Vi

Work is stressful. How do I de-stress? Running. Unfortunately for me, though, running apps often just add more stress to my day. They’re hard to use, they abruptly stop working, and they record data so poorly sometimes they frustrate me more than help me. That was where Vi came in.

Vi’s creators call her the “first true AI personal trainer.” I’ll admit that when I first started using her, I was critical. Knowing what artificial intelligence looks like these days, I didn’t expect much more than a glorified Siri or Alexa. As a regular user of workout apps like Map My Fitness, I challenged Vi to prove to me she could do better.

Automatically, Vi has one thing most workout apps are missing: a legitimately good heart rate monitor. Vi is a 4-in-1 product: a heart rate monitor, fitness tracking app, Bluetooth headphones/microphone set with Harman/Kardon sound, and an AI personal trainer. It’s sweat and water-resistant, and it works with Android and Apple products.

Physically, Vi is a headphones set with an attached halo that perches around your neck. It took a while to get started with Vi, as I had to make sure my heart rate tracker would work, and I’ve got small ears. When you put Vi on, your heart rate is tracked with small fins attached to the headphones that fit firmly inside the curve of your ear. Thankfully, Vi comes with a handful of different headphone and fin sizes, so you’ll be sure to find one that fits well enough to get an accurate heart rate — it just may take a few different sizing attempts.

Inside the halo that’s attached to the headphones is a gyroscope, barometer, and accelerometer to keep track of all the stats you could possibly want from a walk, run, or bike. This halo has three simple buttons: a center button and a + and – button. The center button turns the app on, while the + and – adjust volume and settings.

Setting Up Vi

Vi

Once you download the Vi Fitness app on your phone, set up the Bluetooth, log vital statistics like height and weight, and connect Vi to Healthkit, Google Fit, or Strava, you’re pretty much good to go, though there are a few key questions you’ll want to answer.

Before we got started, Vi had me choose and rank my most important workout goals. Available goals include:

• Go farther
• Go faster
• Reduce stress
• Improve fitness
• Lose weight
• Maintain fitness

I chose the first four, with my primary goal being to improve my overall fitness. Vi also has you report on your fitness level:

• Beginner
• Average
• Active
• Competitive
• Elite

I was hard on myself and chose average (I haven’t been as active as I should be lately). Being honest about your goals and fitness level is really important, though, because Vi will log data and adjust coaching to best help you.

Perhaps this is to make you feel more buddy-buddy with Vi, but the AI also has you choose a nickname you want to go by. Vi provides a wide-ranging list of gems like Warrior, Cowboy, Doodle, Shugga, and Papi. I chose Soldier because it sounded badass before I realized I could just type in my own name (but hey, why not get creative with your workout identity?).

Running with Vi

Vi

The current version of Vi allows you to train under Running, Walking, and Cycling options. This year, Vi is expected to add Mindfulness, Cardio, and HIIT to her personal training repertoire as well. I stuck to running.

When I began listening to Vi, I tried to hold back my cynicism. Whereas other AI sometimes allows you to choose between different genders, voices, and accents, Vi is a one-voice pony. I’m picky about voices, but her calm and friendly female tone isn’t the worst one to have playing in your ears as you run (Men’s Fitness claims she sounds like Scarlett Johansson, so if you liked the movie Her, you’ll love Vi).

If you just want to use Vi for the fitness updates throughout your run, you can adjust her chattiness level from Lead the Way (fairly involved and talkative) to A Little Less to Short and Sweet. I stuck with Lead the Way to really get to know my new personal trainer.

Having had a real-life human personal trainer before, my favorite thing about having a coach is the motivation and distraction. Someone’s watching you, and as simple as that is, it keeps you going. The occasional joke or good conversation helps, too. I didn’t think an AI could provide the same interhuman connection as my expensive real-life personal trainer. But, in Vi’s defense, she did manage to keep me going. In some ways, she was better than my real personal trainer, because I never felt judged for being out of shape or needing to slow down. She just kindly urged me on.

During runs with Vi, you can regularly ask “How am I doing?” to get reports on your heart rate, speed, pace, and step rate. You can also ask for one specific statistic, and Vi will update you accordingly.

As a runner, I’m constantly checking to see how far I’ve gone. With Vi, you can set audio beacons, or updates, at specific distances to ping when you approach them. The closer you get, the louder the bing. When I set mine to every mile, I really felt like I was achieving something. Rather than feeling weighed down as time went on, I got an extra jolt of energy as I turned the volume up on my run, crossing milestones with Vi.

In the past, I’ve installed metronome apps in the background of my runs to work on getting my pacing right. With Vi, the Step to the Beat feature does this for you — a drum track takes over to keep you going at the right pace, one which Vi helps you stick to in order to avoid fatigue and injury.

I laughed when Vi started talking to me for the first time about something other than running, stretching, and technique — she asked me to imagine a place I really wanted to visit, and to daydream about what I’d do there. Although I wasn’t willing to talk out loud to her while I ran through busy city streets, Vi’s little attempts at conversation and distraction did keep me going, and they came just often enough that my run seemed easier, less taxing than without her. Even though I knew Vi was nothing more than AI with pre-recorded snippets of conversation, her workout tips, pick-me-ups, and cheering helped.

Admittedly, despite being an athlete my whole life, I’ve always hated running. My belief is that you do it for the health benefits and mental toughness and endurance you gain from it — but almost every run is torture to get through. For me, having Vi “lead the way” was really helpful in this sense. As silly as it feels to say it, she was a great personal trainer.

What’s great about Vi as AI is that she’s not the typical personal trainer who pushes you too damn hard too damn fast, or shames you for giving up or taking a break. She’ll actually tell you to slow down and take it easy at points, to pace yourself, and to make changes in your form to make your running life easier.

The App and Stats

Vi

When you’re finished with your workout, the app itself is one of the most gorgeous ones ever I’ve seen. A colored graph shows your speed, pace, step rate, and heart rate throughout your run. You can also check out stats like distance and time, elevation and calories burned, averages like pace, MPH, steps per minute, and BPM, and split times. Vi also shows you a map of your running route and a set of badges for achievements like Fastest 1 mile, Longest Run, and Most Calories Burned for each run.

There are a few parts of the app that need work — it’s difficult to sync Spotify unless you’re sticking to a playlist, so I just used my Spotify app in the background. Running in the city, there were a few times when Vi lost track of me briefly, due to a poor internet connection. Overall, though, these issues were minor compared to the benefits of using Vi.

Vi is priced at $149.00, the app and its capabilities are constantly being improved upon, I’m personally willing to invest in it. I can’t wait to check out its Mindfulness capability coming out later this year.

My New Personal Trainer

Although I was unsure about Vi when I first got started, I can happily say I’m going to continue training with her. The concerns I had about the limits of using AI ended up being misguided — Vi has just enough personality to make runs more interesting and fun, and she’s not judgmental or pushy like some real-life coaches. The app itself is so beautiful and data-rich that I can really see my improvement and celebrate it. If you’re a runner who doesn’t always love running, consider getting Vi — she helps de-stress rather than add stress to your day!

The post I Tried Running With The First AI-Powered Personal Trainer To De-Stress From Work, And It Totally Won Me Over appeared first on Wall Street Insanity.

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If you find yourself spending endless hours at the office only to rush home for a few fleeting moments before falling asleep and starting the routine all over again, you aren’t alone. The vicious cycle can be draining, but there are ways to minimize any poor effects on your health. Here are seven easy and convenient ways to look after your health while still maintaining a busy schedule.

1. Get ingredients & recipes delivered.

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A hectic routine can leave you exhausted at the end of the day, making it easy to justify a quick fast food meal because cooking seems far too difficult. You may have even forgotten to eat from time to time, or found yourself mindlessly snacking on whatever unhealthy food happened to be in your desk drawer. Those days are over, thanks to Blue Apron.

This service delivers recipes straight to your door, along with the corresponding ingredients to turn those recipes into a delicious reality. Everything you need for dinner turns up in a refrigerated box. This means it stays fresh even if you aren’t home when it arrives.

There are several options to choose from, depending on your individual needs. For example, the two-person plan delivers two or three recipes per week (your choice), while the four-person family plan delivers two, three, or four recipes per week. Meals begin at just $8.99 per serving.

Don’t worry about being forced to eat meals you don’t like – you get to choose from several recipes before settling on which ones to receive, and those recipes change each week. Blue Apron also provides allergen information on its nutrition labels, which are published online approximately three weeks before your shipment.

No matter which meals you choose, they’re guaranteed to be healthy. The average Blue Apron meal has between 500 and 800 calories and takes around 30 to 40 minutes to cook. The produce is fresh, the meat has no added hormones, and the seafood is sustainably sourced.

With healthy meals made so simple, you’ll have a hard time ever justifying microwave TV dinners or Big Mac meals ever again. Give Blue Apron a try – there’s no commitment and you can cancel anytime.

Click here to get $50 off your first 2 boxes and see what Blue Apron is all about.

2. Eat organics.

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You probably know that organic food is healthy, but you’ve likely been turned off by the price. If this is the case, you weren’t looking in the right place. Say goodbye to GMOs and preservatives, and hello to Thrive Market.

This service offers quality organic foods at wholesale prices by cutting out the middle man and passing the savings straight onto you. You can expect to receive healthy products at a discount of up to 50% off regular retail prices.

Thrive Market allows you to shop online and get everything shipped straight to your door. From organic meat and seafood to farm fresh produce and pet food, there’s plenty of options for everyone. Those who follow vegan, gluten-free, and Paleo diets are also well taken care of.

To unlock the incredible savings offered by Thrive Market, all you have to do is pay a $59.95 annual membership fee. With your first purchase on Thrive Market, you’ll start a free 30-day membership trial. The company is so certain that you’ll make your money back over the course of the year that it promises to credit any difference in Thrive Bucks when you renew your membership. With a guarantee like that, there’s really nothing to lose.

If you’re interested in eating organic foods for a price tag you can actually afford, head over to Thrive Market’s website and create an account for free

You are what you eat, so click here to get 25% off your first order.

3. …And healthy snacks.

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When you’re hungry at work, it’s easy to grab something from the vending machine. If you’re guilty of doing that, you don’t have to do it anymore. There’s a better option.

NatureBox delivers high-quality nibbles to your door, from chips to cookies and granola bars. You’ll always have a guarantee that no matter what you choose, there are no artificial colors, flavors, or sweeteners. There’s also no corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, or MSG in any NatureBox products.

In addition to being a healthy way to snack, NatureBox is a great way to taste new products that you probably wouldn’t try otherwise. New items are added every month, which means there’s a great variety of snacks on offer.

Once you’ve picked out your snacks online, they’re delivered straight to your door. If you don’t like something you’ve ordered, NatureBox will credit the value of the snack to your next order. Yes, really.

NatureBox is only $5 a month, but that $5 gets credited towards your purchases. So the service is essentially free. You’ll also get to benefit from savings of up to 40%, since NatureBox is a wholesale club and therefore doesn’t come with a retail mark-up.

Click here to get 30% off your first 3 purchases (make sure to enter THIRTY3 at checkout: max value is $15 per purchase).

4. Throw in some wine for good measure.

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If you enjoy a nice glass of red wine to help you relax at the end of a long day, you’re in luck. Doing so is actually quite healthy, according to various studies which have linked it to a lower heart disease risk and longevity. Those are pretty good reasons to pop open a bottle of the good stuff.

Drizly makes it easy to keep your wine supply topped up, allowing you to browse bottles straight from your phone or laptop. It partners with local retailers and delivers your wine within an hour.

If you’re a connoisseur, you’ll appreciate the fact that you can search by type, country, or brand. But let’s face it – most people probably want to sort by price. You can do that too. You’ll also see a breakdown of the wine’s color, flavor profiles, and suggested food pairings.

The service doesn’t just offer wine. In fact, you can order just about any kind of beer or liquor as well (though you might have trouble finding studies to state that those tipples are actually healthy). But as they say, everything in moderation.

Delivery fees vary by area. Most orders come with a $5 fee, but with zero mark-up on the alcohol itself. If time isn’t an issue, you can also opt to have orders shipped to your door, rather than hand delivered. Either way, you’re guaranteed to get great service and keep your personal bar stocked with whatever you fancy.

Click here to get started with Drizly and $5 off your next order. You’ll be toasting to this great company in no time.

5. Burn some calories.

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Now that you know how to eat properly despite your busy schedule, you can begin focusing on keeping your body healthy in other ways. Find Your Trainer allows you to select from a wide array of professional, certified personal trainers. You can opt to have them visit your home or office, or train at local facilities without paying any sort of gym membership fees.

The concept brings a new meaning to the term “personal training,” as it truly is a personalized experience. You get to pick the best trainer to suit your fitness goals, as well as one who can meet in your desired location and fit around your schedule.

Simply head to the website, enter your zip code, and explain whether you’re most interested in losing weight, getting stronger, being healthier and feeling better, prepping for an event, or recovering from an injury. You don’t have to worry about owning any expensive equipment, as your trainer will bring everything that is needed to your sessions.

There’s no commitment involved, which is particularly valuable when you compare Find Your Trainer to gyms which often refuse to let customers out of their contracts. Instead, you just book and pay for exercise sessions directly from the trainer’s profile on the website.

Click here to kickstart a healthier, stronger lifestyle with Find Your Trainer.

6. Grocery shop from the office.

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Most people don’t want to spend their time walking up and down supermarket aisles in pursuit of things they can purchase online. And with a schedule as busy as yours, there’s an especially high probability that you fit into that category. Luckily, you can purchase everything you need via Instacart.

All you have to do is head to Instacart’s website or app, create an account, and begin shopping from the comfort of wherever you happen to be. You select which groceries you want, all of which are sourced from stores close to you. Once you’ve completed your entire list with just a few clicks, your order is sent to one of Instacart’s professional shoppers.

They’ll fill your bags with everything you want, and they promise to keep your eggs safe and pick the best produce. All of your grocery store goodies will be delivered straight to your door. You can opt to pay a delivery fee each time, or join Instacart Express for unlimited deliveries at one low monthly fee.

You’ll also save money in the process, thanks to the fact that you can compare prices at various stores and use exclusive coupons offered only on Instacart.

The best part about this service is that you can have groceries delivered in as little as one hour. That means if it’s 4pm and you just remembered you’re supposed to host a dinner party, you can probably still pull it off.

Try Instacart now by clicking here.

7. Get a good night’s sleep.

Burst

You’ve probably heard the advice that you should get at least eight hours of sleep, but what you might not know is that it also needs to be quality sleep. A big part of this is having the right mattress.

Helix is one of the best names in the mattress business, with a proven track record of helping millions of people get their Zzz’s. You can begin your journey for the best mattress by heading over to the Helix site and taking a 2-3 minute sleep quiz. From there, Helix will use “innovative sleep science” to personalize and custom-make your mattress. It gets shipped to your door for free in 6-10 business days.

Mattresses start at $600 and come with a 100 night sleep trial, a 10-year warranty, and the option for financing. While you’re at it, you might want to consider buying a Helix adjustable pillow, which is designed for perfect comfort – regardless of your sleeping position or body type.

To see what all the fuss is about, head over to Helix and start your journey towards better, more restful sleep.

The post 7 Ways To Stay Healthy With A Busy Work Schedule appeared first on Wall Street Insanity.

Image via Unsplash/Alondra Olivas

“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.” You’ve probably been hearing this phrase since childhood, right? It’s true that eating breakfast is important to maintain a healthy weight and give you some energy to start your day, but you also can use it to sharpen your thinking skills. Incorporate these foods into your morning meal to boost your brain into high gear.

1. Coffee

Coffee is usually the first thing that comes to mind when you wake up in the morning. It’s well-known that caffeine helps improve mental focus, but coffee is also rich in antioxidants, which help memory and overall brain health. Some studies show that coffee also can reduce depression in women.

2. Eggs

Eggs are probably number one when it comes to common breakfast foods, so it’s nice that they’re also a great brain food. Choline is a form of vitamin B in eggs that help increase brain function, memory, and verbal learning. Eggs also have loads of protein, which fills you up and delays hunger for a long time. So you can focus on more important things than counting the minutes until lunch.

3. Wheat Germ

If you’re a vegetarian or vegan and don’t eat eggs, wheat germ is a great alternative. It is a rich source of choline, which helps your memory. Wheat germ isn’t just for vegetarians, though. It can be eaten in addition to eggs, and is great sprinkled on top of cereal, oatmeal, or yogurt.

4. Walnuts

Walnuts help promote blood flow, which means your brain will get more oxygen. They have vitamin E, which helps prevent mental decline. Studies done on mice with Alzheimer’s have found that regularly eating walnuts improves their memory, learning, and motor skill coordination. If it’s good enough for mice, it’s got to be worth a try!

5. Berries

All berries have tannins, which promote communication between brain cells to improve memory. Regularly eating blueberries and strawberries has been proven to slow mental decline, and improve memory and focus. Blueberries in particular are rich in antioxidants, which help with learning, thinking, and memory. Eat berries plain as a quick snack, or add them into other items on your breakfast menu.

6. Yogurt

Yogurt has a lot of protein, which fills you up and is digested slowly, making you feel fuller, longer. Get fancy and make yourself a parfait by adding walnuts and berries to your yogurt for even more brainpower.

7. Almonds

A handful of almonds gives you about a third of the recommended daily intake of vitamin E, which helps prevent mental decline. They are also high in protein and fiber, which maintains your blood sugar levels and keeps you full and energized. They also increase your serotonin levels, which makes you feel happier.

8. Oatmeal

Oatmeal has a lot of carbohydrates, which your body turns into glucose — aka its main energy source. Since glucose can’t be stored, you need a constant supply of it. Oatmeal and other whole grain cereals will help improve your short-term memory as well as reduce your mental fatigue throughout the day. Add nuts and berries for a triple whammy.

9. Citrus

Citrus, such as oranges and grapefruits, gives your body the vitamin C it needs. Eat the whole fruit instead of drinking the juice, because the juices have added sugar, which will lead to a sugar crash later in the day. Vitamin C helps with the transfer of information between your brain cells, and also improves your memory.

10. Pumpkin Seeds

Eating a handful of pumpkin seeds every day fulfills the recommended amount of zinc, which enhances memory and thinking skills. They also have a lot of iron, potassium, magnesium, and calcium. These minerals work together to act as a natural antidepressant.

11. Cashews

Cashews have a lot of zinc and magnesium, two minerals that work great together. Zinc improves memory and helps against depression, and magnesium helps with sleeping patterns and improves learning skills. This makes cashews another brain-boosting nut that’s delicious on its own, or crushed on top of a variety of other items from this list.

12. Cinnamon

Cinnamon has anti-inflammatory benefits, which helps overall brain functions. It also helps the brain generate new neurons and repair old ones. Even the aroma of cinnamon can improve memory and focus on tests, so be sure to sprinkle it on your oatmeal, yogurt, or coffee.

13. Water

True, water isn’t a breakfast food, but it’s still an important part of the day. You might as well start drinking it along with your coffee in the mornings, because it’s important to stay hydrated. If you let yourself become dehydrated, your brain tissue shrinks! This impairs short-term memory, decision-making, and focus. Drinking water throughout the day can also keep you from feeling hungry, so you’ll cut down on unhealthy snacks that will give you a sugar crash hours later.

The post 13 Breakfast Foods To Kick Your Brain Into Gear appeared first on Wall Street Insanity.

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I’ll keep the intro short; our attention spans are reportedly now shorter than that found in a goldfish. In our frenzied world of technology, we’re drowning in devices, and our minds have become a game of musical chairs.

Thankfully, our brains can be trained and untrained. Just as Twitter has shrunken us into soundbites of less than 144 characters, you can stretch your mind into running a marathon. Here are six simple ways to boost your mental focus and attention.

1. Work-rest ratio.

Rest periods are integral to physical training, and they’re just as important for any mental work. You may know the Pomodoro technique, a simple strategy of working for 25 minutes and then resting. Other studies have suggested the optimal time is working for 52 minutes, and then taking a break for 17 minutes.

Both have been shown to improve focus and productivity. Everyone has their own rhythm. Experiment and find your best ratio.

Knowing that you have a window of time, and an end in sight, provides a psychological comfort and allows you to focus until the time is up.

2. Deep breathing techniques.

Paying attention to your breathing — mindfully and intentionally — comes with enormous benefits. Therapists teach breathing techniques to help sufferers of anxiety, and it is highly effective in restoring focus.

A simple technique is to take in a long breath through your nose, hold your breath until your stomach tightens (about five seconds) and then exhale. This technique, along with five others, are listed in Time Magazine.

3. Drink more water.

Even being slightly dehydrated affects your attention. A study in “The Journal of Nutrition” noted that, “When the brain detects even the smallest changes in physiology, it may begin operating at a suboptimal level to get your attention.” When people were less than 2 percent dehydrated, their ability to concentrate on cognitive tests was impaired.

The 8×8 rule (eight 8-ounce glasses) is a popular standard for the amount of water you should drink each day. It’s not only healthy overall, but is particularly beneficial for the brain and focusing.

4. Declutter your workspace.

Mess causes stress; a cluttered desk means a cluttered head. Psychologist Sherrie Bourg explains that clutter distracts and cripples our minds with excessive stimuli. Adopt the mantra, “everything has a home,” and create a designated space for your most frequently used items.

Take a few minutes now for a quick tidy-up, and give your mind some breathing room.

5. Blueberries, green tea, dark chocolate.

On almost every list of essential brain foods, you’ll find these three items. Blueberries contain a cocktail of antioxidants, and are known to boost concentration for up to five hours. Green tea contains l-theanine which stimulates brain activity and releases caffeine at a steady rate. Dark chocolate, with at least 60% cocoa, contains magnesium, which reduces stress, and stimulates the release of the feel-good chemicals endorphin and serotonin.

The next time you need a mental boost, grab some berries, make yourself some tea, and break off a piece of chocolate.

6. Headstands and inversions.

These ancient postures promote mental clarity and focus. Contrary to reports, headstands do not send more blood to the brain. Rather, the blood pressure in the neck is increased by about 20 perecnt, which opens up the blood vessels and improves the pattern of blood flow in the brain, according to studies by Dr. F. Chandra’s.

If you’ve never done a headstand, it is advisable not to attempt one alone — have a friend spot you. There are many variations, and it’s best to first practice against the wall. Here’s a great how-to video to get you started.

If there are any effective techniques you’re using, please share and comment below!

The post 6 Simple Ways To Boost Your Mental Focus And Attention  appeared first on Wall Street Insanity.

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Train your brain to become happier! Increase your productivity and attention span! Watch your career take off! It sounds like an infomercial or the tagline of a self-help book, but recent studies have shown that smiling can actually rewire your brain to create more positive patterns. What else can smiling do for you? A lot, it seems.

1. Smiling makes you happier.

According to Scientific American, our facial expressions influence our feelings. Frowning induces greater negative feelings, while smiling reinforces feelings of happiness. A recent University of Cardiff study cited by Scientific American even found that people whose frowns were inhibited by Botox injections were, on average, happier than people who could frown. Although these Botoxed people reported greater feelings of happiness, they did not report feeling any more attractive, leading researchers to conclude that their happiness was not tied to their physical appearance — it occurred simply because they weren’t frowning.

2. It makes you less anxious.

In the same University of Cardiff study, the Botoxed participants reported feeling less anxiety overall than people without Botox. Another study had participants holding chopsticks in their mouths; some held the chopsticks in a position that would make their lips mimic a real smile, others held it in a way that mimicked a fake smile and others held it in a way that produced no smile. They were then given a mental task and a “pain induction.” During both of these tasks, their heart rates and stress levels were measured. The people who were mimicking a real smile were less stressed and showed faster physiological recovery than the other two groups. The moral of the story? The next time someone asks you to put chopsticks in your mouth and participate in a pain induction, smile — you’ll be less anxious!

3. Smiling people are perceived as more likeable.

A January 2005 study on Duchenne smiles found that during a simulated hotel check-in, the “authenticity” of the person providing service — that is, the realness of their smile — “enhanced perceptions of friendliness” and influenced customer satisfaction when tasks were performed well. In a second simulation involving restaurant servers, perceived authenticity in a server’s expression “enhanced the perceived friendliness of the employee.” Basically, when people see a real smile, they see the person smiling as more friendly.

4. People who smile are also perceived as being more competent.

Several different studies, including the one above, have suggested that when people smile, they’re seen as more competent. Customers are more satisfied with employees who smile, while people who smile (with teeth) in their profile photo on social media are perceived by others as more competent than those who are laughing or not smiling at all. It’s unclear why this is, but it may be related to likeability; when you perceive a person as friendlier and more likeable, positive feelings are created, leading to a greater feeling of satisfaction with the person who is smiling at you.

 5. The more you smile, the more you counteract your brain’s tendency to be negative.

Your brain is actually aware of you smiling, according to Fast Company; when you smile, your brain keeps track, so the more you smile, “the more effective you are at breaking the brain’s natural tendency to think negatively.”

6. Smiling aids concentration.

Smiling has been shown to aid people’s concentration by making them feel good, which leads to better focus. According to a 2010 study, positive emotion broadens cognition; during two exercises — a global-local visual processing task and a “covert attentional orienting task” — the participants in the study who smiled the most often also displayed increased “attentional breadth” (essentially, the size of your window of attention) and “attentional flexibility,” which is the ability to think about two things simultaneously or switch back and forth between thinking about two different concepts.

7. Smiling gives you better holistic perception.

In the same 2010 study as above, those who smiled also showed greater holistic perception — in other words, the ability to see the big picture rather than getting bogged down in details. The authors of the study suggest that prior research indicates that states of anxiety “narrow attentional focus by reducing the ability to process peripheral information.” However, evidence of broader, more holistic thinking was seen more often in people who smiled often than in people who rarely or never smiled. As the researchers wrote, “smile to see the forest,” because it appears that non-smilers can only see the trees.

8. Even a fake smile is a good thing.

Apparently, even a fake smile can reduce stress and have a positive effect on your mood; smiles actually change your brain activity and give you all the previously mentioned benefits of feeling happy and less anxious, even the smile is totally fake.

9. People who smile are considered more trustworthy.

People are more likely to trust someone who’s smiling, perhaps because, as the study mentions, smiling is usually perceived as a sign of cooperation. So the next time you want to make a good impression or get someone to trust you, just try smiling. You don’t even have to be sincere… although if you spend enough time smiling, maybe you will be.

10. Smiles are contagious.

It sounds corny, but it’s true; smiles are contagious. So if you smile at someone, they’ll most likely smile, too, and all the positive effects of smiling will be transferred to them.

The post 10 Scientific Reasons You Should Smile More appeared first on Wall Street Insanity.

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Everyone likes to talk about stress reduction techniques, the dangers of stress and all sorts of related topics these days. We know the basic physical risks of stress, like fatigue and burn-out, and the more serious risks, like high blood pressure and heart disease. But what about the more complex emotional issues that can result from chronic stress?

“The Angriest Man in Brooklyn,” featuring the late, great Robin Williams, is an eye-opening depiction of how modern stress can take a profound toll on us. See if you can trace any of the following issues back to certain stressors in your day-to-day life.

1. Doubt

It’s hard to doubt yourself or something you’re invested in when everything is going smoothly. But letting yourself get stressed can be a downfall in itself. For example, beginning a new relationship is typically exciting — you usually don’t feel any resistance or negativity about it. However, the more you worry about minor issues, the more doubt begins to creep in. When we’re stressed, we often get the impression that something must be wrong — otherwise we wouldn’t be stressed. But sometimes, stress itself is the primary culprit, causing us to doubt things that would otherwise work themselves out.

2. Isolation

People who stress over social issues aren’t doing themselves any favors. Let’s assume that when you’re stressed, your nervous system is revved up, which is typically the case. This prevents you from behaving, speaking and thinking as you naturally would because much of your brain activity is already tied up. Your head could be spinning, or maybe you just feel a bit scattered. Either way, people can sense tension. They’ll have a harder time interacting with you, and they might even mistake your tension for rudeness or a lack of interest.

3. Close-mindedness

A little bit of stress is unavoidable in life, but constant stress can skew your outlook, creating an ongoing habit of negativity. Stress basically tells our bodies, “Something is wrong.” Even if that thing is insignificant, our bodies can’t tell the difference between serious and minor danger. Thus, constantly being under stress can train you to expect the worst, develop irrational fears and be closed off to new opportunities. We can accidentally force our minds into a loop of excessive negativity that never shuts off.

4. Resentment

It may sound a little strange, but chronic stress can also give way to resentment. You might begin looking at other people whose lives are running more smoothly and feel resentful that your life is so jumbled. The thing that people in this situation often fail to recognize is that they can directly eliminate some of the stress in their lives, no matter how out of control it seems. Working overtime, giving all your time to help others or even berating yourself — these are all types of stress we can reduce or eliminate completely.

The most important thing to take away from these stress complications is that they can be avoided. If you’re already stuck in some of these patterns, it will take a lot of awareness and deliberate effort to pull yourself out. However, it is entirely possible if you stick with it. By eliminating the most stressful parts of your day, or even setting a time limit on them, you are making progress.

The post 4 Not-So-Obvious Side Effects Of Stress appeared first on Wall Street Insanity.

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New research from Australia has been shown to fully reverse the effects of Alzheimer’s disease in mice. Using non-invasive ultrasound technology, researchers from the Queensland Brain Institute have discovered a way to clear the brain of amyloid plaques, which are responsible for the memory loss and cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s patients.

Alzheimer’s is usually the result of the buildup of two types of lesions, according to Science Alert: amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles. Amyloid plaques sit between neurons and create dense clusters of beta amyloid protein that clump together and destroy brain function. So far, no one has found a way to remove this plaque — until now.

The researchers from QBI found that beaming ultrasound waves into the brain tissue caused the blood-brain barrier to gently open up, stimulating the brain’s waste-removing cells (called microglial cells) to move in. Once past the blood-brain barrier, the microglial cells can clear out the toxic clumps of beta amyloid protein before the barrier is restored.

According to the team’s research, published in “Science Translational Medicine,” 75 percent of the Alzheimer’s-afflicted mice treated with ultrasound had their memories fully restored. There was no damage to the surrounding tissue.

The treated mice showed improvement in three tasks, says Science Alert — a maze, a test to get the mice to recognize new objects and a test to get them to remember the places they should avoid.

One of the co-authors of the study, Professor Jürgen Götz, believes the new method could revolutionize Alzheimer’s treatment.

We’re extremely excited by this innovation of treating Alzheimer’s without using drug therapeutics,” he stated in a press release. “The ultrasound waves oscillate tremendously quickly, activating microglial cells that digest and remove the amyloid plaques that destroy brain synapses. The word ‘breakthrough’ is often misused, but in this case I think this really does fundamentally change our understanding of how to treat this disease, and I foresee a great future for this approach.”

Human trials are scheduled for 2017, reports Inquisitr.

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Fox/New Girl

It’s hard to know where to step when a friend or family member is chronically negative. Everyone knows someone like this and is probably often frustrated by them, but of course, you still care about them. You probably want to spend time with them, but you know from experience that your mood is likely to plummet in their presence. Maybe they’ll complain about all the same old problems, their horrible luck or how they are always a victim. When you find yourself in this position, keep the following tips in mind.

1. Limit Your Commiserating

The important thing to remember is that validating this person’s negative thoughts does not usually help them. Feeding into their complaints with things like, “Wow, I can’t believe that happened to you!” may seem polite, but it actually validates their woe-is-me attitude and enables them to keep wallowing. Even if things have been going bad for them, adopting a resentful attitude toward life will only pull them in deeper.

Instead, try to respond with neutral or slightly positive statements. Extreme positivity may annoy them or make them feel even more hopeless. However, you can highlight other aspects of their lives that are positive as a small reminder that they can choose to focus on those things instead. When they start plunging into self-pity, say something that takes the emphasis off of them, like, “Yes, that happens to a lot of people, but I know you’ll get through it in time.”

2. Distract, Distract, Distract

If you follow the first suggestion and limit the amount of commiserating you do, you’ll have to fill that conversational space with something else. Slowly moving the conversation toward hobbies they enjoy, friends or family members they are close with or even a TV show they enjoy can be a start. They may be resistant at first, but it falls on you to be consistent and not allow the conversation to drift back to negative topics. This requires some personal willpower, so if you feel too frustrated to be positive, being silent might be a better choice.

3. Be Silent

Depending on your level of closeness with the distressed person, you may be able to comfort them simply by spending time in the same room as them. Sometimes people don’t want advice (as much as you love to dish it out), and nothing you say can help them at that point in time. Sensitive people may take your advice as criticism, and stubborn folks might disagree and become even more upset. So your next option is to simply be accessible to them. Sometimes it’s not a solution a problem needs, but rather time for it to dissolve. If that’s the case for your friend or family member, accept that your only role is to hang out and be as Buddha-like as you possibly can. Your silence can serve as a comforting reminder of stability.

4. Retreat

Unfortunately, some people can be so negative that they are not worth the self-sacrifice. Being near them on a regular basis can seriously drain your energy and change your outlook — which could result in you not doing what you need to do in life.

A few red flags that you should just stay away: They often turn their negativity toward you, their problems are minor but they never take action to solve them, they repeat the same mistakes and refuse to recognize them or they really just want a “misery buddy” to complain with them. You can also look back at the time you’ve spent with this person and compare it to your overall personal progress — do you tend to veer off track from your personal priorities when this person is around? If so, they may a negative influence that you just can’t handle.
In these cases, you have to think of yourself and your own wellbeing first. If a person is unwilling to help themselves, you shouldn’t be bending over backward to help them, either.

The post 4 Ways To Avoid Being Engulfed In Others’ Bad Moods appeared first on Wall Street Insanity.

screenshot via YouTube/Walacea

Researchers in England — at the Beckley Foundation’s Psychedelic Research Programme, to be exact — are using crowdfunding in order to conduct a study involving the world’s first images of the brain on acid.

Although most readers are undoubtedly familiar with the CIA’s MKUltra experiments in the 1950s and ‘60s, those experiments never actually studied the effects on the brain (especially since, as Motherboard points out, MRI machines didn’t even exist in the 1960s). Since then, the taboo around psychedelics has been strong; in both the U.S. and U.K., LSD is a Schedule-1 drug, which means it’s a controlled substances and requires many licenses if anyone wishes to study it. As a consequence, there is very little research on psychedelics.

The Beckley Foundation aims to change that. Using Walacea, a U.K.-based crowdfunding platform for scientific research, the foundation has raised over £44,000 of its original £25,000 goal and is now working toward a £50,000 stretch goal in order to conduct imaging studies of the effects of LSD on the brain.

For the study, a carefully screened slate of volunteers is given clinical-quality LSD in a controlled research environment; the foundation says that the risks are minimal, as persistent flashbacks “are very rare in recreational users and the phenomenon has been widely exaggerated.” The brain is then imaged with fMRI and MEG scanners in the hopes that the researchers will discover how LSD affects the brain, including what specific areas it works on.

Roadblocks to Research

The psychedelic research is being conducted by Professor David Nutt and Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris of Imperial College London, along with the Beckley Foundation, founded and directed by Amanda Feilding. The researchers received a special license from the Home Office to administer LSD and were given a favorable opinion from an ethics committee in order to carry out research on human subjects, according to the foundation’s Walacea page, but getting there was something of a struggle, as well as a labor of love for Feilding.

“We are far from the ideal conditions to develop scientific research on psychedelics,” she told Wall Street Insanity. “There is a myriad of obstacles facing those who are determined to do it, mostly related to the substances’ scheduling: Hefty licenses, bureaucratic procedures, scarce funding, limited or non-existing legal supply, etc. But not all hindrances are strictly material; it is not unlikely for auspicious results to be received with unwarranted skepticism or mistrust, for instance. These are all vestiges of the crumbling edifice of Prohibition which, by waging a war on drugs, effectively declared war on knowledge.

However, Feilding says that this is changing. “Studies on psychedelics like ours are multiplying in different parts of the world and popular support is strong, as demonstrated by our successful crowdfunding campaign to finish and extend the first brain-imaging study on LSD.”

Why LSD?

When asked why she decided to focus on LSD specifically, Feilding told Wall Street Insanity that there were three reasons.

“One is personal, as I was introduced to LSD during the 1960s, before the policies of prohibition targeted the substance,” she says. “I was puzzled by the capacity that the substance had to initiate non-ordinary states of consciousness, including mystical experiences that are subjectively similar to those experienced through meditation, or during religious ecstasy. Having studied comparative religions and mysticism at Oxford, this was a major discovery. I have tried to shed light on this relationship and its physiological underpinnings ever since.”

Another reason was her professional involvement with drug policy reform. “I created the Foundation to encourage the emergence of drug policies that are based on scientific evidence, not on ideology or political expediency,” she says. “The prohibition regime to which psychedelics are subjected epitomizes what is wrong with the current approach. These substances are among the least likely to cause harm, and yet they are the most strictly restricted. It is not rational. For the last 16 years, the Beckley Foundation has been instrumental in the development of an international debate on these topics, with pioneering scientific studies and rigorous policy reports that we co-design and carry out with experts in leading academic institutions.

Last, but not least, psychedelics are fascinating substances from a therapeutic point of view. The more we know about them, the more it confirms my view that, used responsibly and with respect, they can be transformative and healing.”

The researchers hope the images might offer some clues as to the way LSD could work to heal conditions like obsessive compulsive disorder, alcohol dependence, depression, anxiety and more. The foundation says it has had many volunteers for the study — often people who have had positive experiences with psychedelics in the past.

Image via Beckley Foundation’s Psychedelic Research Programme

In fact, Feilding says that the foundation’s experience with finding volunteers hasn’t been as difficult as people might expect.

We have had an overwhelmingly positive response in this regard, with a great deal of people contacting us to participate in the research as volunteers… However, our studies have been limited in numbers and our screening process is very strict, so only a few dozen have actually been tested with psychedelics.”

Unlocking the Therapeutic Benefits of Acid

According to Feilding, most of the foundation’s research on psychedelics up until now has focused on the “neural underpinnings of the subjective effects of classic psychedelics.”

So how much is already known about LSD, and what further research needs to be done to determine the drug’s full potential? Fielding says that the foundation’s research has discovered that psychedelics reduce activity in the default mode network (DMN) and other parts of the brain.

This effect explains the changing state of consciousness: Cognition becomes more unconstrained, freer, more ‘primal.’ This informs the treatment of debilitating mental conditions in which the person has integrated negative thought patterns that have become rigid. By precipitating freer thinking, psychedelics such as psilocybin help loosen these negative thought structures. This mechanism could be the key to the therapeutic use of psychedelics and could be useful in the treatment of substance dependence, obesity, anorexia, obsessive compulsive disorder and anxiety,” says Feilding.

When asked what kind of therapeutic benefits LSD could offer, she lists a variety of conditions that might be treated with psychedelic drugs.

We have collaborated with Johns Hopkins University in a very successful study on psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy to treat tobacco dependence, we are currently working with Imperial College [London] on psilocybin and depression (partly thanks to a grant by the MRC) and we are developing a study on the use of LSD in the treatment of alcohol dependence. We are also devising research on ayahuasca and DMT, also psychedelic drugs.”

The Reality of LSD-Based Treatments

Feilding can’t make any firm predictions about exactly when LSD-based treatments might be seen by the general public, but she seems confident that they’ll exist in the near future.

LSD-assisted psychotherapy is definitely an attainable goal, and pilot studies suggest it is also a desirable one,” she says. “I am optimistic, but I also realize the obstacles are exceptional… It seems progressively likely that this form of treatment could become a reality as soon as the next 10 years, but forecasts are tricky when one deals with institutionalized censorship.”

In the meantime, Feilding plans to continue working to bring about policy change and raise funding for research into psychedelics.

Although this research project initially faced an “uphill struggle” due to the difficulty of raising funds and overcoming regulations related to psychedelics, the Beckley Foundation has seen “overwhelming support” in its crowdfunding campaign, according to Natalie Jonk, the founder of Walacea.

“The overwhelming support that this project has had shows the role the public can have in democratizing science… We are delighted that our model is showing promise for engaging the public in research and giving them the opportunity to support science that they would like to make happen,” Jonk stated in a recent press release.

As for Feilding, she believes firmly in the potential of LSD, saying, “I am still as marveled and passionate about the topic as I was 50 years ago.”

The post LSD Researchers Are Crowdfunding The World’s First Imaging Study Of The Brain On Acid appeared first on Wall Street Insanity.

Image via Shuttertsock

Bringing us one step closer to the day when we bow to a race of hyper-intelligent, immortal rodent overlords — or maybe just when we discover a treatment for the effects of aging — a research team has identified a new class of drugs that “dramatically” slows the aging process in mice. The researchers are wondering if they might someday be able do the same for humans.

The team, made up of researchers from the Scripps Institute, the Mayo Clinic and other institutions, recently published their results in the journal Aging Cell, coining the term “senolytics” for the new class of drugs, according to Science Daily. The drugs were shown to alleviate symptoms of frailty, improve cardiac function and extend a healthy lifespan.

The study focused on senescent cells — cells that have stopped dividing. These accumulate with age and accelerate the aging process, says Science Daily, so the researchers decided to see if they could kill off these cells. When this is done in mice, it enhances their healthspan, or time free of disease, and researchers wanted to find out if the same could be done in humans.

First, however, they had to figure out how to identify and eliminate senescent cells without harming other cells. They used transcript analysis to identify “pro-survival networks” that help senescent cells resist programmed cell death; this, according to Science Daily, led them to the cancer drug dasatinib (sold under the name Sprycel®) and quercetin, a natural compound that acts as an antihistamine and anti-inflammatory. Together, the two compounds were found to selectively induce the death of senescent cells — the first eliminated senescent human fat cell progenitors, while the second worked against senescent human endothelial cells and mouse bone marrow stem cells. Overall, a combination of the two was the most effective.

When the two substances were tested on mice, the results were remarkable. “In animal models, the compounds improved cardiovascular function and exercise endurance, reduced osteoporosis and frailty and extended healthspan,” said Associate Professor Laura Niedernhofer of Scripps Florida. “Remarkably, in some cases, these drugs did so with only a single course of treatment.”

According to Science Daily, a single dose of the two drugs together led to an improved capacity for exercise in animals that had been weakened by cancer radiation therapy. Older mice saw improved cardiovascular function within five days of a single dose. These effects reportedly lasted for at least seven months. “Periodic administration” of the drugs in mice with accelerated aging resulted in delays of age-related symptoms like osteoporosis and spine degeneration.

We won’t be able to simply take a drug and magically reverse aging just yet, though; much more testing is needed before these drugs can be used in humans. The research team appears optimistic, though.

We view this study as a big, first step toward developing treatments that can be given safely to patients to extend healthspan or to treat age-related diseases and disorders,” said Scripps Research Institute Professor Paul Robbins, who led the research at Scripps Florida along with Professor Niedernhofer. “When senolytic agents, like the combination we identified, are used clinically, the results could be transformative.”

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