pure? Does it have its own infective organisms in it? Because you're collecting it off snails, what's the process for manufacturing? There's all sorts of uncomfortable things about this, including how they collect the mucin.

[Norman Swan]

Right, so now is the part of the show where we talk about how to milk a snail. Not that we're recommending that you do this at home. In fact, I think I am pretty actively recommending not doing it. Just having had a chat with Swirly before, didn't seem to be a massive fan of it. In fact, he's gone right into his shell. They've gone right into his shell.

[Dr. Chris Smith]

Swirly's seen the TikTok videos about how they collect it.

[Norman Swan]

And Swirly is Swirly's very finger on the on the pulse when it comes to social media. Swirly is shooting themselves on my hand anyway. The way that it extract it's extracted varies a lot. Depending on the brand, depending on the farm. Yes. Snail farming a thing. There's no regulation about it. So most of the slime comes from the common garden which is called Cryptum phallus aspersa. And basically they excrete mucin in response to stress. So the fact that I'm not getting that excreted on right now means that swirly feels safe with me and that's great. I love that for them. So there's, like I said, there's all sorts of extraction methods when it comes to getting mucin out of snails. One of them is something called a muller machine which can process up to 4,000 snails an hour, which produce about 11 litres of mucus. If the farm is processing a new batch of snails every hour, they can make like 70 litres a day. But once the snail has had the mucus extracted from them, they need a month to recover. So they go back to the farm for a month to eat, become stronger and be able to produce mucus again.

[Dr. Chris Smith]

Just like a racehorse going out into the meadow.

[Norman Swan]

Just like that.

[Dr. Chris Smith]

I don't think it's quite as pleasant.

[Norman Swan]

You don't have to be like a full on animal rights activist to maybe feel a little bit uncomfortable with the fact that you're really stressing an animal out to collect something that according to you there isn't great evidence that it's actually that effective. During cancer. Maybe the ethics balance of the scales would tip a bit more.

[Dr. Chris Smith]

But the cracking of the shells just seems gross to me. Even though there are many people in the world who will happily eat a snail.

[Norman Swan]

I threw cancer out there so you just now. But there actually is some anti cancer whiffs about snail mucin.

[Dr. Chris Smith]

Yeah. There's one study of a complex of mucin which is again in cell culture. They were looking at whether or not it kills cancer cells. Doesn't seem to have and it's called cytotoxicity, doesn't seem to have a cytotoxic effect which is like a chemotherapeutic effect. But it does seem to have an influence on programmed cell death and programmed cell death. One explanation for cancer is that cancer is a failure. So cells are programmed to die. If they don't die then you risk cancer. So there seems to be an apoptotic effect from one of the compounds in snail mucus.

[Norman Swan]

What kind of cancers are we talking here?

[Dr. Chris Smith]

So they have looked at melanoma and there are these immunotherapy drugs which unleash the immune system on the tumour, but they are known in some situations and melanoma is one of them, as far as I understand it, where you need to trigger help to trigger the immunotherapy to work. So you need something alongside it which actually acts as a facilitator for the immune therapy to work. And there's a little bit of evidence in the test tube that some of the components of snail mucin may actually facilitate the immunotherapy to work. So these biological. Whilst we often cast off at this sort of mad stuff and cosmetics and so on, natural biological material can and often does contain something that is active and fosters the development of something really effective in the future.

[Norman Swan]

And then the other thing I wanted to talk about, one of the claims is around burns and wound healing and there was some interesting research into that specifically.

[Dr. Chris Smith]

Yeah. So they developed into a burn ointment and the suggestion was that the ointment with snail mucin in it, compared to a standard preparation, speeded up. In other words, the growth of the skin cells to close over the wound and reduced pain.

[Norman Swan]

Okay. Whenever I hear something, on one hand cancer treatment and on the other hand promotes cell proliferation, those two things feel incompatible with each other, at odds.

[Dr. Chris Smith]

So what it could be, and I'm going to sound like the defender of snail mucin here, but there are multiple effects of snail mucin and if it dampens down the inflammation and the whole reaction of the body to the burn, which gets in the way of healing and dampens that down, then the skin cells might be freer to multiply and heal. So in other words, it may be a facilitation effect, just a bit like the immunotherapy for melanoma. If indeed that's true, there could be a facilitation here. If it settles things more than the other cream, then it allows the natural processes of the body to take over.

[Norman Swan]

So there's not nothing here. Swirly has the power to change the world. But for our question askers at the moment who are looking at commercially available skin care products that claim to have cell mucin in them, what's our bottom line?

[Dr. Chris Smith]

The bottom line is we can't find any evidence of harm.

[Norman Swan]

Except to the snail.

[Dr. Chris Smith]

Sorry, except to the snail. That's absolutely true. Thank you for bringing that up. You've obviously got a strong connection there with Speedy, who's now just fallen off your hand. Swirly. Sorry, I. Keep going.

[Norman Swan]

You don't even know Assan's name.

[Dr. Chris Smith]

I Accept that you've got to work out how do you believe you it's been humanely produced. How would you know There is a risk from any cosmetic that there's infection in it because it comes from animals that are in the wild, although it's not collected in the wild. And there's always the possibility of allergy because you've got these proteins being produced. So some people will become allergic to it. But there's plenty of other skin cosmetics that become allergic to it. But I don't think you and I are going to be using any.

[Norman Swan]

So our bottom line to our beautiful question askers is you're probably naturally beautiful enough on your own. But don't let that put you off using snail mucin if you really, really want to.

[Dr. Chris Smith]

But if you've got cancer, I'd be going for chemotherapy. Yeah, I'd be going for the strong stuff.

[Norman Swan]

Well, thank you so much for your questions. You can send your questions to [e-mail]

[Dr. Chris Smith]

au so what's in the mailbag?

[Norman Swan]

So we talked recently about headphones and whether using headphones could cause hearing loss. And on the way through there, you talked about the little tiny hairs in your ears that help conduct sound to your hearing apparatus. Well, Glenn is asking whether taking finasteride for hair loss. So one of the more commonly prescribed hair loss medications, whether taking finasteride can protect hearing by preserving the little inner ear hairs.

[Dr. Chris Smith]

So it's a completely logical question. Glenn. The trouble is that the cells inside the cochlea, inside the inner ear aren't actually real hair. They're just cells that look a bit like hair on the electron microscope. So they're called hair cells because they do waft in the breeze a little bit, but they're not real hair. So you don't become bald in the cochlea. Maybe finasteride can help your hearing in other ways, but not by fixing up your hair cells.

[Norman Swan]

Joshua says. Having just listened to your episode on headphones, I can fully vouch for noise canceling as it helps me have lower volumes when catching up on your podcast on my bus commute to work, Joshua says, I'd like to add that having worked in a sense steel yard where the sound of steel pipes or plates being dropped is absolutely deafening, I can advocate wearing earplugs for any noisy work. My preference is the little cylindrical sponge type. I now use them at live concert, indoor and outdoor. What I've discovered is that at a live gig, Joshua says, it actually sounds better having them in the plugs take out the high end wavelengths and the music sounds more like the original recording. You'll understand if you give it a go and take the plugs out halfway through a song.

[Dr. Chris Smith]

It's really interesting. I can't remember whether I mentioned on the podcast, but if I'm on a plane with noise cancelling headphones I will put in earplugs.

[Norman Swan]

You did say this.

[Dr. Chris Smith]

And then put the headphones on top and for me it seems to improve the sound quality of what I'm hearing.

[Norman Swan]

We also mentioned in the mailbag last week referring to a previous WhatsApp rash episode about doing nothing.

[Dr. Chris Smith]

Incredibly popular episode.

[Norman Swan]

Yes, it was really popular, I think, because people like to have an excuse to do nothing. Although this particular correspondent I'm speaking of said that his version of doing nothing was writing really hard for 40 minutes in traffic in Sydney on his bike. Well, Mark has messaged in saying heard the story about the guy who rides to do nothing. Totally agree. Cycling got me through a very rough time in my life where I could detach myself from a terminal illness of a family member for a short time. Came back recharged and better able to deal with what the day sent my way. On your bikes.

[Dr. Chris Smith]

You know, people should go back to that podcast because it's really a really popular one and we're talking about mind wandering really, because you never do nothing and when your mind wanders it's kind of a refreshing thing.

[Norman Swan]

Well, thank you for listening. Thank you for your questions and your feedback. If you've got anything you'd like to say to us, you can just email us thatrashbc.net au and we'll see you next week. See you then.