Best reads weekly archive

Health insurers are starting to roll back coverage for telehealth – even though demand is way up due to COVID-19 (The Conversation) In less than a year, telehealth has gone from a niche rarity to a common practice. Now, due to the financial strain on health care systems and insurers, the increase in telehealth use may be forced to shrink even though the public health crisis remains.

For Your Next Health Insurance Fight, an Exercise in Financial Self-Defense (KHN) “An Arm and a Leg” podcast’s host Dan Weismann speaks with veteran self-defense teacher Lauren Taylor who shares some of her top strategies and how she used them this year in her health insurance fight.  

COVID-19 Data Dives: A Biostatistician’s Primer on Vaccine Efficacy (MedScape) A biostatistician’s primer on vaccine efficacy, the difference between vaccine efficacy and effectiveness, how to measure reduced infectiousness, and how to distinguish between efficacy against infection, disease, and severe disease.

The Year of Blur (The New York Times) It’s 2020, when days just bleed into weeks and each day feels like it is Thursday again.  How isolation, monotony and chronic stress are destroying our sense of time.

Astronauts Know How to Handle Isolation (space.com) Tips and a four-step process that astronauts use to handle the isolation they face on the space station that people can apply to their lives now. 

American Time Use Survey — 2019 Results (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics) How do Americans spend their time? In 2019 82% of employed people spend most of their time at work. What picture would 2020 paint?

Some Daydreaming Might Make You More Creative (Behavioral Scientist) According to research, two types of daydreams—those that are personally meaningful and those with fantastical content, are associated with creativity.

How the Aging Brain Affects Thinking (National Institute on Aging) As a person gets older, normal changes occur in all parts of the body, including the brain. There is growing evidence that the brain maintains the ability to change and adapt as we age. Cognitive decline is not a given.

Be a schedule builder not a to-do list maker (Nir&Far) Do you run your life with an ever-incomplete to-do list of all the things you promise to get done? Instead, decide in advance how you intend to spend your time. With distraction-free time blocks you can direct it to the things that matter most to you.

10 Questions That Have No Right to Go Away (David Whyte) Poet and author David Whyte considers what we should be asking ourselves, especially when we least want to confront our own answers.

Some Thoughts on The Real World by One Who Glimpsed It and Fled (Graduation Wisdom) In 1990 Bill Watterson the creator of Calvin & Hobbes gave this commencement address to the graduates of his Alma Mater Kenyon College, OH. I find it relevant for any life’s transition.

Practical Tools for Better Decisions: A Q&A with Annie Duke on How to Decide (Behavioral Scientist) Annie Duke, author and a former professional poker player shares what a really good decision process looks like.

What It’s Like Living in An Off-Grid Earthship? (Insider) Lockdowns have created a wave of interest in the off-grid sustainable lifestyle. There are about 3,000 Earthships sprinkled around the world and some retirees make it their preferred dwellings.

The Case for ‘Universal Property’ (Scientific American) Neither private property nor state-owned property is sufficient to guarantee equality and liberty for all. Universal Property, will require those who benefit from using it to pay according to their use, and the money received from their use would be paid out equally to all.

Ikea’s HACK CARE Catalogue Focuses on Dementia-Friendly Life Environments (The Futures Centre) A new catalogue from IKEA focuses on creating dementia-friendly living environments. The number of people with dementia is predicted to reach 82 million in 2030 and nearly twice as many by 2050, creating an increased demand on the needs of this group.

Arlo Alone (Art & Healing) Arlo explores modernized methods of communication through the experience as one woman in a world where in-person contact has become a rarity. These 15 minutes are guaranteed to give you a pause.

What can we learn from Solitude? (New York Times) Contemporary hermits are reaching out to people struggling with isolation. Their message: Go inward, and get outside.

The Psychology of Eye Contact (BP Society) Psychologists have made some surprising discoveries about the way that mutual gaze, or the lack of it, affects us mentally and physically and how we relate to each other. Here is a digest of the fascinating psychology of eye contact, from tiny babies’ sensitivity to gaze to the hallucination-inducing effects of prolonged eye-staring.

Human Wilderness Connection Could Reduce Disease Risk (Neuroscience News) Feeling calm after spending time in nature can be explained by our psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness.

You Don’t Have to Work on Yourself Forever (Vice) A fixation on being the peak versions of ourselves—emotionally, physically, spiritually—is now an ingrained part of daily life. What would happen if you stopped?

The lost hope of self-help (Aeon) Habits – good or bad – were once a matter of ethical seriousness. Much of today’s habits literature focuses on time management, individual productivity, and business success, but the genre has a long history. Are habits finally just another technology of self-absorption?

Stop Confusing Habits for Routines: What You Need To Know (Nir and Far) When people say they want something to become a “habit” they mean they want it to be effortless. To change a behavior, you need to understand the difference between a habit and a routine, so you choose the right tool for the job and accomplish your goals.

Your Brain Is Not for Thinking (New York Times) Lisa Feldman Barrett is suggesting using a physical lens to understand how your brain view your stress in turbulent times.

Take This Quiz to See If You Are a Face ‘Super-Recognizer’ (scientific American) Some people are truly exceptional at recognizing faces even decades later. This online test, would reveal whether you have that talent. 

Fluid Intelligence vs. Crystallized Intelligence (Verywell Mind) When you think of intelligence, you might think of having a lot of knowledge about different subjects. And might also consider quick thinking and the ability to reason. Both abilities are equally important in everyday life and each develops differently as we age.

To ‘Keep Sharp’ This Year, Keep Learning (NPR’s Fresh Air) The act of experiencing something new — or even doing something that’s typical for you, but in a different way — can all generate these new brain cells.

5 New Policy Ideas for Fixing Life After Prison (Politico) Ex-prisoners can face a whole second sentence when they try to reenter society. Business, governments and nonprofits have ideas for how to make it easier.

Debunking the Deficit Myth (Townhall Seattle) How can we possibly afford it? This is the inevitable question to any ambitious proposal, whether it’s fixing infrastructure, instituting Medicare For All, or combating climate change Economist Stephanie Kelton suggests that this question means we’re thinking about government spending the wrong way.

Bring Solar Energy to Low-Income Communities (Slate) In the lowest income brackets, total energy costs—including electricity, gas, and gasoline—can eat up to 50 percent of monthly household income, forcing people to make impossible choices on essential expenditures. By contrast, wealthy households typically pay more like 5 percent of their monthly income on energy.

The three-pronged approach to healing – Befriending the sensations in our bodies (Sequence Wiz) This approach (structural, physiological, and mental) is only possible if we develop our ability to sense the inner workings of the body.

5 Reasons You Can’t Stop ltching (aarp.org) As they age, women are especially prone to irritation of nerve endings. That means the usual culprits such as a wool sweater, a chemically enhanced new soap, hives or a persistent mosquito bite are not to blame.

Group Exercise May Be Even Better for You Than Solo Workouts (the Conversation) If you’ve been considering joining an online group class, here are some research-based reasons why that might be a great idea.

Great-Grandma Was Bored Being Old so She Went Shoplifting  (Guardian Liberty Voice)

When Wielded Correctly, Boredom Can Be a Powerful Tool (Science) Boredom is neither good nor bad. It is an important signal that says “we need to engage in satisfying activity.”

What Happens If an AI Gets Bored  (Scientific American) If our future creations are both autonomous and capable of having complex psychological states (curiosity, boredom, etc.), then we should be interested in those psychological states and their effects on AI’s behavior. 

Memory of Mankind (MoM) The digital age history may be lost for future generations – a kind of ‘Global Alzheimer’. The MOM project aims to preserve today’s digital stories in order to give the future a past.

Writing and Health (University of Texas) Is something weighing on your mind or keeping you up at night? James Pennebaker believes that people can use this Expressive Writing exercise to understand their emotions, improve their health, and even change their lives.

6 Daily Questions that make a difference (Marshall Goldsmith) When it comes to self-reflection, asking yourself active questions rather than passive questions changes the focus of your answers in ways you wouldn’t otherwise consider and that lead to a higher satisfaction with life.

How a Jefferson Dinner Works (Jefferson Dinner) Thomas Jefferson engineered conversations at dinner that helped people discover their common humanity. Jefferson’s dinners are credited with saving our early republic. It’s a tradition we’d benefit from reviving.

Giving Animals New Legs – (Freethink) Derrick Campana isn’t your typical… anything. He’s a prosthetics engineer helping animals walk again – or walk for the first time – with artificial limbs. This video will melt your heart.

How Biden’s dogs could make the Oval Office a workplace with less stress and better decision-making  (The Conversation) A growing area of research suggests that dogs can provide real benefits, not only to their daily companions, but also to those in their orbit.

Old Dogs, New Research and the Secrets of Aging (The New York Times) The ways that dogs grow and age may provide potentially useful similarities with people.

The Wollman Test of Reality (Robert Fulghum) Originally published in the 1993 book “Uh-Oh”. The older we get, the more experience and knowledge we have, the more we know that something is “uh-oh,” not 911.

As COVID Numbers Rise, So Does ‘Psychic Numbing’ (Medscape) How we react to a crisis like the pandemic depends on the mode of thinking we are using. Psychic numbing happens when the harm and loss of individual lives feel like just dry statistics. And yet there’s also another way.

Hindsight Bias: Why You Make Terrible Life Choices (Nir and Far) Hindsight bias occurs when people feel that they “knew it all along”, after the event already happened. knowing that outcome influences our perception of the events leading up to it and our present and future decisions.

When to Stop Exploring (Clearer Thinking) It’s rare to feel certain about the path we should take in life. Yet, despite this uncertainty, we still have to make big and small decisions in life. This quiz will reveal the four key rules influencing how you make decisions.

The Meanings of Life (Aeon) If happiness is about getting what you want, it appears that meaningfulness is about doing things that express yourself. So, what is better – a happy life or a meaningful one?

UN Sustainable Development Goals (United Nations) The Sustainable Development Goals address the global challenges we face, including poverty, inequality, climate change, environmental degradation, peace and justice. Learn more and take action.

What Does Retirement Look Like in a Pandemic? (The New York Times) Bucket-list plans for travel to exotic lands are on hold, while socializing and volunteering have gone virtual. How retirees are finding ways to adapt.

Is 70 Really the New 60 (Scientific American) We often hear that 60 is the new 50 and 70 the new 60.  Recent studies comparing people born in different decades identified particular areas of improvement. But these gains are not across the board, and they appear to depend on social, behavioral and economic factors.

Staying Younger For Longer: Brain  (ABC Australia) One in 40 of us born today will live until we are 100, yet many of us will live our later years in poor health. Neuroscientist Dr. Sarah McKay uncovers the extraordinary new science about how to keep our brains healthy into old age. 

 Why hasn’t evolution dealt with the inefficiency of ageing (Aeon)  Considering the 3.5 billion years in which we have evolved from single-cell organisms, why hasn’t life countered the inefficiency of ageing? Or more accurately, how has ageing persisted within the Darwinian framework of evolution?

They don’t come as pills, but try these 6 underprescribed lifestyle medicines for a better, longer life (the Conversation) Americans spend nearly $4 trillion annually for health care in the U.S. is for chronic diseases and mental health conditions. Lifestyle medicine is the clinical application of healthy behaviors to prevent, treat and reverse disease. 

5 strategies for cultivating hope this year (The Conversation) Many people confuse optimism with hope, yet it is hope that’s most needed in times of overwhelm.

How to Be Resilient?  (Psyche Guides) 6 ways to define resilience and 5 ways to build that muscle.

How to Make Stress Your Friend? (TED Global) Psychologist Kelly McGonigal urges us to see stress as a positive, and introduces us to an unsung mechanism for stress reduction.

How Anxiety Hides in Your Habits (Greater Good) Anxiety exists inside the habits that make up your everyday lives, and habits are sticky. They won’t go away just because you tell yourself to breathe. Before you try any tips to reduce anxiety, you have to understand your own anxiety routines.

The Game That Can Give You 10 Extra Years of Life  (TED Global) When game designer Jane McGonigal found herself bedridden and suicidal following a severe concussion, she had a fascinating idea for how to get better. McGonigal explains how a game can boost resilience — and promises to add 7.5 minutes to your life.

Engaging With Aging (blog)  Doris Carnevali, is a nurse and former faculty member of the UW school of nursing. At 99 she keeps writing to ‘elders’ and ‘yet-to-be elders’, and sharing of experiences, explorations, ideas, and an invitation to try out engaging with aging instead of just living it.

Documenting All the Small Things That Are Easily Lost (The New York Times) Lynda Barry, a graphic novelist, cartoonist and teacher, shows how to capture an extraordinary time.

‘Slowing Down to Feel’- Moving Our Minds Around Our Bodies (The New York Times) Movement can do all sorts of things. Dancers know that how you are in your body relates to how you are in your mind and how you move through the world. It heals. And if more people moved, they might just find their way to dance.

Forming New Habits- Train to be an Amateur, Not an Expert (Nir & Far) As an amateur, you can ditch the need to push yourself to exhaustion and instead create habits that you do almost effortlessly, consistently and enjoyably, in a life well lived.

Proprioception, Our Imperceptible 6th Sense (The Conversation) Proprioception is our “global positioning system”, which is essential in our daily life because we need to know where we are in order to move somewhere and so it enables the brain to guide our movements.

Is Aging a Disease? (Slate) Old age isn’t abnormal, so why would aging be pathological? If aging is a disease, then all 7.7 billion people on Earth have it, and everyone over the age of 65 has an advanced case. If you bristle at that notion, you have a sense of the designation’s damaging stigma. Whether aging can be cured or not, there are surprising arguments for thinking about it like a disease.

Chronological vs. Biological Aging (Healthline) Your chronological age will always increase at a set rate as the years pass, while your biological age depends on a number of variables that can change on a continuing basis. The difference between the two can be surprising.

In Obesity, Fatphobia Is Always the X Factor (Scientific American) Contrary to what you’ve undoub Research tedly been told, you can be fat and fit at the same time. Defining health and fitness exclusively through the prism of someone’s pants size, is ignoring the myriad of other measurements that matter more. 

Stereotypes Can Harm Performance of Older Adults on Cognitive And Physical Tasks  (Neuroscience News) When older people feel personally stigmatized as being physically or cognitively deficient, they fail to live up to their actual abilities.

Understanding People Who Aren’t Like You  (Behavioral Scientist) Another perspective — how high self-monitors and low self-monitors manage the expectations of the situation.

People Have Limited Knowledge. What’s the Remedy? Nobody Knows  (The New York Times) The book The Knowledge Illusion demonstrate that as history progressed, individual humans came to know less and less about their world and the technological gadgets, the economic currents and the political dynamics that shape it. With voters and customers who are so ignorant and susceptible to manipulation, providing them with more and better facts would hardly solve the problem. 

How to Have A Difficult Conversation (Psyche Guides) It’s common for people to avoid conflict, but avoiding it tends to create more of it. Approaching an awkward, upsetting or long-avoided conversation isn’t easy, but it can be done effectively. Whether it’s a relationship within your family, at work or in your community, you can have a difficult conversation successfully without the help of a third party.

Amanda Gorman, Poet Laureate and Gesturer Laureate  (Scientific American) She shows us that gestures are not mere hand-waving. They can convey images that magnify speech or even add new ideas that are not found in the spoken word.

Women used to dominate the beer industry – until the witch accusations started pouring in (The Conversation) The history of beer points to a not-so-magical legacy of transatlantic slander and gender roles. Up until the 1500s, brewing was primarily women’s work – that is, until a smear campaign accused women brewers of being witches.

What is your time really worth to you?  (Clearer Thinking) You’ve probably heard the saying “time is money.” It’s a popular line for a reason — it’s true. This questionnaire will help you understand how much money your time is worth to you.

Retirement Business Ideas- 12 Ideas for Getting Started After 50  (New Retirement) Acting on our passions and setting future goals can really do great things for a person – for their mind, body, and soul. If you find yourself nodding to this statement, then the next question is, “Have you considered starting a business after retirement?”

An ‘Electrifying’ Economist’s Guide to the Recovery  (The New York Times) Mariana Mazzucato, a professor who has the ears of world leaders and chief executives, envisions a post-pandemic world that redefines what is valued.

The Tail End (Wait But Why) Tim Urban shows how to lay out the human lifespan visually, by years, and by activities or events. This will surely change how you see and appreciate your life.

We Regret More Not Becoming The Person We Wanted To Be Than Not Becoming The Person We Were Expected To Be.  (BPS) The most advisable way to live will depend on how much weight you place on your ought self vs. your ideal self. If you are focused on your ideal self you’re more likely to lose sleep over your ‘wouldas’ and ‘couldas’ than your ‘shouldas’.”

Being In Motion vs. Taking Action (James Clear) Being in motion and taking action sound similar, but they’re not the same. Are you doing something? Or are you just preparing to do it?

Why Science Says Your Best Years Are Yet To Come (WBUR) Recent study shows that people over 50 were generally mentally better off, more resilient — possibly even happier. In this radio interview we hear why science says your best years could be yet to come.

Focused Attention Vs. Open Awareness Meditation – What’s the Difference? (Pocket Mindfulness) And which type of meditation is best for me?

Mindfulness Can Make You Selfish (Neuroscience News) Mindfulness and meditation are associated with reducing stress and anxiety, while increasing emotional well-being. But Mindfulness can also make you selfish. It’s all in the mindset.

Bumping Into Mr. Ravioli  (New yorker) Not much has changed since this 2002 story. Busyness is our art form, our civic ritual, our way of being us.

How to Shift from Hostility to Empathy in Political conversations (Greater Good) In tough conversations, science suggests a way to bridge divides and foster understanding: By appealing to other people’s values.

Cognitive Dissonance in Real Life (Psychwire) Carol Tavris answers this question: “I have a friend who has done some bad things, and I have reluctance about keeping him in my life, but we have been friends for a very long time. Is this cognitive dissonance?”

Bridging Differences Quiz (Greater Good) How open are you to connecting with different kinds of people? How skilled are you at expanding your social circle beyond people who seem most like you? How comfortable are you with disagreement with people whose views differ from your own? This quiz will help you answer these questions.

Climate Change and Your Retirement (NewRetirement) If you think about climate changes, you might believe that the impacts are too far in the future to worry about now. However, you might want to reconsider how it could impact your financial and personal well-being immediately and throughout your retirement.

The Great Climate Migration (ProPublica) Climate change will force a New American Migration. Wildfires rage in the West. Hurricanes batter the East. Droughts and floods wreak damage throughout the nation. Life has become increasingly untenable in the hardest-hit areas, but if the people there move, where will everyone go?

Moves to Make Now To Age in Place (Kiplinger) Are you thinking ahead about your forever-home? Think beyond renovation projects. It’s just a part of what you need to make aging-in-place work for you. 

Water wells are at risk of going dry in the US and worldwide (The Conversation)  As the drought outlook for the Western U.S. becomes increasingly bleak, some areas households already are running out of well water. It is Earth’s most widespread and reliable source of fresh water, but it’s not limitless.

Mark your Calendar:  Dr. Temple Grandin will be speaking about The Outdoor Scientist: The Wonder of Observing the Natural World (livestream on June 10 from Town Hall Seattle).

Why Should We Look Forward To Getting Older? (NPR) So if the passage of time changes our personalities and our values, what about its effect on our emotional state? Find out in just 9 minutes.

4 Mindsets for Fulfillment as You Age  (Psychology Today)  People over the age of 65 have the most stable and optimistic outlook of all adults. What mental attitudes can help you navigate the typical transitions of aging and weather the inevitable losses that accompany getting older?

When Does Old Age Begin?  (Dr Sarah McKay) We can’t seem to make up our minds, and the older we get, the further we move the goalposts marking the last season of our lives. when do you believe someone grew ‘old’?

Plan Your Life Again, but Keep It Simple (The New York Times) It’s Spring 2021 – even as we’re optimistic about re-emerging and pointing ourselves toward long-term goals again, many people’s crystal balls remain foggy. It’s OK.

COVID Artifacts (James Gouldthorpe)

Quarantine Barbies  (Tonya Ruiz)

The Third Thumb 1 (Danielle Clode Design & Plasticity Lab) New research seeks to define the boundaries of plasticity – our brain’s ability to adapt how it processes inputs based on changed experience.

The Third Thumb 2 (UCL) New research seeks to define the boundaries of plasticity – our brain’s ability to adapt how it processes inputs based on changed experience.

The Art of Falling Safely (AARP) The world is full of banana peels. So while avoiding a fall is job one, knowing how to take a fall when it’s inevitable is a crucial skill. Alexa Marcigliano, who is a professional stuntwoman, gives her four-point plan for a safe crash landing.

5 Yoga Practices for Better Digestion  (Sequence Wiz) Food is the main source of energy that enables our bodies to form tissues and perform all vital functions. Our food becomes us, so we literally are what we eat.  And, this can be affected by the quality and quantity of food you eat, your activity level, and the amount of stress you are under, etc.

A User Manual to Your Knees (The New York Times) Your knee routinely feels the force of five to eight times your body weight with every step, making it the most taxed joint of the human body. Here is your knee guide for keeping your knees working for years to come. 

5 Tips for Living Your Strongest, Healthiest Life Yet (Healthline) A healthy lifestyle can not only help you feel better, but it can also reduce the risk of some diseases, lengthen your lifespan, save you money, and benefit the environment.  And your version of a healthy lifestyle is whatever you define it to be.

If I Knew Then What I Know Now: Advice To My Younger Self (Research Digest) If you could travel back in time, what advice would you give to your younger self? This study had an unexpected outcome.

Why Your ‘True Self’ Is an Illusion (Vice) Self-help trend where the existence of a “true self,” is a given, adds more pressure to “be yourself” or “find yourself”, rather than regard it as a cognitive tendency or bias.

Being 97 (Aeon) An ageing philosopher returns to the essential question – ‘What is the point of it all?’

Does Venting Your Feelings Actually Help? (Greater Good) We all get upset from time to time—some of us more than others. Whether we’re sad about the loss of a loved one, angry at friends or family, or fearful about the state of the world, it often feels good to let it all out. Science suggests it might make matters worse in the long run.

Taking Mantras Up to A Whole New Level (Engaging with Aging) When used in your everyday life, mantras can remind you to engage in healthy behaviors (‘chin up!”). The whole point of the mantras is to cause this change to become a habit that kicks in appropriately as the situation demands without requiring firm commands. Sounds simple enough.

Stuck In A Rut? Sometimes Joy Takes A Little Practice (NPR) You have more influence over your emotions than previously thought. An emerging area of brain science has a new way to help lift yourself out of languishing — and bring more joy into your life.

17 Powerful Tips For Retiring Alone (New Retirement) Sometimes it feels like the world is designed for couples. But more and more people are staying single and societal norms are becoming more open to all kinds of different ways of living. Nonetheless, there are some challenges to retiring alone. Here are 17 tips for navigating retirement on your own.

Every Place Has Its Own Climate Risk. What It Is Where You Live? (New York Times) Focusing on today’s real climate harms could help us figure out how to start dealing with climate change. Start by looking at the most significant climate threat unfolding in your own backyard.

Building Climate Change Into Your Retirement Plans (Our Next Life) As much as we talk about rising health care costs and uncertainty about which social programs will still exist by the time many of us reach traditional retirement age, the truth is that the far greater threat to financial solvency for retirees is climate change.

Why Do We Believe in Cults?  (Daily Beast) Hint – It’s Not Brainwashing.

Science Denial (The Conversation) Why it happens and 5 things you can do about it.

The 2 Types of Post-pandemic Socializers (The Atlantic) Whether approached in a thoughtful way or not, the transition back to normalcy will be a potent moment to establish new social rhythms.

Should I Hang Out With Someone Whose Political Views I Hate? (The New York Times)  A very thoughtful piece by The NYT ethicist columnist on whether it’s hypocritical for a liberal to socialize with an increasingly extreme conservative.

Art Affects You More Powerfully When You View It In A Museum (BPS Research Digest) People enjoy art more at the museum, they find it more stimulating and understandable, and they remember it better.

How Music Helps Resolve Our Deepest Inner Conflicts (The Conversation) Billions of people enjoy music; many feel that they can’t live without it.  Why?

5 Ways We All Live like Royalty (Freethink) We live in a fantasy world, and we barely pause to appreciate it. Jason Feifer has a fun hobby: he combs through newspaper archives to discover how people who lived 100 years ago envisioned life in the 21st century.

Fall Asleep Faster Using ‘Cognitive Shuffling’ (Life Hacker) Who among us has not endured a restless night (after night after night) of sleep? When you can’t fall asleep, all you can think about is how you can’t fall asleep. This method may break that cycle!

Why You Can Hear but Cannot Understand  (hear.com) Have you ever felt like people mumble when they speak or that their words are muffled? Do you find yourself asking people to repeat themselves? Hearing loss that gradually occurs with age, and you are not alone..

What Convinced Me to Start Wearing Sun Protection (The New York Times) Those of us in the upper decades of life knew little in our younger years about the risks of sun damage beyond the need to avoid a bad sunburn. Now we do. All that nice dark tan you had then, turned into a permanent Dermatology nightmare. Regrets and advice with a single click.

One Guy Skirts a Medical-Bill Trap, And Shares the Secret (An Arm And a Leg) When Adam Woodrum’s insurance denied a claim for an ER bill, he happened to KNOW how to deal with it. And he figured it would be a friendly thing to share what he knew in just 7 minutes.

Doctors Tell How to Make the Most of Your Telehealth Visits (Kaiser Health News) Doctors share tips on the types of concerns that are best handled in person, and when video visits are most useful.

Take Charge of Your Medical Care (The New York Times) It can be hard to think about dealing with a medical emergency when you are well, but the things you do now can really pay off later. 

Her Doctor’s Office Moved One Floor Up. Her Bill Was 10 Times Higher  (Kaiser Health News) Hospital systems bill for what’s called a “facility fee”. Basically, a room rental fee that comes without warning, as hospitals are not required to inform patients of it ahead of time. And it is outrageous.

The Hensioners (The conversation) Looking after chickens – more than a pet dog or rabbit – can create a community of carers, cleaners, craftspeople and decision makers. Then, of course, there are the cooks who bake with their eggs. Hens are more than pets; they give something back in return for their care.

The Scraps Book (IKEA) The kitchen is a wasteful place and the Scraps Book was created in collaboration with chefs from across North America. This cookbook is dedicated to cooking with the little things we usually throw away.

The Human Brain Grew as a Result of the Extinction of Large Animals (Neuroscience News) A recent study suggests that humans developed as hunters of large animals, causing the latter’s ultimate extinction. As humans adapted to hunting small, swift prey animals, they developed higher cognitive abilities, evidenced by the growth of brain volume from 650cc to 1,500cc. 

Stuff (Paul Graham) I have too much stuff. Most people in America do. In fact, the poorer people are, the more stuff they seem to have. It wasn’t always this way. Stuff used to be rare and valuable.

What’s Your Money Personality Type? (New Retirement) Whether you know if or not, you have a type — a money personality type. And, your attitudes about finances will likely impact your retirement.  Knowing and learning about your money personality type can help you avoid pitfalls and use your strengths to your advantage for a secure and happy future

Sorry, Nobody Wants Your Parents’ Stuff (Next Avenue) Gradually we learn the hard truth that everyone in their 50s and 60s need to know: Nobody wants the prized possessions of your parents – not even you or your kids.

Danish Children Struggle To Learn Their Vowel-Filled Language (The Conversation) Danish is so complicated. It has about 40 different vowel sounds which when spoken (English has 16), Danes often turn consonants into vowel-like sounds and “swallow” the ends of words. A funny video shows it well.

Why It’s Not Too Late to Learn New Skills (The New Yorker) What’s the point of learning something new when you know you’ll never be much good at it?! As a late bloomer novice, you don’t really care what your performance of it said about your place in the world. Middle age brings greater emotional equanimity and cultivating a beginner’s mind to achieve competence, not mastery is a good start.

The Art of Conversation (5×15 stories) Theodore Zeldin is renowned for his studies on happiness, and  asking pressing questions like ‘where can a person look to find more inspiring ways to spend each day?’ Discover what kind of talked charmed people in the past and why we talk differently today.

How Your To-Do List Shapes Your Personality  (TED Ideas) Psychologist Brian R. Little asserts that what you do affects who you are. That’s because personal projects are all about the future — they point us forward, guiding us along routes that might be short and jerky, or long and smooth. And we can learn to adjust our trajectories to make our endeavors more effective.  The Personal Projects Analysis (PPA) can help you identify which of your projects are especially interesting and important.

Have You Tried Youthful Thinking- It Works!  (Sixty and Me) A study shows that those who had a younger subjective age appeared to have a more robust defense against the impact stress often wreaks on biological aging.

The Importance of Dancing Like an Idiot – (The School of Life) Dancing is one of the most releasing and necessary of all activities – but we too frequently hold back from the worry that we ‘can’t dance.’ This film usefully reminds us that there’s no such thing as not being able to dance, that the whole point is to move about wildly without shame – and that in doing so, we connect with others and with important forgotten bits of ourselves.

What I Learned From My’Faux-tirement¹ (Morningstar) Christine Fahlund, who retired from her position as T. Rowe Price’s retirement-planning guru a few years ago, often liked to say that pre-retirees should “trial-run” their retirements. An this is what one person actually did.

What Is Your Elevator Retirement Pitch (Next Avenue) Who am I now? Do I matter? Am I relevant? Does anyone see me, or have I been “put out to pasture?” Finding a quick way to describe yourself to others during this new phase of life can have a meaningful impact on your confidence and the way others categorize you.

Generation labels mean nothing. It’s time to retire them (The Washington Post) stop promoting the use of generation labels (the Silent Generation, baby boomers, Generation X, millennials and now Generation Z). Generation labels, although widely adopted by the public, have no basis in social reality. 

Sooner Or Later We All Face Death. Will A Sense of Meaning Help Us? (Aeon Ideas) Death (and disease) are unavoidable aspects of life. It sometimes seems, though, that we’ve developed a delusional denial of this in the West. But keeping the end in sight, reminds us to live my life to the full every day.

How to Communicate with The Future (Jason Feifer) These feel like historic times… so how can we share our wisdom and experiences with future generations? Turns out, it’s really hard! Explores why time capsules fail, why almost nothing lasts for thousands of years, why the future may not care about us after all—and why all of that is just fine.

IQ Tests Can’t Measure It, But ‘Cognitive Flexibility’ Is Key To Learning And Creativity (The Conversation) Many people have an endless fascination with the IQ scores of famous people. But the truth is that some of the greatest achievements by our species have primarily relied on qualities such as creativity, imagination, curiosity and empathy.

Why broken sleep is a golden time for creativity (Aeon Essays) People once woke up halfway through the night to think, write or make love. What have we lost by sleeping straight through?

What’s the Opposite of Distraction  (Nir and Far) Do you find it different to manage your time?  Here is the single word that will change your life this year.

5 Mistakes We Make When We’re Overwhelmed (HBR) When you feel overwhelmed, you may react in ways that not only don’t help the situation, but that even make it worse. These five common self-sabotaging mistakes get practical solutions that will help you feel like you’re on top of things.

You Are Not “Addicted” To Technology (Jason Feifer) Look at the history of supposedly “addictive” technologies, understand the surprisingly odd science behind today’s scariest claims, and discover who really has the power to break these supposed “addictions.”

‘Go Bag’ Items for Real & Unusual Emergencies (Rethinking65) You may already have a “go bag” or “bug out bag” full of essentials the event you need to evacuate from your home at a moment’s notice? But do you have one for unexpected trips to the hospital? You’d be surprised by the list in this guide.

Who Needs the Grand Canyon – Try a Micro-adventure. (The New York Times) Scientists are finding that awe, the emotion that combines an experience of vastness with both pleasure and a fear of the unknown, is a skill that can be cultivated and has remarkable mental health benefits.

Your Greatest Sources of Pleasure  (Clearer Thinking) Different people get different amounts of pleasure from different things. This assessment can help you identify what your greatest Sources of Pleasure in life are and reflect on how to add more pleasure to your life.

20 Common Values and Why People Can’t Agree on More (Nir & Far) Values are central to human flourishing. We need to define and understand our values if we want to live with personal integrity. There’s a difference between the things you value and your actual values. The former come and go. But your values can guide you throughout your life, no matter the situation. Here’s a simple test: If someone can take it away from you, then it’s not one of your values.

Intrinsic Values Test – Discover What Your Most Important Values Are (Clearer Thinking) There are lots of things that people value, from career success, to friendship, to family, to having fun. But intrinsic values are special, as they are our most fundamental values. We value them for their own sake, and would continue to value them even if they caused no other effects.

How To Change Your Personality (BPS Research Digest) Use these evidence-based methods to alter your personality, whether you’re an introvert who wants to become the life of the party, or you simply wish you were a little more open to new experiences. Learn how our personalities evolve over the course of our lifespans, even when we’re not consciously trying to change them, and ponder how they might be affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Calf Muscles and Blood Pressure Can Predict Dementia Risk (Neuroscience News) Blood pressure can influence dementia risks. Study suggests that raising diastolic blood pressure through daily soleus muscle, or calf muscle, stimulation can help reverse signs of cognitive decline associated with aging.

Everything We Eat Both Causes And Prevents Cancer (Science Alert) More often than not, single studies contradict one another – such as the research on foods that cause or prevent cancer. The truth can be found somewhere in the totality of the research.

Joy Generator (NPR) Feeling blah? Science shows you can boost happiness by taking time for small moments of delight. We’ve got ideas to try out right now. So, let’s play!

The Science Of How We Learn (Andrew Huberman) The science of how we learn: as children, as adults and how to implement the biological rules of neuroplasticity to optimize learning. Plus, some myths about neurogenesis/adult stem cells, a note about brain injury and your sense of smell, and last but not least, deep rest states that support learning consolidation.

Aging Brains Need Exercise For Neurons, Not Sofas  (Mind Matters) Why do we find it harder to learn as we age? We are often told that the aging brain is losing neurons. That, is not the problem. Rather, older people may face a desynchronization between sensory and motor neurons. So yes, our neurons are still there in old age but they do need to get out more and get some exercise!

Secret Mind Of Slime (NOVA) Meet slime molds: brainless blobs that can learn, make decisions, and navigate mazes! Ultimately, this leaves scientists considering how we define intelligence and pondering whether intelligent life even requires the presence of a brain.

48 Lost Self-Reliance Skills That Kept Our Forefathers Alive  (Walden Labs) These skills weren’t “survival skills” as we regard them today, but rather what our ancestors called “daily life”. Below you’ll find a list of some essential skills, some ancient and some more recent, used by our forefathers to survive – but which now are no longer learned.

How to Solve Any Problem Using Just Common Sense (The New York Times) If we put all the pasta we eat in a year end to end, what percentage of Earth’s circumference would that take up?

Less is more: Why our brains struggle to subtract (Nature)  When solving problems, humans tend to think about adding something before they think of taking something away – even when subtracting is the better solution. Experiments show that this newly discovered psychological phenomenon applies across a range of situations from improving a physical design to solving an abstract puzzle.

What Is Machine Learning, and How Does It Work (Scientific American) Machine learning is the process by which computer programs grow from experience. Lots of machine learning algorithms are open-source and widely available. And they’re already being used for many things that influence our lives, in large and small ways. Here’s a 3 1/2 minutes video primer.

Why Your Carbon Footprint Is Meaningless   (Daily Beast) Changing my individual behavior feels empowering, maybe even virtuous. The world may be going to hell, but I’m doing my part. But individual behaviors are not the major causes of global warming, and is another get-out-of-jail free card for the fossil fuel industry and the other major contributors to global climate destruction.

Future Generations Commissioner for Wales (Future Generations) This is real. The Commissioner’s role is to be the guardian of future generations. This means helping public bodies and those who make policy in Wales to think about the long-term impact their decisions have.

Where You Live Affects Your Longevity (MIT) Would you like to live longer? It turns out that where you live, not just how you live, can make a big difference. a recent MIT study examined senior citizens across the U.S. and concludes that some locations enhance longevity more than others, potentially for multiple reasons.

Alice Neel Self-Portrait (National Portrait Gallery) “Life begins at seventy!” she said. In 1975, Neel began this shocking, endearing, and utterly unconventional self-portrait, one of only two she ever made. She took five years to complete the work and later, recalling the process, said, “The reason my cheeks got so pink was that it was so hard for me to paint that I almost killed myself painting it.”

Age Without Ageism (Citizen Brain) how fighting ageism can help us live longer — and make the world better.

The Power Of No – How To Build Strong, Healthy Boundaries  (The Guardian) For any human being, Olympian or otherwise, learning when to say no can bring peace. And isn’t that something we all deserve?

Aristotle’s Guide To The Elderly And Ancient Greek Wisdom (Big Think) Who do you turn to for advice? When things are hard, and you don’t know what to do, who are those people you ask for help? It might be your mom or that one person at work who knows all the answers. Perhaps it’s an internet stranger on some comment board or a professional you pay. But the question is: why do you choose them?

Being chased, losing your teeth or falling down? What science says about recurring dreams (The Conversation) Nearly two-thirds of the population report having recurring dreams. Being chased, finding yourself naked in a public place or in the middle of a natural disaster, losing your teeth or forgetting to go to class for an entire semester are typical recurring scenarios in these dreams. But where does the phenomenon come from? The science of dreams shows that recurring dreams may reflect unresolved conflicts in the dreamer’s life.

Stop Thinking About Your Bad Habits! Do This Instead (Nir & Far) Thinking about bad habits can be so futile. Tell yourself not to think about snacking, and your cravings will skyrocket. You want to stop doing something that pulls you off track, but telling yourself not to do it only makes you ruminate on it. Find out why.

Aging Brains Need Exercise For Neurons, Not Sofas  (Mind Matters) Why do we find it harder to learn as we age? We are often told that the aging brain is losing neurons. That, is not the problem. Rather, older people may face a desynchronization between sensory and motor neurons. So yes, our neurons are still there in old age but they do need to get out more and get some exercise!

Restoring a Sense of Belonging – The Unsung Importance of Casual Relationships (KHN) Many people may have found that neighbors, mail carriers and delivery people became more important during the pandemic — simply because they were around when others were not, and As pandemic restrictions lift, “the key is to get out in daily life again” and reengage with a variety of people and activities.

How Purpose Changes Across Your Lifetime (Greater Good) Are you worried about finding your one true purpose? Then don’t.  We can find purpose in different areas of life. In fact, purpose isn’t something we find at all. It’s something we can cultivate through deliberate action and reflection, and it will naturally wax and wane throughout our lives.

Building Community by Buying Nothing (YES! Magazine) Rebecca Rockefeller and Liesl Clark envisioned back in 2013 when they created Buy Nothing—a gift economy operated on a hyperlocal scale to bring neighbors together through sharing and community

Reactance – Why You Sabotage Your Own Goals  (Nir & Far) Psychological reactance is our knee-jerk negative reaction to being told what to do. Almost everyone has this negative mental reflex. It kicks in whenever we sense that our autonomy is being threatened. is it inherently bad?

Feel overwhelmed and stressed? It’s time for you to track your time (Ideas TED) Having no clear understanding of how you spend your time can leave you feeling more overwhelmed, which can cause you to make decisions that lead to more stress and anxiety, which feeds the sense that you’re pressed for time and leads to your feeling even more overwhelmed.

Temperament and Engaging with Our Aging  (Engaging With Aging) 99 years old sage Doris Carnevali     comments that Pre-aged people often see aged folks as being set in their ways.  And in terms of temperament, this is spot on. Still, self-awareness of our ever-present temperament is useful in helping us to understand why we are set to deal with our aging the way we do.

Why Your Metabolism Slows Down With Age (Healthline) You’ve probably been told that as you age, you can’t eat like your younger self.  That’s because your metabolism tends to slow with age, making it easier to add a few extra pounds and harder to lose them. Luckily, there are some things you can do to avert this age-related drop in metabolism.

Low Health Literacy Is A Silent Pandemic (Salon) Doctors speak at least two languages: English and Medicalese. Medicalese sounds like English but is sprinkled with jargon terms from ancient and classical languages. Patients often don’t understand something their doctor is saying — and that’s a bad sign for your health.

Your Doctor is Retiring. Here’s How to Find a New Physician (Kiplinger) You’ve known your primary doctor longer than your best friend. She has been there through minor medical issues and larger health scares. And now, she is retiring. Finding a new doctor is never easy, especially when insurers limit whom you can see. 

Meet the Insurance Warrior (An Arm and A Leg) In 2005, Laurie Todd needed surgery to save her life. To get it, to get her insurance to pay for it, took a huge fight. That battle saved her life and transformed her into the Insurance Warrior. Now she’s sharing that knowledge, and her story, with us.

How to slow down time ? (PopSci) The older we get, the shorter everything feels, and that can really be quite distressing. Your perception of time dictates a lot of how you experience your past, present, and future. Here are some ways that can help you make the most of it.

Meet the genius scientist transforming the world on a shoestring  (TED Science) While many of us may look at a sheet of paper and see something to write on, Stanford University bioengineering professor Manu Prakash sees groundbreaking scientific technology. From the 50-cent microscope to more cheap public health tools, including a paper centrifuge and a mosquito identifier. And he’s just getting started.

When and Why Did Human Brains Decrease in Size 3,000 Years Ago (Neuroscience News) Human brain size decreased in size approximately 3,000 years ago, and the brain shrinkage parallels the expansion of collective intelligence in human societies.

Elegant Adaptations and Design Innovations  (White Hair 365) Glen Hougan is a creative thinker and a designer whose work in designing products for an aging population gained well-deserved attention by the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and PBS.

How To Know What You Really Want? (Big Think) Luke Burgis explores two kinds of desire, thin and thick. Thick desires are like layers of rock that have been built up throughout the course of our lives. Thin desires are the things that can be here today, gone tomorrow. In the stream of daily life, when we’re pushed and pulled in a million different directions, we rarely extract ourselves and find time for recollection. What does it mean for our understand of the way that our relationships and our desires are growing and emerging?

Estate Planning Checkup – Is Your Estate Plan Up to Date? (Kiplinger) Estate planning may not be popular, but it is an essential process to ensure your life’s work is appropriately taken care of after you pass. The thing about estate planning is that it’s not a process that rewards a set-it-and-forget-it approach. Luckily, reviewing your estate plan is a relatively straightforward process. Here’s a short guide.

Want To Boost Your Wellbeing In 2022? (BPS) It’s natural to start a new year with plans to make this one better than the last. But if you are thinking about how to boost your wellbeing, it’s worth knowing that some “good” ways of living have dark sides, too…

Use Other People to Achieve Your Goals (Irrational Labs)  New year’s resolutions are…underrated. Yes, we know most people give up after a month. But maybe that’s because we’re not doing it right? Try this special goal-setting method called MANC. It stands for Mutually-Assured-Non-Complacency, and uses the people closest to you to assure that you don’t fall into status quo ruts.

To Boost The Economy, Treat The Cause Of Aging (Big Think) Biomedical science has largely been concerned with extending our lifespans. But people do not want to live a long life if that means being in pain or a burden to others. Targeting the underlying cause of aging could provide an enormous boost to the economy.

Living to 150 May Be Possible. But Is Society Ready for It? (Daily Beast) Whatever the final number is, having a large population of seniors could mean later retirement, more artistic contributions, and changing values for America’s youth-obsessed culture. Yet there are also some definite drawbacks to longevity and old age, even if your mind is still sharp as a tack. Getting people to live longer is the hard part—getting them to live well in old age is the even harder part.

Who Will Take Care of Us? (Happily Rewired) Are Boomers headed for a long-term healthcare reckoning? If we want to age in place, the older we get, the more likely we will have to get help from family members, which is not always possible, or home care aides.

4 Lessons from Betty White (Encore Boston Network) Betty White, who died last week at the age of 99, and studies on healthy longevity, have shown that being positive, having a sense of humor, being optimistic, correlates with living longer, better. Old age is made up. So is retirement. Like Betty White, all of us must learn how to constantly adapt. 

How to Thrive As A Solo Ager? (Next Avenue) What does it mean to be a solo ager? There are currently 12 million of us in the United States who are single by choice, live without a spouse or partner or are widowed or divorced. We may never have had children or are estranged from them. In this collection of Next Avenue stories, experts offer personal advice and resources for navigating social, emotional and practical topics that solo agers may want to consider.

Why Your Favorite Barista Looks Like Your Grandma? (Experience Magazine) More and more older workers are working alongside younger ones in entry-level, part-time jobs.  Roughly one in five adults over 65 is now working, and their ranks have more than doubled since the turn of the century. Not surprising, it is not always due to economic necessity.

Your Professional Decline Is Coming (Much) Sooner Than You Think (Arthur C. Brooks) Many professionally successful people as they age, because they lose their abilities, gained over many years of hard work. Their biggest mistake is attempting to sustain peak accomplishment indefinitely. This is impossible. The key is to enjoy accomplishments for what they are in the moment, and endeavor toward the strengths that persist, or even increase, later in life.

7 Serious Health Benefits of Laughter (Healthgrades) Snort, guffaw and hee hee hee all you want. Laughing’s not only fun, it’s a new form of fitness. Research has shown laughing every day has serious health benefits and can help you live longer. And because belly laughs can be a new fix for belly fat and more.

The Second Careers of the Healthy Seniors (Nautilus) Every day, 10,000 Americans turn 65, and every day, more and more of them are fit and healthy. Society may still view able, competent, sound-of-mind seniors as happy curiosities. The challenge we face is finding ways to harness their talents.

Ladder of Inference – Jumping to Conclusions Thought Process (Scrumpy Dad) Do you get irritated when you hear people jumping to conclusions based on a single piece of information? Are you surprised how others come to a totally different conclusion than you based on the same situation? Let’s see what’s going on here, and how to deal with it.

That Is Not How Your Brain Works  (Nautilus) Neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett, dispels 3 popular scientific myths about the brain. 

Writing and Health  (University of Texas) Is something weighing on your mind or keeping you up at night? James Pennebaker believes that people can use this Expressive Writing exercise to understand their emotions, improve their health, and even change their lives.

How to Improve Your Grip Strength (Healthline) Grip strength is how firmly and securely you can hold onto things, and how heavy the things you can grip are. It is useful for a variety of daily tasks, such as carrying grocery bags, opening a door, unscrewing a jar lid, or having a steady handwriting.

How To Reap The Benefits Of Anxiety? (Berkeley’s Greater Good) neuroscientist Wendy Suzuki wants to challenge the way we look at our anxiety. If we simply approach it as something to avoid, get rid of, or dampen, we not only don’t solve the problem but actually miss an opportunity to leverage the generative power of anxiety.

Why We Need Boundaries More Than Ever?  (Yahoo!Life) Boundaries set limits for what the people in your life can expect from you, and that’s  referring to everyone from your boss to your best friend and your mother-in-law. When people respect your boundaries, you feel heard and understood and the same is true in reverse.

How ‘Gamification’ of Everything Is Manipulating You (and How to Recognize It)?  (Life Hacker) “Gamification” is the practice of adding game-like elements to non-game contexts. It isn’t new, nor it is always a negative. But marketers, salespeople, and employers can involve us in games we don’t even know we’re playing: games where the rules aren’t clear, the playing field isn’t level, and there’s often no way we can quit.

What We Don’t Want to Know  (Vice) Deliberate ignorance has consequences.  We need to understand why we want to know, but we also need to better understand what’s behind the desire to say: “I don’t want to know.”  How do we know when is it time to practice deliberate ignorance?

The 7 Types Of Rest That Every Person Needs (TED Ideas) Have you ever tried to fix an ongoing lack of energy by getting more sleep — only to do so and still feel exhausted?  If that’s you, here’s the secret: Sleep and rest are not the same thing, although many of us incorrectly confuse the two. We go through life thinking we’ve rested because we have gotten enough sleep — but in reality, we are missing out on the other types of rest we desperately need.

 Are You in Training for Old Age – Or Just Planning to be Elderly (Illumination) One way to stave off getting elderly early is to have huge goals late in life. Do we need goals as we age? Yes. Those who have goals do better. While that’s overly simplistic, the point is that as we age, having a focus works for us. Being physically able, strong and mentally alert, which are connected, also supports having those goals.

Watch: Two Fastest 100-Year-Old Runners in the World Break Records (Growing Bold) For most people, just living to be 100 years old would be an accomplishment.  Not for Julia Hawkins and Diane Friedman.  These two American centenarians recently broke records to become the fastest runners over the age of 100 in the world. They’ve redefined what’s possible in the realm of athletic achievement – and they did it within three months of each other.

Low Health Literacy Is A Silent Pandemic (Salon) Doctors speak at least two languages: English and Medicalese. Medicalese sounds like English but is sprinkled with jargon terms from ancient and classical languages. Patients often don’t understand something their doctor is saying — and that’s a bad sign for your health.

How to Deal With Ageism From Doctors and Nurses (Next Avenue)  “How are we feeling today, young lady?” Do you at times feel you’re being dismissed or discounted by a health care provider? There are multiple strategies you can employ when you encounter ageism by medical professionals and it’s necessary in order to get the care you need and deserve.

How to Practice Mindfulness in Everyday Life (Cognition Today) Mindfulness can be practiced by paying close attention to all forms of behavior, thoughts, sensations, and feelings in almost all daily activities. Most of the improvements are seen in the quality of life, relationships, thinking, focus, and mental clarity. 

Admiral Grace Hopper Explains the Nanosecond  (YouTube) Admiral Grace Hopper was one of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I computer. She developed the first compiler for a computer programming language. Here she explains a nanosecond to a room of learners.

Have you fallen for the myth of ‘I can’t draw’? (The Conversation) Drawing is a powerful tool of communication. It helps build self-understanding and can boost mental health.  But our current focus on productivity, outcomes and “talent” has us thinking about it the wrong way. Too many believe the myth of “I can’t draw”, when in fact it’s a skill built through practice. However, if you’re constantly asking yourself: “What’s the point of drawing?”  (And a great conversation in the comments section too).

Web 3.0 Vs. The Metaverse: What’s The Difference? (Freethink) If you’ve been following any predictions for how that internet of tomorrow will look and function, you’ve likely heard people throwing around the terms “Web 3.0” and “the metaverse,” but they aren’t the same thing.  Here’s how Web 3.0 and the metaverse differ and what they each mean for your future on the internet.

How ‘Organic’ Food Could Doom the Future of Agriculture (Daily Beast) Most consumers perceive organic food as healthier than conventionally grown produce—even if they don’t actually know what “organic” really means. It’s no wonder that in the absence of an informed public, organic food groups have found it easy to build GMOs up as a scary boogey-man, even to policy makers. The reality is much more complicated.

6 Reasons Why You’re Not Hungry in the Morning (Healthline) We’ve all heard that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. But just because this is a popular saying doesn’t mean you feel hungry in the morning. And if you don’t, eating a healthy breakfast may feel like a challenge.  Here are 6 possible reasons why you may not feel hungry in the morning.

What’s The Difference Between Sugar, Other Natural Sweeteners And Artificial Sweeteners? (The Conversation) With confusing food labels claiming foods and beverages to be diet, zero-sugar or with “no artificial sweeteners,” it can be confusing to know exactly what you are consuming. So what are these sweet molecules? How can cane sugar and artificial sweeteners produce such similar flavors?

The Joy of Steps: 20 Ways to Give Purpose to Your Daily Walk (The Guardian) Has the novelty of a prescribed stroll long since worn off? From tracking animals to uncovering hidden history, here’s how to discover a new world in your neighborhood.

Summer Camp For Adults Games – Bring On The S’mores (And The Rum)! (Experience Magazine) Across the country, adult summer camps take pains to replicate the lost days of youth, right down to the campfires, s’mores, mess hall meals, and classic activities such as tennis, swimming, archery, volleyball, water skiing, and arts and crafts. Are you ready?

Watch The Jellyfish (Monterey Bay Aquarium) If you struggle with traditional meditation try watching the feed from a web camera showing the jellyfish at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. You too can get lost in the gentle pulses of the jellyfish for a short mindfulness break during your day.

Social prescribing: Bridging the gap between clinical and social care (McMaster University) Imagine that your family doctor or healthcare professional gave you a prescription to meet with psychosocial resources in your community, or to take a “forest bath”, join a men’s shed, take a yoga class, or do voluntary work? But what does research tell us about the effectiveness of social prescribing?

What Happens in Our Brain When We Die? (Neuroscience News) Imagine reliving your entire life in the space of seconds. Like a flash of lightning, you are outside of your body, watching memorable moments you lived through.  a new study published to Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience suggests that your brain may remain active and coordinated during and after the transition to death.

Get Comfortable with Feeling Uncomfortable (Behavioural Scientist) Discomfort often serves as a signal to stop whatever you’re doing. However, discomfort is expected when taking on new challenges. Self-growth isn’t always easy, or comfortable. Reclaiming discomfort as progress can help you learn more and stay more motivated.

The One Question You Should Always Ask Yourself Before Making Any Personal Finance Decisions (Inc.) Most people have never been asked what a rich life looks like to them. When asked, many people have a dollar figure in mind. “I want to have a million bucks!”  But when asked “OK, where did that number come from? What does that let you do?”, they fall silent. What should you ask instead?

How Worrying Helps and Hurts You, According to Science (Jason Feiffer) Is worrying good for anything? The answer is yes: It is good for… something. But it’s probably not the thing you think.  If you’re a worrier, read on. The science might just change how much you worry — or at the very least, it might make you feel a little less bad.

Ready for Another Pandemic Malady? It’s Called ‘Decision Fatigue’ (KHN) Faced with a stream of difficult choices about health and safety during a global pandemic we may experience a unique kind of burnout that could deeply affect our brains and our mental health. So, it might help to know (as you’re tossing and turning over whether to cancel your non-refundable vacation) that your struggle has a name: decision fatigue. Psychologist Barry Schwartz has sound advice to offer.

What Do Your Bones Say About You? (Sequence Wiz) The condition of our bones is vital to us, not because we want to help anthropologists in some distant future but because the quantity and quality of our bones directly affect our health and longevity. the bone matrix (primary bone tissue) is constantly being recycled and renewed through the process called bone remodeling. Here’s a closer look.

Exercise Increases the Body’s Own ‘Cannabis’ Which Reduces Chronic Inflammation (Neuroscience News) Exercise increases the body’s own cannabis-like substances, which in turn helps reduce inflammation and could potentially help treat certain conditions such as arthritis, cancer and heart disease.

How to Remain Youthful and Resilient Despite Stress?  (The Conversation) A bit of stress can be good for your mental and physical wellbeing, but too much can lead to anxiety, depression and other health problems. It can also make you age faster. So learning to become more stress-resilient is important if you’re not in a hurry to grow old fast.

Does cellular senescence hold secrets for healthier aging – (NIOAing) as we age, our bodies are no longer as effective at removing dysfunctional cells, and this can contribute to a weakened immune system and other less efficient biological processes. researchers are exploring whether learning to harness a cellular state known as senescence might hold the key to revitalizing aging tissues and increasing healthy, active years of life.

Same As It Ever Was (Collaborative Fund) “People spend too much time on the last 24 hours and not enough time on the last 6,000 years.” (Will Durant). Here are a few stories about Things that seem to never change, and why they get so little attention.

Do We Really ‘Lose Our Filter’ as We Age? (The Conversation) Many of us will have experienced some unexpected honesty from the older people in our lives. But do we really have a “filter”, and do we lose it as we get older? Or could it simply be that as we get older, we care less about what others think?

Ten Theories For How To Achieve True Happiness (Clearer Thinking) How do you think about being truly happy? The question of how to achieve true happiness has been debated for thousands of years. In this article, you’d find summaries of ten approaches to happiness, new and old, that are popular today. Which of these theories resonates most with you?

How Thinking About ‘Future You’ Can Build a Happier Life (BBC) We should think more about whom we’ll be in the future – because doing so has profound consequences for our health, happiness and financial security.

The DIY Quest To Cheat Death And Stop Aging (Invers) Would you take your (extended) life into your own hands?

Old Age Is Not a Pathology (Eric Weiner) Old age is the last terra incognita. There are few road maps, and even fewer role models. What do we mean by “old”? Chronological age misses the mark. It is meaningless. Here’s What a French philosopher can teach us about aging well.

4 Mindsets for Fulfillment as You Age  (Psychology Today) People over the age of 65 have the most stable and optimistic outlook of all adults. What mental attitudes can help you navigate the typical transitions of aging and weather the inevitable losses that accompany getting older?

How To Want Less (The Atlantic) How much time do you spend thinking about what’s next? Your next job, your next home, your next purchase, even your next to-do list item — all of it seems to hold the key to happiness. “The secret to satisfaction is not to increase our haves,” writes Harvard professor Arthur C. Brooks. So, what is the secret?

10 Observations Now That We Have Been Retired For Five Years (Lustre) Karen and Erica share what they learned since retiring. They noted that time has gone by quickly—faster, of course, once they found purpose in their post-career lives by figuring out their new job was to redo retirement and change the image of retired women.

Why You Should Run Your Life Like A Professional Sports League  (Jason Feiffer) We make rules for ourselves or others. Then we change them — or break them, or ignore them, or pile new rules on top. This is a recipe for chaos. What we need is a Rule of Rules — a rule to govern all our rules.

What Is Palliative Care? How Is It Different From Hospice? (The Conversation) When most people hear the term palliative care, they look worried or confused. “Does this mean I am dying?” But palliative care and hospice care are two very different things.

Anti-Aging Isn’t A Scam, But Immortality Almost Certainly Is (Big Think)  Until recently aging was considered to be an inescapable fact of life. Age-related decline occurs when our systems begin to fail due to cellular stress. This rarely kills us, but it reduces our capacity to live a healthy life. Over the past few decades, scientists have discovered that aging follows a predictable path. Rejuvenating stressed and aged cells has the potential to prevent age-related disorders and improve human health span.

Pieces of String Too Short to Save (Brooklyn Museum) For his installation at The Brooklyn Museum, Artist Donald Lipski sifted through the fifteen years of accumulated objects, arranging the pieces on the Lobby’s back wall, as well as creating piles of objects on the floor in front.

Who Do I Leave My Belongings to If I Have No Children (Sixty and Me) thought through what you want to have happen well before you reach the end of your life. So, here are a few tips.

How Will You Be Remembered? (The EndGame) My plan is simply to be remembered fondly by a few people, for a few minutes. It’s silly, I suppose, but once I am on the underside of the planet it would be nice to know that my years on the top side left some residue to indicate I had been here.

How Big Oil Misled The Public Into Believing Plastic Would Be Recycled (NPR) NPR and PBS Frontline investigation series found that the Big Oil & Plastics industries sold the public on an idea it knew wouldn’t work — that the majority of plastic could be, and would be, recycled — all while making billions of dollars selling the world new plastic. The truth is: The vast majority of plastic cannot be recycled.

What You Need to Know About Climate Change (AARP) How it’s already affecting your health, home and safety — and what you can do about it.

The Unconventional Weapon Against Future Wildfires – Goats (Goatapelli Foundation) Lani Malmberg, 64, is a goat herder and a pioneer in using the animals to restore fire-ravaged lands to greener pastures and make them less prone to the spread of blazes. She developed the fire-prevention technique in graduate school and is among a few individuals using grazing methods for fire mitigation.

If You Can’t Hear Your Friends, You’re Missing More Than Gossip (Lustre)  We used to think that not being able to hear perfectly was no big deal, so we just accommodated it by speaking louder and louder. And hearing loss begins earlier than when you might expect, so you need to plan. Part of the plan is to get over the idea that correcting your hearing makes you seem older than not correcting your hearing. To make the best of our longevity, we need to be on our game for those extra thirty years. That means we need to hear. And we can’t allow the people we care about to recede into silence and isolation.

What You Eat Can Reprogram Your Genes  (The Conversation) People typically think of food as calories, energy and sustenance. However, the latest evidence suggests that food also “talks” to our genome, which is the genetic blueprint that directs the way the body functions down to the cellular level.

It’s Your Choice: You Can Change Your Views of Aging and Improve Your Life (KHN) Exposing people to positive descriptions of aging can improve their memory, gait, balance, and will to live. All of us have an extraordinary opportunity to rethink what it means to grow old.

The New Map of Life (Stanford Center On Longevity) Longevity is not a synonym of old age. The increase in life expectancy shapes lives from childhood to old age across different domains. Among those, the nature of work will undergo profound changes from skill development and the role of retirement to the intrinsic meaning of work. The New Map of Life would guide us from the world we inhabit now to a world in which future centenarians will thrive.

The Case for Hiring Older Workers (HBR) There’s a lot of talk about gender bias, racial bias, and culture bias at work, and each are important for many reasons. But perhaps one of the biggest and most problematic types of bias we face is the bias of age: we often evaluate people based on their age, and this is now becoming a major challenge in the workplace.

Let’s end ageism (TED)  It’s not the passage of time that makes it so hard to get older. It’s ageism, a prejudice that pits us against our future selves — and each other. Ashton Applewhite urges us to dismantle the dread and mobilize against the last socially acceptable prejudice. “Aging is not a problem to be fixed or a disease to be cured,” she says. “It is a natural, powerful, lifelong process that unites us all.

How To Write a Happier Ending  (The End Game) Do you want to force your family members to turn your house upside down looking for your will, your insurance, or your passwords, or piecing together all your scattered investments? Do you want to leave your surviving spouse desperate for funds and frantic to figure out how to access the bank account?

How To Ask For Help (Psyche) Do you have a strong independent streak? Asking for help can feel so uncomfortable that we would often rather suffer in silence, or try to do everything ourselves. Many of us live in cultures in which individual performance and independence are prized. And yet, the ability to ask for and obtain help is a valuable life skill.

Why Success Can Feel So Bitter (The Atlantic) Dreams and goals are important because they give us a metric against which to measure progress; you don’t care if you’re getting closer to Rome unless you are trying to get to Rome. But are you enjoying the journey? It might feel like you have limited time for big accomplishments in retirement, but recognizing that happiness is found in the process of progress might change the way you view your future.

How To Write a Happier Ending  (The End Game) Do you want to force your family members to turn your house upside down looking for your will, your insurance, or your passwords, or piecing together all your scattered investments? Do you want to leave your surviving spouse desperate for funds and frantic to figure out how to access the bank account?

How To Ask For Help (Psyche) Do you have a strong independent streak? Asking for help can feel so uncomfortable that we would often rather suffer in silence, or try to do everything ourselves. Many of us live in cultures in which individual performance and independence are prized. And yet, the ability to ask for and obtain help is a valuable life skill.

Why Success Can Feel So Bitter (The Atlantic) Dreams and goals are important because they give us a metric against which to measure progress; you don’t care if you’re getting closer to Rome unless you are trying to get to Rome. But are you enjoying the journey? It might feel like you have limited time for big accomplishments in retirement, but recognizing that happiness is found in the process of progress might change the way you view your future.

Public Hygiene Lets Us Stay Human (PHLUSH)  Toilet availability is a human right and well-designed sanitation systems restore health to our cities, our waters and our soils. Through education and advocacy, PHLUSH helps local governments and citizen groups to provide equitable public restroom availability and to prepare for sanitation disasters with appropriate ecological toilet systems.

This Test Measures Your Ability To Spot Pseudo-Profound Financial Bullshit (BigThink) Psychologists have been studying “pseudo-profound bullshit” for years.  The concept refers to speech that is designed to impress but doesn’t really mean anything. In a recent study, researchers examined how people respond to bullshit lingo in the financial world.

How People Think (Collaborative Fund) So many behaviors are universal across generations and geographies. Circumstances change, but people’s reactions don’t. Technologies evolve, but insecurities, blind spots, and gullibility rarely does. This article describes 17 of the most common and influential aspects of how people think.

Why Talking to Strangers Is the Best Thing You Can Do for Your Mental Health  (Pocket) If we can only break through the awkwardness barrier, striking up conversations at random is the cheapest form of therapy there is. Social Scientist Gillian Sandstrom notes that fellow humans, on average, are friendlier than we tend to think. Forcing ourselves back into the habit of making small talk could return big dividends.

Chinese Philosophy Has Long Known That Mental Health Is Communal (Psyche) Mental illness is often thought to be a matter of individual disorder. But such an emphasis on the individual can lead us to neglect communal approaches to treatment. Often overlooked are the ways in which social norms, cultural beliefs and communal attitudes contribute to mental illness. Ancient Chinese scholars understood this well.

This One Question Can Predict A Happy Relationship (Jason Feiffer) Before we start a relationship, we always want to know: Will this work out? This is equally true with business and romance. After all, who wants to waste their time with something doomed to fail? Data scientist Samantha Joel found that there is only one question — only ONE! — that meaningfully predicts successful relationships. Want to know what it is? Read on.

rediscover the joys of wide-eyed discovery. Wonder and the learning it encourages enable us to more fully engage with others and it helps us to appreciate everything around us more fully.

Returning to Our Roots: How Nature Prescriptions Can Help Patients (MedScape) In the mid-1800s NYC’s Central Park was created largely as a solution to a “crowded, unhealthy conditions,” in the growing city. It was a way for city dwellers to experience a more rural environment without leaving town. Today, the link between nature and human health is as clear and as urgent as ever and health professionals are again prescribing “doses” of time in nature to patients.

This Article Won’t Change Your Mind (The Atlantic) Written in 2017 yet feels like it was just this morning… The facts on why facts alone can’t fight false beliefs.

Paul McCartney At 80: What Can We Learn? (Rethinking 65) Age is clearly just a number for Sir James Paul McCartney who wrapped up his seven-week, 13-city “Got Back” tour on June 16, two days before his 80th birthday, and 65 years first gig. McCartney is living a life with purpose, doing something he truly appears to enjoy, and staying mentally and physically active. What can we learn?

Laughter May Be Effective Medicine for These Trying Times  (New York Times) “Heightened stress magnifies the risk of cardiovascular events, including heart attacks and strokes,” says the cardiologist Dr. Michael Miller. “Having a good sense of humor is an excellent way to relieve stress and anxiety and bring back a sense of normalcy during these turbulent times.”

How to Age Gracefully (CBC Radio/YouTube) People of all ages offer words of wisdom to their younger counterparts.

The Seven Habits That Lead to Happiness in Old Age (the Atlantic) Your well-being is like a retirement account: The sooner you invest, the greater your returns will be. Not enough saved in your “Happiness 401(k)”? Some resources are still under our control and today is a good day to start saving.

Writing Can Improve Mental Health – Here’s How  (The Conversation) Ernest Hemingway famously said that writers should “write hard and clear about what hurts”. recent studies have begun to show how an increase in self-awareness, rather than simply disclosing emotions, could be the key to these improvements in mental health.

What Is The Ideal Age To Retire? Never, According To A Neuroscientist (Ideas/TED) Developing a sense of pur­pose. Using your brain. Having social engagement. And Staying busy with meaningful activities requires some strategies and re-shifting priorities. 

Get Help with Medicare Coverage Denials (Squared Away) Sarah Murdoch is the center’s director of client services and oversees the helpline. She answers about 20,000 questions a year about the common issues people face and how they can address them.

The Future of Medicine, Aging and Longevity in a Post-COVID World (FUSF) Age Wave Founder and CEO, Ken Dychtwald, PhD, explores the implications of rising longevity and the important role that disruptive medical technology. How will these irreversible trends toward increasing longevity impact healthcare, medicine, nutrition, and environmental safety? And how can we ensure abundant lifelong health for all – not just the wealthy?

Confronting Ageism in Health Care (KFH) What does ageism in health care look like? It can be a thoughtless quip that makes an older person feel diminished. Or an assumption that patients are unable to follow a conversation or make their own decisions. Maybe it occurs when a concern is voiced, then discounted or dismissed. Ageism is reflected in care strategies that ignore a patient’s values and ideas about what constitutes a productive life.