Jumat, 29 November 2019

5 Ways to Quiet Your Mind for Sleep

How did you sleep last night? This question seems to be on everyone’s mind. When we ask ourselves about sleep, it’s almost as if we’re taking stock of our overall state of mind: How do I feel? Am I 100 percent here?

And no wonder! It can be frustrating and frazzling when all we want is the soothing balm of sleep to heal the stress from our day, but infuriatingly, when we lie down to sleep, we can’t turn off our brains. Paradoxically, sometimes the more stressful our days are, the harder it is to quiet the brain for sleep at night.

Insomnia is “in fashion” these days

If this happens to you, you’re certainly not alone. Over 30 percent of people have bouts of insomnia in a given year, and the overall rate of insomnia has been going up in recent years.

Even if you’re one of the lucky people who usually have no problem with falling or staying asleep, I bet there are nights when you toss and turn, unable to turn your brain off while it nags at you with to-do lists, worries, fantasies, plans, doubts, replays of embarrassing moments, and replays of songs that make you want to bang your head against a wall.

Your brain is always busy

Struggling to turn your brain off is actually very normal. Your brain is a busy bee! That’s because it is designed to be buzzing all the time to help you remember, anticipate, analyze, plan, problem-solve, and do all the things that make you human. So we can’t blame the brain for being active even when we’d really like for it to be quiet—it’s just doing what brains do!

Your brain is also very persistent. It takes its job of helping you to stay safe and perform well very seriously, so if it thinks something is important, it won’t simply say, “Oh, it looks like you’d rather not be disturbed right now. I’ll come back later with this urgent stack of tasks to be completed and decisions to be made.” If only that were the case!

We can’t blame the brain for being active even when we’d really like for it to be quiet—it’s just doing what brains do!

Instead of fighting against your brain’s well-intentioned and persistent effort, what if you work with your busy brain to protect your sleep? I’ll share my 5 favorite tips for quieting the mind so you can snooze.

Chronic insomnia requires a different approach

But before we review those, I have a special disclaimer for those of you among the 10% of people who have chronic insomnia disorder. That means:

... Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

What Does ‘Cold Turkey’ Mean? Plus the Meaning of 5 Other ‘Turkey’ Phrases

Thanksgiving is the U.S. holiday that many people jokingly call “Turkey Day.” That’s because most people celebrate the occasion by baking a turkey: the domesticated version of a member of the pheasant and grouse family native to the Americas. 

Why do we call this bird a “turkey?” It’s a case of mistaken identity. For centuries before Europeans came to North America, Turkish traders were importing African guinea fowl into Europe. The birds were known as “turkey-cocks.” 

When North American traders started to import our bird from the Americas into Europe, they were sometimes mistaken for turkey-cocks, and then they came to be known as “turkeys.” The name stuck.

So yes, the bird turkey is named after the country Turkey, even though they don’t actually come from Turkey.

To ‘talk turkey’ means to speak plainly

We also have a number of phrases and idioms that use the word “turkey.” 

First off, we have the expression “to talk turkey.” This means to speak plainly, or to get down to business. For example, if someone is hedging about whether they want to go out with you, you might say, “Let’s talk turkey. Do you like me or not?” When you talk turkey, you get right to the point. You tell the plain truth.

The origin is complicated, but it may have come from a story in the 1800s about a white man who tried keep all the turkeys for himself when he went hunting with a Native American, who was having none of it.

To ‘go cold turkey’ means to stop abruptly

Another expression is to “go cold turkey.” This means to stop something abruptly, without planning or pacing yourself. It originally referred to withdrawal from an addictive substance, like alcohol or drugs. But now it can refer to anything. 

You could say, “I stopped sleeping late cold turkey,” if you decided to wake up every day at 5:00 am—and started doing so the next day.

The Oxford English Dictionary says that Canadians first used the term in 1921, and  the citation doesn’t make it sound pleasant: 

Perhaps the most pitiful figures who have appeared before Dr. Carleton Simon...are those who voluntarily surrender themselves. When they go before him, they [sc. drug addicts] are given what is called the ‘cold turkey’ treatment.

When you look at how often the phrase is used in published books though, it...

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Kamis, 28 November 2019

How to Fix Every Kind of Messed Up Thanksgiving Food

What to Do If You Forgot to Defrost Your Turkey

The best way to thaw turkey is on a shallow baking sheet in the refrigerator, in its original packaging, allowing 24 hours for every five pounds of bird. But if it’s Thanksgiving morning and you’ve forgotten to stick the bird in the fridge, the fastest, safest method of thawing frozen poultry fast is to place it—still wrapped in plastic—in a bowl (or bucket) of cold water. Check the water regularly and change it as the water warms up—you should never use hot water for large pieces of meat, as it will promote bacterial growth.  

How to Fix Turkey That’s Too Dry

Did the star of your Thanksgiving dinner come out too dry? Don’t panic! You can re-hydrate your meat with an easy braise: Slice up the turkey and stick it in a baking dish. Fill the dish halfway with chicken stock, top with foil, and place it back in the oven for 10 minutes at 350º. The turkey will be juicy and delicious.

Save Soupy Stuffing

Without question, stuffing is one of the main attractions at our Thanksgiving table. But we’ve had our share of stuffing mishaps; sometimes it’s too goopy and wet to eat. To bring soupy stuffing back to life, first spread it onto a baking sheet. Layer cubes of stale bread or unseasoned croutons on top of the stuffing. Pop it back into the oven for about 15 minutes at 375º; when finished, stir it all together and spoon into a serving dish. The bread will sop up excess liquid, leaving your stuffing in its intended scrumptious form.

Fix Mushy Vegetables

Cooking Thanksgiving dinner and your vegetables turned to mush? Simply add some herbs along with tomato sauce or cream. Then top with cheese and/or bread crumbs and stick in the oven for 30 minutes. Your family is sure to be impressed with your new recipe for “vegetables gratin”! 

How to Fix Stale Bread

Took out bread and it’s too hard to eat? Here’s how to fix stale bread and other foods.

What to Do if You Added Too Much Salt

It’s been said that you can always add more salt to a dish, but you can never take it away. While that’s true, you can tame down an over-salted dish by adding ¼ teaspoon vinegar and ¼ teaspoon sugar to the food. Mix well, and taste. If it’s still too salty, keep adding this combination in small increments until you’ve balanced out the flavors. Or, if it’s a soup or sauce...

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Rabu, 27 November 2019

3 Affordable Financial Safeguards to Protect Your Health and Income

Jennifer recently asked, “How can I prepare our family for the high cost of health insurance when my husband leaves his job at the end of the year to become a full-time independent contractor?”

And Megan left a voicemail saying, “My jobs are all pretty physical, and I’m concerned that if I get injured, I won’t have enough insurance to cover my everyday expenses. I’ve heard you talk about disability insurance and would like more information on how to get it. What’s the best way to shop for and purchase disability insurance?”

Thanks for these crucial questions, Jordan and Megan! If you, or the breadwinner in your family, lose your job or business income, or you get sick all of a sudden, what would you do? For many people who don’t have financial protections in place, these scenarios are their worst nightmares.

Statistics about getting ill or suffering a serious injury during your career are pretty sobering. According to the Council for Disability Awareness, more than one in four of today’s 20-year-olds can expect to be out of work for at least a year because of a disabling condition before they reach the normal retirement age.

According to the Council for Disability Awareness, more than one in four of today’s 20-year-olds can expect to be out of work for at least a year because of a disabling condition before they reach the normal retirement age.

And when a disability occurs, the average time spent away from work is close to two years. Yet, most people don’t have a back-up plan for how they would pay everyday bills, such as housing, utilities, and food. Many Americans don’t even have health insurance to pay a portion of their medical bills.

While you might think that protecting your health and income is a luxury, it isn’t. These safeguards should be pillars of your financial plan. Let's have a look at three financial protections that can be surprisingly affordable for both employees and entrepreneurs.

1. Savings

If you follow the Money Girl blog or podcast, you’ve heard me talk about building a cash reserve, which is known as an emergency fund. Having savings is one of the best ways to protect yourself from unexpected expenses or a sudden drop in earnings.

The trick is to save diligently when times are good. If you get a raise at work or have a profitable year in your business, it can be awfully tempting to spend the excess. But before you buy a luxury item or book a vacation, make sure you have plenty in the bank. I know saving isn’t as much fun. But the best way to make sure you’re ready when bad luck strikes, is to prepare for it today.

Before you buy a luxury item or book a vacation, make sure...

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Selasa, 26 November 2019

Can Your Microbiome Reveal Your Ideal Diet?

For those with diabetes or prediabetes, managing blood sugar levels is a critically important part of preventing the progression of this disease and avoiding serious complications. But even for healthy people, keeping your blood sugar in a healthy range can help reduce the risk of obesity and the risk of developing diabetes.

How do you avoid high blood sugar?

Up until recently, advice for managing your blood sugar has focused on the nutritional composition of foods. Specifically, you’re advised to pay attention to the quantity and quality of carbohydrates in your diet.

Two different foods with the same amount of carbohydrate or sugar or fiber can still produce very different glycemic responses.

Tracking quantity is pretty straight-forward: you simply count grams of carbohydrates. Assessing the quality of the carbohydrates in your diet gets a little more nuanced. You might take into account how much sugar or fiber a food contains, for example.

The problem is that two different foods with the same amount of carbohydrate or sugar or fiber can still produce very different glycemic responses. A white potato, for example, might have the same amount of carbohydrate and fiber as a serving of white pasta. But the potato is likely to cause a higher spike in blood sugar.

Is Glycemic Index more important than carbs?

This was the problem that the glycemic index hoped to solve, by attempting to factor in the variable known as the human digestive process. Researchers fed human volunteers all kinds of different foods and measured their blood sugar levels. They used this data to produce the Glycemic Index, which represents the average rise in blood sugar in response to various foods. As a final step, multiplying the Glycemic Index of a food by the amount of carbohydrate in the serving gives you the Glycemic Load, which is a measure of both quality and quantity.

The Glycemic Index of a food might be 58, but the range of individual responses included in that average might be 47 to 69.

For decades now, our best tools for managing blood sugar have been counting carbs or glycemic load. And studies have shown both to be moderately effective in controlling blood sugar and improving outcomes in people with or at risk of diabetes.

But there was still a big problem. The Glycemic Index of a food represents the average blood response to that food among all the individuals tested. But If you dig into the data, you’ll see that those averages represent a very wide range of individual responses. The Glycemic Index of a food might be 58, but the range of individual responses included in that average might be 47 to 69.

Why does the same diet work not work for everyone?

You see the problem. Not only can...

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The Secrets to Making the Best Mashed Potatoes

The Quickest Way to Chop Potatoes

Chopping potatoes for mashed potatoes can be a time-sucking chore. Thanks to this clever tip, however, you can slice up those yummy potatoes in one quick step: Just use an apple slicer! Cut one potato in half and use the slicer on each half.

Prevent Gooey Mashed Potatoes

If your mashed potatoes sometimes end up a little gluey, it may be because you overmixed them. When potatoes are mashed, their cell walls rupture, releasing an excess of starch and resulting in the gluey texture. Potatoes should be mashed with a vertical motion, not stirred, to minimize the damage that occurs by crushing the cells on the side of the bowl.  

Use Hot Milk

Never pour cold milk into cooked potatoes. It will change the taste of the starch, giving it an unpleasant flavor, not unlike cardboard. The milk should be warmed in a pan (try adding a small amount of garlic, scallions, or chives for flavor!) before being added.

Choose Your Fat

If you’re watching your weight but love mashed potatoes, cut out the milk and the butter (or just some of it). Instead, save some of the cooking water from the potatoes and use that instead. Season with freshly ground black pepper and a bit of lemon juice for a no-added-fat mash that is flavorful and goes fantastically well with chicken or turkey. Making mashed potatoes for the holidays and don’t care how much fat is in them? Opt for real butter and whole milk, or even cream or half & half. Some people also swear by adding sour cream or cream cheese!

For Super-Fluffy Mashed Potatoes

Want super-fluffy mashed potatoes? Add a pinch or two of baking powder, powdered milk, or even instant potatoes for extra fluff. (Never put baking soda in potatoes! It will turn them black.)

Holiday Mashed Potatoes Tip

Skip the last-minute panic on major holidays and mash the potatoes first thing in the morning. Transfer them to a slow cooker while you move onto the stuffing and string beans and let them cool, wiping off condensation on the lid with a dishtowel. Two hours before you’re ready to serve the meal, turn on the slow cooker. You won’t have to give the potatoes another thought until the guests are seated and it’s time to serve the meal.

For more food tips from all over the internet, check out our In the Kitchen Pinterest board.And don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter and follow us on Facebook and ...

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Four Cybersecurity Myths Setting You up for Attack

Most people don’t know much about cybersecurity—but they don’t realize they have a knowledge gap. You use computers and mobile tech all day long, and you use them proficiently. But just because you can navigate the web and your devices with ease doesn’t mean you are doing it safely or securely. In fact, it's more than likely you're relying on outdated knowledge about cybersecurity, which is leaving gaping vulnerabilities.

You don’t need to be as knowledgeable as an information security expert, but you do need to keep your fundamental understanding of cybersecurity updated. Here are a few common beliefs that were once true but are no longer effective at keeping you or your data secure.

Myth 1: You aren’t a prime target for a cyberattack

You are just one person. You don’t have millions of dollars in your bank account, nudes on your smartphone, or any kind of valuable insider information. Why would a cybercriminal waste time trying to attack you?

The truth is, just because you're not a particularly juicy target for a cyberattack doesn't mean you're not an easy one.

The truth is, just because you're not a particularly juicy target for a cyberattack doesn't mean you're not an easy one. In recent years, businesses have been aggressively arming themselves against attack, making it more and more difficult for hackers to get access to the data they crave.

Many unsophisticated cybercriminals simply can’t compete at the current level of corporate cybersecurity, so instead they scrounge for easy smash-and-grabs—and that’s you. Because your network and devices are essentially unguarded, attackers can waltz in, take whatever data and cash you have and leave without much fear of retaliation. 

Myth 2: You're safe with antivirus alone

Antivirus software is imperative for identifying and eliminating malware—but malware isn’t the only threat to your data or devices. These days, attacks are multifarious, coming at you from a dozen directions and with surprising speed and intensity. You might succumb to an attack that originates through a backdoor in your smart vacuum, or you might fall victim to an attack launched while you were connected to the Wi-Fi at your neighborhood Starbucks. Antivirus software is good, but it doesn’t protect you against this kind of threat.

Instead, you need a much more robust security suite that includes antivirus as well as home network security, internet security, and more. It might be wise to get in contact with...

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How to Find Anything on Google — Author Stephan Spencer's Search Tips

The good news about the internet is that it’s put the world’s information at our fingertips. For a little while, this was a Very Good Thing.

But then advertisers, marketers, bad actors, and silly people have turned the Internet into information wreckage. Once, search gave good answers. Now, it gives you nine Amazon links, three Walmart links, and weaponized propaganda. Oh, Joy.

I recently interviewed Stephan Spencer, co-author of the 997-page book The Art of SEO (Search Engine Optimization)Stephan knows how to cut through the wreckage to reveal the shining nuggets of wisdom lying beneath. He shared a few tips with me.

Once, search gave good answers. Now, it gives you nine Amazon links, three Walmart links, and weaponized propaganda. Oh, Joy.

Nobody knows about wreckage better than Thomas, a 17-year old cyborg who is dating his toaster. He’s very frustrated. They’ve had a fight, and he doesn’t know what to do. Being half machine, he’s great with logic, but doesn’t understand emotion. So he wants to turn to the internet for the answers.

But what does he search for? And how does he get the best result?

Search suggestions point the way

Use soovle.com. Start with Soovle. It kind of rhymes with “Google” ... only not really. Soovle.com isn’t a search engine. It’s a search engine of search engines. You start to type a query, and it gets suggestions for what to search for from a dozen other search engines. Then you just click on a suggestion to follow it.

Thomas gets as far as “toaster emotion” and one of the suggestions that pops up is “toaster emotional support.” Which sounds promising. When he clicks on it, however, it gives him search results that include inspiring toasters and emotional support animals. But nothing about offering a toaster emotional support.

Use quotes for phrases. Normally, search finds any web page that contains all the words in your query, even if those words are scattered around the page. And if one of the words is missing, a page might still be included if the other words are present.

You can search for an exact phrase by putting the phrase in quotes. When you use quotes, the only pages you’ll get are pages that match those exact words, in that order. Searching for "toaster emotion" gives much better results: a Facebook user named “Toaster Emotion” and a Futurama episode where Professor Farnsworth teaches a toaster to feel love. This could be the answer!...

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Can Exercising Before Breakfast Dramatically Improve Your Health?

I know National Diabetes Month is all but over but I couldn't let it pass completely without taking a look at one potentially easy way to aid in the fight against this troublesome condition.

In a new study, published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, health scientists at the Universities of Bath and Birmingham set out to assess the acute and chronic effects of exercise performed before versus after nutrient ingestion (or breakfast, as us non-scientists call it) on whole-body and intramuscular lipid utilization (or fat burning), and postprandial glucose metabolism (or insulin sensitivity).

The six-week study was performed on 30 men who had been classified as obese or overweight and compared results from three groups:  

  1. One group who ate breakfast before exercising
  2. One group that ate after exercise
  3. A control group who made no changes to their lifestyle

No effect on weight loss

Let me point something out right off the bat. Whether the men in this study ate their meal before or after exercising didn't make any differences in terms of weight loss over the six-week testing period. But the timing of meals did have "profound and positive" effects on their health.

I think this is an important point to make. There is a notion in the wellness-sphere that by exercising in a fasted state, you will literally burn the fat off of your body. While the researchers did find that the subjects used more of the fat from their fat tissue and the fat within their muscles as a fuel, it did not result in some magical weight loss protocol. 

Whether the men ate their meal before or after exercising didn't make any differences in terms of weight loss but it did have "profound and positive" effects on their health.

The subjects who exercised after eating breakfast lost the same amount of weight as the hungry exercisers who ate it after. And not surprisingly, the group who didn't change their lifestyle at all lost no weight. 

Meal timing

There have been a growing number of studies and hypotheses that involve interventions like intermittent fasting, multi-day fasting and simply adjusting meal timing, in general, to help control blood sugar and potentially turn you into what has been called a "fat burning beast."

Monica Reinagel, the Nutrition Diva, wrote about the state of intermittent fasting research in and article called Does Intermittent Fasting Work?

A lot of the current...

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Senin, 25 November 2019

Can You Still Get the Plague?

Plague is one of the deadliest diseases humans have ever faced—only smallpox is responsible for taking more lives. The origins of plague epidemics were once considered mysterious. That left people powerless to stop it as the disease ravaged populations across Europe during the Middle Ages, taking the lives of an estimated 25 million people.

In the mid 17th century, the plague claimed the lives of as much as one-fifth of the population of London. Victims were buried in hastily-made, unmarked, underground graves. When the underground train system was first built 200 years later, legend has it that engineers chose meandering routes for their tunnels in order to avoid these so-called plague pits. Evidence doesn’t back up this lore, though. There are no mentions of plague pits in the rail’s records. The meandering track lines are also easily explained by economics, for example, by avoiding private property to make construction cheaper.

Three cases of plague were reported this month—that's November of 2019—by hospitals in and near Beijing, China.

The source of the plague is no longer mysterious. We now know that the plague is an infection caused by the bacteria Yersinia pestis. But our plague legends persist in part because of the extreme devastation the disease caused. Plague is also not entirely a thing of the past. Three cases of plague were reported this month—that's November of 2019—by hospitals in and near Beijing, China. All three patients are from inner Mongolia where two fatal cases were already reported this year.

Globally, the World Health Organization recorded 3,248 cases of plague between 2010 and 2015. Those cases resulted in 584 deaths. So why isn’t the plague a thing of the past? And can you still catch it?

How do you catch the plague?

People usually catch the plague when they are bitten by fleas that have previously bitten infected rodents or by handling those rodents directly. Rodents affected by the plague are mostly found in rural areas in:

  • Asia
  • Africa (particularly in Madagascar and the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
  • South America (especially in Peru)
  • the United States

In the United States, cases have primarily been reported in New Mexico, Arizona, California, and Colorado.

What is the plague?

There are three main categories of the plague depending on what part of the body is predominantly infected.

Bubonic plague is the most common strain. Sufferers develop swollen and sensitive lymph nodes called buboes. Those swollen glands are sometimes as large as an egg around the groin, armpits, and neck.

Septicemic plague infects your bloodstream and can lead to...

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Transcript: An Interview with Diana Pho



How to Get Your Characters Right (Especially When They Aren't Like You)

In this interview, I talked with Diana M. Pho, a two-time Hugo nominated editor at Tor.com Publishing.

We talked about:

  • The concept of sensitivity readers and how using them isn't that different from what authors have been doing on their own for years.
  • How using a sensitivity reader can be more of a partnership than just a Band-Aid solution.
  • How to find a sensitivity reader.
  • When it's a good time to bring in a sensitivity reader.
  • How unless you're writing a memoir or an autobiography, you're writing about the "other."
  • How writing about different people is a craft skill you can develop. (She recommends a book called "Writing the Other.")
  • How if you do work with a sensitivity reader, you can find practical ways to raise that person's profile.

You can listen to the entire interview by clicking the player above or by finding the Grammar Girl podcast on any podcasting app, but if you prefer to read it, we also have a complete (rough) transcript.

Photo Credit: Gerry O'Brien.

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What Should You Do if Your Partner Is Addicted to Video Games?

Your partner seems to be spending more and more time playing their favorite online video game. They’re up late at night playing, long after you fall asleep. They no longer have much interest in sex. You ask them to cut down, but you don’t get much response. What do you do?  

Can you really be addicted to video games?

Most people these days live in two worlds—the real world, and the online world. As we’ve discussed before, in episode 3 of Relationship Doctor, this has serious implications for intimate relationships in the 21st Century.

75 percent of American households include at least one video gamer.

One of the most popular ways people live in the Internet is through online video games. According to the Entertainment Software Association, 75% of American households include at least one video gamer. The video game industry makes more money than the film and music industries combined.

Gaming can be a fun, engaging diversion in the right context. For some people, though, video game use can become a problem. Many mental health professionals think that, for a very small percentage of regular users, video games can be addictive. That’s still controversial, as we’ll discuss today. But what’s clear is that video gaming can occasionally have serious negative consequences.

As my editor, a former video game journalist, notes, “I’ve seen marriages dissolve, people who lost friends and even jobs because of gaming, and young adults flunking out of college as the result of problem gaming habits. These stories aren’t the norm, but they’re out there.

Can you be addicted to video games if it’s not a drug?

New neuroscience suggests that video games can activate changes in your brain similar to addictive substances like drugs or alcohol. Problem gaming can be a form of self-medication.

In 2013, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) reviewed the arguments for and against including something called Internet Gaming Disorder in its most recent Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-5).

The APA felt there wasn’t enough research evidence to make a decision. But they did include it in a...

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Minggu, 24 November 2019

7 Simple Strategies to Become a More Productive Parent

Some people cringe at the idea of productivity. It sounds like a fancy term for finding a way to cram even more activity into our already busy schedules. What parent needs that?

But being more productive comes with an unexpected gift. It helps us get those must-do things accomplished efficiently so we have more of the one thing every parent craves—free time. That's time to relax, time to play with our kids, time to go on an adventure, and maybe even time to be alone with a good book instead of spending a few extra stolen minutes hiding in the bathroom. Productivity has its perks!

7 tips to help you be a more productive parent

Put one or more of these tactics to work for you and watch your productivity soar.

1. Have a wakeup ritual that's just for you

Despite the promise you made to yourself to start getting up earlier so you can get a handle on the day, you’ve hit the snooze button three times now. (It’s so warm and peaceful snuggled under your covers!) Now, you and the kids are running dangerously late.

You can make the morning rush less hectic by starting every day with a wakeup ritual.

If this scenario hits home, know that you’re not alone. But there's good news. You can make the morning rush less hectic by starting every day with a wakeup ritual. If you're not much of an early bird, having a plan in place for how you'll spend your time, attention, and energy can smooth the rough edges on crazy mornings.

Although I’m a night owl by nature, there’s something inviting about the quiet of the morning that gets my juices flowing. I have a wakeup ritual that I’ve been following for many years now:

  • Upon waking, I lie in bed and listen to a positive meditation via an app on my phone for about five minutes so I can engage in happy thoughts before I greet the rest of my family.
  • Making my bed is always next. One of my favorite motivational books is Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life ... And Maybe the World by Admiral William H. McRaven. It’s an easy read and definitely inspired me to look at my mornings and my life differently.
  • Hydrating throughout the entire day always makes me feel fresh and more energized. My first glass of H2O is right after I’ve made my bed.
  • Connecting with my kids before they leave for school is a must. Though they’re groggy, I can offer them something for breakfast and check in about the upcoming day’s happenings so we’re all on the same page. The hug and “I love you” is a big bonus.
  • Finally, I head out for my morning power walk. Not only is it important to help me manage my...
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Jumat, 22 November 2019

Pro Tips for Holiday Pies

How to Get a Flaky Crust

Even if your pie’s filling is near perfection, you won’t win any accolades unless the crust is nice and flaky. Be sure that any liquid added to your pie crust is ice cold. In fact, anything hot that’s involved with your crust will affect it—even your kitchen and equipment should be on the cool side. Another trick? Replace half of the called-for water with vodka! The ethanol in vodka stops the growth of gluten, which makes the crust tough. You’ll end up with a lighter crust without any difference in taste!

How to Keep Crusts from Breaking When You Serve

You’ll impress even Martha Stewart with this pie crust tip. After you’ve crimped the crust, but before you place your work of art in the oven, go around the edge again, this time carefully lifting the crust ever-so-slightly from the dish so it won’t stick while baking. When you serve pieces “just like Grandma made,” they’ll come out in one clean swoop rather than with insides slopped on the plate followed by hacked-up pieces of crust.

See Also: Infographic: Holiday Hacks You Need This Thanksgiving

Keep Pie Crusts from Burning

If you’re making a pecan pie, pumpkin pie, or any other pie without a crust on top, it’s easy for the edges to burn in the oven. Keep your pie crusts from burning or getting too brown by covering the edges of your pie with strips of aluminum foil.

Make a Delicious Flavored Crust

Next time you make a pie, add a little flavor to the crust by sprinkling a little ground spice into the flour. We love using cinnamon or apple pie spice in our holiday pies!

How to Get a Shiny Pie Crust

Do you want your pies to glisten like those in the bakery? It’s easy: just beat an egg white and brush it over the crust before baking. This works especially well for a pie that has a crust cover, like an apple pie or peach pie.

How to Get a Pie Out of a Pan

Pies, especially those with graham cracker crusts, can be difficult to remove from the pan. However, if you dip the bottom of the pan in warm water for 10 seconds, the pie will come right out without any damage.

Serving Tip for Cream Pies

Spray a small amount of vegetable oil on your knife before cutting a pie with a cream filling. This will stop the filling from sticking to the knife.

How to Prevent Soggy Fruit Pie Bottoms

It’s always disappointing when you slice into your carefully prepared blueberry pie only to find that the bottom is soggy. If you have a problem with...

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How to Help Someone with Hoarding Disorder

If you do a Google Image search for “hoarder,” you get pages of horrifying images, some featuring people in full-body HAZMAT suits and face masks up to their hips in stuff.

If you watch Hoarders, the TV show, you see dramatic shots of toxic hazards, distraught people with mascara running down their faces, and supposed "treatment teams" yelling profanities and threats at people. They seem like scenes from a horror movie!

But what's behind these sensationalized scenes? What is hoarding disorder and how does someone develop it? Do the tactics we see on reality TV really represent the best way to help a person with hoarding disorder?

I spoke with Elaine Birchall, MSW, an expert on hoarding disorder and founding force behind the Canadian National Hoarding Coalition. She's a co-author, along with Suzanne Cronkwright, of Conquer the Clutter: Strategies to Identify, Manage, and Overcome Hoarding. In this interview, she:

  • Takes an evidence-based and compassionate look at why people hoard
  • Explains the risk pathways that lead someone to cross the threshold between being cluttered to having hoarding disorder
  • gives in-depth advice on how to help a loved one to begin their journey of recovery

Here's a paraphrased summary of our discussion. But, as with all my interviews, I encourage you to click the audio player above and have a listen to get all the nuances.

What is hoarding disorder and how can you recognize it?

Savvy Psychologist: There seems to be a lot of stigma attached to hoarding. Is that your impression?

Elaine Birchall:

Absolutely. It’s a very shaming, judgment-loaded disorder to have. It’s a lonely and fearful experience. The TV shows have been a mixed blessing—they’ve given people the language to call it the right thing, “hoarding disorder,” but they also specialize in good TV. You would never treat people that way.

If you shame people, they can’t make their best decisions, and they’re going to repeat the behavior.

The approaches depicted in these TV shows are not only not compassionate, but they’re also not very effective. If you shame people, they can’t make their best decisions, and they’re going to repeat the behavior.

SP: Let’s back up a little bit. What is hoarding disorder?

EB:

It’s a persistent mental health disorder. It’s defined in the Diagnostic and Statistics Manual, 5th Edition (DSM-5). If there is enough functional impairment to someone’s life, it qualifies as a disability and people have the right to reasonable accommodations...

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Kamis, 21 November 2019

The Internet Makes It Easier (and Harder) to Find Original Sources

When the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations was first published in 1941, it all seemed so simple. It was taken for granted that a quotation was a familiar line from a great poet or a famous figure in history, and the source could easily be found in standard literary works or history books. Those early compilers of quotations did not think of fake facts and the internet. “Fake facts,” or perhaps more accurately misunderstandings, have been around in the world of quotations for a long time. Often, when people see a line they like, they simply copy it and repeat it. Take, for instance:

At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet.

If (at the time of reading), the words were attributed to the Greek philosopher Plato, this would be repeated too. But in fact it was not Plato who originally said it. Although it is found in his work “The Symposium,” he was explicitly quoting the playwright Euripides.

Sometimes it is even possible to spot the very point at which such mistakes occur.  “The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time” is often attributed to the mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell, but actually first occurs as an editorial comment by the Canadian writer Laurence J. Peter on Russell’s line “The thing that I should wish to obtain from money would be leisure with security.” Clearly the aside has taken on more life than the original. On the same page Peter adds to Aristotle’s “The end of labour is to gain leisure” with “so that you can drink coffee on your own time,” but somehow no-one has attributed an enthusiasm for coffee to Aristotle!

More often the transition remains unclear. Over twenty years ago we kept coming across a rather long but very apt quotation, always linked to the Roman satirist Petronius: 

We trained hard…but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization.

Given that only a limited range of writing by Petronius has survived, it was relatively easy to establish that this was not included, so we...

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Rabu, 20 November 2019

Is the C in Words Like 'Scent' a Silent Letter?

A listener named Edwin called in with this question: 

At the beginning of the words like "scent" and “science," which letter is actually the silent letter? I want to say it's a C, but I know in “science” the C at the end of that also sounds like S.

The short answer is that in words like "science" and "scent," SC is pronounced like an /s/ phoneme, or a unit of sound. Some phonemes come are represented by single letters, like the S-sound in “sat,” and others are represented by combinations of letters like the SH-sound in “shin.”

The long answer is that SC-words have a tricky history in English. If they’re old enough to have been around in Old English, they were probably pronounced like our modern SH-words: "shin" was spelled S-C-I-N, and a "sheath" for your sword would be spelled S-C-E-A-T-H. Every now and then, some of them kept their C’s but also sound like SH-words now: “omnscience” and “prescient,” or sometimes they sound like CH: “conscience” and “conscious.” A few added an H after the SC and made it just sound like SK: “schizophrenia” and “schism.” And a very few words make it sound just like S: “science,” “rescind,” “descent,” and the Massachusetts coastal town called “Scituate.” 

Every now and then, you get a group of words where you can see quite a bit of variation: "fish" and "pisces" both came from a root related to Latin “piscis” (which is spelled with an SC in the middle) "Pescatarian" comes from the same root. That’s the word for someone who eats fish but not other meat. And "porpoise" which literally means “pig fish”comes from “porcus,” the origin of "pork," plus “piscis,” the origin of "fish."

If the SC word is new enough and wasn’t around when Old English was spoken, then the C is there for a very different reason. After Old English had turned into Middle English, we got the word "scent" but it was spelled S-E-N-T as in the related word “sense" (as in “Sense and Sensibility”). The C was added hundreds of years later, after Middle English had turned into Modern English, probably because it was influenced by words like "descent" and “ascend,” which both have C’s in the middle.

So yes, the C of SC is what we usually call a “silent letter” in the case of words like "science" and "scent,” but there’s more to the...

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10 Tips for Cooking Fish

Frozen Fish Fix

Pining for fresh fish but stuck with frozen? Try this: Cover the frozen fish in milk until it thaws, then cook. It will taste fresher and your family will never know it was frozen.

Quick Fish Trick

If you’re grilling or broiling thick fish steaks, marinate them for 15 minutes in lemon or lime juice before cooking. The acid from the juice “cooks” the fish a bit, cutting down on the time it needs to stay on the heat—so your steaks are less likely to dry out.

Cornflake Your Fish

For added crunch with fewer calories, use cornflakes instead of breadcrumbs to coat fish fillets. Not only do cornflakes contain fewer calories than breadcrumbs, they are less absorbent and give a lighter covering, so the fish will soak up less oil.

Quick and Easy Fish

Our favorite way to prepare fish is also super quick and tasty. Wrap your fillets individually in foil, adding a bit of chopped onion, salt and pepper, and a sprig of dill. Bake for 30 minutes in a 350°F oven, then unwrap for a tender, flavorful fish.

Freshen Up Burnt Fish

You went a bit overboard with the blackened catfish, and now it’s a little too black. Freshen up burnt fish with some chopped parsley. It will help neutralize the burnt flavor and may just save dinner!

The Measure of Your Fish

It can be tricky to figure out the proper cooking time for fish. If you’ve ever overcooked an expensive piece of halibut, you know what we mean! To avoid this problem, measure the fish at its thickest part. You can estimate 10 minutes of cooking time for every inch of thickness.

How to Steam Fish in the Microwave

To steam fish fillets in the microwave, place them in a shallow microwavable dish (a glass pie plate is ideal) with the thinner parts overlapping at the center of the dish. Sprinkle with lemon juice or herbs, if you like, season with salt and pepper, then cover the dish with plastic wrap (making sure it doesn’t touch the fish) and cook for three minutes per pound. If your microwave doesn’t have a turntable, rotate the dish about halfway through the cooking time.

Testing Fish for Doneness

To test fish for doneness, insert a thin-bladed knife into the flesh at the thickest part. If it’s done, it will be just barely translucent in the center. Even though it might look not quite done, the fish will continue to cook after you remove it from the...

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8 Key Finance Management Tips for New Entrepreneurs

Cash flow management is one of the most common challenges faced by modern entrepreneurs. Most small business owners are lean on capital. But the good news is that you don’t need to be a financial expert to learn the secrets of managing money. Here are some of our best tips for new entrepreneurs.

1. Establish Your Goals

The first step towards successful finance management is setting clear goals. It is crucial for the survival and growth of your business.

One obvious goal for every business is to generate higher revenues. But you should set more specific goals that define your priorities. For instance, some important goals are “decrease costs,” “improve margins,” “reduce debt,” and “budget cash flow.” While your primary goal is always to make more money, there's more to it than just increasing sales. You can also boost revenue by paying attention to your online loans. Check to see how much money you can save by lowering your production expenses and overhead, and creating a cash flow budget.

2. Be Diligent with Recordkeeping

After a tiring day, the last thing you want to do is update your financial records. But as tedious as it may seem, it’s actually one of the best practices in financial management.

Recordkeeping doesn’t have to be a long, complicated chore. The key is to stay organized. Start by recording all your information in one place. It’s up to you if you want to invest in a bookkeeping software or use free tools like Excel or Google Sheets. Next, organize your data by category. It’s easy to forget about numbers and dates. But if you make record-keeping a priority, you'll find that it will become much easier to monitor and take control of your business finances.

3. Stay Lean

Financial experts are now recommending the “lean budgeting” approach to help companies save money and establish a more sustainable financial framework.

Financial experts are now recommending the 'lean budgeting' approach.

So how does lean budgeting work? Lean budgeting means prioritizing value streams over projects. Value streams are actions or steps that companies take to provide a continuous flow of value to their customers. For instance, one value stream involves purchasing inventory essential for the current production. Other possible value streams...

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6 Retirement Account Changes for 2020 You Should Know

Every year the U.S. Treasury evaluates what’s happening with the cost-of-living and inflation rate in our economy. Based on that data, the IRS is required to make a variety of adjustments in the tax law. Fortunately, many of the changes can help savers squirrel away more money for retirement.

I’ll highlight six upcoming retirement account changes you can expect in 2020. Get a head start and begin making plans to cash in on these adjustments.

6 Retirement Account Changes to Expect in 2020

Use these increased limits to boost your retirement savings in the new year.

1. Higher contribution limits for workplace plans

Starting in 2020, if your employer offers a workplace retirement plan, such as 401(k) or a 403(b), the base amount you can contribute will increase from $19,000 to $19,500. The same adjustment applies to most 457 plans and the federal government’s Thrift Savings Plan or TSP. You can have both a traditional and an after-tax Roth retirement account at work in the same year if your total contributions don’t exceed that annual limit.

So, make a goal to max out your retirement plan by updating your contribution percentage or dollar amount per pay period. You can make changes to your plan at any time during the year. In most cases, you can set up a higher contribution rate to begin at a particular time, such as on January 1.

You can make changes to your plan at any time during the year. In most cases, you can set up a higher contribution rate to begin at a particular time, such as on January 1.

If your company offers retirement matching as a perk, you’re allowed to exceed the base annual limit. The overall contribution limit, including employee and employer contributions, will increase by $1,000 to 100% of your compensation or $57,000, whichever is less.

2. Higher catch-up limits for workplace plans

The IRS cuts older workers some slack by allowing them to save more to retirement accounts. These “catch-up” contributions apply when you’ve reached age 50.

In the new year, catch-up contributions increase from $6,000 to $6,500 for most types of workplace retirement plans. This change is significant because it’s the first catch-up increase that we’ve seen in several years.

In the new year, catch-up contributions increase from $6,000 to $6,500 for most types of workplace retirement plans.

If you’re over 50, starting in 2020, you’ll be allowed to contribute $19,500 plus $6,500 for a total base limit of $26,000 to your retirement account at work. If you turn 50 before the end of 2020, don’t miss the chance to save an additional $1,000 for retirement.

And...

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Selasa, 19 November 2019

Soylent vs. Huel — Can Powdered Meals Replace Food?

Emily writes:

“My boyfriend is obsessed with these meal replacement shakes by Huel. He has anywhere from 1 to 3 a day because he hates cooking, and he and his friends even plan to do an entire week of consuming nothing but Huel. How often should we be consuming meal replacement shakes, and can it truly provide all of the nutrients we need?”

Years ago, my friend Chris told me he wished that someone would invent People Chow—some sort of food product that would supply all his nutritional needs without him having to make any decisions. He said he didn’t need variety. He didn’t need culinary excitement. As long as it didn’t taste terrible, he could happily eat the same thing for every meal, and he'd be glad never to have to think about it again.

Since then, several companies have tried to make the equivalent of People Chow. Soylent (named after a cult-classic dystopian fantasy film) was an early entry into this market, with an all-in-one powder that you mix with water or another liquid, and that would theoretically meet all of your nutrient needs.

Theoretically, you could consume nothing but Soylent or Huel for weeks or months.

Soylent caught on so quickly that early in the company’s history, they were unable to manufacture it fast enough to meet demand. That demand gave rise to a robust DIY community that share recipes for homemade Soylent Green-type formulas.

Huel is another rising brand of all-in-one nutrition product solutions and the one that Emily’s boyfriend is currently obsessed with.

Theoretically, you could consume nothing but Soylent or Huel for weeks or months. Online, you’ll find a bunch of bloggers, biohackers, and journalists doing exactly that and reporting on their experiences. To my knowledge, all of them have survived their experiments without undue harm. But this is not just about mere survival. These products claim to be so nutritionally complete and optimized that they represent an improvement over the imperfect and imbalanced diet that many of us eat.

Let’s take a closer look at the pros and cons of all-in-one meal replacement powders and shakes and then we’ll do a side by side comparison of Soylent and Huel.

Pros of meal replacement formulas

Balanced and complete nutrition

If you consume 2000 calories worth (about five shakes), it will supply 100% of the 27 vitamins and minerals considered to be “essential.” Depending on your baseline, this could be a big upgrade.

Calorie and portion controlled

Many...

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10 Money Management Tips to Teach Your Kids About Finance

Knowing how to handle finances is one of the most basic and important life skills. When you understand how to handle your money, you can avoid falling into financial problems and risks. So teaching your children about money is a key step in preparing them for adulthood. Teach them values and terms, such as saving, and they will grow to possess good money habits even up to adulthood. Broaden your knowledge of finance and money matters and pass them to your kids by reading up. Read LoanStart blog for financial advice and learn the intricacies of financing and loans and how they can help benefit your current financial situation.

1. Integrate Money Into Daily Life

Get your children involved with money. For example, you can have a young child join you at the grocery store to help with shopping. Ask them to compare prices of similar items and discuss why the items may be different. For older children, you might allow your child to watch or participate when you pay bills. Explain the process to them. Let your child know how much money comes in each month and how much you spend on expenses. Show to them how expenses add up.

Involving your children in household finances will help build their financial knowledge at an early age.

2. Give Your Child an Allowance, But Consider the Frequency and Amount

There are several benefits to giving an allowance. For one thing, when your child has money of their own that they can spend at their discretion, they will be incentivized to learn how to handle it. Once the allowance is gone, your child will have to save up to buy necessary items. You can teach your child to be responsible for money management and living within their means by sticking to the rules. Disperse allowance on a regular schedule, and never extend "credit."

Some financial experts recommend giving out an allowance to be budgeted once a month rather than once a week. This gives the child a longer amount of time on how to manage a given amount of money. Also, the larger the amount of money, the more management skills are to be learned.

3. Model Good Financial Behavior

Your children look up to you, so your decisions with money will set an example. Are you late on your bills? Are you living beyond your means? Get your financial situation in order and be honest with your children. Let them know the reason behind your financial behavior so that you can discuss financial planning and management as a family.

4. Teach Your Children About Choices

Let them know the reason behind your financial behavior and embark on sound financial planning and management as a...

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What Type of Exercise is Best During Menopause?

A while ago, a listener wrote to me asking a question that was decidedly beyond my area of expertise. It was a question about menopause. Seeing as I am neither a doctor nor a woman, I decided I needed to call in an expert to tackle this one.

The question was:

"I have just started the menopause and would really like to keep trim and lean and keep my muscle tone up. Is this realistic, or is middle-aged spread inevitable,  and I should just accept that I will have a rounder, softer, body than I used to? I have noticed there are very few women my age in the gym lifting weights."

I met my podcast guest, Dr. Tamsin Lewis, when she was racing (and winning) Ironman triathlons. She has since become an expert in the field of aging and hormones, making her the perfect guest for this topic.

About Dr. Tamsin Lewis

tamsin priory bike

Dr. Tamsin Lewis (or Dr. Tam) is an Ironman athlete and an MD who trained at King's College in London. She first became interested in the role of hormones in health and disease as well as in their optimization while she was competing as an athlete. In 2014, she completed her athletic career after becoming pregnant, and soon after dove into the field of endocrinology and the role of hormones. Dr. Tam began working at a clinic in London called the Center for Health and Human Performance, which worked closely with a bioidentical hormone clinic. It was there that she truly started to understand how impactful hormones were in terms of both physical and mental aspects of health and wellness. 

When I reached out to Dr. Tam and asked her if she would be willing to join me on the podcast to discuss this topic, she immediately and wholeheartedly responded saying that "... there is a dearth of information around menopause and the menopausal athlete, and the role of hormones more specifically on health and longevity, and health outcomes." 

A three-pronged strategy for the fit menopausal woman

In our conversation, we broke down the most important and actionable tips into to three buckets: 

  1. Nutritional strategy: Reducing simple carbs and increasing protein intake.
  2. Supplementary strategy: Discussing with a trusted physician the possibility of introducing bioidentical hormone replacement.
  3. Lifestyle strategy: Increasing the amount of resistance or strength training (...
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Senin, 18 November 2019

How to Measure What Matters On the Job

Today we’re going to talk about how to choose what to measure to set yourself up for success.

Grandma Cuddles Daycare is in an uproar! Grandma recently started yoga classes. She's so happy with her newfound ability to touch her knees that she’s decided to travel to India to study directly with the Dalai Lama. The staff tried to explain to her that the Dalai Lama isn’t a yoga instructor. But she insisted, and what Cuddles wants, Cuddles gets.

Chip, the controller, will be taking over in her absence. When Grandma’s around, she rules the center with an iron fist. But she’s taking the fist with her (assuming she can get it through the metal detector at the airport), so Chip needs to find other ways to keep things running.

The old adage is “What gets measured, gets managed.” Chip intends to manage everything as best he can. That means setting measurements. But what to measure, and what to do with the measures, he’s less clear on.

Manage obvious outcomes

Some jobs have natural numeric measurements. Salespeople, for example, can measure how many new prospects they reach out to, their close rate is, the average sale size, and so on. 

The Cuddles sales team scours hospital birth records to find prospects for the daycare center. They’re ruthless when it comes to recruitment. A couple of years later, early-stage parenthood has taken a toll on the parents, and daycare suddenly becomes a necessity. That’s when the sales team swoops in like vultures to capture the sale. 

Monitor levels and changes

Chip could choose to measure the number of new births entered into the system each day. Or how many of this year’s candidates actually sign up for daycare (that would be the sales yield). 

Instead of just the numbers, Chip could also monitor the change in the numbers. Is the birth rate going up or down relative to last year? How about the close rate? 

Monitor second-order effects

Chip ponders the Grandma Cuddles maintenance person, who keeps the arc welder in tip-top condition. Everyone knows the arc welder is crucial to the daycare center’s metal shop, and the metal shop is where the kiddies learn the useful skills that will make them valued cogs in the military-industrial machine. Who can put a number on such a noble calling? (Aside from the Grandma Cuddles sales department, that is.)

We can. When you have a mystery job or an activity that doesn’t have an obvious number...

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Can Science Explain Our Obsession With Pumpkin Spice?

Fall is upon us in the Northern Hemisphere. In the U.S., that means cooler temperatures, shorter days, and pumpkin spice. Love it or hate it, pumpkin spice is everywhere. Of course, we’ve got our pumpkin spice coffee and scented candles, but I’ve also seen pumpkin spice flavored bone broth, special edition pumpkin spice Spam, pumpkin spice deodorant, and even pumpkin spice hummus. I shudder at the thought.

And this isn’t just a U.S.-based obsession. Starbucks offers its pumpkin spice latte in 50 countries including some in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. So in a world where we can’t seem to agree on anything, how is it that pumpkin spice is such a universal infatuation? Well, as it turns out, there's some science to explain our obsession. 

We want what we can’t have

Our desire for pumpkin spice likely comes down to the simple idea that we tend to want what we can’t have. Marketers know this and strategize accordingly. 

In the field of psychology, reactance is our urge to regain a specific freedom when we feel we’ve lost it or that it’s under threat. This response can apply to more important things like actual physical freedom or the freedom of choice in our major life decisions, but it also pertains to less significant freedoms, like the freedom to indulge in consumer products like pumpkin spice at any time of the year.

In the field of psychology, reactance is our urge to regain a specific freedom when we feel we’ve lost it or that it’s under threat.

Sharon and Jack Brehm first wrote about the theory of reactance in an article called Psychological Reactance: A Theory of Freedom and Control. They conducted a study in which they asked participants to listen to and rate four different music albums. They were then told to choose only one album to keep. The researchers then told just one group that the record they had ranked third of the four got lost during shipment and so was no longer available. After being asked to re-score the albums, two-thirds of the participants in that group gave the album they could no longer have a higher ranking. 

I see this consumer reactance firsthand every year when my daughter sells cookies as a fundraiser for her Girl Scout troop. The Girl Scouts set up a table outside of a bookstore...

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A Peek Behind the Scenes in Publishing

In this interview with Kat Brzozowski, a senior editor at Swoon Reads, we got excited about National Novel Writing Month (November) and all the interesting behind-the-scenes activities at a publishing enterprise such as Swoon Reads.

We talked about:

  • How Swoon Reads lets authors upload manuscripts, readers give feedback, and editors select great books to publish
  • How writers can fix the most common problems Kat sees in submissions
  • How a writer can know when a manuscript is really ready to submit
  • How typos make it into published books
  • What different types of editors do
  • Why writers should stick with "said" for dialogue tags
  • What happens after a manuscript is acquired
  • How new authors can deal with feedback from editors when it might seem extreme (like eliminating a whole character)
  • Which books coming out soon Kat is excited about
  • What kind of books Kat is looking to acquire right now
  • What kinds of books and shows make a good comparison when you're trying to describe your project

You can listen to the entire interview by clicking the player above or by finding the Grammar Girl podcast on any podcasting app, but if you prefer to read it, we also have a complete (rough) transcript.

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Transcript: An Interview with Kat Brzozowski



The Secret Art of Intimate Communication

I’m sitting in my office, listening to a patient of mine tell me about something that happened over the weekend.

His wife was in a bad mood, and he couldn’t figure out what to do about it. Whenever he’d say something to try to be helpful, she’d say it was the wrong thing to say. But whenever he gave her space, she’d say she felt abandoned.

I’m listening as best I can, not sure exactly how to help.

Halfway through the hour, he interrupts the story, gives me a pained look, and says, “I’m worried you’re not really interested in all this.”

At that moment, something changes. We’re both more involved, and neither of us is sure exactly sure what’s going to happen next.

There’s an electricity in the air, that wasn’t there before. Before he turned to me and told me that he was worried I wasn’t really interested, we were having what I’d call a non-intimate communication. Once he turned to confront me directly, our dialog suddenly became intimate in a new way.

How do I know what's intimate communication, and what's not?

An intimate communication always has three elements: you, me, and a feeling. When my patient turns to me and tells me he's worried that I'm not really interested, suddenly all three elements—you, me, and a feeling—are in the room at the same time.

Intimate communication always has three elements: you, me, and a feeling.

When that happens, things change. The emotion in the room goes way up because he has no idea how I’m going to react.

That’s what happens when you start talking about “you, me, and a feeling.” You have no control over how the other person is going to react. We humans don’t usually like giving up control—it's vulnerable. It’s like walking out on thin ice. Maybe it will hold you, or maybe you’ll fall through.

How can I get better at intimate communication?

If someone's just stepped out onto thin emotional ice and taken the risk of making an intimate statement, it's important to validate them for it. There are a couple of ways to react in the moment.

Treat the statement with respect 

When someone makes an intimate statement, they’re asserting their right to be taken seriously. Don’t just react willy-nilly and say the first thing that pops into your head. Instead, give what the person said some serious consideration. Ask for time to give the statement some thought if necessary.

People aren’t stupid. If my patient is worried that I’ve lost interest, he must have picked up on something. Maybe he's experiencing the moment in a distorted way, but...

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Minggu, 17 November 2019

Avoid These Mistakes When You Interact With Adoptive Parents

November is such a special month. We celebrate our military veterans, give thanks for all the wonderful blessings in our lives at Thanksgiving, and for those who didn’t know—we also celebrate National Adoption Awareness Month.

26 years ago, I received the most special gift I will probably ever know in my lifetime—I finally became a mom through the gift of adoption. After struggling with five-plus years of infertility, we changed gears and focused on creating our family through adoption. Because I knew in my heart that I was destined to be a mother, it was more important to form a family through love rather than spending month after month as an infertility patient, frustrated and heartbroken that my body just wasn’t up for the task at that time.

Adoption is an incredible journey. It not only affects the adoptive parents and birth parents, but the friends and family that will also become a part of this new family member’s lives.

As the grateful mom of eight remarkable kids (yes, we moms can brag!), I know I wouldn’t be the mother I am today if it wasn’t for the beautiful adoption we had 26 years ago. Adoption is an incredible journey. It not only affects the adoptive parents and birth parents, but the friends and family that will also become a part of this new family member’s lives.

Every adoptive parent's journey is different, but a few things seem nearly universal. There are three essential ways we would love for you to support us.

  • Celebrate the union of family
  • Know what not to say to adoptive parents and children
  • Understand the ways everyone can recognize and support adoption

Let’s take a closer look at these things to consider when your family grows through adoption.

Celebrate the union of family

As much as I dreamed of one day being pregnant, what I really craved was to be a mother. After years of sadness at not being able to carry a child, I searched deep in my soul and realized that becoming a parent was far more important to me than how my family was formed. It was then that a bright light shone down, and our adoption journey was off and running. Adoptive families are a diverse lot, but our goal is the same—to unconditionally love and parent a child regardless of what biology has to do with it.

Here's one of my favorite takes on adoption from an article on Adoption.org:

Adoptive families are beautiful! They are a picture of what happens when one part of the human race decides to care for...

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Jumat, 15 November 2019

Why Is Cyberbullying So Damaging and How Can You Cope?

On September 22, 2010, 18-year-old Tyler Clementi jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge. He had been a student at Rutgers, one of many hopeful young people starting an exciting new phase of life at college. But three days before his suicide, he had experienced an extreme case of cyberbullying.

Tyler's roommate and another classmate had used a webcam to spy on him kissing another male student, and then they posted about it on Twitter. They even invited others to tune in for a second viewing. Tyler found out, and it’s impossible to say what he felt at that moment. All we know is that he took his own life within days.

Tyler’s tragedy isn't an isolated event. In 2019, a large survey by the Cyberbullying Research Center in the U.S. found that 30 percent of teens had experienced some form of cyber aggression in the previous 30 days. The things they experienced included:

  • Being the target of rumors
  • Mean or prejudiced comments
  • Having someone impersonate them
  • Threats

Cyberbullying is more than a matter of hurt feelings. A 2018 study of over 31,000 teens found that cyberbullying was a strong predictor of emotional and behavioral problems, and that this effect remained even when traditional bullying was accounted for. We also know that being a victim (and, interestingly, being a perpetrator) is linked to having more suicidal thoughts and attempts.

And it’s not only teens who are affected. Adults also experience online aggression and harassment. A 2015 survey of young women, mostly in their twenties, found that one in five had repeatedly received unsolicited sexually obscene messages and solicitations.

We have to be careful not to overlook people’s experiences of cyberbullying, regardless of their gender and age.

Although this particular study focused on women’s experiences, it’s important to point out that men also experience cyber aggression. Interestingly, one study on perceptions about cyberbullying found that men’s reports of these experiences are taken less seriously, and...

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Single Quotation Marks Versus Double Quotation Marks

Today's topic is single quotation marks versus double quotation marks.

How to Use Double Quotation Marks

Most people think of double quotation marks as being for quotations, which they are, but they also have other legitimate uses. For example, double quotation marks are often used around the title of a short work such as a magazine article or an episode of a TV show.

 

The "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra" episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" is one of my favorites.

The rules for longer works, such as books, are tricky. The Associated Press uses quotation marks, but the Chicago Manual of Style and the MLA Handbook recommend italics.

Here are some of the more common situations where people use double quotation marks: 

  1. Use double quotation marks for scare quotes
  2. Use double quotation marks for words used as examples

Let's talk more about these examples below.

Use Double Quotation Marks for Scare Quotes

People also sometimes use double quotation marks to indicate that a word is special in some way. I bet you've all seen quotation marks used as something called scare quotes, which are quotation marks put around a word to show that the writer doesn't buy into the meaning. For example, I could write the sentence:

Women achieved “equality” when they were granted the right to vote in 1920.

That would indicate that although women getting the right to vote was heralded as equality at the time, I don't think it was enough of a gain to merit the word “equality.” More often though, scare quotes (which are also sometimes called sneer quotes) are used to impart a sense of irony or disdain. They're especially common in nasty political commentary, as in Politicians “care” about their constituents.*

Use Double Quotation Marks for Words Used as Examples

Double quotation marks can also be used when you are writing a sentence and you want to refer to a word rather than use its meaning. Since I talk about words a lot, this comes up in almost every Grammar Girl episode. It's a style choice. You can use italics or double quotation marks to highlight words, but we use quotation marks on the Grammar Girl site. 

Be Careful...

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Kamis, 14 November 2019

How to Get Rid of a Headache Naturally

Olive Oil for Headache Relief

It’s one of our favorite tips from our book Who Knew? Household Shortcuts: As soon as you feel a headache coming on, head for your kitchen! Scientific studies have shown that just a few teaspoons of olive oil eaten at the onset of a headache can have an anti-inflammatory effect, reducing pain as well as ibuprofen does. Mix it with balsamic vinegar and enjoy it on a salad or some bread.

Boost Low Blood Sugar

If you tend to get headaches in the late mornings, late afternoons, and after a long nap, they might be due to low blood sugar, also known as hypoglycemia. These headaches can be helped by eating foods that release sugar slowly, such as bananas, whole grains, and oats. Getting adequate protein with each meal—30 grams is a good start—can keep your blood sugar levels from fluctuating and may also prevent headaches.

Stay Hydrated

Many headaches are caused by dehydration. Before you reach for the pain reliever, try drinking two or three glasses of water or an energy drink like Gatorade. You may find you’re back to normal in no time.

Old-Time Headache Remedy

It may be an old wives’ tale, but Bruce’s grandfather used to swear that an effective way to treat headaches is to cut a lime in half and rub it on your forehead. In a few minutes, the throbbing should subside.

Rest Your Eyes

Less-than-perfect eyesight can trigger headaches because the muscles around the eyes squeeze in order to focus. If your headaches come on after reading or working at a computer, make sure you give your eyes a rest every 15 minutes by focusing on a distant object for at least a minute. You may also want to get your eyes examined to see if you need glasses or a new prescription.

See Also: When to Worry About a Headache

Watch What You Eat

Headaches may be caused by reactions to foods and food substances such as MSG, chocolate, glutenalcohol, sulfites, nitrites, and fermented foods, such as cheese and yogurt. Since it can sometimes take up to 72 hours for a headache to occur after eating one of these foods, it can be difficult...

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Rabu, 13 November 2019

What Is ‘House Style’?

One of our listeners wrote in recently to ask whether you capitalize the prefix “non” in the phrase “non-federal sponsors.” We replied that it depended on what her house style was for “federal.” If her company capitalized the word “federal,” then “non” would be capitalized too.

Her reply was “Thanks, but what do you mean by ‘house style’?” 

Here’s an explanation. 

What Is a Style Guide?

As you might know, most of the so-called “rules” we follow when we’re writing and editing aren’t rules at all. They’re actually a collection of choices related to grammar, punctuation, spelling, and formatting. These choices, which can vary by industry and country, are collected in major style guides like the Chicago Manual of Style, the AP Stylebook, and the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA). And as we said a couple of weeks ago in the segment on the plural of “quid pro quo,” the online Buzzfeed style guide often has good advice for internet and pop culture terms that other style guides don’t have. 

These guides address a vast range of questions that come up when you’re writing or editing. For example: 

  • Whether you capitalize or lowercase certain words
  • Whether you hyphenate compound words, close them up, or set them as two separate words 
  • When you spell out numbers, and when you use numerals 
  • When you abbreviate certain terms, and when you spell them out
  • What punctuation you use in bulleted and numbered lists
  • How you format indexes, reference lists, and text citations
  • How you format the names of books, magazines, websites, TV shows, and the like.

Despite how comprehensive the major style guides are — the print version of Chicago runs 1,144 pages — they still can’t answer every “how should I do X” question that comes up when you’re writing. That’s particularly true when you’re writing about a specialized area — whether it’s gardening, ceramics, or snake handling. 

No one style guide — nor dictionary — can capture the all of the rich terminology we use when we talk about our favorite topics.  

A ‘House Style Guide’ Is a Supplement to a Major Style Guide

That’s where house style guides come in. These are supplemental guides that document all the additional style decisions you need to make when you’re writing about a very specific topic. 

Why...

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Smart Money Tips that Will Help You Out in Your Old Age

Wherever you are right now in your financial journey, you can make positive changes with your money habits. Check out these smart tips to save and grow your money so you can live your retirement life to the fullest.

Prioritize Paying off Your Debt

Living without debt is financially liberating. When you reach 50 or 60, you’re supposed to be enjoying the fruits of your labor—pension, savings, and other benefits and not paying off your mortgage or your car loan. If you can speed up paying your debts, do it. This could mean paying more than your monthly dues (anything in excess of the monthly repayment goes to the loan capital). Your goal is to eliminate big loans before retirement. If you have multiple loans, see if you can consolidate them.

Whatever your retirement goals are, one thing is for sure. You need money.

It’s okay to take personal loans during retirement, such as payday loans to cover important expenses like medications and home repairs. But at least you won’t get caught up with having so many debts to settle.

Master the 20/30/50 Rule

Many people struggle with saving money despite having a really high income. Why? Simple. They spend more than their means. If you’re guilty of this habit, Senator Elizabeth Warren recommends the 20/30/50 budgeting technique. The basic rule is to divide your after-tax income to three things: needs (50%), wants (30%), and savings (20%).

Needs are the bills you need to pay (mortgage, electricity, etc.) as well as the expenses necessary for your survival—food, gas, health care, and so on. Wants are the expenses that are not absolutely essential, such as your subscription to Netflix, the latest iPhone, an ultra-high-speed Internet, or a luxury car over a more economical vehicle.

Aim to allocate 20% of your income to your savings and investment plans. This could be in the form of adding money to your emergency fund, making IRA contributions, or investing in the stock market.

Diversify Your Investments

You don’t put all your eggs in one basket, so they say. Make sure you’re not investing all your money in a single account or investment type. ...

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How to Create Foolproof Financial Safety Nets

Most people know what it’s like to get caught short without enough cash in the bank due to an unexpected financial hardship, such as having a big medical bill or losing your job. Life and money are both unpredictable.

While having a positive mindset is key for success, it’s also critical to prepare for potential money problems. A big part of having healthy finances is building safety nets to protect you and help reduce stress. Just like a smart acrobat would never cross a high wire without a balancing stick and a big, strong net stretched out below, you should never go without financial safety nets.

Life and money are both unpredictable.

Let's review ten types of safety nets you can create that will help you and your family survive and even thrive despite a financial hardship.

10 financial safety nets for your personal finances

  1. Emergency fund
  2. Health insurance
  3. Disability insurance
  4. Home or renters insurance
  5. Life insurance
  6. Retirement account
  7. Reducing debt
  8. Multiple income streams
  9. Automation
  10. Professional help

Now, we'll take a closer look at the 10 financial safety nets you should start building today.

1. Emergency fund

It’s probably no surprise that having an emergency fund is my number-one recommendation for staying out of financial trouble. It’s also known as a reserve account or a safety net fund. The idea is that we all need extra money set aside to stay safe from the unexpected. If you don't have a financial cushion to fall back on for a large expense or a sudden cut in income, it could take years or decades to recover from a crisis.

Of course, not having enough money on hand to pay for an emergency is how many people get into credit card debt in the first place. If you make card charges that you can’t afford to pay off quickly, interest on the balance grows every month, and you could end up owing double or triple the amounts you initially charged.

Having enough money at your fingertips for emergencies should never be thought of as a luxury. Building up a reserve should be a top priority, so you’re never backed into a corner, financially speaking.

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