This is hidden brain.
I'm Shankar Vedantam.
Hundreds of millions of people have spent the last year waiting.
Waiting for it to be safe to enter workplaces, waiting to see if loved ones will survive their stay in a hospital, waiting to see if lost jobs will return.
Perhaps you have caught yourself daydreaming about the moment everything returns to normal, when we can go about our lives without masks, sit in a crowded theater without worry, meet friends in our homes without fear.
What will it feel like that day?
Will there be a surge of joy?
Or will it be bittersweet?
This week on hidden brain.
The agony of waiting and the strange things that happen in our minds when we experience relief.
In books and movies, the experience of relief usually follows a period of waiting.
Were going to mix up that order on todays show, well look at relief first, and later in the show, well explore the psychology of waiting and what new research reveals about how we can wait.
Well, our story about relief comes from Jamie Spurway.
For five years, Jamie worked as a tour guide, mostly in the Middle east and Europe, but also in South Africa.
One of the places he often brought tourists was called the garden route, where the safaris boast an incredible range of big game.
You're seeing an extraordinary array of animals.
Zebra, giraffe, rhino, hippopotamus, impala.
Jamie typically shepherded groups around in Land Rovers.
They were completely open on the sides, no glass, no metal, no doors.
You just put your hand out and there's, and there's air.