Avoiding Facts

With cushioned shoes, the sole slows the rate at which the body impacts the ground, making it more comfortable. However, the force is the same. The energy that shoots up your leg is about three times more in a cushioned shoe than if you're barefoot.

Soft soles of shoes might also impact balance. As people age, their feet become less sensitive. If your feet can't sense what is going on on the ground, you may become more vulnerable to falls.

It's not that people shouldn't wear shoes, but that scientists don't yet understand the impact of footwear on the body over an extended period.

We add comfort when we wear cushioned shoes, but we reduce functionality. When people opt for fashionable footwear, it does not promote healthy walking. In one study, participants had to wear minimal shoes for six months. Although they were uncomfortable at first, they preferred them later.

Electronic communication is efficient, but it's detached. Sitting at a computer screen, the need for tact and a respectful tone disappears.

• Being on the receiving end of such impoliteness can create lingering stress and negative emotions. The recipient may find it harder to stay engaged at work. The stress associated with e-mail rudeness can spill over into family life and, like a chain reaction, can send stress signals to other people.
• A subtler form of aggression is failing to reply to a request, in effect giving others the "silent treatment." Not responding to an email leaves people hanging and struggling with uncertainty.

With remote work on the rise, the use of electronic communication has allowed incivility to thrive.

• To mitigate the stress, managers need to set clear and reasonable e-mail expectations. Organizations should create meaningful opportunities for employees to build good working relationships.
• For employees, the best option to cope is to unplug from work after-hours.
• Regardless of your level of stress, remember the rules of netiquette. Spend time composing your e-mail and notice inconsiderate expressions. Acknowledge a request and let your co-workers know when you will get back to them. Perhaps keep caps lock off.

New research points out towards the third conceptualization of a good life (besides a happy life and a meaningful one): The psychologically rich life.

It is a life full of intense, deep emotions, complex and diverse mental engagements, and surprising experiences, making the psychologically rich life both pleasant, meaningful and novel. This may or may not involve any kind of economic richness.

No one really talks about it, but a picture-perfect life with a steady office job, nice car, a great family may be satisfying and meaningful but still become monotonous and boring.

The cracks start to show after a few years in the form of mid-life crisis or family issues like marital problems.

The fear of appearing incompetent or an incompetent person is misplaced, as research shows that the person who is asked for advice thinks good of the person asking.

Advice seekers appear smarter to the person whose ego is now stroke, making him provide valuable insights while being impressed by the seeker. Being asked for advice increases the level of perceived competency of the seeker in the eyes of the expert.

Asking for advice leads to a series of interactions at the office, which gives way to exchanging information, learning and builds a meaningful connection that goes beyond the initial request for advice.

Not all NDEs are positive - some can be frightening, with intense terror, anguish, loneliness, and despair. Distressing NDEs are underreported because of shame, social stigma, and pressure to conform to the positive NDEs.

A close encounter with death reminds us of the fragility of life and can reveal the layers of psychological suppression that prevents us from these uncomfortable thoughts.

A 2017 study found that NDEs were recalled with greater clarity and detail than either real or imagined situations were. In other words, NDEs were remembered as being more real than life itself.

NDEs are no more likely to occur in devout believers than in secular or nonpracticing subjects.

• The non-mirror-style self. We are used to seeing ourselves mirror-style. When you move your left hand, it will always be flipped when you view yourself in a mirror. On Zoom, you lift your left hand, and the opposite side moves on Zoom. This feels disorientating. Thankfully, Zoom has fixed this.
• The perfect self-contingency detection. When you lift your hand in front of a mirror, there is no lag in the image. Now you feel your arm stir and see it move a few seconds later. No wonder we stare at ourselves.
• Glitchy wifi magnifies the slight asynchrony. The response delay disrupts your feeling of connection with another person. You can't read them, and they can't read you.
• A documented phenomenon is that we accurately recognize neutral expressions on other faces, but we misidentify our own expressions. We see our own expression as unfavorable most of the time.

Marketers use this to nudge us towards buying a certain product or service, providing us with a goal that is almost within our grasp.

Example: When enrolled in a buy ten get one free coffee program, the person who has just one coffee to complete ten, is motivated to buy it as the free coffee is now imminent.

Studies show that if a person is offered a bonus reward or push, he or she is more likely to complete the goal as he has been provided with a further incentive and help to reach a stage where his reward is within his sights.

Humans are different from animals in that we don't sense time only as passing. We dice time into units or think of time to go beyond our lifespan, such as millennia. We rely on time concepts that allow us to make plans, follow recipes, and discuss possible futures.

Recent research suggests that across all cultures, the concept of time depends on metaphor, known as a conceptual metaphor. We build our understanding of duration and sequences of events out of familiar spatial ideas such as size, movement, and location.

But the "time is like space" metaphor takes on very different forms from one culture to the next.

• Women and adolescents are quick to feel the negative effects of shame, and dive into low self-esteem and depression at a much faster rate than men.
• Young people have a stronger ‘pull’ towards any kind of emotion, including shame, which is the reason for them being susceptible to severe depression.
• The propensity of shame decreases as we grow older, but elders again start to feel ashamed just as a young person, as they get self-conscious of their actions, appearance and bodily decline.

• Guilt is related to shame but is easier to rectify, as we focus our attention on the other person and apologize, accepting responsibility.
• Shame is an inward emotion that makes us view our entire self in a bad light, with us getting punished by our conscience.
• Guilt is actually a positive emotion, showing our empathy and encouraging us to reverse the harm that we may have done.

• BMI doesn't distinguish between body fat and muscle mass. Muscle weighs about 18 percent more than the same amount of fat. So, according to BMI, the muscled person is more overweight than a sedentary person.
• BMI is also not reliable to use on elderly adults, who continue to lose muscle and bone mass with age. An overweight older adult may appear to be within a normal BMI range.
• The BMI calculation is based on Caucasian body types and may not be appropriate for people of other ethnicities.

A person whose BMI indicates they are overweight or obese is generally considered unhealthy. But 2016 research suggested that this was incorrect for 75 million Americans.

• Researchers found that 54 million Americans that were classed as overweight or obese were perfectly healthy when they considered the cardiometabolic measures (blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol, etc.)
• 21 Million people were classed normal in terms of BMI, but other cardiometabolic tests indicated they were unhealthy.