The term “Rx” comes from the original latin for “recipe”, or prescription. Here is this week’s collection of (non-prescriptive) cool stuff, including more reasons to stay in bed, and some inspiration from Jim Carrey. This is a short one because the sun is shining and hundreds of men are kicking balls around Brazil.
Speaking of the World Cup:
Men are idiots. For many of us, this may not be surprising. However, a recent poll of 2,000 men by Durex suggests that 42% of us would turn down sex to watch the World Cup. 27% also said they have thought about football during sex, though this may have been to slow down proceedings (or, more worryingly, speed things along). Not to worry, though, 37% said they wouldn’t mind doing it as long as they could keep the TV on. What the fuck, guys?!
When you near the end of your days and look down at your shriveled, neglected manhood and wonder why it didn’t see more action; is “because the World Cup was on” a good excuse? Not only will sex reduce your risk of prostate cancer and risk of early death. More importantly, sex is almost certainly more fun than watching England get beaten by Italy… Read a summary of the poll here.
Speaking of bed:
Sleep forms memories. We have known for a long time that consolidation and organisation of memories depends heavily on sleep, but a study published last week gives some clues as to exactly how. When mice run on a treadmill and are allowed to sleep afterwards, the number of potential connections (through new dendritic spines) between neurons in the part of the brain that controls movement (the motor cortex) increases. It turns out that the neurons activated during running are re-activated during deep sleep, and this drives the creation of new dendritic spines. Conversely, the study showed that, if the mice were kept awake for the few hours after the exercise by gentle petting from the researchers, these connections weren’t made. Interestingly, those connections still didn’t form if the mice were allowed to “catch up” on sleep later on. This suggests that for “muscle memory” at least, once you miss the opportunity to sleep (and strengthen the connections in the brain), you can’t make up for it later!
If I was being hyper-critical of the study, I’d suggest that this would also need to be tested for memories other than those induced by running. This is because the act of exercise is well known to increase the number of memory-related connections in the brain, through the action of proteins such as brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). The researchers also tried to simulate the “stress” of being kept awake by allowing mice to sleep, but then giving them some extra corticosterone (the traditional stress hormone in mice). Importantly, this did not reduce the number of connections made, but one hormone would not necessarily replicate the complex response to lack of sleep.
Despite this, the study (which you can find here) gives a nice new insight into the positive ways in which the brain responds to sleep. Is it nap time?
Other interesting stuff:
Jim Carrey gives some powerful advice. This video has had a great airing on social media this week. It comes from his commencement speech to the Maharishi University of Management’s class of 2014. If you can fail at what you don’t love, why not at least fail at what you do love:
Speaking of the World Cup:
Men are idiots. For many of us, this may not be surprising. However, a recent poll of 2,000 men by Durex suggests that 42% of us would turn down sex to watch the World Cup. 27% also said they have thought about football during sex, though this may have been to slow down proceedings (or, more worryingly, speed things along). Not to worry, though, 37% said they wouldn’t mind doing it as long as they could keep the TV on. What the fuck, guys?!
When you near the end of your days and look down at your shriveled, neglected manhood and wonder why it didn’t see more action; is “because the World Cup was on” a good excuse? Not only will sex reduce your risk of prostate cancer and risk of early death. More importantly, sex is almost certainly more fun than watching England get beaten by Italy… Read a summary of the poll here.
Speaking of bed:
Sleep forms memories. We have known for a long time that consolidation and organisation of memories depends heavily on sleep, but a study published last week gives some clues as to exactly how. When mice run on a treadmill and are allowed to sleep afterwards, the number of potential connections (through new dendritic spines) between neurons in the part of the brain that controls movement (the motor cortex) increases. It turns out that the neurons activated during running are re-activated during deep sleep, and this drives the creation of new dendritic spines. Conversely, the study showed that, if the mice were kept awake for the few hours after the exercise by gentle petting from the researchers, these connections weren’t made. Interestingly, those connections still didn’t form if the mice were allowed to “catch up” on sleep later on. This suggests that for “muscle memory” at least, once you miss the opportunity to sleep (and strengthen the connections in the brain), you can’t make up for it later!
If I was being hyper-critical of the study, I’d suggest that this would also need to be tested for memories other than those induced by running. This is because the act of exercise is well known to increase the number of memory-related connections in the brain, through the action of proteins such as brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). The researchers also tried to simulate the “stress” of being kept awake by allowing mice to sleep, but then giving them some extra corticosterone (the traditional stress hormone in mice). Importantly, this did not reduce the number of connections made, but one hormone would not necessarily replicate the complex response to lack of sleep.
Despite this, the study (which you can find here) gives a nice new insight into the positive ways in which the brain responds to sleep. Is it nap time?
Other interesting stuff:
Jim Carrey gives some powerful advice. This video has had a great airing on social media this week. It comes from his commencement speech to the Maharishi University of Management’s class of 2014. If you can fail at what you don’t love, why not at least fail at what you do love:
Teach kids to be healthy now. A really nice article from Mark Sisson aimed at the next generation, on how they can become “healthy, happy, robust, fit, attractive, and most importantly of all, self-sufficient people” through simple movement and good food. Humans don’t come broken out of the box:
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/an-open-letter-to-kids-and-teens-about-lifelong-healt/#ixzz34iGTYWxT
Eat Butter:
After their seminal article on the “evils” of cholesterol 30 years ago, Time Magazine published what might almost be a retraction. I wrote a few weeks ago that “butter is back”, and the fact that the idea has been accepted in the mainstream media is incredibly encouraging! Yes, saturated fat does increase cholesterol, but current evidence shows that this is NOT a bad thing. In short, eat butter.