Are Massage Guns Worth Your Time and Money?

Chances are you’ve seen someone use a massage gun at the gym or watched a video of someone pressing one into their muscles somewhere on social media. If not, I’m certain you’ve at least heard about this pistol-shaped therapeutic device that sends a combination of percussion and vibrations deep down into your muscles. 

Massage guns, also known as percussive therapy devices, are quite popular these days. They’re pitched as portable devices that can be used by anyone (athletes, couch potatoes, and everyone in between) to relieve pain and enhance recovery from exercise and sports activity. 

But does percussive therapy really work and are massage guns worth their hype? I’ve gotten a lot of questions from listeners about massage guns so I thought I’d give you the scoop on whether these devices are really worth your time and money. 

Percussive therapy

Percussive therapy has, of course, been around for some time. Tapotement, the rapid and repeated striking of the body with the edge of the hand or a cupped hand, is a commonly used Swedish massage technique and is an example of percussive therapy applied manually. 

The wonders of technology have now created percussive therapy devices that are affordable, handheld, and can apply percussion hundreds of times faster than a human hand without tiring out. The speed of these devices not only creates percussion but also simultaneously adds vibration, which can also be beneficial as I’ll explain later. 

Percussive therapy devices have been around for at least a few decades but looked different than the sleek devices on the market today. In the past, they were bulky and were used more often in a clinical setting due to their size and cost. 

The Best No-Equipment Home Workout Program

I recall my first encounter with one as a patient at a chiropractor’s office in San Francisco in the early 2000s. The device was the size of a large shoebox with dozens of tiny fingers resembling Bart Simpson’s hair that required another person to hold and press...

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How Changing Your Home Design Affects Your Way of Thinking and Productivity

Did you know that enacting some specific strategies while interior decorating can help improve your creativity? Consider using some of these ideas to make the most out of your time — and let your home and office help you boost your ability to accomplish tasks and be the most productive.

Colors set the tone

Some suggest that soothing colors in the blue family work well for those who have heavy workloads. It is a calming and relaxing color and comes in a range of hues that help individuals find the color schemes that work best for their style. This is a brilliant strategy for at-home workers or those who work on multiple projects at home while away from the office.

In contrast, it is suggested that those who have hands-on or active jobs that require physical activity best benefit from colors in the red family. Luckily, warm colors come in a range of shades, which helps create a color scheme with depth and contrast.

If you're undecided on a color scheme, but stress is a common factor in your life, try using colors in the green family. It is excellent for promoting calm and helps mellow out the mood and tone of spaces.

Avoid blue or fluorescent light

Fluorescent lighting or blue light works to interrupt your circadian rhythms and interrupts your sleep schedule, while also making your eyes tired. The solution is to ensure you only use soft or natural lighting. Remove any fluorescent bulbs, and, if possible, rely on natural light.

Soft white lighting is affordable and doesn't interrupt your sleep — plus it's easier on your eyes. Additionally, it makes colors appear softer and more inviting in your spaces.

Avoid clutter

One of the best ways to keep up productivity levels is to ...

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6 Ways to Share Black History with Kids All Year Long

Happy Black History Month! All month long I’ve been centering African-American contributions to the history of the United States and beyond!

In my last Black History Month episode today, I’m talking about ways parents and other adults who play significant roles in children’s lives can share the history and human experience of the African and African American diaspora with kids all year round. Stick around until the end to hear about the everyday ways you can teach kids to dismantle anti-Blackness, and how you can challenge yourself to create an anti-racist family culture.

Help kids stay grounded in and take inspiration from the ways the enslaved persisted, resisted, and endured.

Not only is the acknowledgment of Black history and culture relegated to a single month, but so often the discussion of the history of Black people in America is limited to enslavement, trauma, and oppression. While we can never forget the brutality of the system of enslavement and its influence on present-day life, it’s important to give kids more context. The African American experience does involve historical trauma, but it also involves survival, resistance, resilience and a globally emulated culture that thrived and continues to thrive within the destructive lie of racial hierarchies of both past and present.

Here are 6 ways to share Black history with children 365 days a year!

1. Offer accurate information about the business of enslavement

Kids do need to be given real information about how enslavement worked. They should be told about the horrors of kidnapping, forcible transport, and the racism that had to be developed because the culture and system of enslavement depended on the dehumanization of Black people. It needed to be a condition from which there was no escape—generations of people were born into it. It required making it illegal for Black people to learn to read, lest they become educated about what was happening to them or get ideas on how to stop it. It depended on the separation of families, sexual violence, and violent punishment to maintain control. It’s important not to gloss over these atrocities and the historical and generational trauma that reverberates in African American communities to this day.

2. Highlight African American survival despite oppression

In the midst of control by force, exploitation, and profound brutality, African Americans still went on to create one of the most vibrant cultures in the world. African Americans have made outstanding achievements in literature, design, science, music, philosophy, fashion, agriculture, education, medicine, dance, and beyond. When the business of enslavement was abolished, freed Black people worked to reunite with family members from whom they were separated, they registered to vote, and they sought to legitimize their relationships through marriage.

3. Emphasize African...

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How to EMPOWER Yourself Against Emotional Triggers

There are so many things happening in the world that are potentially triggering for folks. Events in the news, like people getting murdered or being the victim of serious bodily harm, or similar themes depicted in entertainment we consume can trigger us.

What is a triggering event?

Let's definite what a triggering event is. A trigger or stressor is anything that can lead to a negative emotional reaction. When an individual says they are "triggered," what they typically mean is that the stimuli brought on or worsened symptoms related to their mental health. These could be a wide array of symptoms related to mood, anxiety, PTSD, and more that we'll discuss in more detail later.

Triggers are often connected to trauma. Vicarious trauma relates to stressors that are directed and witnessed by others. There are also related types of trauma which include race-based trauma and other types of minority stress like those related to sexuality, gender, and religion. These sorts of trauma describe the chronically high levels of stress faced by members of oppressed groups due to the interpersonal experiences of bias, prejudice, discrimination, and hate crimes. You can also have intergenerational trauma, which is trauma transferred from one generation to the next. These traumas can be related to systematic issues like racism or personal traumas like domestic violence or child sexual abuse.

If you find that certain things are triggering for you, it’s not that you're being too sensitive. The effects of these kinds of trauma are very real, and you're not alone in experiencing them. It's difficult to witness or experience traumatic events once; imagine if it’s happening repetitively. I don’t think I can count on my hands how many people I have watched being killed on tape. I feel uneasy every time I witness a police officer put their knees on someone’s back or neck after the tragedy of George Floyd. This hits on all 3 of the types of trauma for me as a Black American.

Some of the effects of trauma that you might experience include fear, hypervigilance, depression, rage or anger, feeling lonely or disconnected, memory problems, headaches, insomnia, body aches, decreased self-esteem, hopelessness, and feelings of shame or guilt.

What is one to do about all of this? I wish I could say that the world would be a drastically better place tomorrow, but that’s unlikely. That scope of change generally takes time. If you remember back to my allyship episode from last summer, some of that sentiment resonates here. If you want to feel empowered in the long run, you have to pace yourself and listen to your limits around these types of triggering events. Here is an acronym I’ve crafted to E.M.P.O.W.E.R. you to find equilibrium between being...

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Frozen Binomials: Why Do We Cringe at 'Pepper and Salt'?

Can you put the pepper and salt on the table? 

Will you stop walking forth and back; you’re going to wear out the carpet. 

I just have to tie up a few ends and odds before I quit for the day.

How many uncles and aunts do you have?

Did you just cringe hearing those backward sets of words as much as I did saying them? It’s an odd, but well-known thing in English — and other languages — that some word pairs, like “sticks and stones,” just sound more “right” when we say them in a certain order. 

Linguists call word pairs like this “binomials,” and if the words appear in the same order most of the time, they’re called “frozen binomials.” If words are a jumble of dancers we negotiate into phrases and sentences, imagine frozen binomials as a pair of dancers frozen in place like statues.

I occasionally get questions from thoughtful listeners who have noticed this phenomenon and wondered why it happens. For example, Curt recently asked on Facebook why we say “guys and dolls” or “guys and gals” instead of “dolls and guys” or “gals and guys.” 

One theory he had was that maybe we tend to put men before women in such pairs, and he’s definitely on to something!

When I started looking into the question, it kind of blew my mind how many researchers have tried to answer it. Linguists have been testing possibilities for at least 60 years, though one paper I read says you can find people looking into binomials as far back as the ancient Sanskrit philologist Panini, who is sometimes called the father of linguistics.

Researchers have come up with about 20 theories about what determines word order, and those can be consolidated into just a few categories. (And I’ll add that these are all tendencies and not hard-and-fast rules. You’ll probably be able to think of an exception to every reason I name.) 

Powerful words go first

The tendency to put men before women, as in “kings and queens,” “brothers and sisters,” and “guys and gals,” falls under the broader category of putting powerful or more important things first (or things that are culturally perceived as powerful or more important first). 

One study I just can’t get out of my head was done in 2011 by Peter Hegarty and colleagues at the University of Surrey, and it showed that not only did people put the man’s name first in the names of imaginary couples, but when...

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Why Does ‘Square’ Mean ‘Uncool’?

Daniel had a good question about the "square meal" segment from last week’s show:

[VOICEMAIL] "Hi, Mignon. This is Daniel from Kansas City, Missouri. I just got done listening to your latest podcast about the word ‘square’ ... ‘square meal,’ ‘square deal,’ and so on. And so how did the word 'square' … at one point was a good thing but then in the 1950s, being a square was not a good thing. It was uncool. You know the phrase ‘be there or be square’ implies that if you don't attend the certain event, you're uncool. So how did the meeting change? And why did the meeting change from something just fair and equitable to uncool? I was just wondering if you knew that. Bye."

Great question! So here’s what I found. 

The idea of “square” being uncool started in the United States jazz scene in the 1920s according to the World Wide Words website, although the first written example in the Oxford English Dictionary is from 1946 (also attributed to the U.S. jazz scene). 

A square was originally someone who didn’t appreciate jazz, and Etymonline has the charming story that it comes from the “shape of a conductor's hand gestures in a regular four-beat rhythm,” presumably in contrast to the more free rhythm of jazz. If you were square, you liked that old style of music with the four beats.

From those origins of not appreciating jazz, “square” expanded to include the idea of not being in touch with popular, contemporary ideas. And World Wide Words wisely points out that it’s not much of a stretch to go from the idea of being properly arranged and in good order to the idea of being boringly conventional, especially if the people calling other people square consider themselves to be avant-garde or edgy.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.

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How to Buy or Sell a Used Car Online

In the old days, you had to get up off the couch to visit car dealerships or read pages of classified ads to find used vehicles for sale. Now, online platforms can make the process so easy you might enjoy shopping for your next pre-owned car. 

Since I’m getting ready to help my mom sell a car, I interviewed Sarah Wyant, Assistant Director of Financial Planning & Analysis at Carvana. If you’re like me, you’ve seen Carvana’s TV commercials featuring tall car vending machines. I got connected with them through Finder.com, an online comparison site, and wanted to learn more about how the car buying platform works. 

Carvana doesn't know if you've never bought a car before or judge you for being a woman ... everybody gets a great deal.

Sarah Wyant

Sarah and I had a great conversation about tips that every car buyer and seller should know and ways to get the most from the Carvana platform. Here are a few topics we cover on this Money Girl podcast interview:

• How Carvana shoppers save an average of $1,000 compared to using a traditional car dealer.
• How to use Carvana’s Auto Loan Calculator to know how much you can afford before shopping for a car.
• Why it’s convenient and empowering to buy or sell a car anonymously online.
• Whether purchasing a new or used car is the best financial move for you.
• How to prepare for an auto loan and apply without getting a hard inquiry on your credit.
• Tips to know if you should sell a vehicle or accept a trade-in when...

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Counting Calories: The 4-4-9 Myth

I recently heard from a long-time listener who was upset by what she felt was highly misleading nutrition information on one of her favorite products.

“Alice” explained that she’d been eating a lot of tortillas, in the form of breakfast tacos, wraps for lunch, and tortilla and peanut butter roll-ups for snacks. She had found a few different low-calorie tortillas, with anywhere from 30 to 50 cal according to their labels.

“But when I calculated the calories myself, by multiplying the grams of carbohydrate by 4, grams of protein by 4, and grams of fat by 9,” she wrote, “the result was almost double what the nutrition labels showed. If you are someone that only has a wrap on occasion, it's not a big deal. But if you are someone like me who eats several wraps per day, you might be eating a lot more calories than you think you are. How can they get away with this?”

In fact, the nutrition counts provided on these labels were perfectly legal, as well as reasonably accurate. There are a few reasons why the calorie counts on Nutrition Facts labels may not add up the way you think they should. One has to do with common misunderstandings about how many calories the so-called macros (carbs, fats, and protein) provide.

The 4-4-9 myth

It’s commonly believed that 1 gram of carbohydrate contains 4 calories, 1 gram of protein has 4 calories, and 1 gram of fat has 9 calories. These numbers are called Atwater equivalents, and they represent the average values for these macronutrients. In fact, a gram of carbohydrate may have anywhere from 0 to 4.5 calories, depending on the source of carbohydrate. There are also variations in the number of calories per gram in fats and proteins from different sources, although the range is quite a bit smaller.

Manufacturers have a number of options for calculating their calorie counts. The simplest way is to use the Atwater equivalents. For a lot of foods, this is going to be pretty close. But for some foods, using Atwater equivalents would significantly overstate the calories. This is especially true for foods that have been engineered to be lower in carbohydrates than they normally would, such as the low-carb tortillas that Alice was buying.

The total carbohydrate count that you see on the Nutrition Facts label includes starches and sugars, as well as fiber and sugar alcohols. But because these last two categories are largely indigestible, they contribute a lot fewer calories per gram than other carbohydrates. When you see a package that lists “net carbs” in addition to total carbohydrates, that’s often a food with a lot of indigestible carbohydrates.

Understanding net carbs

Net carbs is not an officially recognized way of stating the nutrient content of foods—and this number cannot be included in the Nutrition Facts label. It’s...

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What Is Normal?

Hello listeners!

I'm on maternity leave right now, but I wanted to share something very cool with you today in lieu of a regular episode. It's an excerpt from Finding Normal: Sex, Love, and Taboo in Our Hyperconnected World. It's the brand new book by Alexa Tsoulis-Reay, and it's an up-close tour of people who are using the internet to challenge the boundaries of what's taboo and what it means to be normal.

Each story in Finding Normal intimately immerses the reader in the world of a person who is grappling with a unique set of circumstances relating to sexuality.

If that sounds fascinating to you, you can buy Finding Normal at your local bookstore, Amazon, Bookshop.org, or wherever you get your books.

Also, this might be obvious, but if you're listening out loud with kids or family, you might want to skip to another episode.

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How to Achieve Executive Presence in 2022

Years ago, a friend told me she was up for a promotion into a pretty senior role at work. She’d been told she was ready from a skills perspective; she just needed to boost her “executive presence”—or her ability to present herself in a way that inspires trust, credibility, and poise—as someone “in charge.”

 

Her company hired a coach specializing in executive presence to support her on the journey. When I asked my friend a few months later how it was going she said “It’s great! My coach has taken me shopping three times, I look like a new woman, and that promotion has finally been announced!”

 

If you’re horrified by this anecdote in 2022, I hear you. It actually happened in 2013, and I was horrified then.

 

To be fair, in that time executive presence wasn’t only about appearance. But in certain companies, looking the part was non-negotiable. And when I launched my consulting business in 2015, I wasn’t willing to coach for executive presence. I was appalled by the bias and lack of inclusivity inherent in its framing.

 

But now, we’re in 2022. The world is upside down and all the rules have changed. I do believe the ability to inspire confidence remains as critical as ever today. But I also believe the drivers of executive presence have shifted.

 

I even coach for it today based on a framework I believe is relevant and fair. In 2020, Frances Frei and Anne Morriss published the concept of the Trust Triangle in the Harvard Business Review. And I believe trust lies at the foundation of executive presence.

 

So if you’re looking to dial up the confidence others have in your leadership ability—whether you’re hoping for a promotion, a speaking gig, a university professorship—then let’s talk about how leaning on authenticity, empathy, and logic—the three components of the Trust Triangle—can get you there faster.

Authenticity

Trust begins with showing people the “real” you. This doesn’t mean you have to overshare or give up your privacy. It simply means a single version of you shows up in every situation and is aligned with your values and beliefs.

 

Frei and Morriss do acknowledge that there are legitimate reasons why someone may feel compelled to hold parts of themselves back.

 

“There may… be times,” they say, “when expressing your authentic feelings may risk harmful consequences: Women, for example, are disproportionately penalized for displaying negative emotions in the workplace, and black men are burdened by the false stereotype that they are predisposed...

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Talking to Kids About Skin Tone with Dr. Lucretia Carter Berry

This week, I interviewed Dr. Lucretia Carter Berry, author of the book Hues of You: An Activity Book for Learning About the Skin You Are In. Dr. Berry’s book gives children and families a foundational understanding of skin tone, as well as the language and framework for supporting a healthy and evidence-based understanding of skin tone.

Listen to the entire conversation by clicking the "Play" button above, or find Project Parenthood on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Below, you'll find some of the key takeaways from our conversation:

Babies notice skin tone differences beginning as early as 3-6 months of age, and by the age of 5 kids understand skin tone as a major point of distinction and difference between people, whether or not anyone has explicitly mentioned it to them.

Be proactive about talking about race, racism, and skin tone—don’t wait until your child is the perpetrator or recipient of a racist incident or until race-related tragedies happen in the news. Otherwise, kids may begin to associate skin tone with behavior when genetically they have nothing to do with each other.

Acknowledging the existence of different skin tones doesn’t make kids racist. In fact, it makes the noticing and discussing of skin tone less taboo and associated with shame. Research shows that explicitly talking about race and skin tone improves racial attitudes across groups.

Dr. Berry created Hues of You… to help normalize human differences, give kids permission to have conversations about race, and give adults the language and framework to meet the natural curiosity children have with evidenced-based information.

The book is divided into four sections: the hues of you, the hues of your family, the hues of your ancestors, and finally, the hues of your friends. This puts the idea and fact of skin tone in social context and begins to plant the seed that skin tone is biological, but race is not.

Start with explaining what makes a person’s skin tone when children are very young. As they gain understanding, you can begin to slowly layer in the complex social construct of race, such as: the ways race is about rules, the boundaries created by those rules, and why those rules were put in place.

The more kids know about race and...

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What Is Self-Talk? An Excerpt from Pocket Therapy

Hey folks! Jonathan Su here. I'm taking a week off from the podcast—everyone needs to take rest weeks, after all!—but I wanted to share something from my friends at Macmillan Publishers.

A lot of people listen to music and podcasts while they work out, but audiobooks are another great entertainment option for your fitness routine. This week, I'm sharing an excerpt from Pocket Therapy, from author and psychotherapist Sarah Crosby. Pocket Therapy is a book designed to help you answer: "Who am I? What does it mean to be yourself or authentic?"

In this segment, Sarah discusses a concept called self-talk. I wanted to share this segment in particular because negative self-talk can be a detriment to our fitness routines. If you want to hear more, you can find Pocket Therapy at your local bookstore, or online wherever you buy books.

I'll be back next week with an episode on massage guns. See you then!

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5 In-Demand Jobs in 2022

There are various in-demand jobs in 2022 as companies begin to fill empty roles. In 2021, several million Americans left their jobs voluntarily, also known as the "Great Resignation". These workers were burnt out, looking for better pay, or deciding to shift to a brand-new career. In fact, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the quitting rate reached 2.9%, the highest since 2000. As a result, businesses and organizations are looking to hire hard-working individuals with impressive professional experiences and education. As a job seeker, you can find an available position in most industries, but especially in teaching, technology and health care. Here are the top in-demand jobs in 2022.

Customer marketing manager

A highly in-demand job opportunity in 2022 is as a customer marketing manager. These positions are being filled through various industries, such as computer software, information technology and internet software. Customer marketing managers work between the marketing and sales departments to drive customer interactions. In fact, they work with both teams to develop and carry out different marketing activities that drive customer engagement — for example, putting on an awards program or a special event for dedicated consumers. Depending on where you find an available position, you could earn anywhere from around $90,000 to $155,000 annually.

How to Discover Your Ikigai

Full stack software developer

Another job opportunity in demand this year is a full stack software developer. Full stack developers are needed for every industry, including e-Commerce, health care, machine manufacturing and real estate. If you want to work in this field, you’ll need to know how to work with the latest development tools, such as a Cargo and Docker registry by JFrog. Using a Cargo registry, you can enable full control of your deployment and dependency resolution process. This way, you can benefit from a universal, enterprise-ready, and cloud-native solution. The salary range for this position varies greatly, but the median salary can be expected to be around $75,000. 

Information security analyst

Information security analysts are also an in-demand position for hiring companies. They are in high demand through various industries since businesses are increasingly focused on data privacy and company security. Responsibilities include designing and integrating efficient IT security systems and services to protect organizations....

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3 TIPs to Reduce Emotional Overwhelm

We’ve spent quite a bit of time getting into our heads recently, so today we are going to talk about three skills that focus on the body. We're going to break down the TIP skills—and yes it is an acronym!

TIP skills target our body chemistry to reduce the feeling of overwhelm and other forms of high emotional arousal. The skills work quickly, often within seconds to minutes, for those of you looking for more instant gratification. These skills are easy to use and don’t require a lot of thinking, which is important when you’re in a highly stressful situation.

One caution that I give my patients about TIP skills is that they're not designed to solve problems, they're designed to bring down your emotional arousal so you can then think clearly and then solve problems. I’ve had several patients actually be surprised that the skills worked and they have become go-to skills for many of them.

I like these skills for when you are near a breakdown point and need to get your emotional arousal down fast. Other times when the TIP skills are useful include: when you're in a crisis and have high urges to engage in destructive behaviors; when you're not able to process information correct; when you're caught up in an emotional and can't get out; or when there's a problem demanding your attention but you're too overwhelmed to think clearly.

How Trauma Hijacks the Brain

When looking at skills like TIP, the expectation shouldn’t be to drop from maximum intensity to zero. Instead, you're looking for any change in your emotional experience. So, you might start at 100 and see yourself drop to an 80, which is still high but better than where you started. Others may notice that their overwhelm is steadily increasing, but stops increasing after the use of a skill. I tell my patients all the time that sometimes our skill usage isn’t about feeling good, it’s about keeping things from getting worse. TIP skills are short-acting, so they may be the first in a combination of other skills.

You might be thinking, but Dr. Johnson, how do these skills work? The TIP skills are designed to activate your body's physiological nervous system for decreasing arousal. Your nervous system is composed of two parts: the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems. The sympathetic system is the one that revs you up. It’s responsible for your fight or flight response and increases arousal. The parasympathetic system tries to keep things balanced. It helps with increasing emotion regulation, which is associated with decreases in emotional arousal. The TIP skills are all about activating your...

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What's Square About a Square Meal?

Did you have a square meal? If someone asks you that question, they are referring to a healthy, balanced, satisfying meal. If you ate only candy, pretzels, or ice cream, then you did not have a square meal. But why is the word “square” used to describe a filling, nutritious meal?

An oft-repeated story about the etymology of the term “square meal” has been that in the 1700s sailors in the British Royal Navy ate their meals off square wooden plates or trays called trenchers. A trencher was a square piece of wood with a large carved out circular depression in the center for food and a smaller depression in one corner for holding salt. While it is true that, at one time, plates of that shape and substance were used, there isn’t any evidence that the term “square meal” came from that practice. Neither "The Sailor’s Word Book" nor the Oxford English Dictionary connects the origin or usage of “square meal” to the Royal Navy and sailors eating off of trenchers. 

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, using the word “square” as an adjective dates back to the 1500s, and it meant "just, equitable, or honest." A person or action that was straightforward, true, or fair was “square.” In competitions, we want the rules to be “fair and square” for all involved. We want a “square deal” in matters pertaining to work, business, and life in general. Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt, who served as president of the United States from 1901 to 1909, often used “square deal” to describe his policies promoting the fair treatment of everybody. In the mid-1800s the phrase “square meal” started to be used in the United States and referred to a meal that was filling and substantial because it was well-balanced with all the sustenance a person needed. 

In the June 1865 issue of the "New Harper’s Monthly Magazine," J. Ross Browne described what a “square meal” consisted of in the mining town of Virginia City, Nevada. Browne was a world traveler, federal employee, and writer. On one of his trips through the Washoe Valley he saw an advertisement that he told his readers would “send a thrill of astonishment through your brain.” The ad he saw,...

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Parentheses, Brackets, and Braces

Today Bonnie Mills helps us talk about three punctuation marks: one you undoubtedly know how to use, another you possibly misuse, and yet another you’ve likely never used. If you’ve ever wondered when to favor parentheses over square brackets and when to stick in a pair of curly braces, read on.

Parentheses

You’re probably well versed in the basics of how to use those sideways eyebrow thingies, better known as parentheses, but the details can get tricky. 

First, remember that a pair of them is called “parentheses,” but a single one is a “parenthesis.” 

For now, let’s just say that parentheses mainly enclose information that isn't vital to a sentence. You may want to review the episode in which we compared parentheses to dashes and commas because dashes and commas can separate things that aren't vital to a sentence too, but the different ways of setting off information do have differences, but no matter what you put inside parentheses, one important thing to remember is that your sentence still has to make sense if you delete them and everything inside. And although you are allowed to put both partial sentences and complete sentences inside parentheses, you shouldn't put more than a whole paragraph inside, according to Garner's Modern English Usage. (1) 

One thing people often wonder is how to use terminal punctuation marks with parentheses. If your sentence starts with an opening parenthesis, and what’s inside your parentheses is a complete sentence, then the terminal punctuation mark, such as a period, question mark, or exclamation point, goes inside the closing parenthesis: “(I knew he wouldn’t want to do that.)” 

On the other hand, if what’s inside the parentheses is only a partial sentence, then you put the terminal punctuation outside instead, for example, if you wrote, “I moved to America when I was 10 (in 1980).”

For the most part, these two rules seem fairly easy to understand—complete sentence: terminal punctuation inside; partial sentence: terminal punctuation outside. But when you have a sentence that contains another complete sentence within parentheses, the punctuation can get confusing. Let’s say you want to add the complete sentence “I can’t believe it...

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5 Tips to Remember Before Consolidating Your Debt

Debt consolidation is one of the best ways of reducing your interest payments to a single, affordable payment every month. It's also a great way to get organized and reduce your debt burden. There are many options you can choose to consolidate and get out of debt.

You can roll your debt onto a lower interest credit card, seek the help of a professional and reduce your debt payments into a manageable monthly payment, or roll your high interest debt into a relatively lower interest loan.

While all of these are great options, debt consolidation can go wrong as well. For instance, most people get caught up in trying to score the lowest interest rate and forget other important factors that increase debt. Here are five tips for debt consolidation you must remember before putting it into action.

Low interest rates are not most important

Low interest rates are great since they significantly reduce your debt payments. However, most people chase low rates and forget to eliminate the root problem that caused the debt in the first place. Whether it was a lack of fiscal discipline or overspending in a certain area of your budget, the root cause of your debt must be analyzed and mitigated as much as possible.

In some cases, such as student loan debt, this might not be practical. However, if your debt is consumer-related—such as credit card debt or borrowing too much money via personal loans—you must examine your financial habits and practice corrective behavior.

Maintaining a budget is a great way to start examining your financial habits since it forces you to track every penny you spend.

You must also remember that debt consolidation does not magically eliminate your debt. You're still liable to pay the amount you owe. It's just that the additional amount you pay above your principal reduces when debt is consolidated properly. People who fail to practice good financial habits view debt consolidation as an excuse to rack up even more debt and this defeats the purpose of consolidation.

Pay attention to loan terms

The term or length of a loan is an important variable to keep an eye on. In a quest to receive the lowest interest rate, it's easy to lose sight of your ultimate goal: Saving money by consolidating debt. Let's say you receive a reduced interest rate of 5% compared to your previous combined interest rate of 6.5%. That's a significant decrease.

However, if your consolidated loan lasts longer than your original debt, you aren't saving any money. You're merely extending the period you'll remain in...

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7 Tips to Avoid Cryptocurrency and NFT Scams

Prakash U. says, “Your crypto podcast was fascinating, and the interest rates from BlockFi and Gemini for stablecoins blew my mind. You mentioned they don’t have FDIC insurance. So, to get such high rates, what are the risks?”

Susan H. says, “I love your podcast and listen to you on my morning walks with my dogs. I’m a 51-year-old married female and have worked as a paralegal for 24 years. My husband is the same age, and we’ve been married for 21 years with no children—just two very spoiled Labrador retrievers.

We have $500,000 in 401(k)s and owe about $120,000 on our home, worth about $350,000. We have a car loan and a few credit cards that equal about $20,000 of debt that I'm trying to get rid of.

I listened to your podcast about cryptocurrency and want to get in the game, as they say, so in ten or twenty years when everyone is invested, I haven’t missed the boat. My question is, where do I start? I feel so stupid and overwhelmed trying to figure it out.”

Thank you for your questions, Prakash and Susan! This post will answer them and cover who should own cryptocurrencies and NFTs and ways to avoid getting scammed. 

Common cryptocurrency and NFT scams:

1. Phishing Emails
2. Ransomware
3. Fake Exchanges
4. Free Giveaways
5. Impersonators
6. Pump and Dumps
7. Rug pulls

What is cryptocurrency?

There are thousands of cryptocurrencies in circulation, but the most well-known is bitcoin. While every crypto coin is different, they're all digital currencies you can use for payments or hold as an investment, hoping the value goes up. You keep crypto in a digital wallet, which can be on your computer, an online exchange, or an external hard drive (known as...

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The Latest Research on Auto-Immune Disease and Vitamin D

A new NIH-funded study reports that long-term use of vitamin D supplements reduced the incidence of auto-immune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, and Hashimoto's thyroiditis in a large population of Americans 50 and older. The subjects in this study were taking 2000IU of Vitamin D3 a day, and those who took them for two years or longer saw the greatest reduction in risk.

Vitamin D is perhaps best known for its role in building strong bones, and the market for vitamin D supplements has grown to over a billion dollars a year. However, recent research has cast doubts on the value of vitamin D supplements in preventing bone loss and osteoporosis. So this latest finding on vitamin D and auto-immune disease is welcome news for people who sell vitamin D supplements.

But it's also a textbook illustration of how scientific research (and nutrition research, in particular) works to either prove or disprove a hypothesis. It's usually a multi-step process. And in today's information economy, each incremental step in that process gets the same degree of fanfare and publicity. But this is not always warranted. Recognizing where we are in that process can help you put headlines in context and keep the information in perspective. So let's break it down, using this latest finding as an example.

How nutrition research works

Step 1: Observe a correlation

As is so often the case, the case for vitamin D as a possible preventive for auto-immune disease started with an almost random observation. Somebody noticed that multiple sclerosis is much more common in areas of the globe that lie north of 40 degrees latitude. In fact, the further from the equator you live, the higher your risk. 

Step 2: Propose a hypothesis

There are a number of possible explanations for this phenomenon. It could be something about the diet in more northern countries or other aspects of their lifestyle. It could have to do with a pathogen that is more common in colder temperatures. Another hypothesis was that vitamin D might be protective against multiple sclerosis. 

Sunlight hitting our exposed skin is one of the primary ways we get vitamin D. When you live further from the equator, there's less sunlight in winter, and colder temperatures mean you're less likely to be outside with your skin exposed. As a result, people who live further from the equator are more likely to be deficient in vitamin D. And maybe that has something to do with why they are more likely to have multiple sclerosis.

Once you have formulated a hypothesis ("Vitamin D helps...

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How Parenthood Changes Your Relationship

When my husband and I got married, it was for purely practical reasons: we wanted to put my husband on my insurance plan. We knew we wanted to get married and start our family, so it seemed like a great time to just get the formality out of the way. We had a small, courthouse wedding with a few friends and our parents in attendance. It was perfect.

We made the decision to try to start our family. Like many first-time parents, I had a plan for when it would be ideal to get pregnant. This plan would allow me to work from home for several months, and I would receive a release from teaching if I were able to complete some of my graduate school milestones while I was pregnant. This timing would give me as much time at home with my baby as possible.

Life ended up working out according to plan, which really was just a matter of pure luck. We welcomed a daughter together right on schedule, and I was able to spend the first eight months of her life at home with her. Sometimes she would come to collect research data with me or attend a seminar with me at school, but I was able to spend that time with her. My husband received one week off of work and had to start traveling pretty quickly after that. He is an exceptional dad, and in the early days, woke up with me at night for every feeding. Where I was really anxious about parenting, he was really confident. We grew into parenthood together, and although that time was difficult, it was so incredibly special.

Why is it hard for couples to talk about money?

What does the research say on transitioning to parenthood?

All transitions create the conditions for us to experience disruption in our relationships. Basically, change is really hard. As humans, we are pretty averse to experiencing change. Parenthood is one of the biggest transitions we can face in our relationships—we are no longer just two independent people, but instead have added a stranger into our lives that is completely dependent on us. We know nothing about who they are when they're born, so it is a whole new getting-to-know-you process for both parents.

Studies have shown...

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How to Get More (and Better) Feedback at Work

As a collective workforce, we’re all wanting more feedback. Without it, we don’t know where we stand, how we rank, what we need to improve, or where we’re hitting it out of the park.

 

“Employees are hungry for feedback from their leaders, managers, and peers,” according to Gallup. “They want to gain insights that advance their abilities and future potential. And more than ever, feedback is pivotal for engaging employees. Gallup data show that when employees strongly agree they received ‘meaningful feedback’ in the past week, they are almost four times more likely than other employees to be engaged.”

 

So why aren’t our managers and peers giving us maximum feedback? Well… it may be important, but it’s also awkward, time-consuming, and often not the thing that’s on fire.

 

So if you’re tired of sitting around waiting for feedback to find you, let’s talk about strategies you can use to open the spigot and let that feedback flow freely.

1. Ask better questions

Ever been around a dry-diapered, just-fed, tightly-swaddled baby who won’t stop crying? You know that baby needs something…you just don’t know what it is! Also, you want to pull your hair out.

 

Asking, generally, for more feedback may create a similar experience for the person you’re asking. They need more direction. And they want to rip their hair out.

 

So how can you be more specific in your ask? How can you lead your boss or peer toward offering a piece of feedback that’s meaningful to you in the moment?

 

Instead of “can I have more feedback please?” try asking questions like:

• Do you have any feedback on that presentation I gave in today’s team meeting? I’m focused on enhancing my presentation skills this year.
• Is there anything I can be doing to better support our clients?
• Is my communication feeling clear and effective? Is there anything I can or should be doing differently?

These are the types of questions that provide the would-be giver of feedback with more direction. And they bump up the likelihood of your receiving more feedback without your having to ask for the dreaded F-word by name. 

2. Probe for meaning

When you do receive feedback (because it is, after all, a gift) make sure you extract maximum clarity from it.

 

If your boss suggests you strive for greater clarity in your communication, ask if they can provide an example of both (a) when and why it wasn’t clear, and (b) what a clearer message would sound like. 

 

Without specificity, feedback often isn’t actionable....

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How Long Does It Take to See Results from Exercise?

My clients always want to know how long it takes to see progress from exercise. And by progress, they usually mean noticeable improvements in muscle mass and muscle strength from resistance training. 

This is a fair question to ask because pumping iron is not exactly a walk in the park. It’s hard work both in the everyday sense of the word and in the physics definition of the word (amount of force multiplied by the distance over which it’s applied). 

Allow me to nerd out a bit here. It’s interesting to think that to build muscle mass and strength, you literally have to use your body to generate force so you can move resistance (whether that’s your bodyweight, a barbell, or dumbbells) across a distance. Assuming that the average arm length of an adult is about 1.6 feet and you’re performing 30 push-ups, you’re moving your body weight a total of nearly 50 feet with just your chest and arms. 

So it makes sense that if you're going to be investing time and energy working with the hopes of sculpting your body into a bigger, leaner, and stronger version of yourself, you’re going to want to have an idea of what your ROI or return on investment is going to be. 

The good news is that your hard work will, without question, pay off. One study that looked at the effects of resistance training showed that everyone had measurable improvements in lean body mass, muscle size, strength, or function. Chances are, you’re going to see progress. 

The bad news is that it takes time to see results. The same study showed that the level of improvement was strongly affected by the number of weeks of exercise, with more improvement following a greater number of weeks of exercise. 

What to Eat Before, During, and After Your Workout

Why is this bad news? Because another study found that nearly two-thirds of people abandoned their New Year's resolutions within a month. Seeing...

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Loving v. Virginia: The Freedom to Marry

Happy Black History Month!

All month long I’m centering African American contributions to the history of the United States and beyond! Today’s episode falls on Valentine’s Day, a day where many people intentionally acknowledge their romantic partnerships. In honor of Black History Month, I’m talking about a couple who took the legal acknowledgment of their relationship all the way to the Supreme Court. This is the trailblazing case of Loving v. Virginia, the case that made it legal in 16 states for White people to marry a non-White person in the United States. It also paved the way for same-sex couples' fight for marriage equality many years later.

Mildred Jeter, a part African American and part Native American woman, and Richard Loving, a White man, grew up as neighbors in a small farming community in Caroline County, Virginia. After knowing each other for several years, as he was friendly with her older brother, the two began dating in her teen years. At age 24, Richard proposed to 18-year-old Mildred after learning that they were pregnant. Interracial working and socializing wasn’t unusual in Caroline County, and when interracial couples wanted to marry, they did so in Washington D.C., where interracial marriage was legal. Mildred & Richard were married in June of 1958.

Five weeks later, back in Caroline County, the Sheriff and his officers barged into their home in the middle of night while the newlyweds were in bed asleep. The Sheriff shined flashlights at their faces and demanded to know who the woman was that Richard was sleeping next to. Mildred said, “I’m his wife,” and the Sheriff replied: “Not here you’re not.”

Milestones in African American Children's Literature

The couple was taken to jail for violating the Racial Integrity Act of 1924, a Jim Crow-era law that made it a felony for any White person to marry a Black person—then referred to as “Negroes.” The Act stated that a person was legally classified as “Negro” if they had any traceable “Negro blood.” When it came to who could be considered “White,” the act states: “the term 'white person' shall apply only to the person who has no trace whatsoever of any blood other than Caucasian; but persons who have one-sixteenth or less of the blood of the American Indian and have no other non-Caucasic blood shall be deemed to be white persons.” It’s also important to note that the act did not apply to persons of color from different races wanting to marry. This was a law not meant to protect the “integrity” of all races, rather the specific aim was to preserve the “purity”’ of Whiteness.

This...

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How to Use Third-Party Website Analytics to Inform Your Link Building Strategy

At this point, it’s pretty much common knowledge that link building is one of the most critical factors affecting your overall SEO performance. If you can manage to acquire backlinks from high authority websites, it will signal to Google and the other search engines that your site is a quality resource, one that is worthy of citation.

However, most digital marketers would agree that link building is one of the hardest tasks they face – and for a good reason. Scouring the internet for high-quality backlinks can be extremely time-consuming, and it’s not always guaranteed to deliver results. On top of this, link building is expensive, which usually prices out most small and even medium-sized businesses from attaining premium backlinks.

According to Siege Media, it often costs brands upwards of $1,000 to gain just one quality link. With these sorts of figures being quoted, it’s important that you do your research to be sure you are finding the best links for your website, the ones that are relevant, trustworthy, and from high domain authority sources.

How third-party analytics can help your link-building strategy

Companies have more tools and data at their disposal than ever before. This means they can take a far more systematic approach to their digital marketing strategy, which can help increase ROI and get better results.

With the ability to analyze any website and fully break down its web traffic statistics, you can gain valuable insights into your competitor’s strategies. You can also more accurately assess the potential value of any links you are thinking about purchasing.

On that note, let’s take a look at a few ways you can use third-party website analytics to inform your link-building strategy.

Inspect and analyze the sites you are considering acquiring links from

Just as you would research a product or service before you hand over your hard-earned cash, you should take the time to inspect and analyze the websites that you wish to acquire backlinks from. Using web traffic stats, you can peer into the core data of a website, looking at things such as domain authority, global and country rankings, category rankings, as well as the total amount...

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5 Myths That Are Hindering Your Relationships

Valentine’s Day is approaching and we all have relationships on our mind, specifically how great it feels to be in a romantic relationship or how desperately we may or may not want one.

Today, we're talking about myths that hinder our relationships. In speaking of these myths, I’m highlighting ones that affect all types of relationships. I want to help you out no matter your relationship style and state.

Before we start, I want to quickly define what I mean by "myth." In this context, a myth is anything that we believe that isn’t true. We all have myths we believe, and it’s important to be aware of them so that our actions aren’t unduly influenced by faulty beliefs.

Myth 1: I don’t deserve to get what I want or need.

Do you have this underlying belief? Stop it. Because unless you’re Jeffrey Dahmer, you do deserve to have needs and desires considered.

When you walk into situations with this belief, it makes it incredibly easy to give up before you even get started. There are two approaches to this myth that I will recommend. The first is focused on the past. Explore for yourself where this belief may have come from. Did you have early caregiver relationships, unappreciative friends, or tumultuous romantic relationships that put this idea in your mind? This might be a good time to do a deep dive on your own or with a therapist.

The second is more present-focused. Ask yourself, "Do I think it’s important for others to get their needs met?" Most will answer yes to this question and if you’re one of those people, why are you treating yourself differently? You’re not special: if I deserve to get my needs met, so do you.

18 Beliefs That Are Ruining Your Life

Myth 2: If I ask for help, it’ll show that I’m a weak person.

Is it hard for you to be vulnerable in relationships? Have others ever described you as prideful or guarded? Are you the type of friend who is always there for others, but never lets them into your struggles?

If this describes you, your underlying belief is getting in the way of you building closeness and intimacy with others that you care about. I tell my patients all the time that if you care about a person, you have to allow them the opportunity to show that they love you. Needing or desiring help is not a weakness, particularly for us as humans. We tend to be social by nature and do better in groups than solo. One Power Ranger is badass, but together they form the Megazord and are pretty unstoppable.

Most of us are pretty adept at facing day-to-day issues, but things pile up and pile on. You might also experience an...

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Influenza, Measles, and More: The Origins of Disease Names

"Influenza" comes from Latin and the idea that our well-being is influenced by the stars. The Latin word, "influentia" meant "to flow into," and according to World Wide Words, in the astrological sense, "influence" referred to "an ethereal fluid given off by the stars that was supposed to affect humans."

At first, "influenza" referred to any number of diseases. For example, you can find references that call scarlet fever "influenza di febbre scarlattina."

Multiple sources say the word "influenza" came to English directly from Italian after one particularly severe disease outbreak that started in Italy in the early 1740s and spread throughout Europe. The first example in the Oxford English Dictionary is from a 1743 edition of "The London Magazine" and reads "News from Rome of a contagious Distemper raging there, call'd the Influenza." It seems the name spread along with the disease.

The shortened version, "flu" is spelled F-L-U today, but was originally spelled F-L-U-E.

Malaria

Malaria is another disease name borrowed directly from Italian. Today, we know it's caused by protozoans that can infect you when you're bitten by mosquitos, but the name means "bad air" because in the 1700s people just knew that it was a disease that spread in hot, marshy areas with, presumably, bad air. 

And you'll recognize that "mal-" prefix in a lot of words once you think about it, which means things like "bad, wrong, and improper,": People can be maltreated, maladjusted, or malcontent. People can commit malpractice or malfeasance. "Malevolence" means "bad wishing," and if you have a malaise, you are in bad ease. And "malady" comes from parts that roughly mean "a badness that is had or received."

Mumps

Mumps also has an interesting origin.

 

It's caused by a paramyxovirus and makes your salivary glands swell, which makes your face and neck look puffy and can make it painful to chew or swallow. The name seems to come from the way people look when they are infected because before mumps was the name of a disease, it was a verb that meant to grimace or mumble, and in Scottish English it can mean to grumble or complain. The OED says it now often appears in the phrase "to mump and moan" as in "You aren't going to mump and moan about the high price of cheese, are you?"

It also meant to have "a fit of melancholy or ill humor," and the OED suggests comparing it to this other delightful old phrase: "...

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How Do You Use the Word ‘Commiserate?’

"Hi Mignon. This is Kate from Colorado, and my friend Anna from Louisiana and I were discussing the word 'commiserate' the other day, and we had both used it in the context of really experiencing the same situation or feeling the pain of somebody that expressed a difficult situation. So if you were commiserating about work it was that we were sharing in that sorrow or difficulty together. But we also recognize that the dictionary definition simply says to sympathize or to empathize or have pity, and that gives the impression of being outside of the situation and expressing sympathy or sorrow for what they're experiencing. So are we using it incorrectly, and is there a different word that we should be using? Because you could simply say, 'Oh, I relate to you,' but that doesn't have the same kind connotation. For me, 'commiserate' has always had that connotation of sharing it with that person, and I think that he's in the context of like, 'Oh yeah we sat, we drink beer, and commiserated about the week,' but I don't know that we're using it correctly, so I would love to hear your input on that. Thanks so much. Love the show. Bye."

Thanks for the question, Kate. So do you commiserate about an experience? Do you commiserate someone? Do you commiserate with someone? 

The answer is all of the above. 

Let’s start at the beginning. 

“Commiserate” means to feel pity or compassion about another person’s misfortune. It comes from the Latin “commiserati,” meaning "to pity or bewail." That word in turn is a mashup of “com,” meaning "together or in combination," and “miser,” meaning "unhappy, wretched, or in distress."

Other words that come from this root include “miserable,” meaning "wretchedly unhappy," and “misery,” meaning "a state of great sorrow, misfortune, or distress."

Interestingly enough, another related word is “miser,” meaning a covetous person who hoards their money. This meaning seems to rely on a belief that pinching pennies and refusing to share your wealth will lead to unhappiness. 

Charles Dickens’ Ebeneezer Scrooge is a fictional example of this belief. A real-life example is Hetty Green, a 19th-century American financier known as “the witch of Wall Street.” Although Green was a multi-millionaire, she wore ragged clothes, went to charity clinics instead of regular doctors, and supposedly refused to treat her son’s leg when it was injured, leading to its eventual amputation.

I think we can guess that Hetty was, indeed, pretty unhappy.

But back to our original question: how...

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How to Make Your Dog's Crate Appealing

Having trouble teaching your dog to like his crate? It's understandable—your dog might associate their crate with punishment or loneliness. You want to instead make the crate a place your dog can relax in. 

Take a deep breath, step back, and think about the places you like to relax in. They’re comfortable. Snacks are available, and so is something to drink. You’re not in solitary confinement, though sometimes you might be by yourself.

To make your dog’s crate appealing, fit it out with a cushy bed—not a thin mat, but something a dog can really lounge on. For housetraining purposes, a crate does need to be small (just big enough to stand up in, turn around in, and stretch out in while lying down). But a housetrained dog’s crate can be as large as you have room for.  Also, make sure the crate’s location is at a comfortable temperature.

Especially in wintertime, look out for drafts near your pup's crate. If it's too cold, they'll never be able to relax.

Put the crate someplace near where you’re spending time anyway. If you’re crating a puppy at night, the crate should be in your bedroom. Hide treats in the crate. When you give your dog a peanut butter stuffed Kong, put the Kong in the crate. Any time your dog pokes his nose in the crate or goes to lie down in it voluntarily, offer him warm attention and toss a few treats his way.

When you get right down to it, a crate is a cage. Nothing to be done about that. But a dog who’s at ease when confined will experience less stress when hospitalized, for instance. Or if you’re staying at a hotel that requires dogs to be crated when you’re not in the room, the crate becomes a familiar, safe hangout for your dog in an unfamiliar place.

Make your dog’s crate a wonderful place to be for them, and it'll become a wonderful experience for your family, as well. 

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Starting a Family? 10 Things New Parents Should Know About Money

Starting a family is an exciting life change for new parents. While caring for a child involves lots of feeding, diapering, and nurturing, there are essential financial and legal issues to address.

This post will cover ten financial things new parents should know. You'll learn how to reduce risk with insurance, make doctor visits and childcare more affordable, get a head start on college expenses, and protect your child's financial future.  

1. You must add your child to your health insurance

Once your child is born, or adoption is final, you have 60 days to add the newest member of your family to your health plan. If you miss the deadline, you'll have to wait until the next open enrollment to get your child insured. 

So, contact your employer's benefits administrator to find out what paperwork to complete. And if you don't have a job with health insurance or are self-employed, contact your existing health plan or shop and compare options at Healthcare.gov or your state marketplace.

2. You need life insurance

Life insurance protects people who depend on you for financial support, such as a spouse, aging parents, and your new child. When you die, your beneficiaries receive a lump-sum payment, known as a death benefit. They can spend it on anything they like, such as a mortgage, rent, auto loan, childcare, education, or funeral expenses.

If you're worried that life insurance is expensive, you shouldn't be. Studies have shown that consumers overestimate the cost of life insurance by as much as three times! 

Studies have shown that consumers overestimate the cost of life insurance by as much as three times!

So, it might surprise you that if you're in your 30s or 40s with relatively good health, you can get an affordable policy. For instance, a 20-year term life policy that pays $500,000 may cost less than $30 per month or $360 per year.

To know how much life insurance you need, consider answers to the following questions:

• What assets do you own (such as bank savings, investments, and real estate) that could get liquidated to cover expenses?
• How much debt do you have?
• How much annual income would your surviving family members need, and for how many years?. 
• What are...

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What to Do When Medications Cause Weight Gain

An analysis recently published in the journal Obesity found that 1 in 5 American adults takes a prescription medication that has the potential to cause weight gain as a side effect–technically referred to as a obesogenic medication.

These include medications prescribed for seizure disorders, inflammatory conditions, anti-depressants, and anti-psychotics. They also include drugs commonly used to manage high blood pressure and Type 2 diabetes, conditions where overweight and obesity can be a complicating factor.

Ted Kyle is a pharmacist who has dedicated his career to addressing and educating about health issues created by obesity. He is very involved in advocacy and serves on the Board of Directors for the Obesity Action Coalition. He was previously Director of Policy and Innovation for GlaxoSmithKline.

You can listen to our entire conversation by clicking the play button above, or find Nutrition Diva on a slew of popular podcast apps.

Below are highlights of our conversation:

Monica: What is the mechanism (or mechanisms) by which a medication might cause weight gain?

Ted: There are a variety of mechanisms. A drug may increase your appetite, or it may affect your metabolism or the way your body processed food or stores fat, or it could make you more lethargic. Different drugs work in different ways, and each of us is going to be affected differently by drugs.

Monica: When weight gain is a known side effect, does it tend to affect a majority or minority of users?

Ted: There are some categories of drugs, for example, the anti-psychotics, where weight gain is very common and perhaps affects the majority of users. For other drugs, it’s more idiosyncratic and will vary with the drug, and with the person.

Monica: Are there other issues or factors that might predispose someone to medication-induced weight gain? Are people who gain weight on a medication more likely to be people who have always struggled with their weight?

Ted: Not necessarily. There are people who have never had an issue with obesity until they began a specific medication.

Monica: Are there cases where a drug that causes weight gain is more effective than the alternatives (or has other advantages)?

Ted: In the study you referenced, they noticed an increase in prescriptions for anti-seizure medications that cause weight gain and...

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Grammar Quirks: S.A. Barnes on Shifting Points of View

Grammar Girl: What’s your favorite word and why?

S.A. Barnes: Oh, it changes all the time! At the moment, I’m loving “mercurial” and “parsimonious,” just because of how it feels to say them. My parents got me a shirt for Christmas a couple years ago that reads, “Eschew Obfuscation.” I love it.

But this reminds me of something I’d completely forgotten about. Back in high school, I used to have a dictionary in my bedroom, and I’d open it to a random page and read until I found a word or definition that I found interesting or one with story potential. It was how I first learned the word “lycanthropy.” #wordnerd

GG: What’s a word you dislike (either because it’s overused or misused) and why?

SAB: "Orientated." The real word is "oriented." (Though, apparently, “orientated” is acceptable in British English, per the internet.) I grit my teeth with this one all the time, as everyone is “orientating” themselves these days. “Get orientated with the new guidelines.” NOOOOOOO.

GG: What word will you always misspell?

SAB: "Rhythm." And "rhythmic." I can’t ever seem to get the “y” in the right place on the first try.

GG: What word (or semblance of a word) would you like to see added to the dictionary? Why?

SAB: "Consideringly." As in, “He eyed her consideringly.” But it’s bad writing, so even if the word existed, I would still try to avoid that phrasing. And yet, I catch myself writing it into almost every terrible first draft.

Also, I believe my sister and I have a long-standing agreement that “deceptuous” should be a word because it sounds worse—more manipulative and somehow sleazier—than “deceptive.”

GG: Any grammar pet peeves we should know about?

SAB: The Oxford comma should be law as far as I’m concerned. Why is more clarity a bad thing? I was a corporate copywriter for years before writing books, and I’ve spent more time arguing for the Oxford comma in marketing copy meetings than I would care to admit.

The $10 Million Comma

GG: To what extent does grammar play a role in character development and voice?

SAB:...

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How to Discover Your Ikigai

Ikigai is a Japanese concept that combines the terms iki, meaning “alive” or “life,” and gai, meaning “benefit” or “worth.” In combination, it refers to your life’s worth or its purpose. It’s a new-to-me term I recently picked up in a piece from Positive Psychology. And in this moment it resonated with me big time.

 

Who isn’t on a hunt for purpose these days? We’ve talked and talked about the Great Resignation as people have continued to leave their jobs, noting a feeling of “meh” at work. They want something more.

 

And now that resignation may be evolving into the Great Sabbatical, as Danica Lo notes in her recent Fast Company piece on the subject.

 

Lo shares this quote from DJ DiDonna of The Sabbatical Project: “The pandemic is forcing people to make a change and to think about life and about themselves in a way they probably wouldn’t have ever done normally—about how precious and short life and our time is.”

 

If you’re one of the many who is searching or longing, then let’s talk about how you might tap into your personal Ikigai.

The components of Ikigai

A person’s Ikigai is made up of four key elements:

 

• What you love: your personal preferences

• What you’re good at: your skills and talents

• What the world needs: a space for your skills and talents 

• What you can get paid for: the commercial viability of that “stuff”

 

By exploring these four areas with a sense of curiosity and wonder, you may pick up some important insights about yourself. It’s more art than science—there’s no precise formula. And your answers will likely evolve over time. But just start where you are.

 

I realize I’ve done much of this work myself over the years. And I’d love to share some of my own insights to see if they might help trigger a set of your own.

What you love

My first post-grad school job was with a company offering a management rotation program. I accepted because frankly, I had no idea what I wanted to do. And this felt like a professional tasting menu.

 

I stayed with that company for five years, having full responsibility for an entire department soup-to-nuts. I was accountable for operations, execution, inventory, people, budgets, and more.

 

I was...

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Don't Let Valentine's Day Ruin Your Relationship

Conducting relationship research can be difficult even in the best of times because people and relationships are complex. However, there is nothing quite so difficult as needing to study couples around the holidays. One piece of advice I received from my graduate school advisor is to never collect data from undergraduate couples in the weeks surrounding Valentine’s Day or spring break because these are particularly tumultuous times for couples and may actually affect participants’ perceptions of their partner and their relationship.

Perhaps one of the most controversial days of the year, Valentine’s Day can bring about either viscerally negative feelings or overwhelming excitement. Advertisements are in your face about the day, targeting people who may feel pressure to give gifts. Every store has over-the-top messaging just in case you forgot the holiday was approaching. It can be overwhelming and all-consuming.

Some people are extremely vocal about their disdain for this "Hallmark holiday." It’s expensive because there are expectations for gift giving to prove your love for your partner. It ignores single people, potentially making them feel left out of tradition. It’s cringe-worthy because it’s about celebrating love and all of those mushy-gushy feelings attributed to teenage angst. It also has a reputation for setting people up for disappointment when the day doesn’t go as hoped for, leading to unnecessary negative feelings.

Other people find Valentine’s day to be something to look forward to. You get to spend time thinking about and sharing positive things about your partner and hopefully have them return those positive sentiments. You get to have a fun date, maybe get dressed up, and celebrate your relationship. For those people not currently in a serious relationship, it may be the perfect opportunity to start one! If nothing else, it is a day to express your appreciation and love for the meaningful relationships in your life.

In this episode, I'm going to look at how Valentine's Day can affect our relationships and some science-backed tips on the best way to spend the holiday.

How does Valentine’s Day affect your relationship?

There are several ways in which Valentine’s Day can create the conditions to affect your relationship. One study found it can exacerbate existing problems we may be experiencing in our relationships. Indeed, relationships in that study...

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The Best No-Equipment Home Workout Program

With the flu season and ongoing pandemic, it’s no surprise that many people are reluctant to go to the gym. I for one have not stepped foot in a gym since the beginning of the pandemic and I don’t see myself going to the gym in the foreseeable future. 

One reason for that is because I’ve transformed my garage into a home gym with everything I need for a fantastic workout. In a previous episode, I talked about the benefits of owning a home gym and how you can build one on a budget. 

But there’s good news if you don’t have the time, resources, space, or energy to build a home gym, or if you’re not sure you’re ready to invest in a home gym. What I’m about to share with you is a secret that the fitness industry probably doesn’t want you to know. 

Are you ready for it? The secret is that you don’t actually need any special workout equipment for an effective workout. That’s right, you don’t!

There’s a lot of hype in the fitness industry with new equipment and training approaches coming out every year. The truth is, most of it is not supported by research and in my opinion, it’s designed mainly to persuade you to part ways with your hard-earned cash.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that workout equipment is worthless and you should cancel your gym membership. Having a functional trainer (also known as a cable machine), squat rack, and rowing machine allows me to perform exercises that I otherwise would not be able to perform.

What I’m trying to say is that exercise equipment is a luxury but not a necessity because you can have a great workout and get pretty good results exercising with no equipment or by using equipment not designed specifically for exercise that can be found in your home. 

Helping soldiers rehabilitate from injuries and stay in shape without the aid of workout equipment was something I did as a former U.S. Army officer embedded with an infantry unit for 3 years. I helped soldiers stay in shape by using bodyweight exercises and improvised workout equipment with ammo cans and rucksacks for resistance when we were in the field. If no-...

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