-
The New Explosion in Audio Books
The Wall Street Journal: Cory Wilbur, a 25-year-old software engineer in Boston, never used to read much. He barely cracked a book in college and would read one or two a year on vacation, at most. But in the past year, he's finished 10 books, including Dan Brown's "Inferno," Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs and George R.R. Martin's fantasy series "A Song of Ice and Fire." He listens to audio books in snippets throughout the day on his iPhone during his morning workout, on his 20-minute commute to work, and while he's cooking dinner or cleaning up. Before he falls asleep, he switches to an e-book of the same story on his Kindle, and starts reading right where the narrator left off.
-
The surprising case for the value menu: it’s probably not as fattening
The Washington Post: If you’re trying to watch calories while keeping your meal under $5 at a fast-food restaurant, sticking to the value menu might not be a bad idea. Fast-food chains such as McDonald’s, Burger King and Wendy’s are trumpeting pricier, premium offerings to shed their image as purveyors of greasy junk food and convince customers to spend a few extra bucks. ... Of course, cooking at home is the ideal for eating well without spending a lot. But there may be times when you want a greasy fix, or feel too lazy or time-strapped to cook.
-
Daydreaming Can Improve Your Focus
Business Insider: Besieged at every turn by distractions, we spend a lot of time struggling to pay attention, concentrate, and focus on the task in front of us. What we don’t do, according to University of Southern California professor Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, is fully appreciate the value of the more diffuse mental activity that characterizes our inner lives: daydreaming, remembering, reflecting. ... Our brains have two operating systems, Immordino-Yang and her coauthors explain in a recent article published in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science.
-
Being a Lifelong Bookworm May Keep You Sharp in Old Age
Smithsonian Magazine: To keep their bodies running at peak performance, people often hit the gym, pounding away at the treadmill to strengthen muscles and build endurance. This dedication has enormous benefits—being in shape now means warding off a host of diseases when you get older. But does the brain work in the same way? That is, can doing mental exercises help your mind stay just as sharp in old age? Experts say it’s possible. As a corollary to working out, people have begun joining brain gyms to flex their mental muscles.
-
Meaning Is Healthier Than Happiness
The Atlantic: For at least the last decade, the happiness craze has been building. In the last three months alone, over 1,000 books on happiness were released on Amazon, including Happy Money, Happy-People-Pills For All, and, for those just starting out, Happiness for Beginners. One of the consistent claims of books like these is that happiness is associated with all sorts of good life outcomes, including — most promisingly — good health. Many studies have noted the connection between a happy mind and a healthy body — the happier you are, the better health outcomes we seem to have.
-
How to Get Kids to Eat Healthy Without Breaking the Bank
LiveScience: Childhood obesity has more than doubled in children in the past 30 years, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The numbers are staggering, and it's a statistic that we can clearly see when we're out at the park or grocery store. But anyone who has ever fed their child fast food knows that it's hard to go back once kids get a taste for junk food. So, what can we do? Well, a June study in the journal Psychological Science study may give us an answer. Researchers conducted an experiment with preschool-age children to test the theory that the kids would be able to understand the concepts of good nutrition. Hold on to your seats, folks!
