Sometimes, information that you think will make you more healthy does the exact opposite: it causes stress- it turns a good day into a bad and anxious day. We’re talking weight checks–daily weight checks, with way too much self-esteem invested in outcomes. The Washington Post reports on the potential problem, […]
Attitude
Another Heart Risk: Worry
Here’s something else to worry about: worry. A recent study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association found that men who are anxious have a higher risk of heart disease and stroke, and that risk increases as they grow older. The study, which analyzed data for 1,561 men […]
Kindness Can Relieve Pandemic Anxiety
The COVID-19 pandemic appears to have unearthed a raft of things to worry about, and relatively few of them are directly related to the pandemic. In most venues, indoors or outdoors, anxiety is more abundant than any viral matter. What to do? Judson Brewer, a psychiatrist and the author of […]
Don’t Let the Pandemic Keep You Down
Get up, get out, and start moving, or incur an increased or ill health or early death. So say health experts writing in a special issue of the British Journal of Sports Medicine, which describes the World Health Organization’s new guidelines on physical activity and sedentary behavior. The Washington Post reports on the advice, which […]
What Exercise Does to Your Brain, Maybe
Gretchen Reynolds, estimable health writer for the New York Times, reports on some interesting research that suggests that exercise can make us a little sharper, especially if we are mice. The research, conducted largely at the University of California, San Francisco, infused blood from mice that exercised regularly into mice […]
Museum Goers Live Longer
Want to add a few years to your life? Start visiting museums. A recent study by researchers at the University College London found that, even accounting for income, education level and mobility, people who go to museums or attend concerts just once or twice a year had a 14 percent […]
Some, Not All, Exercise Boosts Endocannabinoids
Most people who exercise know that they feel better, meaning happier, after working out. Researchers at Iowa State University now have a better understanding of why, and they also have some unanswered questions. An Iowa State University news release reports that the researchers worked with 17 women with depression, putting […]
Marijuana Boosts Sperm Count
Who knew? Smoking pot doesn’t just make sex more interesting; it can make it more productive. Make that reproductive. Researchers at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health have found that men who have smoked marijuana at some point in their life had significantly higher concentrations of sperm when compared […]
Your Body Is What You Think It Is, Even If You’re Wrong
If you think exercise is naturally hard for you, it probably will be hard. If you think you have the genes that make exercise a breeze, it will be a breeze. That’s the takeaway from research conducted at Stanford, which deliberately mislead people about their genetic predispositions. The New York […]
The Math Behind The Perfectly Decorated Christmas Tree
Want to have the perfect Christmas tree this year? There’s a formula for that, devised by members of the math club at the University of Sheffield, U.K. In other words, a 180cm (6ft) Christmas tree would need 37 baubles, around 919 cms of tinsel and 565 cms of lights and […]