We’ve all fallen victim to doomscrolling at some point, but now there’s even more incentive to set healthy boundaries with your phone: A recent study of young adults found that limiting social media use for one week — from two hours a day to 30 minutes — reduced symptoms of depression, anxiety, and insomnia. If you want to start your own social media detox, here are some tangible tips from experts.
How to Maintain Healthy Routines Amid the Hustle and Bustle of the Holidays
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As exciting as the holidays are, they tend to come with a flurry of festive events that can make it more difficult to stick to healthy routines. But thankfully, there are realistic steps you can take to keep those habits up. According to Samantha Harden, an associate professor at Virginia Tech’s Department of Human Nutrition, Foods, and Exercise, a few simple strategies can help you maintain your overall well-being while still enjoying the season to the fullest. The first is to shift your expectations. “We expect to have time off and be our ‘best selves’ when we step back from work and have all the space to create healthy routines,” which often leads to disappointment when we actually find ourselves overwhelmed with holiday activities, Harden said in a news release. Instead, she suggests weaving realistic wellness practices into your holiday traditions, like taking a family walk after dinner and adding extra time to your travel itinerary to avoid unnecessary stress. Along those same lines, Harden recommends prioritizing the six dimensions of well-being: happiness, mental and physical health, close social relationships, meaning and purpose, character and virtue, and material and financial stability. “Maybe during the holiday season, you’re putting less time or other resources into your physical well-being, but you’re putting more into your perception of close social relationships,” she said. “Let that be enough on your well-being checklist.”See her full list of tips.
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3 Men Walk Into a Brewery …
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The 1986 explosion at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine was devastating, but as is often the case, the tragedy has illuminated the resilience of nature. For one, the area is now among Europe’s biggest nature reserves — and for two, the incident seems to have produced a mysterious, radiation-eating black mold that could aid in space exploration. While plants and wildlife have thrived in the disaster zone, known as the Red Forest, parts of it are still rife with radiation. Scientist Nelli Zhdanova first identified the mold and its radiation-gobbling powers back in 1997. Today, her pioneering research has helped redefine our understanding of life, and the mold could hold promise for making radioactive sites safe again and protecting astronauts in space. The key to the substance’s power may lie in a pigment you’re likely already familiar with: melanin, which produces hair, eye, and skin color in humans. Just as melanin-rich skin helps protect our cells against UV radiation, the ample melanin found in the black mold may act as a shield. But besides merely being immune to radiation, the mold actually feeds on its energy — a theoretical process dubbed radiosynthesis. Learn more about the theory and its potential importance.
Tech
Quieter, Less Stressful Dental Drills Are in the Works
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Thanks to local anesthesia, it’s typically not painful to get a cavity filled — but that doesn’t mean the process is stress-free. The loud, shrill whining sound of the dental drill in your mouth can be anxiety-inducing even if you can’t feel the device. What’s more, the fear this noisy tool evokes hinders some people from getting the procedures they need to maintain good dental hygiene. But one dentist is out to change that. Tomomi Yamada, an assistant professor at the University of Osaka’s Graduate School of Dentistry, is on a mission to reduce patient anxiety by developing quieter dental drills. On Dec. 2, Yamada presented research that could pave the way for more peaceful dental experiences. She has witnessed patients exhibit fear of getting in the dentist’s chair (also known as odontophobia or dentophobia) firsthand. So Yamada and her co-authors decided to study the aeroacoustics of dental drills to try to pinpoint where the anxiety-triggering sounds were originating and design new, less noisy instruments. “Originally, I was doing research on dental materials, but I realized that almost no one — not even dentists — was tackling this sound problem scientifically,” Yamada said in a press release. Here’s how the research team plans to create quieter drills.
In Other News
$1 Christmas treesand firewood bundles are being sold from federal lands in certain western states (read more)
Indonesia’s first-ever giant panda cub was born Sunday: Meet little Rio (read more)
A “treasure trove” of figurines discovered in an ancient Egyptian tomb helped solve a long-standing mystery (read more)
This new underwater tool allows ecologists to accurately identify sounds from an individual fish — listen in (read more)
Scroll through iconic works of Frank Gehry, the “titan of architecture” who died Friday at age 96 (read more)
Inspiring Story
Gifting toys, making priceless memories
For 35 years, FAO Schwarz in New York City has hosted a heartwarming holiday tradition: the FDNY-Uniformed Firefighters Association’s holiday shopping spree for the Widows & Children’s Fund. Held on Nov. 23 this year, the event allows the children of the city’s late firefighters to spend $200 gift cards on toys of their choice, meet Santa, and ride on an FDNY fire engine around Rockefeller Center. “The day was filled with moments these families will carry with them for years,” the association wrote in an Instagram post.
Photo of the Day
VCG—Visual China Group/Getty Images
Crafted from nearly 176,500 cubic feet of snow, a giant sculpture dubbed Mr. Snowman is just one of the impressive installations that will go on display at the Sun Island Snow Festival in Harbin, China. This year’s event, which runs from late December to late February, features large-scale ice and snow sculptures, including an “ice Disneyland.”
Boston Brain Science’s Fight Against Memory Loss
The culprit behind memory decline could be a “brain drain” starving your neurons from the inside. The good news? Boston Brain Science has a simple daily approach, using three common foods, that addresses this root cause. Over 200,000 older adults have tried it with strong results. A Boston doctor’s video reveals the three foods and how they work — watch it below.
