Why we can't stop staring at a fire
There is something almost irresistible about a fire. We pull our chairs closer, watch the flames rise and fall, and find ourselves staring into the embers long after the flames have flickered out.
Scientists have found that our fascination with fire goes beyond its warmth and beauty.
Watching and listening to crackling flames can lower our blood pressure.
And the ancient custom of gathering around flames may have helped shape how humans share stories, exchange ideas and build relationships.
The Calming Power of a Crackling Fire
In three experiments involving 226 adults, researchers measured blood pressure before and after participants watched videos of burning logs.
Those who watched flickering flames accompanied by crackling sounds saw their blood pressure drop. The longer they watched, the stronger the calming effect generally became.
But the crackling was important.
Watching a silent fire produced less consistent results. The combination of moving flames and their familiar sounds appeared to be particularly effective.
The researchers proposed that our response to fire might be connected to its importance throughout human evolution. For our ancestors, it provided warmth, cooked their food, kept predators away and brought them together after dark.
And those evening gatherings may have had consequences far beyond providing a little company.
When the Fire Was Lit, the Conversation Changed
Research among the Ju/’hoansi hunter-gatherers of southern Africa found a striking difference between conversations held during the day and those that took place around a fire at night.
Daytime talk largely concerned practical matters: work, disagreements, complaints and gossip. Stories accounted for just 6 percent of the longer group conversations researchers analyzed.
Around the fire at night, 81 percent were stories.
People recounted adventures, remembered absent friends and relatives, and shared accounts of events in distant places. Stories inspired laughter, suspense and discussion, helping maintain relationships and transmit knowledge throughout the community.
Evenings like these may have played an important role in the development of human storytelling, imagination and cultural traditions.
There is also evidence that storytelling offered a social advantage.
In a separate study of the Agta hunter-gatherers of the Philippines, researchers found that camps with more skilled storytellers tended to cooperate more closely.
The stories they passed down frequently explored fairness, equality and the importance of helping others. When people were asked whom they’d most like to live with, skilled storytellers were named nearly twice as often. They also tended to have more children.
In other words, stories taught people how to get along.
An Ancient Attraction
For at least 400,000 years, our ancestors tended fires whose glow fell on familiar faces and stretched the day into the night.
Today, we have light at the flick of a switch, central heating and countless ways to entertain ourselves.
Yet we still build fires and linger beside them long into the evening.
When the embers glow and someone begins telling a story, we’re keeping one of humanity’s oldest traditions alive.
Fire isn’t the only thing we can’t stop watching. Water has a calming pull of its own.
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