live long and healthy

8 Simple Tips to Live Longer and Healthier

Turns out extending your lifespan is pretty damn easy. Just follow these definitive, scientific, time-tested methods.

Over the past few years, there has been an ever-increasing obsession with biohacking and life extension: FDA-approved studies to see if metformin, a drug historically used to treat Type 2 diabetes, can slow aging. A supplement called Basis, which purports to extend life and is backed by multiple Nobel Prize–winning scientists. Transfusing the blood of younger individuals into older ones. Plus a whole manner of other hacks, such as dumping loads of butter into your coffee and wearing headbands that allegedly improve brain function.

Although these approaches are intriguing and arguably worth studying further (at least some of them), too many people seem to have forgotten that there already exists a scientifically proven method—one supported by decades of peer-reviewed research—to extend both the quantity and quality of your life: adopting a few healthy, quotidian habits.

“We’ve known since the mid-1960s that lifestyle behaviors have an outsize influence on health and longevity,” says Michael Joyner, a researcher and expert on health and human performance at the Mayo Clinic. Since then, evidence to support the positive impact of healthy living has mounted, he says, even as more people try to find the elixir of youth. Consider research published in 2011 in the American Journal of Public Health demonstrating that adopting healthy lifestyle behaviors—regular exercise, a wholesome diet, no smoking—can increase lifespan by 11 years. Or a 2016 study published in the British Medical Journal that found a healthy lifestyle reduces one’s chance of all-cause mortality by a whopping 61 percent.

The great irony is that “the idea behind a lot of these moon-shot fountain of youth drugs, supplements, and gadgets is to replicate the already proven biological and physiological effects of a few key behaviors,” says Joyner.

Aubrey de Grey, a pioneer in the anti-aging movement and chief science officer at the SENS Research Foundation, a Silicon Valley–based longevity institute, told the New Yorker that by doing things like optimizing his mitochondrial mutation, “I can drink as much as I like, and it has no effect. I don’t even need to exercise, I’m so well optimized.” Perhaps. But in the meantime, there’s an easier, proven method to life extension.

#1. Move

If exercise could be bottled up and sold as a drug, it would be a billion-dollar business. Decades of studies show that just 30 minutes of moderate to intense daily physical activity lowers your risk for physiological diseases (like heart disease and cancer), as well as psychological ones (like anxiety and Alzheimer’s). According to Joyner, many of the newfangled longevity elixirs aim to prevent mitochondrial dysfunction, or the breakdown of a cell’s ability to properly use energy, which is a normal part of aging. “But people who exercise can double the number of mitochondria in their skeletal muscle and improve its function throughout the body,” he says. “This is why exercise has such a potent anti-aging effect.”

#2. Eat Real Foods

Avoid stuff that comes wrapped in plastic. “Foods that undergo ultra-processing tend to see much of their nutritional bounty stripped from them,” says Yoni Freedhoff, an Ottawa-based obesity doctor and author of The Diet Fix. Another reason to avoid processed foods is related to energy density, or calories per gram of food. “Generally speaking, ultra-processed foods are much higher in energy density than foods made from fresh, whole ingredients,” says Freedhoff, “which isn’t great for maintaining a healthy weight.”

Freedhoff’s ideal diet for health and longevity? “One that is rich in whole foods that in turn are especially filling. You can keep calories at bay while maximizing nutrition,” he says. “This means a diet rich in vegetables, whole grains, fish, and leaner meats with regular but not excessive consumption of fruits, nuts, and healthy oils.”

#3. Call Your Friends

A mounting body of evidence is revealing that hanging out with friends and family doesn’t just make you feel good in the moment—it’s also good for long-term health. Social connections are associated with reduced levels of the stress hormone cortisol, improved sleep quality, reduced risk of heart disease and stroke, slowed cognitive decline, lessened systemic inflammation, and improved immune function.

In a 2010 study published in PLOS Medicine, researchers from Brigham Young University followed more than 300,000 people for an average of 7.5 years. They found that the mortality risks associated with loneliness exceeded those associated with obesity and physical inactivity and were similar to those associated with smoking.

#4. Avoid (Nearly) All Supplements

Americans spend more than $30 billion every year on dietary supplements, yet the vast majority don’t work and may even cause harm. A 2016 article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association cited more than 20 years of research and concluded that “studies evaluating dietary supplements have yielded predominantly disappointing results about the potential health benefits, whereas evidence of harm has continued to accumulate.”

Though supplements are often pristinely packaged in alluring promises, Freedhoff says that “it’s smart to have a policy of ‘just say no.’ There simply aren’t any supplements with sufficient evidence behind them to support their use in a person who doesn’t have a particular proven deficiency or need.”

#5. Sleep 8 Hours at Night

Regardless of what the biohackers may tell you, you simply cannot nap or intermittently sleep your way to optimal health and functioning. It’s only after you’ve been sleeping for at least an hour that anabolic hormones like testosterone and human growth hormone—both of which are critical to health and physical function—are released. What’s more, a 2007 study published in the journal Sleep showed that with each additional 90-minute cycle of deep sleep, you receive even more of these hormones. In other words, there are increasing marginal benefits to sleep, and hours seven through nine—the hours most people don’t get—are actually the most powerful.

Deep sleep is also beneficial to mental health. Researchers from Harvard found that it’s only during deep sleep when your brain combs through, consolidates, and stores all the information you came across during the day. “There’s a reason all the bodybuilders and super-intellectual people I know are obsessed with sleep,” says Joyner. “Sleep works wonders.”

#6. Enjoy Nature

In Cheryl Strayed’s bestselling memoir, Wild, her mom tells her that the cure for much of what ails her is to “put [herself] in the way of beauty.” Turns out she was right, at least according to the latest science. Time in nature is an antidote to the ill effects of stress, prevents and in some cases even helps cure anxiety and depression, and enhances creativity. Though the exact causal mechanisms are not yet known, researchers speculate there is something unique about nature—perhaps related to the fact that we evolved to be in it—that puts both our bodies and minds at ease, promoting physical and psychological restoration and subsequent functioning.

#7. Don’t Smoke

Smoking is associated with dozens of types of cancer, as well as heart disease, dementia, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. According to the American Cancer Association, smoking causes one out of every five deaths in the United States, killing more people than alcohol, car accidents, HIV, guns, and illegal drugs combined. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, your body literally starts repairing the damage caused by smoking within days of stopping.

#8. Don’t Drink Too Much

Like smoking, excessive alcohol use is associated with a number of chronic diseases, such as liver cirrhosis, throat cancer, and cardiovascular disease. Drinking too much also impairs sleep and daily function. The good news is that if you enjoy alcohol, drinking reasonably—one drink per day for women and up to two for men—carries minimal risk. “Moderation is key,” says Joyner.

Brad Stulberg (@Bstulberg) writes Outside’s Science of Performance column and is a co-author of the new book Peak Performance: Elevate your Game, Avoid Burnout, and Thrive with the New Science of Success.

drink water my friend

If you’re reading this: Drink a glass of water. You likely need it, as 75 percent of Americans are described as “chronically dehydrated.”

While achieving a state of hydration might seem enviable and impossible, fret not because it’s doable. And the health benefits are not only encouraging, but they are also downright inspiring in the immediate short term, but especially in the long run.

“Long-term hydration is the single best thing we can do to prevent chronic illness,” says Dr. Dana Cohen, an integrative medicine specialist in New York and coauthor of Quench: Beat Fatigue, Drop Weight, and Heal Your Body Through the New Science of Optimum Hydration.

Though the eight-cup rule is popular, there is no one-size-fits-all number. Instead, it’s more of an individual approach. The new general rule of thumb is half your weight in ounces, according to Dr. Cohen. For example, if you weigh 120 pounds, you need to drink 60 ounces of water a day.

Without further ado, here are the glorious things that happen when you drink the ideal amount of water.

After One Day

Inadequate hydration can cause extreme fatigue, poor memory, dizziness, constipation, and even mood shifts. But the great news is that water can have immediate benefits, even within 10 minutes or less. “That charge increases the cells’ functional efficiency, leading to better energy, clearer thinking, and less brain fog,” says Dr. Cohen. In addition, you can also feel an improvement in muscle cramps and headache relief.

After One Week

Within seven days of being properly hydrated, you’ll have fewer aches and pains and bowel movements will become more regulated and frequent.

Also, your skin clarity will improve. “A body that has been suboptimally hydrated will, over time, shunt water toward essential organs like your heart and away from nonessential tissue like your skin and muscles,” says Dr. Charles Passler, a celebrity nutritionist and founder of Pure Change Detox. “This can lead to wrinkled or drooping skin, as well as reduced muscle strength.”

After One Month

One month into drinking your daily recommended ounces of water, and you’ll be hitting your stride. You can expect clearer, less bloated skin, plus continuous benefits in mental clarity, muscle strength, and stamina, says Dr. Passler.

After Six Months

“Having our cells properly hydrated creates homeostasis in the body and flushes out toxins,” says Dr. Passler. Beyond just looking and feeling great, proper hydration is necessary for the proper functioning of every single organ and tissue in your body. “The long-term benefits of avoiding dehydration play an important role in reducing the risk of diseases and disorders, like urinary tract infections, hypertension, coronary heart disease, glaucoma, and gallstone disease,” says Dr. Passler.

Race you to the faucet?

Kristin Limoges is the Wellness Editor at Domino.

regaining lost muscle

Pandemic life has a way of revealing our weaknesses. For those of us of a certain age, I mean that literally. If you are feeling like certain household activities — toting groceries, hoisting children, moving furniture, carrying laundry — are more difficult than they were in the past, you aren’t alone. And you aren’t imagining it.

This isn’t a new phenomenon; it just wasn’t until the 1800s that many of us lived long enough to experience this decline. For me, it started a few years ago, when I noticed that lifting an air conditioner, carrying a child up to bed or bringing in a load of firewood seemed harder than they once did. I summoned excuses for each difficulty (“Darned kid gained 20 pounds today!”), but now, at age 54, I’m ready to concede: I simply can’t lift as much as I once could.

Starting sometime in our 30s (the data aren’t precise), we lose up to 8 percent of our muscle mass per decade, a decline called sarcopenia, along with up to 30 percent of our strength and power. This leaves us weaker, less mobile and — especially after we cross age 50 — more vulnerable to injury from falls and similar accidents.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. Men and women can regain some of that lost muscle mass and, importantly, stay strong enough to enjoy youthful activities well into their winter years, experts say. The key is strength training.

“I have people who start in their 60s, 70s and even 80s,” says Jordan Metzl, a sports medicine physician at Hospital for Special Surgery in New York. “Building and maintaining strength is one of the most important things you can do at any stage of life, and it’s extremely important after age 50.”

Why? Strength training improves your “economy of movement,” Metzl says, meaning the amount of energy you expend to complete a task, and it “offloads joints, so you can do the same amount of work with less pain and lower risk of injury. You’re essentially getting more juice out of your muscles.” Metzl is personally vested in this quest: He has run 35 marathons and competed in Iron Man triathlons, and he says he aspires, even as he approaches his mid-50s, “to keep going forever.”

But what if your marathons are measured in Netflix episodes or you just need to jump-start an engine that’s been accumulating rust for years? Again, you’re not alone, says Dixie Stanforth, associate professor of instruction in the University of Texas at Austin’s Department of Kinesiology and Health Education.

“Most people are professional sitters,” she says. As a result, many muscles in the front of our bodies — namely our hip flexors and chest muscles — become short and tight. That shuts off signals to their corresponding anterior muscles — the glutes and upper back — to keep working, so those areas become weak and inhibited. All the sitting we’re doing at home could be making things worse.

The first thing to do if you’re starting or resuming strength training, says Stanforth, a 60-year-old personal trainer and “avid athlete,” is to target major muscle groups, especially the glutes and back.

“Glutes are tremendously important, because they activate the ‘rear chain’ of the body and can produce a lot of power for movement,” Stanforth says. Rear chain muscles are critical for posture, balance, running, jumping and — yes — lifting heavy things. To strengthen those muscles, Stanforth says squats, rows and leg presses are all good, because they engage the core and require movement in multiple joints.

The exercise everyone should be doing at home during the pandemic: Squats

She advises strengthening front-facing muscles (chest, abs, biceps and quadriceps, for example), but also devoting extra time to stretching them because of how tight they become in our daily, deskbound lives. “Many people might consider a 1:2 ratio of exercises” — that is, double your strengthening time for rear-chain muscles — “but all of the major muscles [including biceps, calves and triceps] should be trained.”

And, before you even ask: Just about every exercise you can do in a gym you can do at home — albeit with some modification. Homebound strength exercises that don’t require equipment include squats (with or without weight); chair dips; pushups; pullups; planks; lunges; burpees; and step-ups. If you have canned goods or empty milk or drink containers (a gallon of water weighs approximately eight pounds), you can use them for strength training.

Both Stanforth and Metzl recommend building muscle by performing a high number of reps of a lighter weight — i.e., one you can lift at least 15 times before failure, the fitness term for can’t . . . do . . . one . . . more.

Data show that straining to perform fewer repetitions of much heavier weights greatly increases the risk of injuries to cartilage, tendons and ligaments, without offering much benefit over lighter weights. A 2017 meta-analysis of 21 studies, published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, found that people who engaged in strength training regimens for at least six weeks, performing exercises to failure, showed similar muscle cell growth regardless of whether they did high reps of low weights or fewer reps of heavy weights.

“Fatigue is fatigue no matter how you get there,” Stanforth says. “I recommend [sets of] a significant number of reps — 15, 20, 30 — and you’ll see all the gains that you would with heavier weights.” Encouragingly, studies also show that you’ll reap most of the gains from just one set of each exercise, so you can safely skip the oft-recommended second and third sets.

As for how often to train, the weekly guidelines for generally healthy people age 50 and older aren’t any different from those for other demographics: Strength train two to three days, engage in aerobic activity at least five days at moderate intensity, or at least three days a week at high intensity, and perform a stretching routine at least two days a week.

Metzl takes this up a notch by incorporating high-intensity interval training, or HIIT — short, punishing bursts of activity usually lasting 30 to 90 seconds with recovery breaks in between. “I do HIIT with people in their 70s and 80s,” he tells me. “We all change over the decades, but I don’t want people to be afraid of intensity.”

In fact, Metzl says, people should be increasing intensity as we age to “better stimulate all the cells in our bodies.” He cited a 2017 study published in the journal Cell Metabolism that showed that high-intensity training significantly improved how the body converts macronutrients into energy. But, he said: “For some people, a sprint is intense. For others, it’s walking up the stairs.”

For those who can perform them, Metzl suggests burpees, jump squats and lunges, which he says deliver full-body functional training. “Burpees utilize every muscle in your body. They’re high intensity and tremendously effective.” And, Metzl says, you’ll still reap a benefit from burpees if you opt to step — not jump — your feet back when dropping into the push-up position at the nadir of the exercise.

Stuart Phillips, director of the Physical Activity Center of Excellence at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, says that older people who regularly strength train can expect to see significant gains in strength and power, but not necessarily muscle mass. Still, the benefits of a training regimen — and the extended period of physical independence that comes with them — should be enough to motivate us all, he adds. “It’s about quality of life, and that’s not a function of muscle mass, but of strength/power.”

And, as Stanforth says, “exercise is better than any drug” in sustaining bone and countering the increased risk of osteoporosis that comes with age. “It helps tremendously. But we do have to be smarter about how we apply the dose as we age.” So, do it right, and we’ll feel stronger, and smarter for it, every day — and have one less thing to worry about.

filming the police

The murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers was captured on video, not once but half a dozen times. As we try to understand why a police officer continued compressing a man’s neck and spine for minutes after he’d lost consciousness, we have footage from security cameras at Cup Foods, where Floyd allegedly paid for cigarettes with a counterfeit $20 bill. As we wrestle with the sight of three officers standing by as their colleague killed Floyd, we have footage from the cell phones of witnesses who begged the officers to let Floyd off the ground. In the murder trial of Officer Derek Chauvin, who was patrolling despite 17 civilian complaints against him and previous involvement in two shootings of suspects, his defense may hinge on video from the body cameras he and other officers were wearing.

None of these videos saved George Floyd’s life, and it is possible that none of them will convict his murderer.

Officer Chauvin knew this. In the video shot by 17-year-old Darnella Frazier, you can see him lock eyes with the teenager. He knows she’s filming, and knows that the video is likely being streamed to Facebook, to the horror of those watching it. After all, in a suburb of nearby St. Paul four years earlier, Officer Jeronimo Yanez shot and killed Philando Castile while Castile’s partner streamed the video to Facebook. Yanez’s police car dashcam also recorded the seven shots he pumped into Castile’s body. He was charged and acquitted.

After years of increasingly widespread bodycam use and ever more pervasive social media, it’s clear that information can work only when it’s harnessed to power.

After Castile’s death, I wrote a piece for MIT Technology Review about “sousveillance,” the idea posited by the inventor Steve Mann, the “father of wearable computing,” that connected cameras controlled by citizens could be used to hold power accountable. Even though bystander video of Eric Garner being choked to death by New York police officer Daniel Pantaleo in 2014 had led not to Pantaleo’s indictment but to the arrest of Ramsey Orta, the man who filmed the murder, I offered my hope that “the ubiquity of cell-phone cameras combined with video streaming services like Periscope, YouTube, and Facebook Live has set the stage for citizens to hold the police responsible for excessive use of force.”

I was wrong.

Much of what we think about surveillance comes from the French philosopher Michel Foucault. Foucault examined the ideas of the English reformer Jeremy Bentham, who proposed a prison—the panopticon or Inspection-House—in which every cell was observable from a central watchtower. The possibility that someone might be watching, Bentham believed, would be enough to prevent bad behavior by prisoners. Foucault observed that this knowledge of being watched forces us to police ourselves; our act of disciplining ourselves as if we were always under observation, more than the threat of corporal punishment, is the primary mechanism of “political technology” and power in modern society.

The hope for sousveillance comes from the same logic. If police officers know they’re being watched both by their body cameras and by civilians with cell phones, they will discipline themselves and refrain from engaging in unnecessary violence. It’s a good theory, but in practice, it hasn’t worked. A large study in 2017 by the Washington, DC, mayor’s office assigned more than a thousand police officers in the District to wear body cameras and more than a thousand to go camera-free. The researchers hoped to find evidence that wearing cameras correlated with better policing, less use of force, and fewer civilian complaints. They found none: the difference in behavior between the officers who knew they were being watched and the officers who knew they were not was statistically insignificant. Another study, which analyzed the results of 10 randomized controlled trials of body camera use in different nations, was helpfully titled “Wearing body cameras increases assaults against officers and does not reduce police use of force.”

Reacting to the DC study, some scholars have hoped that if cameras don’t deter officers from violent behavior, at least the film can hold them accountable afterwards. There, too, body cameras rarely work the way we hope. While careful, frame-by-frame analysis of video often shows that victims of police shootings were unarmed and that officers mistook innocuous objects for weapons, attorneys for the defense screen the videos at normal speed to show how tense, fast, and scary confrontations between police and suspects can be. A 1989 Supreme Court decision means that if police officers have an “objectively reasonable” fear that their lives or safety are in danger, they are justified in using deadly force. Videos from body cameras and bystander cell phones have worked to bolster “reasonable fear” defense claims as much as they have demonstrated the culpability of police officers.

It turns out that images matter, but so does power. Bentham’s panopticon works because the warden of the prison has the power to punish you if he witnesses your misbehavior. But Bentham’s other hope for the panopticon—that the behavior of the warden would be transparent and evaluated by all who saw him—has never come to pass. Over 10 years, from 2005 to 2014, only 48 officers were charged with murder or manslaughter for use of lethal force, though more than 1,000 people a year are killed by police in the United States.

As he stared at Darnella Frazier, Officer Chauvin knew this, because it’s impossible to work in law enforcement in the US and not know this. The institutions that protect police officers from facing legal consequences for their actions—internal affairs divisions, civil service job protections, police unions, “reasonable fear”—work far better than the institutions that hold them responsible for abuses.

The hope that pervasive cameras by themselves would counterbalance the systemic racism that leads to the overpolicing of communities of color and the disproportionate use of force against black men was simply a techno-utopian fantasy. It was a hope that police violence could be an information problem like Uber rides or Amazon recommendations, solvable by increasing the flows of data. But after years of increasingly widespread bodycam use and ever more pervasive social media, it’s clear that information can work only when it’s harnessed to power. If there’s one thing that Americans—particularly people of color in America—have learned from George Floyd, Philando Castile, and Eric Garner, it’s that individuals armed with images are largely powerless to make systemic change.

That’s the reason people have taken to the streets in Minneapolis, DC, New York, and so many other cities. There’s one thing images of police brutality seem to have the power to do: shock, outrage, and mobilize people to demand systemic change. That alone is the reason to keep filming.

-- Ethan Zuckerman, MIT Technology Review

Dalai Lama to release album

NEW YORK  — Stressed out while working at a bank in New Zealand, Junelle Kunin began searching for music paired with teachings from the Dalai Lama to calm herself down and allow herself to focus.

But she couldn’t find it online.

That’s when the musician and practicing Buddhist proposed an idea to The Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama: Let’s make an album fusing music with mantras and chants from the Tibetan spiritual leader.

She was politely turned down.

But on a trip to India — where Kunin says she typically gets a chance to meet the Dalai Lama — she asked again, this time writing a letter and handing it to one of his assistants.

Five years later, “Inner World” is born. The album featuring teachings and mantras by the Dalai Lama set to music will be released on July 6, his 85th birthday.

facts that aren't true

With endless resources at our fingertips nowadays, you'd think it would be much more difficult for folks to get away with passing off fiction as fact. And yet, myths and misconceptions are just as prevalent today as they were in a pre-internet world.

Take the knuckle-cracking myth, for instance: Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, a majority of us still hold on to the belief that cracking your knuckles will lead to arthritis. (It won't.)

And somehow a shocking number of people still think that it's fine to eat food that dropped on the floor if it's only been there for five seconds—as if somehow bacteria are too slow to jump on board that fallen French fry.

And there are plenty more common myths that permeate society today.

Whether they're the result of twisted truths over centuries or rumors blindly accepted as reality, these are the well-known "facts" almost everyone believes are true but they're actually fiction.

And for more wrongs you probably need to right, check out the 25 Objects You Didn't Know You Were Using Wrong.

Aerobic exercise can improve thinking, memory in seniors

Want to give your brain a boost? Go for a swim, take a walk, or spin your partner on the living room floor.

A new study finds that aerobic exercise can improve older adults' thinking and memory, even if they're longtime couch potatoes.

This type of exercise increases blood flow to the brain and counters the effects of normal aging, according to the study published online May 13 in the journal Neurology.

"As we all find out eventually, we lose a bit mentally and physically as we age. But even if you start an exercise program later in life, the benefit to your brain may be immense," said study author Marc Poulin, of the University of Calgary School of Medicine in Canada.

"Sure, aerobic exercise gets blood moving through your body. As our study found, it may also get blood moving to your brain, particularly in areas responsible for verbal fluency and executive functions. Our finding may be important, especially for older adults at risk for Alzheimer's and other dementias and brain disease," Poulin said in a journal news release.

The study included 206 adults, average age 66, with no history of memory or heart problems.

For six months, they took part in supervised exercise program three times a week. As they progressed, their workout increased from an average 20 minutes a day to least 40 minutes. They were also asked to work out on their own once a week.

At the end of the exercise program, participants had a 5.7 percent improvement on tests of executive function, which includes mental abilities used to focus, plan, recall instructions and multi-task. They also had 2.4 percent increase in verbal fluency, a measure of how quickly a person can retrieve information.

"This change in verbal fluency is what you'd expect to see in someone five years younger," Poulin said.

On average, blood flow to their brain increased 2.8 percent -- a gain tied to a number of improvements in types of thinking that typically decline with age.

RELATED Fruits, tea, red wine may help fend off Alzheimer's disease

"Our study showed that six months' worth of vigorous exercise may pump blood to regions of the brain that specifically improve your verbal skills as well as memory and mental sharpness," Poulin said.

"At a time when these results would be expected to be decreasing due to normal aging, to have these types of increases is exciting," he said.

Jerry Stiller

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Jerry Stiller, who played two of American television’s most cantankerous fathers on the sitcoms “Seinfeld” and “The King of Queens,” has died aged 92, his son Ben Stiller said on Twitter on Monday.

“I’m sad to say that my father, Jerry Stiller, passed away from natural causes,” wrote Ben, a Hollywood comedian who appeared with his father in “Zoolander” and other movies.

“He was a great dad and grandfather, and the most dedicated husband to Anne for about 62 years. He will be greatly missed. Love you Dad,” he added.

Jerry Stiller was part of a 1960s comedy team with wife Anne Meara. But he was in his mid-60s when he got what would become his signature acting role - Frank Costanza, father of ne’er-do-well George Costanza (played by Jason Alexander) on “Seinfeld,” a tense, bombastic man always on the verge of apoplexy.

In 1993, Stiller had thought his entertainment career was nearing an end when he got a phone call from Larry David, co-creator of “Seinfeld,” about joining the cast led by comedian Jerry Seinfeld.

The show, one of the most highly regarded in U.S. TV history, was in its fourth season at the time but Stiller said he had never watched a minute of it and had to ask, “Who’s Seinfeld?”

He was performing in a play at the time and had to turn down the TV job. Stiller got another chance at the role a few months later and took it.

Stiller was in only 26 of the 172 “Seinfeld” episodes but each appearance was memorable, whether he was screaming “serenity now!” in a tense situation, trying on a bra for men or explaining the odd rituals of Festivus, the Dec. 23 holiday he established as an alternative to Christmas.

Jerry Seinfeld on Monday paid tribute by posting a photo of himself holding “The Last Two People in the World,” a 1967 comedy album from Stiller and his wife.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus posted a clip of old bloopers from the sitcom, while Alexander called him “the kindest man I ever had the honor to work beside.”

Stiller said he was originally told to play Frank in a meek, understated manner in contrast to the character’s loud, shrill wife. A few days in, however, Stiller responded to one of the wife’s rants with an improvised tirade of his own and the show’s producers and cast liked it.

“And from that day on, it was the best years of my life as an actor because I worked with people who were the most generous actors in the world,” Stiller said in an interview with the Archive of American Television.

“Seinfeld” ended its nine-year run in 1998 and that same year Stiller moved into another sitcom dad role on “The King of Queens.” As Arthur Spooner, he played another blowhard oddball - although not quite as eruptive as Frank Costanza - living in the basement of the home of his daughter (played by Leah Remini) and her husband (Kevin James) through the show’s nine seasons.

***

Jerry Stiller, a classically trained actor who became a comedy star twice — in the 1960s in partnership with his wife, Anne Meara, and in the 1990s with a memorable recurring role on “Seinfeld” — has died. He was 92.

His death was confirmed Monday by his son, actor Ben Stiller, in a tweet, who said his father had died of natural causes.

Stiller’s accomplishments as an actor were considerable. He appeared on Broadway in Terrence McNally’s frantic farce “The Ritz” in 1975 and David Rabe’s dark drama “Hurlyburly” in 1984. Off-Broadway, he was in “The Threepenny Opera”; in Central Park he played Shakespearean clowns for Joseph Papp; on screen he was seen as, among other things, a police detective in “The Taking of Pelham One, Two, Three” (1974) and Divine’s husband in John Waters’ “Hairspray” (1988). But he was best known as a comedian.

The team of Stiller and Meara was for many years a familiar presence in nightclubs, on television variety and talk shows, and in radio and television commercials, most memorably for Blue Nun wine and Amalgamated Bank.

Years after the act broke up, Stiller captured a new generation of fans as Frank Costanza, the short-tempered and not entirely sane father of Jason Alexander’s George, on the NBC series “Seinfeld,” one of the most successful television comedies of all time.

Stiller was in fewer than 30 of the 180 episodes of “Seinfeld,” whose nine seasons began in 1989, and he did not make his first appearance until the fifth season. (Another actor appeared as Frank in one episode of Season 4, although his scenes were later re-shot with Stiller for the syndicated reruns.) But he was an essential part of the show’s enduring appeal.

FRANK COSTANZA was a classic sitcom eccentric whose many dubious accomplishments included marketing a brassiere for men and creating Festivus, a winter holiday “for the rest of us” celebrated with tests of strength and other bizarre rituals.

His most noteworthy characteristic was his explosive, often irrational anger, and most of the episodes on which he was featured found him, sooner or later, yelling, usually at either his son; his wife, Estelle, played by Estelle Harris; or both.

Just a few months after the final episode of “Seinfeld” (in which Frank had one last moment in the spotlight and, of course, spent most of it yelling), broadcast on May 14, 1998, Stiller was back on television playing another off-kilter father — a marginally more restrained version of Frank Costanza — on another sitcom, “The King of Queens,” which made its debut that fall on CBS.

A regular this time, he played Arthur Spooner, the excitable father of the wife (Leah Remini) of the working- slob central character (Kevin James), for the show’s entire nine-season run.

A guest star on several episodes of “The King of Queens” was Meara, whose character married his in the series finale. Younger viewers might not have known it, but their scenes together represented the reunion of one of the most successful male-female comedy teams of all time.

STILLER AND MEARA met in 1953, when they were both struggling actors, and married shortly afterward. They worked together in 1959 with the Compass Players, an improvisational theater group that later evolved into the Second City. They began performing as a duo in New York nightclubs in 1961 and soon made the first of about three dozen appearances on “The Ed Sullivan Show.”

Visually, Meara and Stiller were a study in contrasts. She was statuesque and bright-eyed; he was short and stocky, and always looked a little lost. Another contrast formed the basis for much of their comedy: Her heritage was Irish-American and Roman Catholic (although she converted to Judaism in 1961); his was Eastern European and Jewish.

At a time when it was rare for men and women of different religions to date, let alone marry, Stiller and Meara broke new comic ground with their routines about the rocky but loving relationship of Hershey Horowitz and Mary Elizabeth Doyle, characters loosely based on themselves.

The first such sketch, as recounted in Stiller’s autobiography, “Married to Laughter: A Love Story Featuring Anne Meara” (2000), set the tone. One exchange began with Mary Elizabeth saying, “They’re having a dance tonight at my sodality.”

Hershey replied, “At your what?”

“My sodality.”

“What’s that?”

“Well, it’s a girls organization in my parish.”

“You mean like Hadassah?”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a girls organization in my parish.”

The comedy partnership of Stiller and Meara flourished for more than a decade and found a new outlet when they began doing commercials. But they eventually went their separate ways professionally — although they remained happily married and continued to perform together from time to time. Meara died in 2015.

Stiller worked steadily into the early 1990s but was less active than Meara, who had recurring roles on several television shows. Then came the call from “Seinfeld,” and his career resurgence began.

GERALD ISAAC STILLER was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., on June 8, 1927, the first of four children born to William Stiller, the son of immigrants from Galicia, and Bella (Citron) Stiller, who was born in Poland. His father drove a taxi and later a bus. His mother was a homemaker.

Growing up in Brooklyn and on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, young Jerry was inspired to perform by seeing Eddie Cantor and Jimmy Durante in person, and began acting at the Henry Street Playhouse while attending Seward Park High School.

After serving in the Army during and immediately after World War II, he studied theater at Syracuse University under the GI Bill, learning about Greek tragedy and Shakespearean drama from the celebrated teacher Sawyer Falk. He began working in summer stock almost immediately after graduating in 1950, and was appearing off-Broadway a few years later.

Stiller remained active throughout his 80s. He was typically manic in a series of commercials for Capital One Bank, seen on television and heard on radio in 2012.

That same year, he played a group-therapy patient in the independent film “Excuse Me for Living.” In 2014 he provided the voice for the title character in an unorthodox animated television special, “How Murray Saved Christmas.”

In 2016 he reprised the role of the agent Maury Ballstein in “Zoolander 2,” the sequel to the hit 2001 comedy about a male model, starring and directed by his son, Ben.

“I’ve never thought of stopping,” Stiller told The Daily News of New York in 2012. “The only time you ever stop working is when they don’t call you.”

Stiller and Meara’s swan song as a team was a series of web-only video clips produced by their son and posted from November 2010 until March 2011. Each clip lasts about two minutes and consists of the two of them discussing a single topic. One topic is obituaries.

In that clip Stiller says he is “shocked” that The New York Times might have already prepared their obituaries and wonders whether the newspaper is “up to date” on his having worked with Veronica Lake in a production of “Peter Pan” (about six decades earlier). And Meara reveals that years ago Stiller had persuaded the Times to publish her father’s obituary by falsely claiming that he had written material for their comedy act.

Stiller’s agitated response: “What you just said is going to get us in trouble with The New York Times! I may never get an obit!”

He needn’t have worried.

Trapped at Home? Board Game On!

I am, in the best circumstances, a poor loser. I’m also a clumsy, fidgety winner.

Yet I have spent the past month playing games. All kinds of games: Twenty Questions, I Spy, matching games, memory games, and as much hide and seek as a three-room apartment allows. Mostly, I have been playing board games with a fixation I haven’t known since I was 9 or 10 and cheating at Candy Land (slipping the Queen Frostine card just below the top of the deck and then saying, brightly, to my sister, “You can go first!”).

If you, like me, grew up with a battered box of Sorry and a Battleship missing at least two of its boats, you should know that board games have improved. With a large number released each year, the variety of games and the mechanics that govern them are almost infinite.

My library books remain unread, a stack of untouched New Yorker issues has become a household obstacle, and I can’t make it through a movie, or even a 23-minute sitcom, without reaching for my phone. So why can I spend a focused hour-and-a-half bartering for camels in an Indian marketplace playing Jaipur or simulating quilt-making in Patchwork?

While I have slashed most discretionary spending, I keep lowballing used children’s games — Outfoxed!, Ticket to Ride: First Journey, Sushi Go! — and a few adult ones on eBay. The other week, I fell into a Google abyss comparing cooperative puzzle games. When I finally clawed my way out, I found that I had ordered Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective, from England. The shipping was surprisingly reasonable.

With so much of life transported online, there is huge satisfaction in the tactility of board games, an almost indecent pleasure in rolling dice, dealing cards, hopscotching a game piece to a square. And many of them are beautiful, eye-candy confections of color and shape. But library books, after all, are tactile. Some of them are even illustrated. Why games?

I wrote to Joey Lee, who directs the Games Research Lab at Teachers College at Columbia University, hoping he could figure out this one. Tabletop games, he said, create a “magic circle,” an idea borrowed, more or less, from the cultural historian Johan Huizinga. Lee wrote that the circle, inside which everyone agrees to abide by the same constraints and rules, provides “a structure and environment that sparks laughter, creativity, joy and other pleasure-filled moments that come from solving problems successfully, optimizing one’s strategies, working together or competing against other players.”

That sounded like an ambitious way of describing what happens when my 3-year-old and I fend off trolls in My First Castle Panic, but sure.

Nicholas Fortugno, a games designer and lecturer, explained why playing games with my two young children improves on our flustered attempts at homeschooling. “Games level differences in age,” he said. “If I’m a 10-year-old playing a game with my parents, the authority structure that normally governs how I behave is actually kind of released. For the purposes of the game, we’re equal.”

When I try to teach place value to my 6-year-old, there’s a hierarchy at work. When we play Zeus on the Loose, which has her practice addition and subtraction as we lay claim to Mount Olympus, we play as equals.

Sort of.

I should probably confess that I have been throwing a lot of these games, cheating as avidly as I ever did, but now in favor of my opponents. Losing offers valuable lessons — grace, resilience, accepting the randomness of a flicked spinner. But being confined to our home without birthday parties or play dates feels like lesson enough. So somehow the children always seem to beat me, simultaneously, at Scary Bingo.

I have also been playing board games with my husband, because they are a welcome change from our other games like, Hey, Have You Looked at the 401(k) Lately? and Why Are You Drinking So Much? As long as I had game experts on the line, I asked several to act as games concierges (“I prefer sommelier,” Fortugno told me) and recommend games that wouldn’t push us any closer to divorce, or at least delay it until after lockdown. I also mentioned that I’m the kind of monster who takes games very seriously.

“Board games are one of the few outlets in life where that is kind of a socially acceptable thing,” said a reassuring Erik Arneson, who writes books on tabletop games. “As long as you don’t get angry and flip the table over if you lose.” I told him that I wouldn’t. Our table is very heavy.

He recommended Patchwork, “a lovely little two player game that’s about making quilts.” Coincidentally, my husband had bought a sale copy of Patchwork. (An exception to my “games are beautiful now” claim, its color scheme combines a sickly beige and a clinically depressed green.) Arneson had warned that I would sometimes resent my husband for snatching a piece I needed. And I did. But that particular resentment, unlike my feelings about the distribution of emotional labor, say, was discrete and local.

Still, I suggested a move toward cooperative games. The best cooperative game, several experts agreed, is Pandemic, which seemed just a little on the nose. Instead, we have spent a few companionable evenings playing that Sherlock Holmes game and sampling escape room games. These, too, are a little on the nose, in that family life during a pandemic does have the feel of a locked room, but in the game at least, escape is possible. Two nights ago, we broke out of a sinister museum, and felt — against all real-world evidence — like we had really accomplished something.

We could have played any of these games in the past several years, but we didn’t. I was out at the theater most nights. The children sleep fitfully. No previous pandemic marooned us indoors. “A lot of games,” Fortugno said, “were invented because groups of people had to be around each other and were bored.” That’s most families. But it doesn’t quite explain why games — even Patchwork — feel so specifically soothing right now.

Games can be a healthy escapism, according to Robert Hewitt, who runs Brooklyn Game Lab, an after-school program that has since moved online. “When you sit down to one of these games, you’re existing within the parameters of the game,” he said. “For an hour or two hours, you’re concentrating on managing your sheep and your barns and your goats and you have that total sense of control. So I think that’s pretty calming.” (Really hoping this goat game isn’t a hypothetical.) He sent me a picture of his kitchen table covered in Robinson Crusoe, a solo game involving hundreds of cards and tokens. Consider Hewitt extremely calm.

Naomi Clark, a professor at New York University’s Game Center, described games as safe spaces to practice patterns of thought that now feel risky in the real-world, like long-term planning or resource allocation. She also mentioned some neuroscience research suggesting that games occupy the same neural pathways that might instead flashback to traumatic experiences, like, say, living through a pandemic. “Games actually sort of turn your brain down other pathways to allow your brain to heal,” she said.

In two months or six months or whenever lockdown relaxes, I can’t imagine we’ll play together as much. The children will spend most of the day in school; Broadway has to reopen sometime. We’ll pass some board games onto friends, donate others to the Brooklyn Library’s lending collection. But until then, we’ll open the box, unfold the board, shuffle the cards just so. Deal me in.

Some of Our Favorite Games

For the Whole Family

Animal Upon Animal It’s like Jenga, but better. This dexterity game asks players to stack sturdy wooden pieces (an alligator, hedgehogs, penguins, some weird little guys who might be lizards).

Outfoxed A cooperative game for kids, it asks you to play as chickens investigating a fox who stole a pot pie. (What is in that pot pie, anyway?) The fox hasn’t beaten us yet — even when I don’t let the kids cheat.

Scary Bingo The mechanics of this game are simple and familiar: A caller selects random tokens, players cover the relevant squares. But the design is witty and the monsters exuberantly weird.

And for Two Adults

Exit These escape room games have frustrating aspects — you have to be very precise in how you manipulate the pieces and you destroy some elements during play, so you can’t pass a game on. But the puzzles are delicious and solvable if you peek at the preliminary hints.

Patchwork The aesthetics are appalling and the set-up may seem overly simple. Just how complicated can a game about quilting get? Very. The design encourages you to think several moves ahead.

Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective This cooperative game, if you can track down a copy, is meticulously constructed and maniacally engaging. You and yours play Baker Street Irregulars solving a Holmesian mystery.

--- By Alexis Soloski

the Two Minute Rule

I just watched this video on YouTube about the Two Minute Rule

Apparently the idea came from the book Atomic Habits by James Clear.  Here's an excerpt:

The Two-Minute Rule states “When you start a new habit, it should take less than two minutes to do.”

You’ll find that nearly any habit can be scaled down into a two-minute version:

• “Read before bed each night” becomes “Read one page.”
• “Do thirty minutes of yoga” becomes “Take out my yoga mat.”
• “Study for class” becomes “Open my notes.”
• “Fold the laundry” becomes “Fold one pair of socks.”
• “Run three miles” becomes “Tie my running shoes.”

The idea is to make your habits as easy as possible to start. Anyone can meditate for one minute, read one page, or put one item of clothing away. And, as we have just discussed, this is a powerful strategy because once you’ve started doing the right thing, it is much easier to continue doing it. A new habit should not feel like a challenge. The actions that follow can be challenging, but the first two minutes should be easy. What you want is a “gateway habit” that naturally leads you down a more productive path.

***

Not to be confused with this Two Minute Rule, which actually sounds more like Gretchen Rubin's One Minute Rule.

The 1% Rule

Habits don't change in a day. But 1% a day makes every habit work. Every.

The reason is: they work if you do a little each day. If you relax and give yourself permission to only improve a little each day, then a good habit works.

Improve a little each day. It compounds. When 1% compounds every day, it doubles every 72 days, not every 100 days. Compounding tiny excellence is what creates big excellence.

You can't be a master in one day. You have to improve a little every day.

Picasso created two works of art a day. That's 50,000 in a lifetime. It adds up.

"But it's too late for me!"

No, it's not. Compounding creates fast results.

If I read five pages a day from non-fiction books, then in a year I will have read 1,830 pages of knowledge. And each page I read will build upon the pages I've read before.

And it's 1,830 pages 99% of people won't read. Most people don't pick up a book after age 20.

If I write 1,000 words a day, then in one day that's nothing. In one year, that's the equivalent of 6–8 novels.

It doesn't happen in one day. There are no goals. There's only practice. Practice never makes perfect. Practice makes happy. Practice makes habits.

I started writing 23 years ago. Every day I read a little. Every day I wrote. I wanted to get better.

I was very bad at the beginning.

I just looked at some fiction I wrote 23 years ago. WOW! Very bad.

Every day I wake up and think, how can I be a little better? Just a tiny bit. Because I know it will make me feel good today to practice. And I know it will add up.

-- James Altucher

11 habits of happiness

We’re always chasing something—be it a promotion, a new car, or a significant other. This leads to the belief that, “When (blank) happens, I’ll finally be happy.”

While these major events do make us happy at first, research shows this happiness doesn’t last. A study from Northwestern University measured the happiness levels of regular people against those who had won large lottery prizes the year prior. The researchers were surprised to discover that the happiness ratings of both groups were practically identical.

The mistaken notion that major life events dictate your happiness and sadness is so prevalent that psychologists have a name for it: impact bias. The reality is, event-based happiness is fleeting.

Happiness is synthetic—you either create it, or you don’t. Happiness that lasts is earned through your habits. Supremely happy people have honed habits that maintain their happiness day in, day out. Try out their habits, and see what they do for you:

1. They slow down to appreciate life’s little pleasures

By nature, we fall into routines. In some ways, this is a good thing. It saves precious brainpower and creates comfort. However, sometimes you get so caught up in your routine that you fail to appreciate the little things in life. Happy people know how important it is to savor the taste of their meal, revel in the amazing conversation they just had, or even just step outside to take a deep breath of fresh air.

2. They exercise

Getting your body moving for as little as ten minutes releases GABA, a neurotransmitter that makes your brain feel soothed and keeps you in control of your impulses. Happy people schedule regular exercise and follow through on it because they know it pays huge dividends for their mood.

3. They spend money on other people

Research shows that spending money on other people makes you much happier than spending it on yourself. This is especially true of small things that demonstrate effort, such as going out of your way to buy your friend a book that you know they will like.

4. They surround themselves with the right people

Happiness spreads through people. Surrounding yourself with happy people builds confidence, stimulates creativity, and it’s flat-out fun. Hanging around negative people has the opposite effect. They want people to join their pity party so that they can feel better about themselves. Think of it this way: If a person were smoking, would you sit there all afternoon inhaling the second-hand smoke? You’d distance yourself, and you should do the same with negative people.

5. They stay positive

Bad things happen to everyone, including happy people. Instead of complaining about how things could have been or should have been, happy people reflect on everything they’re grateful for. Then they find the best solution available to the problem, tackle it, and move on. Nothing fuels unhappiness quite like pessimism. The problem with a pessimistic attitude, apart from the damage it does to your mood, is that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: if you expect bad things, you’re more likely to experience negative events. Pessimistic thoughts are hard to shake off until you recognize how illogical they are. Force yourself to look at the facts, and you’ll see that things are not nearly as bad as they seem.

6. They get enough sleep

I’ve beaten this one to death over the years and can’t say enough about the importance of sleep for improving your mood, focus, and self-control. When you sleep, your brain literally recharges, removing toxic proteins that accumulate during the day as byproducts of normal neuronal activity. This ensures that you wake up alert and clear-headed. Your energy, attention, and memory are all reduced when you don’t get enough quality sleep. Sleep deprivation also raises stress hormone levels on its own, even without a stressor present. Happy people make sleep a priority, because it makes them feel great and they know how lousy they feel when they’re sleep deprived.

7. They have deep conversations

Happy people know that happiness and substance go hand-in-hand. They avoid gossip, small talk, and judging others. Instead they focus on meaningful interactions. They engage with other people on a deeper level, because they know that doing so feels good, builds an emotional connection, and is an interesting way to learn.

8. They help others

Taking the time to help people not only makes them happy, but it also makes you happy. In a Harvard study, employees who helped others were ten times more likely to be focused at work and 40% more likely to get a promotion. The same study showed that people who consistently provided social support were the most likely to be happy during times of high stress. As long as you make certain that you aren’t overcommitting yourself, helping others is sure to have a positive influence on your mood.

9. They make an effort to be happy

No one wakes up feeling happy every day and supremely happy people are no exception. They just work at it harder than everyone else. They know how easy it is to get sucked into a routine where you don’t monitor your emotions or actively try to be happy and positive. Happy people constantly evaluate their moods and make decisions with their happiness in mind.

10. They do things in person

Happy people only let technology do their talking when absolutely necessary. The human brain is wired for in-person interaction, so happy people will jump at the chance to drive across town to see a friend or meet face-to-face because it makes them feel good.

11. They have a growth mindset

People’s core attitudes fall into one of two categories: a fixed mindset or a growth mindset. With a fixed mindset, you believe you are who you are and you cannot change. This creates problems when you’re challenged, because anything that appears to be more than you can handle is bound to make you feel hopeless and overwhelmed.

People with a growth mindset believe that they can improve with effort. This makes them happier because they are better at handling difficulties. They also outperform those with a fixed mindset because they embrace challenges, treating them as opportunities to learn something new.

Happiness can be tough to maintain, but investing in the right habits pays off. Adopting even a few of the habits from this list will make a big difference in your mood.

This post was originally published on LinkedIn.

Travis Bradberry is the co-author of the bestselling book Emotional Intelligence 2.0 and co-founder of TalentSmart, which provides emotional intelligence tests and training to corporate clients.

could you be loved?

According to Gary Chapman’s theory of love languages, different people need different things in order to feel loved. Some people will feel most appreciated when they spend quality time with their loved ones, while others prioritize physical touch, and still others need words of affirmation in order to feel truly cherished. Show your affection to your partner in their preferred manner, the theory goes, and it will go a long way toward reducing conflict.

But while it’s undoubtably true that one person’s charming weekend getaway gift is another person’s stress-filled organizational quagmire, a new study suggests that—among Americans, at least—there’s a fair amount of consensus around which gestures are most likely to make people feel loved.

In a study published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, researchers from Pennsylvania State University and the University of California, Irvine, asked 495 men and women in the US to complete an online survey that presented them with 60 different scenarios. Respondents were instructed to respond to statements about each scenario, such as, “Most people feel loved when someone is there to just listen,” with “True,” “False,” or “Don’t Know.” (Importantly, researchers asked the participants to answer based on how they thought a majority of people would feel—not based on their own personal emotional programming.)

The study, led by Saeideh Heshmati and Zita Oravecz, the latter of whom co-authored a 2016 paper on the same subject, identified some behaviors that nearly all participants agreed would make people feel loved. There was strong consensus around the following four scenarios:

    When someone shows compassion toward them in difficult times
    When a child snuggles up to them
    When their pets are happy to see them
    When someone tells them “I love you”

Notably, none of those behaviors are associated exclusively with romantic partners—a finding in keeping with the authors’ conclusion that “people feel loved in a range of settings much wider than just romantic relationships, which included momentary everyday interactions and experiences with friends, pets, and family.” Indeed, studies have shown that simply making eye contact with dogs increases their owners’ level of oxytocin, also known as the “love hormone” because it promotes bonding. A parent who cuddles with their kid will get a big dose of oxytocin, too. And anyone who’s had a friend call them up after a bad day, or exchanged an “I love you” with a trusted family member, can attest to the power of these small but meaningful gestures.

Another noteworthy takeaway: Despite the popularity of romantic tales about ultra-controlling men like Fifty Shades‘ Christian Grey or Twilight‘s Edward Cullen, most Americans agree that in the real world, possessive behavior doesn’t make people feel loved. Scenarios in which “someone wants to know where you are at all times,” “someone tells them what is best for them,” “someone is possessive about them” were all rated unlikely to spark feelings of warmth and tenderness.

When taking factors like race and gender into account, the study found that some groups were more likely to differ from the consensus on the situations most likely to inspire feelings of love. Male participants were more likely to give responses that differed from the majority consensus—perhaps, the researchers suggest, because the study focused on nonsexual love. (Previous research has shown that men, broadly speaking, tend to think about love in terms of intimate physical relationships.) Black participants were also more likely to be outside the consensus, which the researchers attribute to the fact that the majority of respondents were white, and so the consensus reflects white cultural norms.

The study’s authors acknowledge that their research is limited when it comes to how different factors may affect people’s interpretations of love, particularly when it comes to cross-cultural beliefs. Still, the study is a nice reminder of the simple things all of us can do to show our appreciation for one another.

Heroes Next Door

12/30/19 - Randy Ching
12/29/19 - Kayoko Miura
12/29/19 - Glenn Uejio
12/28/19 - Maile Meyer
12/27/19 - Uncle Jack McKeague
12/26/19 - Joe O'Connell
12/25/19 - Elizabeth Glenn

12/30/18 - Magin Patrick
12/29/18 - Glenn Uejio
12/28/18 - Hiro Ito
12/27/18 - Virgil Amoroso
12/26/18 - Danny Tengan
12/25/18 - Maria Garcia

more

Olive Garden coming to Hawaii

Olive Garden is planning its first Hawaii location at Ala Moana Center.

After years of its TV commercials running in Hawaii, the Italian-American restaurant chain filed a $50,000 building permit for Suite 3247, which is currently occupied by the Mai Tai Bar.

Representatives of Landry’s, owner of the Mai Tai Bar and nearby Bubba Gump Shrimp Co., did not respond to Honolulu Star-Advertiser requests for comment. An employee for Bubba Gump’s said the restaurant is closing Jan. 26 to make way for Orlando Fla.-based Olive Garden. It’s unclear what will happen to the Mai Tai Bar.

“What a great first location for Olive Garden in Hawaii at the state’s largest and most prominent shopping center,” said Duane Shimogawa, real estate project manager for Avalon Group. “From a real estate perspective, this will only help draw other big-named mainland restaurant and retail chains to Hawaii. Be on the lookout for not only additional Olive Garden restaurants in the state but also others as well.”

An Ala Moana spokeswoman deferred comments to Olive Garden.

Bubba Gump opened at Ala Moana in 1999 as part of a more than $50 million upper-level expansion in the Diamond Head and Ewa wings.

The Rabbit Effect

It was New Year’s Eve, and my friends had just adopted a little girl, 4 years old, from China. The family was going around the table, suggesting what each thought the New Year’s resolution should be for the other. Fei Fei’s English was still shaky. When her turn came, though, she didn’t hesitate. She pointed at her new father, mother and sister in turn. “Be nice, be nice, be nice,” she said.

Fifteen years later, in this dark age for civility, a toddler’s cri de coeur resonates more than ever. In his recent remarks at the memorial service for Congressman Elijah Cummings, President Obama said, “Being a strong man includes being kind, and there’s nothing weak about kindness and compassion; nothing weak about looking out for others.” On a more pedestrian level, yesterday I walked into the Phluid Project, the NoHo gender-neutral shop where T-shirts have slogans like “Hatephobic” and “Be Your Self.” I asked the salesperson, “What is your current best seller?” She pointed to a shirt in the window imprinted with the slogan: “Be kind.”

So I’m not surprised that there’s been a little flurry of self-help books on basic human decency and what it will do for you.

Kindness is doing small acts for others without expecting anything in return. It’s the opposite of transactional, and therefore the opposite of what we’re seeing in our body politic today.

I’d probably pick up any book that includes the words “foreword by Jimmy Carter,” because I know being in his company will make me feel better. OUR BETTER ANGELS: Seven Simple Virtues That Will Change Your Life and the World (St. Martin’s, 240 pp., $24.99), by Jonathan Reckford, C.E.O. of Habitat for Humanity, has such a foreword. When President Carter isn’t writing his own historical or inspirational books, he’s building homes with Habitat for Humanity for those who desperately need them. “Our Better Angels” lays out the seven virtues that can translate into action: Kindness, Community, Empowerment, Joy, Respect, Generosity and Service. This is a nifty way to organize a lot of great stories about people Habitat for Humanity has helped and to drive home the very important point that performing a service helps you, too — even if the service is done out of duty, not love. Because in a certain sense, duty can become love — as the British in general, and fans of “Downton Abbey” in particular, can surely tell you.

Which may be why I was drawn to a book called COSY: The British Art of Comfort (HarperOne, 176 pp., $19.99), by Laura Weir. The American market has been inundated with bossy little books in which other countries tell us how to behave. (Korea, please stop telling me to “empty my mind” so I can begin to claim the power of nunchi. I am 58. I can barely hold on to the few thoughts I have.) But O.K., I’m an Anglophile, and I was drawn to this one. “Unlike hygge, which is beautiful in essence, but too often seen through the lens of interior design magazines, being cosy is completely personal, affordable and democratic. … Cosy is your authentic self undone.” I particularly enjoyed the chapter “Cosy and Kind,” where Weir indirectly lays out the connection between duty and love, with advice like “Become the stealth de-icer: rise early and chuck down de-icing solution on the drives and steps of your elderly neighbors’ homes. They don’t need to know, but you will.” Alas, she also talks a great deal about creating small dolls and knitting woolly hats for charity. My Anglophilia stops short of knitting. Can I just send a check?

Victoria Turk’s KILL REPLY ALL: A Modern Guide to Online Etiquette, From Social Media to Work to Love (Plume, 224 pp., paper, $15.99) is one of the more amusing digital-etiquette books you’ll read. Simply put, social media has created a new universe of ways we can be mean to one another. So digital good manners are a great kindness, whether they apply to friends, work or love. (I like one of Turk’s definitions of love: “Texting them even though your battery’s at 5 percent.”) And now, I know I will never leave anyone in a specific circle of acquaintances out of a group chat, even if I think he or she is uninterested; let that person opt out himself. Let’s say it’s a book club chat. By God, everyone must be in there, even if Janet has questionable opinions about Nabokov and Leslie can turn every club meeting into a discussion of her grandchildren. These, like many of Turk’s lessons, are kindnesses I can live with.

Perhaps the most interesting (because the most personal, while also the most steeped in data) is Kelli Harding’s THE RABBIT EFFECT: Live Longer, Happier and Healthier With the Groundbreaking Science of Kindness (Atria, 272 pp., $27). For instance: In other wealthy nations over the past few years, life expectancy has been rising, while in the politically turbulent United States the trend has moved the other way. In 2016, we ranked 43rd in the world for life expectancy. Coincidence? We spend a fortune on health care, Harding notes. So what’s missing?

Well, as it turns out: everything. To dismiss the role that issues like abuse, discrimination and loneliness play in health, Harding writes, is “like fixing up an airplane engine and ignoring that the pilot is on his third drink at the bar and a massive storm is overhead.”

The book’s title refers to a 1978 study in which researchers were trying to establish the relationship between high cholesterol and heart health. Here rabbits were fed a very high fat diet in an effort to mimic human heart problems. The rabbits did, in fact, get a host of heart problems — except for the rabbits under the care of one researcher who cuddled and talked to them while they were fed. The differences in health were so marked that the study was replicated, with the only difference in rabbit care being some extreme petting and cooing; and the results were the same.

Harding, an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center, has long observed in her own practice that illness alone is not a predictor of outcome. There are reams of studies about stressors and hormonal changes in the body with illness, but many boil down to this: Are you alone when you’re sick, or do you have people sending you flowers and bringing you magazines? If you do, you’re going to get better faster. (There was even a study showing that nature makes a difference: Patients with the same illness in the same hospital who look out on trees versus looking out on a brick wall went home a day earlier.) Harding goes on to show how our interconnectedness helps us stay healthier. By the time she got to this piece of advice I couldn’t help tearing up: “If you see a person on the street asking for money, offer her a snack or water. Ask her name. If you don’t have anything, acknowledge her request and tell her you wish you could help. You may be the only kind person she encounters today.”

Fei Fei had it right. Even if, at 4 years of age, she didn’t know she was echoing Henry James, who reportedly once said to his nephew: “Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.”

-- Judith Newman, New York Times, January 8, 2020

Judith Newman is the author of “To Siri With Love: A Mother, Her Autistic Son and the Kindness of Machines.”

Misfit Spirit by Jay Sakashita

1/8/20 - Confucianism and Cultivating Good Behavior

Wakanda no longer listed as U.S. free trade partner

People were surprised to see the Kingdom of Wakanda listed as a US free trade partner in a tariff tracker on the US Department of Agriculture's website. But officials soon explained that the nation had only been added as part of a test, and removed it from the system.

100 best TV shows of all time

Six years later, another list based on IMDb ratings.

(Personal) Highlights:

93.  Person of Interest
92.  Brooklyn Nine-Nine
68.  Star Trek: The Next Generation
60.  Parks and Recreation
58.  The X-Files
55.  Daredevil (really?)
41.  Battlestar Galactica (2004-2009)
37.  South Park
36.  The Simpsons
35.  House
25.  Seinfeld
22.  The Office
13.  Friends

And now the top 10:

10.  Firefly
9.  Fargo
8.  True Detective
7.  Sherlock
6.  Avatar: The Last Airbender (what?)
5.  The Sopranos
4.  The Wire
3.  Rick and Morty (what again?)
2.  Game of Thrones
1.  Breaking Bad

So much for IMDb ratings.  Far different from this list where I Love Lucy was number 1 beating out Seinfeld, M*A*S*H, All In the Family, and Cheers.

What's the deal with Spider-Man and Sony?

Spider-Man is caught in a tangled web.

After Deadline reported on Tuesday that Sony and Disney were unable to come to an agreement over Spider-Man's movie appearances, Sony released a statement blaming Disney. A Sony spokesperson said that it was the Mouse House's decision for Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige to not be involved with future movies.

"We hope this might change in the future, but understand that the many new responsibilities that Disney has given him - including all their newly added Marvel properties - do not allow time for him to work on IP they do not own," Sony said. "Kevin is terrific and we are grateful for his help and guidance and appreciate the path he has helped put us on, which we will continue."

Spider-Man's big-screen journey has been a roller coaster, and this is just the latest in a series of headaches. To understand the current tug-of-war between Sony and Disney, you need to understand how the arrangement arose in the first place.

Chinese therapy balls

The therapy balls, known as one of the "three treasures" of a province in China, is a traditional product that has been produced since the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), and has been made by Chinese craftsmen for the past 300 years.

Originally, the Therapy Ball was a solid ball of jade or marble but later was designed hollow with a sounding plate in it when technology permitted.  Sold in pairs, one sounds high and one sounds low.  It is a form of exercise to build strength and increase circulation in the hands and arms.   As a conditioning apparatus for older persons it is one of the simplest ways to tone the joints and muscles in the hands, forearms and shoulders.  It is an especially convenient method of obtaining relief from such afflictions as minor arthritis, tendinitis, carpal tunnel sydrome [sic], thoracic outlet repetitive strain injury (RSI), computer strain and other hand/arm/shoulder neck related discomforts.  Many people simply do their "exercises" while watching TV.  It is also a relatively effortless way to increase hand and forearm strength for people participating in weekend sports activities such as tennis or golf.

According to the traditional Chinese medical theory of "Jingluo" (Jingluo refers to the main and collateral channels, regarded as a network of passages, through which vital energy circulates and along which acupuncture points are distributed), the ten fingers are connected with the cranial nerve and vital organs of the human body, including heart, liver, spleen, lungs, kidneys, gall bladder, stomach and intestines, etc.  When moving the iron balls with the fingers, the balls can stimulate the various acupuncture points on the hand, resulting in increased circulation of vital energy and blood in the body.  "It can cause the jingluo (channels) to be cleared, the vital energy and blood to function in harmony, the muscles to become nimble [I'm guessing the word is nimble, but there's a hole in the paper], the bones to strengthen, the mind to clear, the circulation to improve, and can prevent and relieve hypertension and various chronic diseases.  If you keep exercising everyday for months and years, you can get the fine results of keeping your brain in good health with high intelligence and good memory, relieving your fatigue, drowning your worries, and, moreover, prolonging your life."

To exercise, put two iron balls on your palm, and crook and stretch your four fingers and thumb in sequence to cause the balls to rotate and revolve either clockwise or counter-clockwise.  All the joints of the hand will always be in motion; and with the crooking and stretching of the fingers, the forearm muscles are contracted and relaxed rythymically [sic].  At first, you may prefer balls of smaller size for exercise; but as your hand strength and dexterity increase, you can use larger and heavier balls.  You should exercise both hands alternately, and will be amazed at how soon your fingers "learn" to move the balls around your palms.

[transcribed from the "Something Special" instructions, but there were some small holes in the paper, so my transcription might not be 100% accurate]