Body & Mind

Idea for Christians: Carbon Fast for Lent

- Adam Clare

If you’re a christian who observes lent then consider going green for 40 days.

Repentance, reflection and self-discipline are supposed to be observed during Lent, which symbolizes the 40 days Jesus spent in the desert and resisted Satan’s temptations, as described in the Bible.

A green Lent could mean “thinking about the environment and doing things to save it for yourself and those who come after us,” said White-Hassler, whose church possesses the mind-set year-round. Since the summer, Grace Episcopal has been undergoing eco-friendly renovations and is considering solar panels.

The practice of a carbon fast for Lent has been talked about in Christian circles since at least 2008, when the Church of England suggested shrinking one’s carbon footprint and provided a list of 40 green actions, one for each day of Lent. (“Day one, Ash Wednesday: Remove one lightbulb and live without it for the next 40 days.”)

The call was part of a global effort with Tearfund, a Christian relief agency, to help drought-ridden, impoverished communities that already suffer from the effects of climate change.

Keep reading the article.

Happiness: Think Fast!

- Adam Clare 1 Comment

You want to be happy? Well then pick up some crosswords or sudoku and get it done as fast as you can. No, don’t question it! Go!

According to some new study thinking fast will make you happy.

Results suggested that thinking fast made participants feel more elated, creative and, to a lesser degree, energetic and powerful. Activities that promote fast thinking, then, such as whip­ping through an easy crossword puzzle or brain-storming quickly about an idea, can boost energy and mood, says psychologist Emily Pronin, the study’s lead author.

Pronin notes that rapid-fire thinking can sometimes have negative consequences. For people with bipolar disorder, thoughts can race so quickly that the manic feeling becomes aversive. And based on their own and others’ research, Pronin and a colleague propose in another recent article that although fast and varied thinking causes elation, fast but repetitive thoughts can instead trigger anxiety. (They further suggest that slow, varied thinking leads to the kind of calm, peaceful happiness associated with mindfulness meditation, whereas slow, repetitive thinking tends to sap energy and spur depressive thoughts.)

It is unclear why thought speed affects mood, but Pronin and her colleagues theorize that our own expectations may be part of the equation. In earlier research, they found that people generally believe fast thinking is a sign of a good mood. This lay belief may lead us to instinctively infer that if we are thinking quickly we must be happy. In addition, they suggest, thinking quickly may unleash the brain’s novelty-loving dopamine system, which is involved in sensations of pleasure and reward.

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Beer Can Make You Stronger

- Adam Clare

Some beers might help with bone density due to the inclusion of silicon within the brew. Of course, the study points out the benefits of beer drinking but that the drinking needs to happen in moderation. Getting drunk from beer doesn’t make you stronger, it just makes you feel stronger.

Beer is a rich source of a nutrient that can help prevent weak bones – but it depends what type you drink, claim researchers at University of California, Davis, today.

As one of the nation’s favourite tipples, beer is a rich source of dietary silicon, which can help cut the chance of developing diseases like osteoporosis, they conclude.

However, not all beers are the same, with those containing malted barley and hops having higher silicon content than beers made from wheat.

Some light lagers made from grains like corn have the lowest levels of silicon while beers made from hops seem to come out on top, according to the study. The research, published in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, examined 100 commercial beers and their production methods.

The experts said beer was a major source of dietary silicon – roughly half of the silicon in beer can be readily absorbed by the body.

Keep reading at The Guardian.

Run Barefoot for Better Legs

- Adam Clare

When it comes to running it’s not the shoes that count, it’s the muscles. Some researchers have examined barefoot runners compared to shoe runners and found out that barefoot runners don’t strike their heels like those who shoes. Running barefoot is fun and healthy!

“People who don’t wear shoes when they run have an astonishingly different strike,” says Daniel E. Lieberman, professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University and co-author of a paper appearing this week in the journal Nature. “By landing on the middle or front of the foot, barefoot runners have almost no impact collision, much less than most shod runners generate when they heel-strike. Most people today think barefoot running is dangerous and hurts, but actually you can run barefoot on the world’s hardest surfaces without the slightest discomfort and pain. All you need is a few calluses to avoid roughing up the skin of the foot. Further, it might be less injurious than the way some people run in shoes.”
Working with populations of runners in the United States and Kenya, Lieberman and his colleagues at Harvard, the University of Glasgow, and Moi University looked at the running gaits of three groups: those who had always run barefoot, those who had always worn shoes, and those who had converted to barefoot running from shod running. The researchers found a striking pattern.

Keep reading at Science Daily.

Self Control is Like the Flu: It’s Contagious

- Adam Clare

I know it’s strange to say that self control is contagious: but it is, so you should catch it by having friends that are good practitioners of self control.

“The take home message of this study is that picking social influences that are positive can improve your self-control,” said lead author Michelle vanDellen, a visiting assistant professor in the UGA department of psychology. “And by exhibiting self-control, you’re helping others around you do the same.”

People tend to mimic the behavior of those around them, and characteristics such as smoking, drug use and obesity tend to spread through social networks. But vanDellen�s study is thought to be the first to show that self-control is contagious across behaviors. That means that thinking about someone who exercises self-control by regularly exercising, for example, can make your more likely to stick with your financial goals, career goals or anything else that takes self-control on your part.

VanDellen’s findings, which are published in the early online edition of the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, are the result of five separate studies conducted over two years with study co-author Rick Hoyle at Duke University.

In the first study, the researchers randomly assigned 36 volunteers to think about a friend with either good or bad self-control. Those that thought about a friend with good self-control persisted longer on a handgrip task commonly used to measure self-control, while the opposite held true for those who were asked to think about a friend with bad self-control.

Keep reading at SciGuru.

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