Category: Articles
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Nostalgia v. Angst
Read more: Nostalgia v. AngstResearch says nostalgia is good for you (NYT). One study: First, the experimenters induced nostalgia by playing hit songs from the past for some people and letting them read lyrics to their favorite songs. Afterward, these people were more likely than a control group to say that they felt “loved” and that “life is worth living.” Then…
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The Science of Sleeplessness
Read more: The Science of SleeplessnessA survey of the latest in sleep science (and sleep science books) by Elizabeth Kolbert in the New Yorker. This is from The Slumbering Masses, by Matthew J. Wolf-Meyer: “Americans, like other people around the world, used to sleep in an unconsolidated fashion, that is, in two or more periods throughout the day.” They went to bed not long after the…
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Toward Unparenting
Read more: Toward UnparentingIn the New Yorker, Elizabeth Kolbert surveys a crop of “unparenting” books that take aim at parental overproviding and overprotecting: Madeline Levine, a psychologist who lives outside San Francisco, specializes in treating young adults. In “Teach Your Children Well: Parenting for Authentic Success” (HarperCollins), she argues that we do too much for our kids because we overestimate…
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Runner’s High, Exerciser’s Brain
Read more: Runner’s High, Exerciser’s BrainScience of the runner’s high and rats on running wheels in the New York Times: As the name suggests, endocannabinoids are chemicals that, like cannabis in marijuana, alter and lighten moods. But the body produces endocannabinoids naturally. In other studies, endocannabinoid levels have been shown to increase after prolonged running and cycling, leading many scientists to conclude…
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The Cohabitation Effect
Read more: The Cohabitation EffectCouples living together out of convenience–“sliding, not deciding”–gets roughed up in the NYT by psychologist Meg Jay, author of The Defining Decade: Sliding into cohabitation wouldn’t be a problem if sliding out were as easy. But it isn’t. Too often, young adults enter into what they imagine will be low-cost, low-risk living situations only to find themselves…