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Give the Heisman to these Holiday Health Hazards

Give the Heisman to these Holiday Health Hazards

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Ever wonder why so many of us get sick during the holidays? In their new book, Did You Just Eat That?, scientists Paul Dawson and Brian Shelton share the results of their germy experiments and give some simple steps to help you stay healthy through the New Year:

  1. Don’t Double Dip. Tempted to imitate George Constanza and double dip at the party? As suggested in The Washington Post, you might as well put your entire mouth in the dip. In one of their studies, Dawson and Shelton found that between 100 and 1,000 bacteria are transmitted from your mouth to the dip when you double-dip a cracker. Thinner dips, such as salsa, attract the most bacteria as a greater volume of dip drops from the cracker back into the bowl.
  2. Don’t Share. While it may increase affection, sharing food also increases infection. In an experiment with soup, scientists found that 70,000 more bacteria per milliliter are transported into a bowl after a spoon is placed in the mouth. While measuring germ sharing with rice, they discovered that the transfer of bacteria from the mouth back into the shared bowl of rice was 800,000 bacteria per gram of rice while eating with a spoon and more than 2 million bacteria per gram were transferred while eating with the hands.
  3. Drink it neat without a twist. The scientists found that it is very likely for viruses to spread from ice and lemons when they are added to your drink. They put E. coli bacteria on hands that then touched ice cubes or lemons and found that more than 6,000 E. coli bacteria were transferred to 100 percent of the wet lemons and ice cubes.
  4. Hands off the menu. When you sit down in a restaurant, nearly every surface around you is contaminated – especially the menus, which are touched continually by restaurant staffers and customers. In their study, Dawson and Shelton found more than 2,000 bacteria on six-inch- square samplings of 108 randomly sampled restaurant menus. In another study, they put E. coli bacteria on menus and found that up to a third of the bacteria transferred to customer hands after they handled the menus for one minute.
  5. Beware of the holiday blockbuster. A report by the ABC show “20/20” found that the seats and armrests in New York and Los Angeles movie theaters contained fecal bacteria. Obviously, when you touch a seat or armrest and then thrust your hand into your bucket of popcorn, these same germs transfer into your snack. Dawson and Shelton found that 85 percent of the handfuls of popcorn touched with hands inoculated with E. coli contained these bacteria, while 79 percent of the popcorn samples remaining in the serving bowl contained E. coli transferred from the person taking a handful of popcorn from the same bowl.
  6. Don’t let them eat cake. If any of your holiday celebrations coincide with someone’s birthday, you may want to decline the cake. Dawson and Shelton’s studies found that blowing out birthday candles transfer oral bacteria to the cake surface. In their experiments, nearly 3,000 more bacteria, and as many as 37,000, were recovered from the surface of a cake after the candles were blown out.
  7. It’s more than just hot air. In addition to hot air, hand air dryers blow bacteria around public rest rooms. (Which explains why you do not see them in most medical facilities.) In this study, Dawson and Shelton found more than 18,000 bacteria on restroom hand air dryers in grocery stores and more than 2,000 in gas stations and college campuses. In addition, the activation push buttons and air intake vents in male bathroom dryers had more bacteria than hand dryers found in female bathrooms. A study from the United Kingdom found that hand air dryers increased bacteria populations on hands fivefold after washing, while paper towels decreased bacterial populations on hands by 42 percent. According to scientists, paper towels are your safest option.

Dawson and Shelton suggest that one of the best ways to stay healthy is to practice good personal hygiene habits and encourage them in those around you. These include effective hand-washing (10-second warm water rinse, ­10- to 15-seconds lathering and scrubbing of the hands with soap, warm water rinse long enough to remove all the lather, and then drying with disposable paper towels); covering your mouth when coughing and sneezing; keeping your hands out of your eyes, nose and mouth; staying home when you are sick and limiting your contact with those who are sick.

None of us want to spend the holidays in quarantine, but I hope you will consider these tips and enjoy a healthier and happier holiday season.

Lessons from Mr. Universe

Lessons from Mr. Universe

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As I walked into a recent workshop, I received a gruff greeting from a wickedly ripped man with biceps the size of my head. John Hansen, former Mr. Universe and Mr. Natural Olympia, turned out to be a terrific instructor and I learned a lot from him. By knowing a little bit about your muscle fibers, you can make some simple adjustments to your activities to help meet your health goals.

In general, there are basically two different types of muscle fibers in the body, which are classified based on how they produce energy, and are referred to as being either slow-twitch (type I) or fast-twitch (type II). Slow-twitch fibers are associated with endurance activities such as distance running, and they use oxygen to create the energy that allow you to exercise. Fast-twitch fibers are used in powerful bursts of movement like sprinting and power lifting and they use glycogen to fuel activity.

Things to know about slow-twitch muscle fibers:

  1. Slow-twitch fibers use oxygen to create adenosine triphosphate (ATP ), which is the chemical that fuels aerobic muscle contractions.
  2. Slow-twitch fibers are red, because they contain more blood-carrying myoglobin.
  3. Slow-twitch fibers can sustain force for an extended period, because they create their own energy, but they are unable to generate a significant amount of force.

Things to know about fast-twitch muscle fibers:

  1. Fast-twitch muscle fibers are further broken down into two categories: moderate fast-twitch (type IIa) and fast-twitch (type IIb).
  2. Moderate fast-twitch muscle fibers fatigue more rapidly than slow-twitch fibers. During moderate aerobic activities, such as swimming, the slow-twitch fibers are the first to contract. When these slow-twitch fibers become fatigued, the fast-twitch fibers kick in.
  3. Fast-twitch are the most powerful and least enduring.
  4. Fast-twitch fibers are responsible for the size and definition of muscles.
  5. Fast-twitch fibers are generally white, because they do not contain much blood.

Ways to improve your workout: You can rearrange your fitness activities to more efficiently burn fat and increase muscle definition. A sample routine might look like this:

  1. Five minutes or so of dynamic stretching
  2. Weight training session with 8-12 repetitions of the exercise before reaching muscle failure with three sets and a 30-90 second break in between sets. Another option is to conduct supersets instead of taking breaks between sets.
  3. 25 minutes or more of cardio
  4. Cool down with static stretching.

There are several benefits to this sequence of events, especially if you are aiming to burn fat. With this structure, the body gets rid of more stored fat, as it burns glycogen while weight training and uses fat as fuel for cardio.

The final step to your most efficient workout can double as a tasty reward. Be sure to get a good source of protein within half an hour, to help your muscles recover. It is also suggested that having the protein with a few carbs helps your body absorb the protein more efficiently. Enjoy!

Motivate Your Children to Get Good Grades Without Spending a Dime

Motivate Your Children to Get Good Grades Without Spending a Dime

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As kids return to school, parents would be wise to plan in advance on how they plan to motivate their children. If you typically reward your children for good grades, you are not alone. Consider this excerpt by Jessica Lahey from the Washington Post.

“When I’m in schools talking to kids about resilience and learning through failure, I usually begin with a quick survey. First, I ask teachers and staff in the auditorium to close their eyes. I then ask the students to raise their hands if they get paid cash money for good grades. Depending on the socio-economic makeup of the district, about 15 to 20 percent of hands go up.

Sometimes it takes a while, hands creeping up slowly, hesitantly, for kids seem to intuit that getting paid for grades may not be the best approach to learning. I then ask them to raise their hands if they get any material thing in exchange for grades; a new iPod or some other shiny enticement. In response, about 20 to 25 percent of the hands go up. The noise in the auditorium tends to amp up with each new question as students begin to compare notes. When the clamor dies down, I remind the staff of the rules: eyes closed, no peeking. And I warn the students that this last question is a little harder to answer, and I want them to think and search their hearts for an honest answer before they respond.

“Raise your hand if you truly believe your parents love you more when you bring home high grades, and love you less when you make low ones.”

Over the past five years, I’ve asked this question to thousands of kids, ages 12 to 18, and the percentages still surprise me. Among middle-school children, about 80 percent believe that, yes, their parents truly love them more when they deliver high grades and less when they make low ones. In high school, the average is a little higher — about 90 percent.

After the poll is over, we debrief, and I reassure them that for the most part, their perceptions are incorrect, that they are loved no matter what, but parenting is hard, and we parents often need a moment to come up with the right response to an unexpectedly low grade. Sure, we are disappointed, but that silence they encounter when they bring home a report card littered with B-minuses (B-minus is the new F, haven’t you heard?) does not mean we love them any less. I promise, we’re just pausing to find the best, most appropriate words to support their hearts, their minds and their intellectual growth.

I’m a parent, however, and I understand the truth behind that pause, even if I don’t want to admit it. That silence in response to a low grade? That’s withdrawal of love based on performance, and our kids hear us loud and clear.”

Based on Lahey’s account, the vast majority of parents should reconsider the use of extrinsic rewards and revise their motivational strategies. According to recent studies, this practice of “outcome love” may impede a child’s happiness by sending the wrong message. The concept of outcome love was presented by Dr. Jim Taylor, an internationally recognized authority on the psychology of sport and parenting. According to Dr. Taylor, outcome love is an arrangement in which parents give love in exchange for their children’s success and withdraw love as a punishment for failures. This may sound like a harsh assessment at first, but think about it. A parent may say “we love you the same no matter what grades you bring home,” and then offer cash when the grades are good and grimaces when the grades are poor. Despite what you may say to your children about your unconditional love, they learn much more from your actions then from words.

As Dr. Taylor elaborated, “If parents send frequent messages of love, happiness, and excitement when children are successful and frequent messages of withdrawal of love or anger, frustration, and disappointment when their children fail to live up to their parents’ expectations, the kids will make that connection.”

Not only does this misguided technique affect children’s short-term happiness, but it can also have long-term, detrimental effects on mental health that extend into adulthood. In an interview with Washington Post reporter Jessica Lahey, Dr. Taylor indicated, “Sadly, these messages fuel mental health problems including perfectionism, fear of failure, low self-esteem, depression, and anxiety, not to mention the reactions of resentment, anger, and rejection from the children towards their parents. Even more painfully, this attitude of outcome love becomes internalized and children grow up to be adults who berate themselves for failure and only give self-love when they succeed.”

In addition, when love is offered in exchange for performance, it becomes an extrinsic reward, an incentive that is external to the work itself, controlled by people outside of the work stream. In a classic meta-analysis by Edward Deci, researchers synthesized the results from 128 controlled experiments. The results highlighted consistent negative effects of incentives, from marshmallows to dollars, on intrinsic motivation. These effects were even greater when the tasks were interesting or enjoyable rather than boring or meaningless. The data on extrinsic rewards and their effects on motivation are clear. If we want children to succeed in any activity, including academics, sports, or playing an instrument, the fastest way to undermine their success is to offer material or emotional rewards.

The most effective way to motivate children and help them become internally motivated by teaching them about purpose. As Dr. Kate Roberts explains in Psychology Today, humans are naturally curious. Therefore, making the connection between the intrinsic value of learning and purpose is relatively easy, especially when learning is seen as the ultimate goal and grades and performance are not overemphasized. By helping children become more engaged in the learning process, parents help them become better students and facilitate a deeper understanding of how and why learning is important. Here are four tips Dr. Roberts offers:

  1. Exemplify purposefulness. Parents who want to motivate children through internal purpose can demonstrate this principle through their own actions. Show that you are committed to a purposeful life where hard work and effort result in positive feelings even if the goals take time or are difficult to achieve.
  2. Communicate purposefulness. Have your child define who they want to be and how they want to live, and help them identify how they can achieve this through their daily actions.
  3. Help connect behavior with results. Some children are unable to quickly make the connection between geometry homework and obtaining their goal of being an effective thinker or getting into college. Parents can help children make the connection by explaining why and how certain activities are essential to achieving goals.
  4. Facilitate internal reflection. When a child demonstrates hard work, reflect this back to them in a way that helps them see their skills and abilities. A statement like, “Those boxes are heavy and I am impressed that you were able to carry them all upstairs.” This allows the child to make the attribution internally between their behavior and their physical strength, resulting in thoughts like “I am strong” that come from within and not from external forces.

As difficult as it is to confront underachievement, treat these moments as opportunities to focus on character and help develop internal motivation that will serve your child beyond the school year and into all aspects of life. As Lahey suggests, if we want our children to truly believe that we value learning more than grades or scores, we need to put our money where our mouths are.

Rudeness is the New Flu

Rudeness is the New Flu

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Did you know that rudeness is contagious?  A study from the University of Maryland shows that rudeness is as contagious as the common cold.  A researcher in organization behavior, Trevor Foulk, stated, “When it comes to incivility, there’s often a snowballing effect. The more you see rudeness, the more likely you are to perceive it from others and the more likely you are to be rude yourself to others.”

Rows over rudeness accelerated after White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, was asked to leave a restaurant because employees did not want to serve her and the owner disapproved of her work in the Trump administration.  This incident fell on the heels of the heckling of Homeland Security Secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, while she tried to finish her dinner at a Mexican restaurant near the White House.  Fueling the tension, some politicians, including Representative Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), have called for increased confrontations with Trump administration officials.  And recently, Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus urged everyone who works for the administration to quit their jobs and avoid further complicity.

So, how do we successfully survive in today’s workplace?  Do we fight fire with fire or take the moral high ground?  Surprisingly, there is considerable research on the topic, as highlighted in a recent article by William Wan in the Washington Post.  In the case of the eatery expulsion, President Trump chose to insult the restaurant owner, Waters and others.  Such cycles, repeated on a daily basis and rapidly spreading online, are created in part by our unconscious reactions, experts say.

In a 2016 study, Christopher Rosen, an organizational scientist at the University of Arkansas, tracked employees over the course of their work days. He and fellow researchers found that those who experienced a perceived insult earlier in the day would later strike back at their coworkers.  Using psychological tests, the researchers linked this reaction to lowered levels of self-control.

“When someone is uncivil to you, it forces you to spend a lot of mental energy trying to figure out what’s going on, what caused the rudeness, what it means,” Rosen said in a recent interview. “All that thinking lessens your capacity for impulse control. So you become more prone to be rude to others. … People, in a way, ‘pay it forward.’”

The recent rise in incivility has led to increasing research on the topic by social scientists and psychologists.  In a series of experiments, for example, Foulk and others showed that the more that people witness and experience rudeness, the more likely they are to interpret an action as rude and then subsequently treat others rudely.  “Rudeness is interesting in that it’s often ambiguous and open to interpretation,” said Foulk. “If someone punches you, for example, we would all agree that it’s abusive. But if someone comes up to you and says in a neutral voice ‘nice shoes,’ is that an insult? Is it sarcasm or something else?” The more someone has witnessed rudeness, “the more likely you are to interpret ‘nice shoes’ as deliberately rude.”  In a recent study from the Journal of Applied Psychology, for example, workers viewed videos every morning before work. On the mornings when the videos included an uncivil interaction, the workers were more likely to interpret subsequent workplace interactions as rude.

In another study that focused on workplace negotiations, Foulk found that if someone experiences rudeness from a person on the opposing side, they are highly likely to be perceived as rude in their next negotiation.   Even when the two negotiations took place several days apart, the toxic effect was just as intense.  “What is so scary about this effect is that it’s an automatic process — it takes place in a part of your brain that you are not aware of, can’t stop, and can’t control,” Foulk states.

Other studies also suggest incivility by senior executives has a tremendous influence on the rest of the organization, feeding insolence throughout the ranks.  Perhaps the most troublesome issue surrounding this growing incivility is the effect it has on the workforce.  Increasing studies confirm that rudeness significantly hampers attentiveness, decreases productivity and impedes creativity. These studies also indicate that incivility lowers trust, fuels anger, stokes fear, stimulates sadness, and causes depression. A study in the Journal of Organizational Behavior  found that incivility in the workplace also has profound implications at home, including a decline in marital satisfaction.

Other recent studies found that doctors and nurses in neonatal intensive care units who were admonished by an actress playing the mother of a sick infant performed much more poorly than those who were not scolded and that they even misdiagnosed the baby’s condition.  “The results were scary,” one of the authors reported to the Wall Street Journal. “The teams exposed to rudeness gave the wrong diagnosis, didn’t resuscitate or ventilate appropriately, didn’t communicate well, gave the wrong medications and made other serious mistakes.”

Researchers have struggled in vain to come up with ways to stop the spreading effects of rudeness. Those who studied the hospital neonatal staffs, for example, tried having the doctors and nurses write about their interaction from the perspective of the rude mother. Doing so made no difference.

So, what can we do to survive in these times of incivility and why should we care?  According to the research, the best way to survive in today’s toxic workforce is to avoid incivility as much as possible.  “When you experience incivility, it’s important to take a step back and not act on your impulses. Do things that help you recover your ability to self-regulate, like exercise or taking a break,” Rosen says.  This advice may not be entirely realistic, given the fact that the ripple effects of rudeness are largely unconscious.  That said, it is important to maintain self-awareness and restraint.  For example, if you are hosting a meeting that starts going down an uncivil path, try to steer the group back to civility.  If that does not work, consider ending the engagement and resuming the work after tempers die.

According to P.M. Forni, the co-founder of the Johns Hopkins Civility Project and author of Choosing Civility, “Encouraging civility in the workplace is becoming one of the fundamental corporate goals in our diverse, hurried, stressed and litigation-prone society.  A civil workplace is good for workers, since the quality of service they receive from happier and more relaxed service providers is improved.”  We should all be concerned about this disturbing trend and do our part to bring civility back to the workplace.  After all, it is right and civil thing to do.

The Life-Saving Benefits of Vitamin D

The Life-Saving Benefits of Vitamin D

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After my recent physical, my doctor told me I had a vitamin D deficiency and instructed me to start taking supplements. Ever the sceptic, I did a little research before following her advice, and I was surprised to learn that vitamin D is absolutely essential to good health and, in some cases, it is life-saving. Consider three important facts.

1.  Vitamin D fights disease:

2.  Vitamin D improves mental health:

  • By regulating mood and warding off depression, according to a study in the Journal of Internal Medicine.

3.  Vitamin D boosts weight loss: 

  • By suppressing appetite, according to a study in the British Journal of Nutrition.
  • By boosting the effectiveness of a lower calorie diet, according to the WEBMD Archives.

And one last piece of good news about Vitamin D: it does not matter how you take it. You can take Vitamin D on an empty stomach, with food, from the sun, in oil, or as a powder.  The main concern is to get enough to reach levels of 50-60 ng/ml and reap amazing health benefits!

The Permanent Effects of Child-Parent Separation

The Permanent Effects of Child-Parent Separation

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The tragic news from the border has likely left you wondering … what happens to a child when they are forcibly separated from their parents and how permanent are these effects?  A recent article in the Washington Post by Michael Miller tells us that the damage is catastrophic and permanent.  The child’s heart rate goes up, their body releases a flood of stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline, and these stress hormones start killing off dendrites — the little branches in the brain cells that transmit mes­sages. In time, the stress starts killing off neurons and — especially in young children — creates dramatic and long-term damage, both psychologically and physically.  “The effect is catastrophic,” said Charles Nelson, a pediatrics professor at Harvard Medical School. “There’s so much research on this that if people paid attention at all to the science, they would never do this.”

This research on child-parent separation drove many to strongly oppose Trump’s border crossing policy, which separated more than 2,000 immigrant children from their parents in the past month.  The American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Physicians and the American Psychiatric Association have all issued statements against it.  These groups represent more than 250,000 doctors in the United States, nearly 7,700 mental-health professionals and 142 organizations that signed a petition urging Trump to end the policy.  “To pretend that separated children do not grow up with the shrapnel of this traumatic experience embedded in their minds is to disregard everything we know about child development, the brain, and trauma,” the petition states. Nelson studied the neurological damage from child-parent separation — work that he said often reduced him to tears.

In 2000, Romanian government officials invited Nelson into its orphanages to advise them on a humanitarian crisis that the country’s previous policies had created.  For decades, Romania’s communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu banned birth control, outlawed abortions, and imposed a “celibacy tax” on families with fewer than five children. Ceausescu believed that increasing the country’s birthrate would boost Romania’s economy. Instead, the government ended up opening huge state-run orphanages to deal with more than 100,000 children whose parents could not afford to raise them.  At those orphanages, Nelson said, “we saw kids rocking uncontrollably and hitting themselves, hitting their heads against walls. It was heartbreaking. We had to make up a rule for ourselves as researchers that we would never cry in front of the children. Whenever one of us felt ourselves tearing up, we would walk out of the room.”

Those separated from their parents at a young age had much less white matter, which is largely made up of fibers that transmit information throughout the brain, as well as much less gray matter, which contains the brain-cell bodies that process information and solve problems.  The activity in the children’s brains was much lower than expected. “If you think of the brain as a lightbulb,” Nelson said, “it’s as though there was a dimmer that had reduced them from a 100-watt bulb to 30 watts.”  The children, who had been separated from their parents in their first two years of life, scored significantly lower on IQ tests later in life. Their fight-or-flight response system appeared permanently broken. Stressful situations that would usually prompt physiological responses in other people — increased heart rate, sweaty palms — would provoke nothing in the children.

What alarmed the researchers most was the duration of the damage. Unlike other parts of the body, most cells in the brain cannot renew or repair themselves.  The reason child-parent separation has such devastating effects is because it attacks one of the most fundamental and critical bonds in human biology.  From the time they are born, children emotionally attach to their caregiver and vice versa, said Lisa Fortuna, medical director for child and adolescent psychiatry at Boston Medical Center.  Skin-to-skin contact for newborns, for example, is critical to their development, research shows. “Our bodies secrete hormones like oxytocin on contact that reinforces the bond, to help us attach and connect,” Fortuna said.  A child’s sense of what safety means depends on that relationship. In addition, the parts of the brain that deal with attachment and fear — the amygdala and hippocampus — develop differently. The reason such children often develop PTSD later in life is that those neurons start firing irregularly, Fortuna said. “The part of their brain that sorts things into safe or dangerous does not work like it’s supposed to. Things that are not threatening seem threatening,” she said.

Research on Aboriginal children in Australia who were removed from their families also showed long-lasting effects. These children were nearly twice as likely to be arrested or criminally charged as adults with 60 percent more likely to have alcohol-abuse problems and 200 percent more likely to struggle with gambling.  In China — where 1 in 5 children live in villages without their parents, who migrate for work — studies have shown that those “left-behind” children have markedly higher rates of anxiety and depression later in life. 

Other studies have shown separation leading to increased aggression, withdrawal and cognitive difficulties.  “If you take the moral, spiritual, even political aspect out of it, from a strictly medical and scientific point of view, what we as a country are doing to these children at the border is unconscionable,” said Luis H. Zayas, a psychiatry professor at the University of Texas at Austin. “The harm our government is now causing will take a lifetime to undo.”

While most of the research on the importance of parent- child bonding focuses on the benefits to offspring, parents also derive significant health benefits. A recent study in Psychology Today shows that separation deprives parents from the hormone oxytocin, raising the parents’ risk to several health risks. Low levels of oxytocin are linked to increased stress, greater incidence of depression, intensified cravings for drugs and alcohol, inhibited social skills, and disrupted sleep patterns.

The tragic effects that occur to children and their parents when they are denied their rights of physical bonding are undeniable.  Likewise, our responsibility to hold our elected officials accountable is unquestionable.  Parents need to hug their children and politicians need to protect our right to do so. 

 

Being a Fan Makes You Happier and Healthier

Being a Fan Makes You Happier and Healthier

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Having spent the past week among fellow Caps fans, I am deeply impressed by the spirit of jubilation that is resonating throughout the DC area. While surrounded by hundreds of thousands of happy fans, I began to wonder about the effects of a championship on the surrounding population. And I have great news … being an invested sports fan is good for you!

Research reveals significant mental health benefits to being a sports fan. Associating with a team is linked to higher levels of well-being and general happiness as well as lower levels of loneliness and alienation, according to sports psychology professor Daniel Wann of Murray State University. Wann, author of the book Sport Fans: The Psychology and Social Impact of Spectators, explains that there are two routes to feeling good through sports fandom.

“One would be following a successful team, and the second would simply be identifying with them,” Wann told The Huffington Post. “You can get these well-being benefits even if your team doesn’t do well; we’ve found this with historically unsuccessful teams as well,” he added. “The simple fact is that people are looking for ways to identify with something, to feel a sense of belonging-ness with a group of like-minded individuals,” said Wann. “People might not understand the sports side of things, but my response to that is: Think of, in your own life, what you care about and what you identify with. Sport is what these fans have chosen.”

“Many fans are motivated to root for a particular team because of that identity with a team, with other fans, and with the community,” says Adam Earnhardt, professor and chair of the communications department at Youngstown State University. Being aligned with a team helps us feel included and engaged. Just wearing your team’s jersey can elicit a thumb’s up or other sign of approval from someone you’ve never met before, simply through that shared connection.

Enthusiastic sports fans love their team through thick and thin. However, even the most passionate fans may feel their loyalty tested when things do not go well. Social psychologists have identified two types of reactions that fans have to their team's performance.

The first reaction is referred to as "BIRGing," and it applies to the phenomenon known as “Basking in Reflected Glory.” When your team is winning, you happily savor the shared joy. Research shows that on the day after a win, ardent fans enjoy increased self-esteem, happily declaring "we" won! The closer you identify with a team, the more likely you are to BIRG and the better chance you will wear your team's gear the day after a win.

"CORFing," on the other hand, means "Cut Off Reflected Failure." Your team flopped and now you want to distance yourself from the team and the related feelings of humiliation. Compared to BIRGing, it is “they” lost, not "we." The last thing a CORFer wants to wear the day after a loss is a shirt or hat with “their” logo on it. This is the test of the true versus the fickle fan. The CORFers are the fickle fans and their identification with their team fluctuates with the ratings. True fans, on the other hand, will don their team’s regalia regardless of performance. True fans will feel disappointment, but their team retains its hero status in spite of defeat.

Experts say that, for true fans, mutual anguish over a team’s loss can be yet another form of bonding and that the misery is more tolerable when it is shared with fellow fans. Hans Selve, an endocrinologist who performed pioneering research into stress response, said we cheer on favorite teams for something called euphoric stress, or eustress. Selve described this as a kind of good or positive stress, as opposed to distress, or bad stress. For example, late in the third period of the first game of the Stanley Cup playoff run against the Blue Jackets, Devante Smith-Pelly scored a beautiful goal to give the Capitals a 3-2 lead. But Washington was later called for two more penalties and a tripping infraction with less than five minutes left in the game and Sabres’ forward Andre Burakovsky tied the game to force overtime. Going into overtime, Caps fans were on the edge of their seats, bracing themselves for what became a disappointing defeat. Depending on how well-equipped each fan was to handle the stress they felt going into overtime and how prepared they were to keep the experience in perspective, they either maintained a form of good stress or they allowed it to dissolve into distress. In the end, however, experts claim that the benefits of fandom outweigh the risks for most people.

Another interesting phenomenon that was highlighted throughout the run-up to the Stanley Cup is known as superstitious conditioning. Sports pubs around the DC area were full of devoted Caps fans who claimed that by watching the game at that particular sports bar during a win, they caused the team to win. Therefore, they continued to frequent the same establishment throughout the series. Others claimed the opposite, avoiding a particular place where they saw the Caps lose, claiming they "caused" the team to lose just by being there. Then there are the lucky jerseys, hats, and other spirit wear. For example, I met a woman who said the first thing she did on Friday morning after the Caps won the Stanley Cup was to wash all her family members’ jerseys, which were long overdue for a cleaning.

So the next time someone gives you flack about your epic fandom, let them know that all the rituals, viewing parties, and dirty jerseys are crucial to your mental health. Then invite them to join you. LET’S GO CAPS!!!

Farm Fresh is Best

Farm Fresh is Best

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Imagine yourself standing in the freezer section at your local supermarket. The florescent lights illuminate a dizzying array of colored cardboard boxes full of “food products.” You put on your glasses and examine the packages, looking for the item with the least amount of additives. You toss a few items in the cart and make your way to the check-out line, relieved to get out of the store and into your car.

Now picture yourself talking to a local farmer. A gentle breeze blows through your hair as the morning sun kisses your face. The farmer is telling you about his latest harvest of peaches, as you pop a slice in your mouth. After tasting several delicious fruits, you choose your favorites and walk away with a pleasant memory.

Which one of these scenarios paints the best picture? If you have any doubts, consider these five reasons you should shop at a local farmers’ market:

  1. Farm fresh tastes better. Fruits and vegetables you find at the grocery store are often several days old before they reach the aisles, and most supermarket produce is shipped in refrigerated trucks from thousands of miles away. Produce from your farmer’s market, on the other hand, was probably picked that morning, making it as fresh as if you had grown it yourself. In addition, items from a farmer’s market are usually picked at the peak of their ripeness when natural sugars are at their best.
  2. Farm fresh is better for you. Enjoying produce at the ultimate level of ripeness not only tastes better, but it also provides more nutrition. Enjoying perfectly ripe produce provides a number of antioxidants, which clean free radicals out of your bloodstream and reduce signs of aging by minimizing wrinkles and preserving the texture of skin. Another benefit of ripe fruit is anthocyanins, which provide anti-inflammatory properties, protect brain function, help prevent cardiovascular disease and reduce the risk of cancer. Another great source of antioxidants that is available at your local farmer’s market can be found in raw, local honey. In addition to antioxidants and enzymes, raw local honey contains pollen, which provides you with allergy prevention. Not to mention the fact that raw local honey tastes much better than the commercial, mass-produced honey. As we were recently reminded by the deadly outbreaks of E. coli in romaine lettuce, there is also less chance of illness with farm fresh foods. Such incidences occur mostly in large industrial settings, where food is mass-produced and packaged in mass amounts.
  3. Farm fresh is better for the environment. The chemical-free, organic methods purported by local farmers are better for the environment. Unlike local farmers, giant factory farms grow massive amounts of produce and ship it around the world. These same behemoths drive many local family farms out of business. For the sake of efficiency, industrial farming favors monocultures, where a single field only grows one type of fruits or vegetables. Monocultures sap the soil of essential nutrients, leaving it barren and virtually unplantable. As a result, the soil becomes more susceptible to disease and pests. In general, industrial farming is hard on the land, depletes the soil of nutrients, uses industrial chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and utilizes environmentally unfriendly practices that are not sustainable over the long-term. Many supermarkets receive their produce from hundreds or thousands of miles away. This involves a significant use of fossil fuels for shipping on refrigerated trucks and rail cars. Famer’s market produce doesn’t have to travel far to get from the farm to your table, significantly reducing the use of fossil fuels. Along with conserving fossil fuels, small family farms produce less environmental waste in the form of carbon monoxide, pesticide use, chemical fertilizers, and packaging. They are also less likely to utilize giant processing and sorting machines that contribute to environmental decay. Finally, farmer’s markets usually operate in the open air and thus do not require electricity or heating.
  4. Local farming supports the local economy. As mentioned earlier, the numbers of family farms have decreased over the years as they succumbed to the increasingly stiff competition from giant conglomerate-run farms that produce massive amounts of produce. Purchasing fruits and vegetables from farmer’s markets, however, supports your community and local family farms, giving them the valuable capital they need to keep operating while providing consumers an alternative to mass-produced foods.
  5. Farmer’s markets are fun! Unlike their supermarket counterparts, farmer’s markets are the source of many pleasant memories. Your local farmer’s market can also be a great family activity and a nice way to interact with members of your community.

To find a farmer’s market near you, check out the National Farmers Market Directory on the United States Department of Agriculture’s website: https://www.ams.usda.gov/local-food-directories/farmersmarkets

Stuck In a Rut? Time to Shake it Up!

Stuck In a Rut? Time to Shake it Up!

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Most of us are creatures of habit and find ourselves occasionally wondering how we can spice things up.  If you are frustrated with a mundane workout routine that does not seem to be delivering the results you are looking for, consider shaking things up a bit.

  1. Superset it.  If you do weight training in a circuit, turn it into a series of supersets.  For example, if you do a circuit of six different exercises, turn it into three supersets.  Take a circuit of chest presses, lateral pulldown, bicep curls, tricep extensions, shoulder shrugs, and abdominal crunches into three supersets:  Three sets of chest presses and lateral pulldowns, followed by three sets of bicep curls and tricep extensions, and three sets of shoulder shrugs and abdominal crunches.  Be sure to start your session off with a good ten-minute warm up and a good stretching session afterwards. 
  2. Shake up your routine. For most of us, our lives are very scheduled.  We get up around the same time, go to work, eat at specific times and likely work out at regular times.  If you typically work out before work, switch it up a bit and try working out after work once a week.  You may discover a new, invigorating environment.  Be sure to minimize distractions as you move towards a slightly different schedule.  For example, put your gym bag in the car and plan to go to the gym on your way home from work rather than stopping by the house and potentially getting sidetracked.   
  3. Hire a personal trainer. Having a personal trainer can help increase your commitment, encourage good form, and introduce you to new exercises.  Although it can be pricey, you can usually negotiate price reductions with a gym or find a reasonable alternative on line.  And most gyms offer a free consultation and workout session so you can determine if their program and trainer are the best fit for you.
  4. Add a partner to your mix. Having a friend to work out will raise your level of commitment, enable you to share fitness tips with each other and generally make it more fun. 
  5. Put a twist in your tunes.  A study by Psychology Today determined that listening to stimulating music while working out improves performance and has positive psychological effects.  Music can delay fatigue as well as increase the perceived level of energy.  Take some time to create some fresh playlists or check out a new app and explore some different artists and genres.  Some apps, like Fit Radio, constantly add new playlists, and arrange music by the type of activity.   

As you shake it up, remember to be good to yourself and maintain balance.  Your workout should be an enjoyable part of your day – not another mindless chore.  We already work hard in order to feel good and to help us enjoy our favorite indulgences.  As such, I hope to see you at happy hour soon!  Cheers!

Tackling Stress in the Workplace

Tackling Stress in the Workplace

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Everyone I talk to is experiencing tremendous work-related stress.  Even some of my friends who served in nerve-racking combat deployments admit that today’s workplace is as stressful as ever. 

Numerous studies show that job stress has been the greatest source of stress for American adults over the past few decades and that this destructive trend is escalating. This is bad news because work-related stress does not just disappear when we leave the office.  When stress persists, it is detrimental to emotional as well as physical health.  In the short term, a stressful work environment can contribute to problems such as headache, stomachache, sleep disturbances, shortened temper and difficulty concentrating. Chronic stress can result in heart disease, hypertension, depression, insomnia, and a weakened immune system. Compounding the problem, some of us deal with excessive stress in unhealthy ways such as substance abuse, cigarettes and unhealthy eating.  Although the majority of workers in the United States cite work as the top source of stress, less than half say they are doing a good job of managing it. 

I could write pages about why this destructive trend is spiking (a hostile environment, lack of strong leadership in the upper ranks, excessive workloads, sexual harassment, limited opportunities for growth or advancement, lack of control over workplace decisions, conflicting demands, unclear performance objectives, low or stagnant salaries, and work that is not challenging or engaging).  However, given the fact that I am already beginning to traverse a perilous political path, I will instead offer some tips on how to be healthier and happier by combatting occupational stress. 

  • Develop healthy responses. Instead of attempting to fight stress with alcohol or unhealthy foods, plan for healthy activities to unwind.  If possible, plan in advance and schedule enjoyable activities during breaks and after work.  Yoga is an excellent choice, but any physical activity is extremely valuable.  Exercise is a wonderful treatment for stress, as it will amp-up your endorphins, provide an opportunity for “meditation on the move,” improve sleep and enhance your mood.  Other suggestions include going to a concert or sporting event, playing games with friends, and reading a book that makes you feel good. 
  • Observe good sleep hygiene. Getting enough good-quality sleep is very important for effective stress management. Limit caffeine late in the day and minimize stimulating activities at night, including computer and television use. 
  • Listen to music. The calming power of music is well-established.  With a unique link to our emotions, music is an extremely effective stress-management tool.  In fact, researchers at Stanford University determined that "listening to music seems to be able to change brain functioning to the same extent as medication."  Most of us associate music with a slower tempo as the most frequently recommended sounds for relaxation.  However, upbeat music can make one feel more optimistic and positive and faster music can improve mental focus and concentration.  To determine what type works best for you, listen to music you enjoy and be mindful of its relaxing effects. 
  • Establish boundaries. In today's digital world, it is easy to feel the need to be connected 24 hours a day. Establish some work-life boundaries such as making a rule not to check email from home in the evening or not answering the phone during dinner.
  • Take time to recharge. Carve out time in advance to replenish and return to your pre-stress level. Leverage opportunities to “unplug” by avoiding work-related activities and trying not to think about work.
  • Practice relaxation.Techniques such as meditation and deep breathing can greatly facilitate relaxation and there are many apps that can help, including Calm and 10% Happier.  Practice mindfulness by actively observing present experiences and thoughts without judging them. 
  • Accept support. Accepting help from trusted family and friends and leveraging employee resources can improve your ability to manage stress. Your employer may also have stress management resources, and all federal employees have access to an employee assistance program.  (Check MYFOH-4-YOU for more information.)   

If you try these tips and still feel overwhelmed by work stress, consider talking to a psychologist, who can help you better manage stress and leverage healthy behaviors.