Love Stories (for Better or Worse)
Plus: Other actionable stories to enhance your physical and mental health and well-being
Welcome back to your weekly dose of wisdom and wellness, helping you make tomorrow a little better than today. In this newsletter you’ll find in-depth, actionable stories by Wise & Well’s team of journalists, topical experts and practicing professionals. We start this week with some love stories, more or less…
What Happens to Your Brain When Someone Breaks Your Heart
Romantic love can be the most amazing thing. Until you’re jilted. Funny thing is, we so often cling to what was like… like an addiction. The science of the jilted brain helps explains why it can be so hard to let go, and truly mend a broken heart. The writer, Kathleen Murphy, also explains how to get your life back.
What is Love, Actually?
Exploring the science, philosophy, poetry and pain of life’s most enigmatic emotion
New ‘Valentine Scale’ Measures Your Love
Answer 7 questions to get a scientifically validated sense of how your relationship is going
Valentine’s Day? Spare Me, Please.
From our archives: A hopeless romantic doesn’t see the point
Valentine’s Day Realities: Beheadings and Romantic Failure
The sordid origins and costly truths about this counterproductive affair with love
And now, some of this week’s other informative feature stories…
The Mental Health Impact of the Current State of Affairs
This psychologist writes about what she’s seeing in her clinical practice lately — not typical stuff. It is the mental pulse of a nation, a window into what many Americans are worrying about right now.
Conversations about personal or family concerns are now replaced by worries about whether to trust public health advice, or if there are enough air traffic controllers, or whether their social security check will arrive. Fears related to potential job loss, immigrant deportation, and how LGBTQ individuals in their families will fare. Memories of childhood bullying or injustice. And a vivid appreciation for family members who survived the Holocaust or fled other forms of political torment, or who landed on these shores as slaves.
—Gail Post, Ph.D.
Green Tea Linked to Better Brain Health
Several physical health benefits of green tea are well established. Now scientists are brewing up a good batch of research indicating it’s good for the brain, too. The writer tells of new and recent research indicating cognition boosts, and she explains how best to take your tea to maximize the beneficial antioxidants and polyphenols. Or you can just drink it because it’s soothing.
The new study found that regular consumption of green tea by older people without cognitive decline, was linked to fewer white matter brain lesions measured with brain scans. These lesions are often associated with dementia.
—Annie Foley
Can This New Pain Medication Be a Game Changer?
All pain meds have side effects, and for acute pain, the better the med, the bigger the side effects (one word: opioids). A new drug works differently, and shows notable promise and is not addictive, and that’s exciting for this ER doctor. With time, we might learn it helps with chronic pain, too, which would be exciting for millions of people.
It is the first pain medication with a new mechanism of action approved in 20 years. That new mechanism seems to give it a much better safety profile while still being effective.
—Dr. Julian Barkan
Hot-headed Decisions are Dooming Earth
On very hot and humid days, the human body struggles mightily to survive. So does the brain. In fact, science has shown that without relief from the heat, we make poorer decisions. This neuroscientist ties that fact to another dismal fact: That human decisions are making the world hotter. And somehow, he makes such a serious topic entertaining.
In addition to directly killing us off, there is growing evidence that elevated temperatures impair our very ability to pay attention. Because large numbers of us will need to engage in substantial, sustained, well-researched approaches in order to halt the slide into global warming, rendering humans less attentive impairs our very ability to take measures to reduce global warming.
—John Kruse MD, PhD
Why You Should Know More About Your Kidneys Than You Do
I didn’t know how little I knew about my kidneys until I read this informative piece and flailed at the quiz questions. I also didn’t realize how prevalent chronic kidney disease is, nor that most people don’t realize they have it until it’s pretty late in the game, missing the opportunity to reverse the decline.
Simply knowing the level of your kidney function—that is, how effectively your kidneys are working–could save your life. Chronic kidney disease is usually asymptomatic until it’s progressed to kidney failure and sometimes not even then.
—Carol Offen
This weekly newsletter is written by Wise & Well’s editor, Robert Roy Britt. I hope we’ve helped make your tomorrow a little better than today.
Cheers,
Rob