Processed food has gotten a pretty terrible reputation. We’re warned to avoid foods with long ingredient lists, mysterious additives and chemical names we can’t pronounce. “Ultra-processed” has practically become another way of saying “bad for you.” But is that a useful way to judge what we eat? After all, almost everything we eat has been processed in some way, and everything we eat — including perfectly natural food — is made of chemicals. (more…)

Ever notice that the trip home often seems shorter than the trip there—even when the distance and travel time are exactly the same? It happens so often that researchers have given it a name: the “return trip effect.” And the explanation reveals something fascinating about how your brain experiences time. ⁠https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3179583⁠ (more…)

You probably know that light, noise, temperature and stress can all interfere with your sleep. But what about the moon? Strange as it sounds, some research suggests people really do sleep differently around the time of a full moon — even when they aren’t outside looking at it. So what could possibly explain that? Listen as I reveal what researchers have discovered. ⁠https://www.self.com/story/full-moon-sleep⁠ (more…)

If you have a goal you really want to accomplish, when you start may matter more than you think. January 1st gets all the attention, but there are other dates and occasions that can give you a surprisingly powerful motivational boost. ⁠https://behavioralscientist.org/new-years-resolutions-failed-be-prepared-to-leverage-other-fresh-starts⁠ (more…)

It seems like paying attention should be easy. Yet for many of us, it has become one of the hardest things to do. We start reading an article and suddenly we’re checking email. We pick up our phone to do one thing and, twenty minutes later, we’ve forgotten why we picked it up in the first place. We often blame ourselves for lacking discipline, but what if that’s only part of the story? Is our ability to focus actually being stolen—and if so, by whom? (more…)