Category: Health

Brain, Health, Psychology, ScienceLeave a comment

How Alzheimer’s Caregivers Cope in a Warped Reality

Fernando Kaskais

Visual: Andrew Bret Wallis/The Image Bank via Getty Images Dasha Kiper’s “Travelers to Unimaginable Lands” examines the struggles of the invisible victims of dementia disorders. BY LINA TRAN AT 25, DASHA KIPER moved in with a 98-year-old man. She’d just left a graduate program in clinical psychology; Mr. Kessler was a Holocaust survivor in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, whose son had hired Kiper as a live-in caregiver. One day, Mr. Kessler clambers onto a chair to replace the battery in a smoke detector. When he ignores her instructions to come down, Kiper loses her cool. She shouts that he’s incapable … Continue reading How Alzheimer’s Caregivers Cope in a Warped Reality

Big Pharma, Health, Living, PsychologyLeave a comment

In the Age of Ozempic, What’s the Point of Working Out?

Fernando Kaskais

The idea that we exercise to get thin may be more dangerous than ever. By Xochitl Gonzalez In the summer of 2015, one of my best friends died at work. Shannon was 38, childless, single and thriving, and working as an executive at a global public-relations firm, where she handled a major client. She was set to take a family vacation—treating her nephews to a Disney trip or some such—when her boss sent down an edict that no one on her account was allowed to take time off. Saying no to your boss is hard, but disappointing your nephews is even harder, … Continue reading In the Age of Ozempic, What’s the Point of Working Out?

Health, Living, Philosophy, PsychologyLeave a comment

Youth and Age: Kahlil Gibran on the Art of Becoming

Fernando Kaskais

Ever/After by Maria Popova. (Available as a print.) A roadmap to the fulfilled belonging on the other side of “the great aloneness which knows not what is far and what is near, nor what is small nor great.” BY MARIA POPOVA The unfolding of life does more than fray our bodies with entropy — it softens our spirit, blunting the edge of vanity and broadening the aperture of beauty, so that we become both more ourselves and more unselved, awake to the felicitous interdependence of the world. And yet the selves we have been — young and foolish, hungry for the wrong … Continue reading Youth and Age: Kahlil Gibran on the Art of Becoming

Curiositys, Health, LivingLeave a comment

If You Smell Strong “Chlorine” In A Pool, You Should Probably Get Out

Fernando Kaskais

What you are smelling at the pool is not actually chlorine. By JAMES FELTON We regret to inform you that the smell which you call “chlorine” at the swimming pool is not, in fact, just the cleaning agent chlorine. In fact, if it smells too strongly of “chlorine” it might be a good idea to get out of the pool entirely, for it is the result of something called “chloramines”. Chlorine doesn’t actually give off the distinctive “pool smell”, although chlorinated water can have a slight chemical odor that can be smelled in pools without good ventilation. Chloramines, on the … Continue reading If You Smell Strong “Chlorine” In A Pool, You Should Probably Get Out

Buddhism, Climate Change, Health, Philosophy, PsychologyLeave a comment

Meditation in an Age of Cataclysms

Fernando Kaskais

When despairing thoughts about climate collapse become overwhelming, try turning towards feeling.  By David Edwards  If consciousness is an ocean, thoughts are waves that can be churned into vast storms. Have you ever awakened in the wee small hours, adrift on your tiny raft of awareness, to find yourself confronted by such a storm? Perhaps an icy wind is whipping up the memory of something you read about COVID and slapping you in the face with it: So now I have to tell the daughter that both her parents are dead in a matter of three days. Her dad’s not even buried yet. … Continue reading Meditation in an Age of Cataclysms

Ásia, Esoteric, Health, PhilosophyLeave a comment

In the West, yoga is exercise. In the East, it is something much bigger

Fernando Kaskais

Yoga is more than just standing on your head. It’s about uniting with the divine. KEY TAKEAWAYS By Alexandra Keeler While yoga has become a trendy lifestyle and wellness practice in North America, its roots are ancient, spiritual, and profound. Originally developed in Hinduism, yoga provides a path to achieve a higher state of consciousness and to unite with the divine. The Sanskrit word yoga literally translates to “to yoke,” derived from the root word yiuj which means “to join,” “to integrate,” or “to harness.” The word yoga was first mentioned in one of the oldest texts known to humanity, the Rig Veda. The Rig Veda is … Continue reading In the West, yoga is exercise. In the East, it is something much bigger

Animals, Health, Manipulation, ScienceLeave a comment

Where went the wolf?

Fernando Kaskais

The very attributes that make small dogs cute and popular are slowly strangling their ability to function as real animals Photo by Richard Clark/Getty By Jessica Pierce, is a bioethicist whose work focuses on human-animal relationships and interconnections between ecosystems and health. She is a faculty affiliate with the Center for Bioethics and Humanities at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. Her books include Run, Spot, Run (2016); Unleashing Your Dog (2019) and A Dog’s World (2021), with Marc Bekoff; and Who’s a Good Dog? And How to Be a Better Human (forthcoming, 2023). She  writes the blog All Dogs Go to Heaven for Psychology Today, and is based … Continue reading Where went the wolf?

Future, Health, Science, TechnologyLeave a comment

Batteries not included: How your own body could power wearables

Fernando Kaskais

What if we could harvest energy from human heat, sweat, or vibrations? By Charles Q. Choi STORY BY Knowable In “I Sing the Body Electric,” poet Walt Whitman waxed lyrically about the “action and power” of “beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh.” More than 150 years later, MIT materials scientist and engineer Canan Dagdeviren and her colleagues are giving new meaning to Whitman’s poem with a device that can generate electricity from the way it distorts in response to the beating of the heart. Electronics are now so powerful that a smartphone has more computing power than all of NASA did when it … Continue reading Batteries not included: How your own body could power wearables

Brain, Health, Psychology, ScienceLeave a comment

Unraveling the Enigma of Schizophrenia

Fernando Kaskais

Visual: Alice Adler / fStop via Getty Images In “Malady of the Mind,” Jeffrey A. Lieberman argues that we are finally making progress in understanding schizophrenia. BY JOSHUA C. KENDALL SCHIZOPHRENIA HAS LONG BEEN understood to be among the most serious and intractable of all mental disorders. The condition typically begins in early adulthood and lasts a lifetime. Its hallmark features include hallucinations, withdrawal from social situations, and serious problems in cognition, such as a highly irrational belief system and a limited attention span. In “Malady of the Mind: Schizophrenia and the Path to Prevention,” a comprehensive history of this perplexing mental … Continue reading Unraveling the Enigma of Schizophrenia

Future, Health, Living, ScienceLeave a comment

Rules for sustaining peak performance as we grow older

Fernando Kaskais

As improving biotech offers us longevity, we can prepare to live much better as we age. KEY TAKEAWAYS Steven Kotler From the book GNAR COUNTRY by Steven Kotler. Copyright © 2023 by Steven Kotler. Published by Harper Wave, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Reprinted by permission. Recent discoveries in embodied cognition, flow science, and network neuroscience have revolutionized how we think about human learning. On paper, these discoveries “should” allow older athletes to progress in supposedly “impossible” activities like park skiing. To see if theory worked in practice, I put these ideas to the test on the ski hill, conducting my own … Continue reading Rules for sustaining peak performance as we grow older