Finding Resilience in These Trying Times
Science-backed news and feature stories to make your tomorrow a little better than today
Welcome back to your weekly dose of wisdom and wellness, helping you make tomorrow a little better than today. Here you’ll find links to several in-depth, actionable stories by Wise & Well’s team of journalists, topical experts and practicing professionals.
Now is the Perfect Time for Mindfulness Meditation
Dunno about you, but recent events in the sociopolitical sphere have me pretty high-strung with anxiety, frustration and sadness. Fortunately, I’ve got mindfulness meditation to lean into. I was once skeptical about it, but mindfulness has become an indispensable device in my emotional toolbox. And so I wrote…
I’m not gonna do a hard sell here. I just want to point out the immeasurable benefits of mindfulness as I have experienced them, give a lay person’s description of how it works, touch on the important science behind it, and explain how it can be leveraged in times like these to settle angst, sadness and other negative thoughts and feelings. I’ll offer suggestions for how to get started (or restarted) — right now, today — to improve your current mood and outlook amid all the insanity around us.
—Robert Roy Britt
Other features from the Wise & Well archives that might prove helpful right now:
This week’s other feature stories:
What Drives Alcoholism? Often, it’s a Search for Pain Relief
Too often, addiction is blamed on weak resolve or character flaws. We know, however, that there’s always much more to it. With alcohol addiction, physical or emotional pain are common underlying factors, as this writer knows all too well. Anyone who drinks too much, or is aware that they maybe headed in that direction — or knows someone who is — can learn a lot from her experiences.
The reasons we drink alcohol are many. It can be a fun recreational activity for socializing and relaxing. It can be a helpful way to cope and get past social anxieties. Alcohol is also a chemically addictive drug that can hijack your nervous system into more and more use despite wanting to cut down or quit. However, we don’t often talk about the fact that for many, including myself, the initial relief that alcohol provides from pain — both physical and emotional — is a powerful motivator. Alcohol is an effective escape, numbing the deep-seated issues that we often prefer to ignore.
— Gillian May
Chicken Soup, Shark Cartilage and Other Bogus Cures
It’s getting harder and harder to sort through good medicine, bad medicine, and outright bogus marketing claims—especially with unregulated supplements that have become ridiculously popular despite no evidence that they work, and plenty of nasty effects. This doctor has strong opinions, and serious warnings, about misleading ads on TV and the internet for cures to anything that ails us.
Talk with your physician if you feel you need to try something new you see on social media or TV. Do you think your doctor would keep a potential cure from you? Do you think the solution to your [fill in the blank with your medical concern] is on the internet, and your doc won’t tell you or doesn’t know?
— Dr. Ed (Edward T. Creagan, MD)
Advice to the Living from People Who are Dying
When people know they’re going to die but have some time to ponder it, all bets are off. They do things differently. I was curious what the rest of us might learn from it. I found that the most common regrets are not what we think, and a dying person’s mindset and behaviors often shift in surprising ways.
When people actually face their mortality for real, when they’re told their condition is terminal, outlooks on life can change. Shock, fear, anger and avoidance are common. Regrets surge forth like weeds fertilized by a shallow grave. But near the end, a lot of people find a surprisingly deep sense of peace and even joy — the sort of equanimity and happiness that would be nice to enjoy long before life’s final chapter.
— Robert Roy Britt
No Joke: Humor Can Save a Marriage
My wife and I have our moments. Some tense, some argumentative, some just plain hard. But through it all, we laugh with each other. And we laugh at each other. Foibles and folly are fair game for humorous ridicule. I can’t imagine it being any other way. This psychologist concurs, and she writes about the science of humor in relationships. And yes, you want a big dose of it.
This ability to laugh — at each other, at our kids, at the world — is tremendously helpful, especially when coping with really difficult circumstances. As New York Times columnist Arthur Brooks described his wife’s reaction to a difficult parent-teacher conference about one of their teenage children, “At least we know he’s not cheating.”
—Catherine Sanderson
Physical Activity Boosts Language Ability
We often think about exercise in terms of physical health, avoiding disease, getting stronger, and so on. But physical activity has been shown by countless studies to be great for focus, memory and decision-making, too. Here’s another benefit to think about: New research finds routine workouts can boost language comprehension skills, useful in routine conversation and many other aspects of life.
By committing to three weekly workouts and enhancing physical fitness, significant improvements in language processing among older adults are achievable.
—Annie Foley
New Way to Measure Obesity Beats BMI on Accuracy and Usefulness
BMI as a health metric has fallen out of favor, among doctors, researchers and everyone who has to hear about their BMI being to high. It’s just not accurate. We need a new way to measure obesity. A new system has been suggested, and it gets a thumbs up from our physician/writer.
A commission of 56 experts from all over the world, put together by the journal Lancet, has provided a better recommendation for how to approach BMI and obesity as concerning health issues.
—Dr. Julian Barkan
A Neglected Neurotransmitter Provides Food For Thought
You might’ve heard of dopamine and serotonin, those feel-good neurotransmitters that are the ingredients of so many popular wellness stories. But glutamate, which you might know as a food additive, is a naturally occurring neurotransmitter that may be more important that all the others. Our resident psychiatrist/neuroscientists explains why it’s less touted, and the big prospects it presents for new drug development.
Interest in glutamate is surging. Some of this is due to the clinical and financial success of ketamine, an anesthetic that blocks glutamate receptors, and is now being used to treat depression. Glutamate is so abundant and powerful that manipulating it has to have a big impact on the brain.
—John Kruse MD, PhD
Tap Water vs. ‘Raw’ Water? Which is Safer?
Most US municipal water is safe. But not always. Example: In Flint, Michigan, tap water contained dangerous levels of lead that led to a dozen deaths. Raw water — sourced as-is from nature — can be safe, too, leading some people to swear by it. A microbiologist explains the risks that flow from both sources.
On the surface, raw water might seem alluring — the natural surroundings may look beautiful, and the water may look clean and taste refreshing. But unlike tap or commercially bottled water, raw water is not evaluated for safety. This leaves the people who drink it vulnerable to infectious microbes or potentially other toxic contaminants.
—Bill Sullivan
Marijuana Messes with Memory. But is it Really That Bad?
OK, so what was this newsletter all about? If you’ve been toking, you may not recall. And that’s what this last story is about. New research links marijuana use to poor working memory—the ability to remember and use information to make decisions or get stuff done. It’s one of many studies finding pot is not great for the mind’s ability to think clearly and quickly. But as I write, most of the research is inconclusive, and big questions remain about how damaging cannabis is to overall cognition.
I hope we’ve helped make your tomorrow a little better than today.
Cheers,
Rob