5 Essential Self-Care Tips to Get You Through the Early Days of Starting Your Side Hustle
Guest article by Sheila Johnson
If you recently started up your own side hustle, you may have noticed that the extra work can sometimes lead to higher levels of stress and even burnout. Whether you’re hoping to become a freelance writer in New York City or an online retailer in San Rafael, California, making self-care a priority during the early days of starting your side hustle can reduce your stress and help you stay healthy and focused. Here are five ways to look after yourself while getting your side hustle off the ground.
1. Make Your Health a Priority by Ensuring You Get High-Quality Sleep and Nutrition
In order to stay healthy while making your side hustle a success, checking off the basics is essential. Put your health first by getting to bed early every night to help ensure eight uninterrupted hours of high-quality sleep.
Additionally, fuel your mind and body to keep your energy up during the day by eating well. Make sure every meal includes lean protein, such as lentils or chicken, and complex carbohydrates, such as sweet potatoes or wild rice.
2. Kick Stress to the Curb by Making Relaxation a Part of Every Workday
According to one study, frequent stress can lead to detrimental neurological consequences. To keep your brain in tip-top shape as you build your side business, make relaxation a part of your workday. For instance, you could:
• Go for a half-hour jog or enjoy another form of exercise before starting work
• Eat your lunch outdoors to enjoy the fresh air
• Start a post-work relaxation routine to eliminate pent-up workday stress
3. Boost Your Comfort Levels and Self-Confidence With Functional and Cozy Clothing
When you feel comfortable, your self-confidence levels may increase. Choosing your workday outfits carefully can help you feel your best, no matter what the day brings.
Comb through your closet or hit up local shops to find clothes that offer comfort and elevate your mood while still allowing you to look stylish. For instance, some leggings, a lounging robe, or a lightweight dress can provide the comfort and style you need to feel confident, whether you’re tackling side hustle tasks, chasing your kids through the house, or relaxing after work.
4. Minimize Your Hassle by Operating Your Side Hustle as Efficiently as Possible
No matter your type of side hustle, staying efficient is key to hitting goals without wasting precious time. The more busy work and distractions you can eliminate, the better your side hustle could fit into your everyday life. Minimize your daily work hassle by:
• Working in short but focused bursts
• Prioritizing your tasks
• Setting realistic timetables for each task
• Delegating to-do items when possible
5. Intersperse Work Time With Personal Time and Consider Picking Up a New Hobby
To get your mind off of side hustle stress, schedule personal time into your week to enjoy a soothing hobby. For instance, you could unwind by:
• Going dancing
• Reading for pleasure
• Keeping a journal
• Gardening
• Learning to play a musical instrument
Starting a side hustle can require a lot of time and energy, but making room for self-care can help keep you healthy, focused, and efficient. With these five essential tips, the early days of your side will be smooth sailing.
Even moderate light exposure during sleep harms heart health and increases insulin resistance
Credit: © Brilliant Eye / stock.adobe.com
Even moderate light exposure during sleep harms heart health and increases insulin resistance'
March 14, 2022
Science Daily/Northwestern University
Exposure to even moderate ambient lighting during nighttime sleep, compared to sleeping in a dimly lit room, harms your cardiovascular function during sleep and increases your insulin resistance the following morning, reports a new study. Just a single night of exposure to moderate room lighting during sleep can impair glucose and cardiovascular regulation, which are risk factors for heart disease, diabetes and metabolic syndrome
Close the blinds, draw the curtains and turn off all the lights before bed. Exposure to even moderate ambient lighting during nighttime sleep, compared to sleeping in a dimly lit room, harms your cardiovascular function during sleep and increases your insulin resistance the following morning, reports a new Northwestern Medicine study.
"The results from this study demonstrate that just a single night of exposure to moderate room lighting during sleep can impair glucose and cardiovascular regulation, which are risk factors for heart disease, diabetes and metabolic syndrome," said senior study author Dr. Phyllis Zee, chief of sleep medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and a Northwestern Medicine physician. "It's important for people to avoid or minimize the amount of light exposure during sleep."
There is already evidence that light exposure during daytime increases heart rate via activation of the sympathetic nervous system, which kicks your heart into high gear and heightens alertness to meet the challenges of the day.
"Our results indicate that a similar effect is also present when exposure to light occurs during nighttime sleep," Zee said.
The study will be published March 14 in PNAS.
Heart rate increases in light room, and body can't rest properly
"We showed your heart rate increases when you sleep in a moderately lit room," said Dr. Daniela Grimaldi, a co-first author and research assistant professor of neurology at Northwestern. "Even though you are asleep, your autonomic nervous system is activated. That's bad. Usually, your heart rate together with other cardiovascular parameters are lower at night and higher during the day."
There are sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems to regulate our physiology during the day and night. Sympathetic takes charge during the day and parasympathetic is supposed to at night, when it conveys restoration to the entire body.
How nighttime light during sleep can lead to diabetes and obesity
Investigators found insulin resistance occurred the morning after people slept in a light room. Insulin resistance is when cells in your muscles, fat and liver don't respond well to insulin and can't use glucose from your blood for energy. To make up for it, your pancreas makes more insulin. Over time, your blood sugar goes up.
An earlier study published in JAMA Internal Medicine looked at a large population of healthy people who had exposure to light during sleep. They were more overweight and obese, Zee said.
"Now we are showing a mechanism that might be fundamental to explain why this happens," Zee said. "We show it's affecting your ability to regulate glucose."
The participants in the study weren't aware of the biological changes in their bodies at night.
"But the brain senses it," Grimaldi said. "It acts like the brain of somebody whose sleep is light and fragmented. The sleep physiology is not resting the way it's supposed to."
Exposure to artificial light at night during sleep is common
Exposure to artificial light at night during sleep is common, either from indoor light emitting devices or from sources outside the home, particularly in large urban areas. A significant proportion of individuals (up to 40%) sleep with a bedside lamp on or with a light on in the bedroom and/or keep the television on.
Light and its relationship to health is double edged.
"In addition to sleep, nutrition and exercise, light exposure during the daytime is an important factor for health, but during the night we show that even modest intensity of light can impair measures of heart and endocrine health," Zee said.
The study tested the effect of sleeping with 100 lux (moderate light) compared to 3 lux (dim light) in participants over a single night. The investigators discovered that moderate light exposure caused the body to go into a higher alert state. In this state, the heart rate increases as well as the force with which the heart contracts and the rate of how fast the blood is conducted to your blood vessels for oxygenated blood flow.
"These findings are important particularly for those living in modern societies where exposure to indoor and outdoor nighttime light is increasingly widespread," Zee said.
Zee's top tips for reducing light during sleep
(1) Don't turn lights on. If you need to have a light on (which older adults may want for safety), make it a dim light that is closer to the floor.
(2) Color is important. Amber or a red/orange light is less stimulating for the brain. Don't use white or blue light and keep it far away from the sleeping person.
(3) Blackout shades or eye masks are good if you can't control the outdoor light. Move your bed so the outdoor light isn't shining on your face.
Is my room too light?
"If you're able to see things really well, it's probably too light," Zee said.
Other Northwestern authors are co-first author said co-first author Ivy Mason, who at the time of the study was post-doctoral fellow at Northwestern and now is a research fellow at Harvard Medical School, Kathryn Reid, Chloe Warlick, Dr. Roneil Malkani and Dr. Sabra Abbott.
The research was supported, in part, by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences grant 8UL1TR000150-05, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute grant R01 HL140580, National Institute of Aging grant P01AG11412, all of the National Institutes of Health, and the American Heart Association.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/03/220314154355.htm
How sugar promotes inflammation
March 22, 2022
Science Daily/University of Würzburg
People who consume sugar and other carbohydrates in excess over a long period of time have an increased risk of developing an autoimmune disease. In affected patients, the immune system attacks the body's own tissue and the consequences are, for example, chronic inflammatory bowel diseases such as Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, type 1 diabetes and chronic inflammation of the thyroid gland.
New targets for therapy
The underlying molecular mechanisms that promote autoimmune diseases are multilayered and complex. Now, scientists at the Julius Maximilians University of Würzburg (JMU) have succeeded in deciphering new details of these processes. Their work support the notion that excessive consumption of glucose directly promotes the pathogenic functions of certain cells of the immune system and that, conversely, that a calorie-reduced diet can have a beneficial effect on immune diseases. Based on these findings, they also identified new targets for therapeutic interventions: A specific blockade of glucose-depended metabolic processes in these immune cells can suppress excessive immune reactions.
Dr. Martin Väth is responsible for the study, which has now been published in the journal Cell Metabolism. He is a junior research group leader at the Institute of Systems Immunology -- a Max Planck research group under the umbrella of JMU that focusses on the interplay of the immune system with the organism. Collaborators from Amsterdam, Berlin, Freiburg and Leuven were also involved in this study.
Glucose transporter with a side job
Martin Väth explains: "Immune cells need large amounts of sugar in the form of glucose to perform their tasks. With the help of specialized transporters at their cell membrane, they can take up glucose from the environment." Together with his team, Väth has showed that a specific glucose transporter -- scientifically named GLUT3 -- fulfills additional metabolic functions in T cells besides the generating energy from sugar.
In their study, the scientists focused on a group of cells of the immune system that have not been known for very long: T helper cells of type 17, also called Th17 lymphocytes, which play an important role in regulating (auto-) inflammatory processes.
"These Th17 cells express lots of GLUT3 protein on their cell surface," Väth explains. Once taken up, glucose is readily converted to citric acid in the mitochondria before it is metabolized into acetyl-coenzyme A (acetyl-CoA) in the cytoplasm. Acetyl-CoA is involved in numerous metabolic processes, including the biosynthesis of lipids.
Influence on proinflammatory genes
However, acetyl-CoA fulfills additional functions in inflammatory Th17 cells. Väth and his team showed that this metabolic intermediate can also regulate the activity of various gene segments. Thus, glucose consumption has a direct influence on the activity of proinflammatory genes.
According to the researchers, theses new findings pave the way for the development of targeted therapy of autoimmune diseases. For example, blocking GLUT3-dependent synthesis of acetyl-CoA by the dietary supplement hydroxycitrate, which is used to treat obesity, can mitigate the pathogenic functions of Th17 cells and reduce inflammatory-pathological processes. The so-called "metabolic reprogramming" of T cells opens new possibilities to treat autoimmune diseases without curtailing protective immune cell functions.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/03/220322122836.htm
100g of cranberries a day improves cardiovascular health
March 22, 2022
Science Daily/King's College London
A new clinical trial found daily consumption of cranberries for one month improved cardiovascular function in healthy men.
The new study, published today in Food & Function, included 45 healthy men who consumed whole cranberry powder equivalent to 100g of fresh cranberries per day (9 g powder) or a placebo for one month. Those consuming cranberry had a significant improvement in flow-mediated dilation (FMD), which signals improvement of heart and blood vessel function. FMD is considered a sensitive biomarker of cardiovascular disease risk and measures how blood vessels widen when blood flow increases.
Dr. Ana Rodriguez-Mateos, Senior Lecturer in Nutrition at the Department of Nutritional Sciences at King's College London and senior author of the study, said: "The increases in polyphenols and metabolites in the bloodstream and the related improvements in flow-mediated dilation after cranberry consumption emphasise the important role cranberries may play in cardiovascular disease prevention. The fact that these improvements in cardiovascular health were seen with an amount of cranberries that can be reasonably consumed daily makes cranberry an important fruit in the prevention of cardiovascular disease for the general public."
Low consumption of fruits and vegetables is one of the top modifiable risk factors associated with a higher incidence of cardiovascular disease worldwide. Growing evidence continues to link the polyphenols from berries with heart health benefits. Cranberries are rich in unique proanthocyanidins that have distinct properties compared to polyphenols found in other fruits.
This study explored whole cranberry freeze-dried powder, equivalent to 100g of fresh cranberries, and its impact on cardiovascular health. The results demonstrated that consumption of cranberries as part of a healthy diet can help reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease by improving blood vessel function.
An initial pilot study was completed with five healthy young men to confirm the biological activity of the whole cranberry freeze-dried powder. The pilot concluded that cranberry consumption increased FMD and confirmed dosing. The main study was a gold standard study design examining 45 healthy men each consuming two packets of whole cranberry freeze-dried powder equivalent to 100g of fresh cranberries, or a placebo, daily for one month. The study found significant improvements in FMD two hours after first consumption and after one month of daily consumption showing both immediate and chronic benefit. In addition, metabolites were also identified and predicted the positive effects seen in FMD. These results conclude that cranberries can play an important role in supporting cardiovascular health and good blood vessel function.
Dr. Christian Heiss, Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at the University of Surrey and co-author of the study said: "Our findings provide solid evidence that cranberries can significantly affect vascular health even in people with low cardiovascular risk. This study further indicates that specific metabolites present in blood after cranberry consumption are related to the beneficial effects."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/03/220322111245.htm
How gut microbes work to tame intestinal inflammation
March 16, 2022
Science Daily/Harvard Medical School
Bile acids made by the liver have long been known for their critical role in helping to absorb the food we ingest.
But, according to a series of new studies from Harvard Medical School, these fat- and vitamin-dissolving substances are also important players in gut immunity and inflammation because they regulate the activity of key immune cells linked to a range of inflammatory bowel conditions, such as ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease.
An initial report in 2020 mapped out the effects of bile acids on mouse gut immunity, but left some key questions unanswered: First, just how do bile acids get gut immune cells to perform their immune-regulatory work? Second, which bacteria and bacterial enzymes produce these bile acids? Third, do these bile acids play a role in human intestinal inflammation?
Now, two studies led by the same team of investigators -- one published March 16 in Nature and one published in Cell Host & Microbe in 2021 -- answer these questions and add further clarity to the initial observations. The research, conducted at the intersection of chemical biology, microbiology, and immunology, was co-led by Sloan Devlin, assistant professor of biological chemistry and molecular pharmacology, and Jun Huh, associate professor of immunology at HMS.
The studies identify three bile acid metabolites and corresponding bacterial genes that produce molecules that affect the activity of inflammation-regulating immune cells. The work also demonstrates that the presence and activity of these bacteria and the immune molecules they produce are notably reduced in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
"We carry trillions of bacteria in and on our bodies, and a growing body of research indicates that gut bacteria can affect host immune responses," Huh said. "Our findings provide a novel mechanistic insight into how these bacteria work to mediate immune regulation in the gut."
The findings, based on experiments in mice and human stool samples, reveal the identity of three critical microbial players in this cascade and the bacterial genes that regulate bile acid modification. Furthermore, they show that intestinal samples from patients with conditions such as ulcerative colitis or Crohn's disease have markedly lower levels of both the anti-inflammatory molecules and the bacterial genes responsible for their production.
The findings bring scientists a step closer to developing small-molecule treatments and live bacterial therapeutics that regulate intestinal inflammation.
"All three molecules and the bacterial genes that we discovered that produce these molecules are reduced in patients with IBD," Devlin said. "Restoring the presence of either the compounds or the bacteria that make them offers a possible therapeutic avenue to treat a range of inflammatory diseases marked by these deficiencies and affecting millions of people worldwide."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/03/220316120813.htm
Excess sugar consumption costs Canada’s health-care system $5 billion each year
Researchers urge use of taxation, education and subsidies to encourage better eating habits
March 16, 2022
Science Daily/University of Alberta
Researchers peg the economic burden of excessive sugar consumption in Canada at $5 billion a year, thanks to the direct and indirect costs related to 16 chronic diseases. The researchers call on governments to use taxation, subsidies, education and other measures to encourage healthier eating habits, saying it is 'an area of urgent need for action' in the post-COVID-19 pandemic era.
Imagine if the real cost to society of the food you buy at the grocery store was built right into each product's price. Everything with added sugar would cost a whole lot more, according to University of Alberta researchers in a new study in The Canadian Journal of Public Health.
They peg the economic burden of excessive sugar consumption in Canada at $5 billion a year, thanks to the direct and indirect costs related to 16 chronic diseases. The researchers call on governments to use taxation, subsidies, education and other measures to encourage healthier eating habits, saying it is "an area of urgent need for action" in the post-COVID-19 pandemic era.
"This pandemic has brought us more unhealthy lifestyles -- on the nutrition side, on the physical activity side and on screen time for kids. If we do not act now, we should expect more chronic diseases such as Type 2 diabetes in the years ahead," said principal investigator Paul Veugelers, professor in the U of A's School of Public Health.
"Health care costs for chronic diseases are ballooning," Veugelers said. "We not only need to make our health-care system more efficient, we should also act on the demand side by investing in primary prevention to ensure we have fewer patients with chronic diseases. Addressing sugar consumption is one strategy to achieve that."
Both Canada's Food Guide and the World Health Organization recommend we consume less than 10 per cent of our daily energy intake as "free sugar" from foods made with added sugar and naturally sweet juices, honey and syrup. For additional health benefits, less than five per cent is recommended.
Using data reported in the 2015 Canadian Community Health Survey on nutrition, the researchers found that two out of three Canadians eat more sugar than recommended. They then established risk estimates for 16 diet-related chronic conditions, including diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, cancer, kidney disease and low back pain. They calculated avoidable direct health-care costs such as doctors, hospitals and drugs, along with indirect costs like productivity losses due to illness and disability.
They concluded that if Canadians had followed the 10 per cent recommendation in 2019, an estimated $2.5 billion could have been saved, and $5 billion in costs could have been avoided by following the stricter five per cent recommendation.
Treatment and management of chronic diseases accounts for 67 per cent of all health-care costs in Canada, they reported, with an annual price tag of up to $190 billion.
The researchers estimated that limiting free sugar consumption to less than 10 per cent of energy intake could reduce the prevalence of diabetes by 27 per cent, and that benefit could reach 44.8 per cent if Canadians limited their sugar consumption to less than five per cent.
"Diabetes is just a very expensive condition to manage and to treat. It can occur at an early age, and you can live with it for a long, long time. Kidney issues, dialysis, amputation, those are just a few gruesome examples of where that disease trajectory can go," said Veugelers. "Patients require lots of health-care interactions that drive the costs of chronic diseases."
Forty countries and cities around the world have already introduced a special tax on sugar-sweetened beverages such as pop as a disincentive to consumption, building on lessons from tobacco control measures. Newfoundland and Labrador recently introduced Canada's first such tax and similar policies have been suggested elsewhere, but in this study the researchers push for a broader approach, because they found that only 17 per cent of the costs related to sugar consumption could be traced back to sugary drinks.
Instead, they advocate for higher taxes on all sugar-added products, and to put the tax revenues towards subsidies for healthful foods, education programs, limits on advertising to children, and better product labeling.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/03/220316091722.htm
Study shows link between socioeconomic deprivation and premature cardiovascular mortality
Research also discovers potentially worsening disparities in the U.S.
March 15, 2022
Science Daily/University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center
People living in socially-deprived areas of the United Statesare more likely to die prematurely from cardiovascular (CV) complications according to new research published recently in Mayo Clinic Proceedings.The study, completed by researchers at University Hospitals (UH) Harrington Heart & Vascular Institute, found social deprivation can explain a significant proportion of the geographic variation in premature cardiovascular mortality in the U.S.
Socioeconomic deprivation is defined by a number of social and economic factors including education, income, employment and neighborhood environment. A large gap exists in explaining premature CV deaths across the U.S. which cannot be totally attributed to traditional risk factors such as high cholesterol. Recent evidence suggests socioeconomic deprivation is a risk factor for this type of mortality.
"Socioeconomic status plays a big role in access to preventive care, risk factor control, and incidence of disease," said Sadeer Al-Kindi, MD, cardiologist and co-director of the Center for Integrated and Novel Approaches in Vascular-Metabolic Disease (CINEMA) with UH Harrington Heart & Vascular Institute and the study's senior author. "UH is committed to improving the health of all people by advancing science and human health. A large part of that is discovering the root cause of disease. With this study, we wanted to determine whether premature cardiovascular mortality is associated with socioeconomic deprivation and how premature cardiovascular mortality changed over time by social deprivation."
In "Socioeconomic Deprivation and Premature Cardiovascular Mortality in the United States" researchers completed a cross-sectional analysis of United States county-level death certificate data from 1999 to 2018 using files maintained by the U.S. National Center for Health and Statistics. They looked at people from the ages of 25 to 64 who died from cardiovascular conditions. They used linear regression analysis to document two integrated metrics of socioeconomic deprivation: Social Deprivation Index (SDI) and county Area Deprivation Index (ADI).
Results from this research showed that counties with high social deprivation had the highest rates of premature cardiovascular deaths. Additionally, from 1999 to 2018 premature cardiovascular mortality decreased to a lesser extent in socially deprived counties compared with affluent counties. In fact, indicators of social deprivation directly explained a significant proportion of the geographic differences in premature CV mortality in the U.S.
"Health and structural inequities in poor communities have been ignored for too long. We now know that where you live, inequities and other components embedded in the environment are powerful determinants of mortality, often from chronic non-communicable disease. Most importantly, shedding light on this pervasive issue compels us to act upon the information," said Sanjay Rajagopalan, MD, Chief of Cardiovascular Medicine and Chief Academic and Scientific Officer of UH Harrington Heart & Vascular Institute and co-author of the study, as well as the Herman K. Hellerstein, MD, Chair in Cardiovascular Research.
UH is taking action in a multitude of ways, including through its work in the community thanks to the ACHIEVE GreatER initiative. A "transformative" $18.2 million federal grant from the National Institutes of Health's P50 program will facilitate medical and cardiovascular care provided directly to people living in Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority, one of the nation's largest and oldest subsidized housing programs. Additional efforts by the study team are focused on understanding the integrated social and environmental underpinnings of premature cardiovascular disease in Northeast Ohio and nationally.
"Regardless of where they live or how much money they make, all people should have the opportunity to receive the necessary medical resources and support to have a healthier life," said Dr. Mehdi Shishehbor, DO, MPH, PhD, President of UH Harrington Heart & Vascular Institute, and the Angela and James Hambrick Chair in Innovation.
Prior studies have explored the relationship between race and premature CV mortality or individual socioeconomic factors (income, high school education) and CV mortality.
"To our knowledge, this is the first study to demonstrate a longitudinal association between multiple integrated metrics of socioeconomic deprivation and premature cardiovascular mortality adjusted for traditional cardiovascular risk factors, while also showing potentially worsening disparities," said Dr. Al-Kindi.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/03/220315141751.htm
Our sleep shows how risk-seeking we are
March 22, 2022
Science Daily/University of Bern
Each person has their own individual sleep profile which can be identified by the electrical brain activity during sleep. Researchers at the University of Bern have now demonstrated that the brain waves during periods of deep sleep in a specific area of the brain can be used to determine the extent of an individual's propensity for risk during their everyday life.
Each day, we make countless decisions in which we take different risks -- in road traffic, when buying shares or in our sexual behavior, for example. The propensity for risk varies from one individual to the next. Researchers led by Daria Knoch, Professor of Social Neuroscience at the University of Bern, have demonstrated that clues in the brain concerning an individual's propensity for risk can be gathered as they sleep: "The fewer slow waves an individual has over their right prefrontal cortex during deep sleep, the greater their propensity for risk. Among other functions, this region of the brain is important to control one's own impulses," explains the neuroscientist. The results have recently been published in the journal NeuroImage.
High data density and sleep investigation at participant's home
Slow waves occur during deep sleep and indicate good sleep quality and regeneration. The topographical distribution of slow waves in the brain is highly individual and is highly stable over time; this means each individual has their own personal neuronal sleep profile. To determine whether this profile reveals anything about an individual's propensity for risk, the research team studied 54 "good sleepers," who typically sleep for seven to eight hours. These were identified using actigraphs, which track the patterns of movement during sleep. Because: "The individual slow-wave profile can only be interpreted correctly during normal sleep," explains leader of the study, Lorena Gianotti.
In the next step, sleep data was collected at participants' home using a portable polysomnographic system with 64 electrodes placed at their scalp. "The undisturbed measurement of the brain activity during sleep in a familiar environment and the high density of data collected by the 64 electrodes are rather rare as a constellation in sleep research. This allows the participants to sleep naturally and allows us to collect a large quantity of data," explains doctoral student and first author, Mirjam Studler.
Less deep sleep in the right prefrontal cortex
And this data is very meaningful and significant: participants who show lower slow-wave activity over their right prefrontal cortex generally demonstrate a greater propensity for risk than individuals with more slow-wave activity. The propensity to take risks was elicited in a computer game where they could win actual money: the participants had to decide how far they would drive a car in the knowledge that at some point, a wall would appear with which the car would collide. Each meter driven earned them more money, but also increased their risk of crashing. "Interestingly, the sleep duration had no impact in terms of propensity for risk, at least in our study with good sleepers. Rather, it is crucial that deep sleep takes place in the 'right' brain regions -- in this case, in the right prefrontal cortex," explains Lorena Gianotti.
Possible implications
Health economics research has demonstrated that risky behavior can have both considerable health-related and financial consequences. According to the researchers, gaining a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying the propensity for risky behaviour is therefore important. "Our findings can be incorporated into targeted interventions. Sleep researchers are now developing techniques to specifically modulate slow waves," says Daria Knoch.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/03/220322122801.htm
Amid war and disease, World Happiness Report shows bright spot
The pandemic brought an increase in social support and benevolence
March 19, 2022
Science Daily/McGill University
In this troubled time of war and pandemic, the World Happiness Report 2022 shows a bright light in dark times. According to the team of international researchers, including McGill University Professor Christopher Barrington-Leigh, the pandemic brought not only pain and suffering but also an increase in social support and benevolence.
As the world battles the ills of disease and war, it is especially important to remember the universal desire for happiness and the capacity of individuals to rally to each other's support in times of great need, say the authors of the report. This year marks the 10thanniversary of the World Happiness Report, which uses global survey data to report on how people evaluate their own lives in more than 150 countries around the world reaching over 9 million people in 2021.
"COVID-19 is the biggest health crisis we've seen in more than a century," says Professor John Helliwell of the University of British Columbia. "Now that we have two years of evidence, we are able to assess not just the importance of benevolence and trust, but to see how they have contributed to well-being during the pandemic."
Growth in acts of kindness
Helliwell adds "We found during 2021 remarkable worldwide growth in all three acts of kindness monitored in the Gallup World Poll. Helping strangers, volunteering, and donations in 2021 were strongly up in every part of the world, reaching levels almost 25% above their pre-pandemic prevalence. This surge of benevolence, which was especially great for the helping of strangers, provides powerful evidence that people respond to help others in need, creating in the process more happiness for the beneficiaries, good examples for others to follow, and better lives for themselves."
Finland takes the top spot while Canada drops to 15th place
For the fifth year in a row Finland takes the top spot as the happiest in the world. This year its score was significantly ahead of other countries in the top ten. Denmark continues to occupy second place, with Iceland up from 4th place last year to 3rd this year. Switzerland is 4th, followed by the Netherlands and Luxembourg. The top ten are rounded out by Sweden, Norway, Israel and New Zealand. The next five are Austria, Australia, Ireland, Germany and Canada, in that order. This marks a substantial fall for Canada, which was 5th ten years ago.
"The downward trend for Canada is significant and has been going on steadily for years. While Canada once ranked beside the Scandinavian countries, it now ranks closer to the United States in people's overall evaluation of how good their lives felt," says Professor Christopher Barrington-Leigh of McGill University.
The rest of the top 20 include the United States at 16th (up from 19th last year), the UK and the Czechia still in 17th and 18th, followed by Belgium at 19th and France at 20th, its highest ranking yet. Overall, the three biggest gains were in Serbia, Bulgaria, and Romania. The biggest losses were in Lebanon, Venezuela, and Afghanistan.
Finland
Denmark
Iceland
Switzerland
Netherlands
Luxembourg
Sweden
Norway
Israel
New Zealand
Austria
Australia
Ireland
Germany
Canada
Conflict in Afghanistan takes a toll
Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, the Director of the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford notes that "At the very bottom of the ranking we find societies that suffer from conflict and extreme poverty, notably we find that people in Afghanistan evaluate the quality of their own lives as merely 2.4 out of 10. This presents a stark reminder of the material and immaterial damage that war does to its many victims and the fundamental importance of peace and stability for human wellbeing."
Progress marked by measures of happiness
"The World Happiness Report is changing the conversation about progress and wellbeing. It provides important snapshots of how people around the world feel about the overall quality of their lives," says McGill University Professor Christopher Barrington-Leigh. According to the researchers, this information can in turn help countries to craft policies aimed at achieving happier societies.
Past reports have looked at the links between people's trust in government and institutions with happiness. The findings demonstrate that communities with high levels of trust are happier and more resilient in the face of a wide range of crises.
About the report
The World Happiness Report is a publication of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, powered by the Gallup World Poll data.
Read: https://worldhappiness.report/
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/03/220319081655.htm
Lighting the way to healthier daily rhythms
March 17, 2022
Science Daily/PLOS
The light we experience across our daily lives has a major influence on our body rhythms. Modern lifestyles, with 24-hour access to electric light and reduced exposure to natural daylight, can disrupt sleep and negatively impact health, well-being, and productivity. A new report publishing March 17 in the open access journal PLOS Biology addresses the issue of exactly how bright lighting should be during the day and in the evening to support healthy body rhythms, restful sleep, and daytime alertness.
Professors Timothy Brown from the University of Manchester, UK, and Kenneth Wright from the University of Colorado Boulder, US brought together an international body of leading scientific experts to agree the first evidence-based, consensus recommendations for healthy daytime, evening, and nighttime light exposure. These recommendations provide much needed guidance to the lighting and electronics industries to aid the design of healthier environments and to improve how we light our workplaces, public buildings, and homes.
A key question tackled by the new report was how to properly measure the extent to which different types of lighting might influence our body rhythms and daily patterns of sleep and wakefulness. Light affects these patterns via a specialized type of cell in the eye that uses a light sensitive protein, melanopsin, that is distinct from the proteins in the rods and cones that support vision (and upon which traditional ways of measuring "brightness" are based). Since melanopsin is most sensitive to light in a specific part of the visual spectrum (blue-cyan light), the new recommendations used a newly-developed light measurement standard tailored to this unique property, melanopic equivalent daylight illuminance. Analysis of data across a range of laboratory and field studies proved that this new measurement approach could provide a reliable way of predicting the effects of light on human physiology and body rhythms and could therefore form the basis of widely applicable and meaningful recommendations.
An important next step will be integration of the recommendations into formal lighting guidelines, which currently focus on visual requirements rather than effects on health and well-being. Additionally, increasing sophistication in LED lighting technology and the availability of low-cost light sensors are expected to increase the ease with which individuals can optimize their personal light exposure to best support their own body rhythms in line with the new recommendations.
Brown adds, "These recommendations provide the first scientific consensus, quantitative, guidance for appropriate daily patterns of light exposure to support healthy body rhythms, nighttime sleep and daytime alertness. This now provides a clear framework to inform how we light any interior space ranging from workplaces, educational establishments and healthcare facilities to our own homes."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/03/220317143718.htm