On self help, botox, and orgasms
Here's the news
A 43-year Harvard study found that drinking coffee is linked to lower risk of dementia, and better cognitive performance.
Daytime napping is associated with a larger total brain volume.
Singing increases immune response: UC Irvine researchers swabbed a professional choir's saliva before and after performing Beethoven. The antibody that coats airways against respiratory infection rose 150% during rehearsal, and 240% during live performance.
Miguel de Cervantes: “He who sings frightens away his ills.”
467 iPhone users installed an app that blocked all mobile internet for two weeks: sustained attention improved by the equivalent of being 10 years younger, and the drop in depression symptoms was larger than the average effect of antidepressants.
In a Johns Hopkins meta-analysis of 47 randomized trials, 8 weeks of meditation reduced anxiety, depression, and pain at effect sizes comparable to antidepressants.
A Swedish study tracked 29,518 women for 20 years: those who actively sought sun exposure had about half the all-cause mortality of those who avoided it. Non-smokers who avoided the sun had a life expectancy similar to smokers who got the most sun.
When gut bacteria was transferred from depressed humans to rats, the rats showed similar signs of depression. Rats receiving microbiota from healthy donors did not.
In a UPenn study, healthy adults restricted to 6 hours of sleep for 14 nights performed as badly on cognitive tasks as people who'd gone two full nights without sleep. But they had no idea. Subjective sleepiness ratings barely moved while their performance kept collapsing.
The German playwright Friedrich Schiller believed that he could not write unless there was a rotting apple in his desk drawer.
In response to creative block, Igor Stravinsky would stand on his head because it “clears the brain.”
In a 2015 study, people who read self-help books scored higher on depression measures and showed elevated cortisol in response to stress, compared to those who did not read self-help books.
The best predictor that you'll buy a self-help book is that you bought one last year.
People who imagine themselves to be similar to their future selves are more satisfied with their lives a decade later. Those who imagine themselves as being transformed in the future are not.
A 2009 study found that people with low self-esteem felt measurably worse after repeating positive self-affirmations such as, “I am a lovable person.”
Mice exposed to two hours of complete silence per day showed more new neurons in the part of the brain associated with memory, learning, emotional regulation, and imagination.
Blaise Pascal, in 1654: “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”
Henry Miller, in 1945: “To be silent the whole day long, see no newspaper, hear no radio, listen to no gossip, be thoroughly and completely lazy, thoroughly and completely indifferent to the fate of the world is the finest medicine a man can give himself.”
96 women were randomly assigned to smell their partner's shirt, a stranger's shirt, or an unworn shirt, before a stress task. The shirt with partner’s scent lowered reported stress, while the stranger's scent raised cortisol, even when the women didn't consciously feel more stressed.
In a study of 17,243 Americans, adults who reported no sex in the past year had 2.4× the mortality risk of adults having sex one to two times per week.
High school seniors reporting they've had sex in 1991: 67%.
In 2021: 30%.
In a 2018 study, women who got botox reported orgasms were harder to achieve and less satisfying, compared to a control group. “Reducing the ability to make the facial expressions associated with sexual pleasure leads to a reduction in the reported feeling of pleasure associated with it. The results suggest that the facial expressions do not occur simply to communicate pleasure to a partner but they are an integral part of the feeling of pleasure and are important in the process of achieving orgasm.”
Same study: botox to the frown lines reduced depression scores, but botox to the laughter lines raised depression scores.
In a U.S. study, people who habitually suppress their emotions died at a 35% higher rate over 12 years than those who didn't.
Seneca: “No tree becomes rooted and sturdy unless many a wind assails it.”
In a 2015 Stanford study, healthy adults who took a 90-minute walk in a natural setting reported less repetitive negative self-focused thinking, and showed reduced activity in a brain region tied to depression. A matched walk on a busy urban road produced neither effect.
Nietzsche: “Only thoughts reached by walking have value.”
Neural similarity predicts whether strangers become friends. A 2025 study scanned people before they knew each other, then tracked them for 8 months. Those with the most similar neural responses to movie clips were the most likely to end up close.
Percentage of young adults who say talking to people they don't know well is "exhausting and frequently uncomfortable": 53%
Of senior citizens: 24%
In a 19-year study of MBA graduates, achievement-orientation predicted higher career success but lower life satisfaction.
Emily Dickinson published only 10 of her 1,800 poems during her lifetime.
Emily Dickinson: “The mere sense of living is joy enough.”
Don't know if the main reason she didn't publish so much was because she was living it up tho... :)
Whaaaat? 🙄