health

by Jill Suttie | Greater Good Science Center

According to a new study, people with higher heart rate variability are wiser—when they make an effort to be objective.

Many cultures consider the human heart to be the seat of wisdom. Now scientists are finding some evidence for this, though the reality may be more complicated than it seems.

by Rubin Naiman, PhD | Van Winkle's

Hans Christian Andersen’s classic fairy tale “The Princess and the Pea” is about a young regal girl whose sleep is disrupted by a tiny legume tucked beneath a stack of twenty mattresses. Her heightened sensitivity was said to be characteristic of royalty. If so, it may be that we all become royal in our sleep.

Everyone has a problem area that they are working on in their fitness journey. Underarm fat is a typical one that comes up, but there are a lot of problem areas. Some of the most common problems that people have and the questions that I get asked the most include:

The experience of being touched has direct and crucial effects on the growth of the body as well as the mind.
Touch is a means of communication so critical that its absence retards growth in infants, according to researchers who are for the first time determining the neurochemical effects of skin-to-skin contact.
The new work focuses on the importance of touch itself, not merely as part of, say, a parent’s loving presence. The findings may help explain the long-noted syndrome in which infants deprived of direct human contact grow slowly and even die.

(Mark Twain...looking worried)

This week’s reality check - or, as I like to call it, “whack upside the head with the Frozen Fish of Reality” (Google Monty Python's Fish Slapping Dance for the reference and have a good laugh)comes courtesy of the great American humorist and writer, Mark Twain.