Health - Why feeling more pain may be better for you Psychology studies show painful experiences aren’t dictated by how long they go on for, and this could teach us an important lesson about everything from hospital operations to holidays, says Tom Stafford. When is the best treatment for pain more pain? When you're taking part in an experiment published by a Nobel prize winner and one of the leading lights in behavioural psychology, that is. The psychologist in question is Daniel Kahneman; the experiment described by the self-explanatory title of: When More Pain Is Preferred to Less: Adding a Better End. Both trials were equally painful for the first sixty seconds, as indicated by a dial participants had to adjust to show how they were feeling. Next, the experimenters asked participants which kind of trial they would choose to repeat if they had to. These studies support what Kahneman called the Peak-End rule – that our perceptions about an experience are determined by how it feels at its most intense, and how it feels at the end.
Your Kitchen Spices Can Often Harbor Salmonella : The Salt hide captionPepper is the spice most commonly contaminated with salmonella and other pathogens. iStockphoto.com Spice may be nice, but spices also can carry very bad bugs. About 7 percent of spices tested by Food and Drug Administration researchers were contaminated with salmonella, which can cause serious illness and death. Because of this finding and others, the FDA and international food safety organizations are putting more effort into how to reduce the risk. A New York Times article this week really brought the issue to everyone's attention. How much of the spices on grocery shelves are contaminated? The FDA researchers tested 20,000 samples of imported spices between 2006 and 2009. How do spices get contaminated? After spices are harvested from plants, they're often laid on the ground to dry. How much would a person have to consume to get sick? Not much. Does cooking with spices eliminate the danger? Yes, if by cooking you mean "heating." Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images
MSG and gluten intolerance: Is the nocebo effect to blame? Photo by Marina Helli/AFP/Getty Images While living in China from 2003 to 2005, I often served as the designated translator for fellow expatriates. Whenever we ate out, this involved asking our server which menu items contained MSG. Invariably I was told that almost everything is made with weijing (“flavor essence”), including, on one occasion, the roast peanut appetizer my MSG-sensitive friends were snacking on as I made my inquiry. After observing that no one reacted to the peanuts, I was inspired to conduct a simple (and admittedly unethical) experiment. One evening, instead of translating honestly, I told my companions at a large banquet that the kitchen had promised to avoid using MSG. An hour later? I repeated this experiment on multiple occasions, always with the same result. An editor at NEJM titled Kwok’s letter “Chinese-restaurant syndrome,” and thus began a minor epidemic. But after reading some of these studies, even a layperson will start to get suspicious. Not so fast.
Candidiasis, Alcohol, Sugar Cravings Symptoms, Causes, Treatment Recovery & More Candidiasis Conquering Candidiasis Naturally Stephen C. Byrnes, N.D., R.N.C.P. The Nightmare of Candida Overgrowth Candida albicans and candida tropicalis are the names given to common yeasts that live within our intestines and certain mucous membranes, the throat, for example. Candida usually lives at peace with our other intestinal fauna, the acidophilus and bifido bacteria, and it is these bacterial residents that keep candida under control, preventing a "population burst." Candida is usually kept in check by the gastrointestinal "good" bacteria and the immune system, but trouble can arise when certain conditions are present. Symptoms and Causes In addition to these, lymphatic swelling, difficult PMS, night sweats, chest and joint pain, memory loss, incoordination, blurred vision, intense, random headaches, intermittent vertigo, insomnia, sneezing fits, and increased food allergies are also fairly common. Contributing factors are Digestion
Why Suicide Has Become an Epidemic--and What We Can Do to Help WHEN THOMAS Joiner was 25 years old, his father—whose name was also Thomas Joiner and who could do anything—disappeared from the family’s home. At the time, Joiner was a graduate student at the University of Texas, studying clinical psychology. His focus was depression, and it was obvious to him that his father was depressed. Six weeks earlier, on a family trip to the Georgia coast, the gregarious 56-year-old—the kind of guy who was forever talking and laughing and bending people his way—was sullen and withdrawn, spending days in bed, not sick or hungover, not really sleeping. Joiner knew enough not to worry. What makes some people, such as Vincent van Gogh, desire death in the first place? Try Newsweek for only $1.25 per week But Dad had left an unmade bed in a spare room, and an empty spot where his van usually went. The investigators found slash marks on his father’s wrists and a note on a yellow sticky pad by the driver’s seat. Writer David Foster Wallace (d. Artist Mark Rothko (d.
Could stress be good for you? Research that suggests it has benefits Aerialist Nik Wallenda looks down and sees the 1,500-foot drop to the bottom of the Grand Canyon below him. All that stands between him and a lethal landing is the 2-inch tightrope that he has decided to traverse on camera, the moment being broadcast around the world on live television. If most people were to rank the most stressful events of their life, this would very likely be near the top of the list. But Wallenda thrives on stress of this magnitude. In June, Wallenda balanced his way across a quarter-mile gap in the Grand Canyon. Kelly McGonigal: How to make stress your friendIn today’s talk, given at TED2013, health psychologist Kelly McGonigal reveals a similar approach to stress. “Can changing how you think about stress make you healthier? McGonigal says that a paradigm shift when it comes to stress could literally be life saving. Stress may actually be correlated with longevity—if a person doesn’t view it as a negative The study: Lead author Michael J.
'Memories' pass between generations Behaviour can be affected by events in previous generations which have been passed on through a form of genetic memory, animal studies suggest. Experiments showed that a traumatic event could affect the DNA in sperm and alter the brains and behaviour of subsequent generations. A Nature Neuroscience study shows mice trained to avoid a smell passed their aversion on to their "grandchildren". Experts said the results were important for phobia and anxiety research. The animals were trained to fear a smell similar to cherry blossom. The team at the Emory University School of Medicine, in the US, then looked at what was happening inside the sperm. They showed a section of DNA responsible for sensitivity to the cherry blossom scent was made more active in the mice's sperm. Both the mice's offspring, and their offspring, were "extremely sensitive" to cherry blossom and would avoid the scent, despite never having experienced it in their lives. Changes in brain structure were also found.
WTF Is Calico, And Why Does Google Think Its Mysterious New Company Can Defy Aging? The sad truth is that, if everyone on the Forbes 400 list simultaneously (and tragically) got cancer, or Parkinsons (or any given disease for that matter), the world would probably be well on its way to finding a cure for these illnesses, thanks to the enormous wealth that would be incentivized to back those efforts. Finding a cure for an intractable disease requires time, enormous amounts of human and financial capital, cooperation and research — and at least a few public-private partnerships. It’s costly, and it’s messy. This is why Calico, Google’s newest mad science project, is potentially so exciting. In fact, Calico could represent the company’s largest health-care initiative since Google Health sprinted its way into obscurity. Of course, Google is a different company today than it was in 2008 (when it launched Google Health) and so are we. Led by former Genentech CEO and current Apple Chairman, Arthur D. Apple Chairman, Arthur D. “Are people really focused on the right things?”
News is bad for you – and giving up reading it will make you happier In the past few decades, the fortunate among us have recognised the hazards of living with an overabundance of food (obesity, diabetes) and have started to change our diets. But most of us do not yet understand that news is to the mind what sugar is to the body. News is easy to digest. News misleads. We are not rational enough to be exposed to the press. News is irrelevant. News has no explanatory power. News is toxic to your body. News increases cognitive errors. News inhibits thinking. News works like a drug. News wastes time. News makes us passive. News kills creativity. Society needs journalism – but in a different way. I have now gone without news for four years, so I can see, feel and report the effects of this freedom first-hand: less disruption, less anxiety, deeper thinking, more time, more insights. This is an edited extract from an essay first published at dobelli.com.