Wednesday, July 29

HEALTH

Habits That Might Help Increase The Chances Of Living A Longer Life
SELF-CARE

Habits That Might Help Increase The Chances Of Living A Longer Life

Four lifestyle habits that might just help you live to 100 A 115-year-old Surrey woman named Ethel Caterham has officially been handed the title of the oldest living human alive. Many people reading this news may wonder what Caterham’s secret is. While it isn’t usually a good idea to take health and longevity advice from supercentenarians (as they’re often the exception rather than the rule), there are some lifestyle pointers that we can take from research on groups of long-lived people that might help us increase our chances of living a longer life. 1. Physical activity Physical activity is good for you – who knew? Research shows that people who are more physically active each day tend to live longer, healthier lives. One study found that going from no physical activity to ab...
Adolescents, Vaping And The Health Risks
SELF-CARE

Adolescents, Vaping And The Health Risks

Adolescents who smoke or vape may believe tobacco’s perceived coping benefits outweigh accepted health risks Tobacco use in a variety of forms is common in adolescent life today, with over 2.25 million youth using. Huge progress has been made over the past few decades in reducing cigarette use among young people. But tobacco use – primarily through e-cigarettes, also known as vapes – remains a complex problem for public health and policy. In 2024, just over 8% of U.S. middle and high school students reported having used a tobacco product. Among tobacco users, nearly 6% used e-cigarettes, more than a quarter of whom used an e-cigarette product daily. We are behavioral health researchers. Our team’s ongoing research examines the factors associated with adolescent tobacco product use ...
Ending Domestic Violence Requires Working With Those Who Harm, Too
SELF-CARE

Ending Domestic Violence Requires Working With Those Who Harm, Too

The Alliance for Boys and Men of Color’s Healing Together Campaign aims to end intimate partner violence by advocating for policy changes—and seeking healing for both survivors and the people who harm them. Prompted by experiencing domestic violence in her own family, Jacquie Marroquin started working in the violence against women movement in California in 2001. In doing so, she recognized an irony. Marroquin knew all of the support systems available for victims of domestic violence and how to best use them, and yet she knew her own family would never take advantage of those services. They didn’t want law enforcement involved. Their situation isn’t uncommon. In Marroquin’s work as the director of programs for the California Partnership to End Domestic Violence, she sees f...
Social Media And Mental Well-Being
MENTAL HEALTH

Social Media And Mental Well-Being

Amplifying delusions: How social media can negatively impact our mental well-being. Imagine a tribe of uncontacted hunter-gatherers in the deepest Amazon rainforest. Anthropologists airdrop dozens of smartphones loaded with social media apps, with solar chargers, simple instructions in their native language and Wi-Fi just within the tribe. What would happen to their culture and their mental health? Such an experiment appears fanciful, but a similar one has been unfolding in our world for about 20 years. For the first time in human evolution, everyday social interactions have changed from face-to-face to disembodied experiences, from in-person to digital and from social reality to whatever someone puts online. Social media is an evolutionary novelty, like M&M’s, e-cigarettes, fen...
Something Strange Is Happening With Therapy
MENTAL HEALTH

Something Strange Is Happening With Therapy

Is a ‘friend-apist’ what we really want from therapy? When I read the recent New York Times article “Therapy Is Good. These Therapists Are Bad,” I couldn’t help but think of the Apple TV+ series “Shrinking.” The article details the troubling prevalence of ethical and legal boundary violations by therapists: riding an exercise bike during appointments, bringing a dog into sessions despite a patient’s fear of animals, flirting with patients and even having sex with them. In “Shrinking,” Jason Segel stars as Jimmy Laird, a cognitive behavioral therapist who becomes increasingly entangled in his patients’ lives. His skeptical boss, Paul Rhoades – played by Harrison Ford – critiques Jimmy’s unconventional methods while facing struggles of his own. Everyone seems enmeshed with everyone else...
How Much Does Your Ego Rule Your Life?
MENTAL HEALTH

How Much Does Your Ego Rule Your Life?

Discover the extent to which your ego influences your decisions and behaviors. This quiz assesses ego influence and automatically recommends relevant personal development resources based on results. Ready? Take The Quiz Outgrow offers startup founders and tech-first businesses a range of well-designed tools to engage their audience in a smart way. Start Your Free Outgrow Trial Now! Every product is selected by editors. Things you buy through our links may earn The IRL News a commission.
Why Eat Three Meals A Day
NUTRITION

Why Eat Three Meals A Day

Our ancestors didn’t eat 3 meals a day. So why do we? Pop quiz: name the world’s most famous trio? If you’re a foodie, then your answer might have been breakfast, lunch and dinner. It’s an almost universally accepted trinity – particularly in the Western world. But how did it come about? Carefully designed formulas to naturally boost your energy levels, support lean muscle development, and streamline your digestion. That way, nothing can hold you back from being your best self. The first meals Early humans were nomadic. Forming small communities, they would travel with the seasons, following local food sources. While we can only guess what daily mealtimes rhythms looked like, evidence dating back 30,000 years from the South Moravia region, Czech Republic, shows people visited spe...
Can Wealth Buy Health
SELF-CARE

Can Wealth Buy Health

Americans die earlier at all wealth levels, even if wealth buys more years of life in the US than in Europe. Americans at all wealth levels are more likely to die sooner than their European counterparts, with even the richest U.S. citizens living shorter lives than northern and western Europeans. That is the key finding of our new study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine. We also found that while the wealthiest Americans live longer than the poorest, the wealth-mortality gap in the U.S. is far more pronounced than in Europe. We are a team of health policy researchers who study health systems and how their performance compares across countries. We analyzed survey data from 73,838 adults ages 50 to 85 across the United States and 16 European countries over a 12-year peri...
Could Reading Social Media Before Bedtime Wreak Havoc On Your Sleep?
SLEEP

Could Reading Social Media Before Bedtime Wreak Havoc On Your Sleep?

Social media before bedtime wreaks havoc on our sleep − a sleep researcher explains why screens alone aren’t the main culprit. “Avoid screens before bed” is one of the most common pieces of sleep advice. But what if the real problem isn’t screen time − it’s the way we use social media at night? Sleep deprivation is one of the most widespread yet overlooked public health issues, especially among young adults and adolescents. Despite needing eight to 10 hours of sleep, most adolescents fall short, while nearly two-thirds of young adults regularly get less than the recommended seven to nine hours. Poor sleep isn’t just about feeling tired − it’s linked to worsened mental health, emotion regulation, memory, academic performance and even increased risk for chronic illness and early mortal...
Doctors Across Numerous Fields Are In Short Supply
SELF-CARE, VIDEO REELS

Doctors Across Numerous Fields Are In Short Supply

Doctor shortages have hobbled health care for decades − and the trend could be worsening. Americans are increasingly waiting weeks or even months to get an appointment to see a health care specialist. This delay comes at a time when the population of aging adults is rising dramatically. By 2050, the number of adults over 85 is expected to triple, which will intensify the strain on an already stretched health care system. We wrote about this worsening challenge and its implications for the health care workforce in a January 2025 report in the New England Journal of Medicine. We are health care scholars who are acutely aware of the severe shortfall of specialists in America’s health care system. One of us, Rochelle Walensky, witnessed the consequences of this shortage firsthand as the d...