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Overworked Americans Aren’t Taking The Vacation They’ve Earned
NPR: A majority of Americans say they're stressed at work. And it's clear the burden of stress has negative effects on health, including an increase in heart disease, liver disease and gastrointestinal problems. Still, though it's been known for years that periodically disengaging from one's everyday routine can reduce stress, most Americans don't take advantage of their days off. A recent poll conducted by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health finds about half of Americans who work 50-plus hours a week say they don't take all or most of the vacation they've earned. ... Rowan is hardly alone in his dedication to the job.
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A Manifesto Against ‘Parenting’
The Wall Street Journal: A strange thing happened to mothers and fathers and children at the end of the 20th century. It was called “parenting.” As long as there have been human beings, mothers and fathers and many others have taken special care of children. But the word “parenting” didn’t appear in the U.S. until 1958, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, and became common only in the 1970s. People sometimes use “parenting” just to describe what parents actually do, but more often, especially now, “parenting” means something that parents should do. “To parent” is a goal-directed verb; it describes a job, a kind of work.
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How To Raise Brilliant Children, According To Science
NPR: "Why are traffic lights red, yellow and green?" When a child asks you a question like this, you have a few options. You can shut her down with a "Just because." You can explain: "Red is for stop and green is for go." Or, you can turn the question back to her and help her figure out the answer with plenty of encouragement. No parent, teacher or caregiver has the time or patience to respond perfectly to all of the many, many, many opportunities like these that come along. But a new book, Becoming Brilliant: What Science Tells Us About Raising Successful Children, is designed to get us thinking about the magnitude of these moments.
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Want to drive better? Play these types of video games, says new study
Gizmag: Remember all those years you spent in your youth playing Half-Life and Timesplitters on your PS2, and how your parents would yell at you because they couldn't understand how playing video games would help you get ahead in the real world? Well, now you can call them up and show them scientific evidence that all those years you spent with a controller in your hands might just have made you a better driver. ... The study was published on Friday in the journal Psychological Science. Researchers conducted an experiment using test subjects who did not have any previous experience playing video games and separated them into two groups. Read the whole story: Gizmag
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Why Trump and Clinton Are America’s Most Disliked Presidential Candidates
Fortune: As the Republican and Democratic national conventions draw near, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton find themselves among the most disliked presidential candidates in U.S. history. Americans have registered their negative views for the candidates in poll after poll, and their dissatisfaction runs deep. Why is the dislike for the leading presidential candidates so widespread? And is it possible to change voters’ opinions? ... A good reputation, in contrast, requires not only doing good deeds, but also not doing bad deeds. People tend to judge immoral behaviors harshly and judge moral behaviors with skepticism, according to our study recently published in the journal Social Cognition.
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For Effective Brain Fitness, Do More Than Play Simple Games
The New York Times: WHEN a “brain fitness” course was introduced at her retirement community, Connie Cole was eager to sign up. After joining, she learned how to use an Apple iPad and work more complex tasks verbally and on paper. “My father had dementia, so I’ll do anything I can,” said Ms. Cole, 86, a former elementary schoolteacher who also plays Sudoku puzzles every morning. “If I can give my kids anything, it’s to stay away from having it.” Truth is, there is no known cure for dementia, or any evidence that exercising the brain in different ways can delay the onset of Alzheimer’s.
