The Weekly Selection is on vacation. Please find below five past articles on what should be our focus while on holiday: friends, regaining time and physical exercise.
William Mayle, New Study Reveals a Major Side Effect of Walking More
(ETNT Mind+Body, 30 June 2021)
It is almost received wisdom now that walking is good for us for a multitude of reasons (we’ve been convinced for a while and even wrote a book about it: Ten Good Reasons to Go for a Walk). New research goes further! Brisk walking for a certain number of minutes every week may in fact offset the deleterious effects of poor sleep, which is itself linked to a myriad of health issues. The link to the article peer-reviewed in the British Journal of Sports Medicine is appended. The article also contains useful sources about the relationship between walking (or mild physical exercise), sleep and our lifespan (free access – reads in about 5 min).
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Jessica Stillman, A Harvard Business School Professor’s Simple Trick to Stop Wasting Your Life
(Inc., 6 May 2021)
Countless thinkers have spent their lives wrestling with humans’ propensity for self-destructive behavior, but if our addiction is rather benign (like too much social media), a Harvard professor has a trick: to assign a monetary value to our downtime, which can then dissuade us from engaging in addictive pastimes we dislike. For example: if an American consumes the average amount of social media in the US (142 min per day) and earn the average hourly wage ($29.92), he’s effectively ‘spending’ $71 worth of time per day on this activity.” The idea is not to monetize our leisure time, but rather to remind ourselves that, like our earnings, it is precious and finite. Once spent, it’s gone, so it’s worth spending carefully (free access – 5 min).
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Marthe De Ferrer, Inactivity Kills Millions, But Movement Is The ‘Miracle Pill’ That Could Save People And Planet
(Euronews, 30 March 2021)
This is about a new book: “The Miracle Pill” (i.e. physical activity). The argument may seem a bit far-fetched, but it is nonetheless true and explains why cities are currently being redesigned. All over the world, cities are being greened because of environmental concerns, but also – as this article explains – because of public health concerns. More and more, cities are redesigned to allow for “incidental movement”: the activity that happens naturally throughout our day; not purposeful exercise, but rather things like walking to the shops or cycling to work (free access – reads in about 5 min).
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Julie Stewart, A Top Neurosurgeon Reveals His Simple Tips for Protecting Your Brain as You Age
(Prevention, 5 January 2021)
Dr. Sanjay Gupta (a neurosurgeon who is also a TV star in the US) explains what we need to do stay sharp. His favourite tips: (1) Think of inactivity as a disease; (2) Always be prepared to train; (3) Take a brisk walk with a friend and talk about your problems (a brain trifecta); (4) Fuel yourself right for better focus (i.e. control your blood sugar); (5) Eat real foods, not individual nutrients or supplements; (6) Drink instead of eat; (7)Make time for your friends; (8) Try the bubble method and (9) For lasting brain health, maintain ikigai (sense of purpose). The bottom line: lifestyle changes can significantly improve brain health and even reverse brain disease (free access – 6-7 min).
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Rachel Cook, Friends by Robin Dunbar review – how important are your pals?
(The Guardian, 21 February 2021)
This is a review of Friends: Understanding the Power of Our Most Important Relationships by Robin Dunbar – an evolutionary psychologist. The thrust of his argument: the number and quality of our friendships may have a bigger influence on our happiness, health and mortality risk than anything else in life save for giving up smoking. Two interesting insights: (1) friendship requires investment -it “dies fast” when not maintained, and distance, even in the age of the mobile phone, has a catastrophic effect on it; (2) most of the gender stereotypes about friendship are true (reads in 6-7 min).
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