Complex Emotional States and Perceptions Drive Healthy-Unhealthy Choices

If you're sad you're more likely to choose unhealthy foods compared to when feeling happy (1) ; that is unless of course you're feeling happy about the present or past.  If you're feeling happy about the present or past you're more likely to make the unhealthy choice, compared to having positive hopeful feelings about your future, in which case you're more likely to make a healthy choice. (2)

If only it were that simple.  If food is advertised as being organic or some other health inspiring description we're more likely to believe the positive suggestion and perceive we can and should, eat more of the food, regardless of whether it is factually healthy or not. (3) In fact you may actually perceive being more hungry later after having consumed food you were told was healthy, but if you freely choose to eat healthy you will feel satisfied and not feel more hungry later. (4)

Clenching your fists, grit your teeth, and flex your muscles!  A new study suggests doing so may stimulate a more potent burst of will power allowing one to overcome a food temptation or cope with an unpleasant situation. (5)

Umm.. can't I just eat and not worry about all this academic mumbo-jumbo? Of course!  Err.. if you're emotionally calibrated and aware of how your emotions drive food decisions, otherwise you may blindly eat, and eat, and eat..

Obviously if we eat too much we'll gain fat.  Clearly if we keep this up we put ourselves at significant risk of becoming unhealthy.  Common sense right?

So.. why is our population becoming more overweight every year?  Where is the application of this common sense?

Researchers are showing that despite the obvious negative effects of overeating most people feel compelled to overeat most of the time.  We have to move beyond talking about the latest diet and exercise scheme and become more aware of our habits, our social norms (overeating is celebrated), environmental cues, and how our emotions and sense of reward, risk, and harm affect our healthy, or unhealthy decisions.

Let's stop being eating automatons and start feeling good about mindful, healthy choices.



(1) Food-mood Connection: The Sad Are Twice As Likely To Eat Comfort Food

(2) https://www.jcr-admin.org/pressreleases/041711162837_Winterichrelease.pdf

(3) Health halo effect: Don't judge a food by its organic label

(4) JSTOR: The Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 37, No. 3 (October 2010), pp. 357-367

(5) JSTOR: The Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 37, No. 6 (April 2011), pp. 1046-1064

Short breaks while studying improves focus

It's thought that our vigilance towards studying decreases over time so we lose focus and don't want to pay attention anymore.

But why is it then that we can instantly focus on something else other than what we're studying?  Like say, a TV show, or conversation with someone?

Attention span may not be an issue.

That was an idea that professor Alejandro Llears decided to put to the test of science.

Turns out taking short breaks while studying prevents our brain from ignoring a constant, and therefore "ignorable" variable in our environment.. that book in front of us.

Brief diversions vastly improve focus, researchers find

Exercise Makes You Smarter

Back in 1999 the Howard Hughes Medical Institute published some interesting data:

Running boosts the growth of new nerve cells.

 “These observations support the idea that exercise enhances the formation and survival of new nerve cells as well as the connections between nerve cells, which in turn improves long-term memory.”
Terrence J. Sejnowski

Since then other research has shown that aerobic exercise stimulates neurogenesis in the hippocampus. 

In short, exercise grows brain cells.

A german study in 2008 raised the point that in casual observation "not all athletes are necessarily smarter than more sedentary fellows".

OK, so maybe we need more research to learn where the causal link is; in what way does exercise affect the brain, and do these changes necessarily result in becoming more smart.

Here's a few studies that begin to reveal how exercise specifically makes your brain cells grow.

Warning; You may want to run before reading these.. might need the extra brain cells..

Exercise modulates insulin-like growth factor 1-de... [Mol Cell Neurosci. 2010] - PubMed result

Voluntary exercise induces anxiety-like behavior i... [Hippocampus. 2010] - PubMed result

VEGF is necessary for exercise-induced adult hippo... [Eur J Neurosci. 2003] - PubMed result

Prolonged voluntary wheel-running stimulates neura... [Hippocampus. 2009] - PubMed result

So aside from wordy studies done on mice, is there any indication that exercise will help humans learn?

In 2008 John Ratey MD published his book SPARK, in which he takes readers on a fascinating journey that explains how exercise makes us smarter, and there are plenty of practical examples.

Here's a short CBC News documentary, "Brain Gains" (about 15 min) on how teacher Allison Cameron at Saskatoon School City Park Colligate put her students on treadmills for the first half of math class, and got better learning results from her students:

http://www.johnratey.com/articles/Brain_Gain_-_CBC_.wmv

Also in the book Ratey talks about what now is a famous reference for this topic; how schools in Naperville changed their curriculum so that students could exercise before exams and just prior to classes where their academic performance was lower.

The results?  Better learning and better test scores.

Here's another great reference, Active Living Research published in 2007;

"Students whose time in PE or school-based physical activity was increased maintained or improved their grades and scores on standardized achievement tests, even though they received less classroom instructional time than students in control groups."

Getting a good nights sleep also increases cognition.  


Want a good score on an exam?  Workout before class, make it continuous moderate to vigorous aerobic activity at least 20 minutes in duration (but don't go until you're totally wiped out, that defeats the purpose!)


Workout within two hours prior to an exam.


Go to sleep and wake at the same time every day, and don't mess with the sleep cycle by staying out late on weekends just prior to exams.


Happy studies!

Obesity: Socially Acceptable to Discriminate

Use of the N word or saying that women are only good for bed and kitchen, and a person reveals their ignorance, overt prejudice, and will be rightfully chastised for such gross discrimination.

Call someone fat and lazy though, and for many this will be viewed as just calling it like it is, instead of what it really is, a judgmental, derogatory, discriminatory insult.

I think we need to deal as a society with obesity on several levels, one is preventing weight gain and losing weight, and the other, which I don't talk about much but perhaps should, is about how being overweight opens a person up to being discriminated against.

From overweight kids being bullied to obese coworkers being denied promotions or being the target of office gossip, I think we generally know this is wrong, but it isn't seen as being as wrong as racial slurs.

Discrimination against overweight people is as prevalent as racial discrimination

No more fat jokes - thestar.com

Bias, discrimination, and obesity. [Obes Res. 2001] - PubMed result

Obesity: attitudes of undergraduate student nurses... [J Clin Nurs. 2009] - PubMed result

Being overweight can prevent people from access to healthcare either from the individual dreading being weighed by the physician and any accompanying comments, or because some physicians are less inclined to do complete physical exams on obese patients.

Stigma and Discrimination in Weight Management and Obesity

Most of the population is overweight.  Although overeating is being "normalized" by this trend there is still the irony of social stigmas being attached to being overweight.

When thinking about our health and fitness where being overweight is concerned, let's also be mindful of not being judgmental or discriminatory, as that has never helped anyone.

Mindfulness meditation training changes brain structure in eight weeks

ScienceDaily (2011-01-21) -- Participating in an 8-week mindfulness meditation program appears to make measurable changes in brain regions associated with memory, sense of self, empathy and stress. A new study is the first to document meditation-produced changes over time in the brain's grey matter.