The Science of Living explores the science behind our daily routines from waking up, morning, afternoon, evening and going to bed. It provides lots of tips and practical advice to improve your day. Reminded me a bit of Michael Mosley’s Just One Thing book. Some of the tips I found useful were as follows:
- PLAY: If you give a children Lego to play with are likely to mature and having brains which have larger spatial cortex’s, regardless of whether they are male or female.
- HUNGER: There’s good information on how hormones impact on our hunger, quote food clothing former enrolling sticks like syrup to the appetite control region of brain. The reason that much of the junk / processed foods are so hard to give up is due to the manufacturers which is jacked up with sugar, salt and fat ratio which will release the dopamine hormone which is the same substance that makes you feel good after sex, winning the lottery or watching your favourite sports team win a match. Dopamine is one of the main brain chemicals that drives addiction so when you eat junk food, it’s been hijacked by manufacturers to make you feel that hit of pleasure and makes it harder and harder to give up these types of food. So, eat high-fibre vegetables, avoid eating when stressed and try not to pass fast-food outlets. Dopamine also drives ghrelin.
- FLUIDS: The book looks at how much water we need to drink and there's a fascinating thing about how if you have pasta and tomato sauce, some cauliflower cheese, and cucumbers and humus, you will have almost drunk a litre of fluid water – so we not only obtain water from, er, water.
- SUGAR: The daily recommended and allowance of sugar is five spoonful’s which is fine if you put it in your in your tea or your coffee but there is a lot more in ready-made meals and things such as ketchup sauce, spreads, bread and many breakfast cereals. This does not include the sugar that you find in fruit because that does not count because of all the other benefits that come with it which are essential for your development so you don't have to count any of the sugars that you might have when you eat an apple. “Pure sugar inundates the bloodstream within minutes and yet for 99% of our history, refined sugar didn't exist.”
- SMOKING: few smokers are lucky enough to get into old age without suffering some kind of lung disease or cancer and it increases your risk of dying each year by an average of 180%.
- TOUCH: Touch is a really important skill and the benefits of human beings and people who hug others have much better health outcomes. Infants who receive regular tactile stimulation such as physical play and hugs form stronger bonds with their carers and tend to have better sleep patterns than those children who rarely receive a cuddle. Research indicates that people who often embrace others have a more robust immune system, lower blood pressure and more resilient mental health than those who don't. Practically every land-based mammal goes in for embracing its own kind, it's a behaviour that has been passed down through evolution.
- ATTRACTION: There is fascinating research on attraction and who were attracted to and what happens to our bodies and how hormones. The sensation of attraction is similar to fear and the same sort of stimuli that you might get from being made afraid from a horror movie. Hormones are the key players in attraction. When you become physically intimate with someone, you breathe in their pheromones – odourless airborne messaging chemicals are emitted from their sweat glands, breath, saliva and other bodily fluids – and your hormones respond. Lust is triggered by the sex hormone testosterone and the energising hormone adrenaline become released. Positive hormones dopamine and PEA form attraction and are released in ever increasing amounts, and attachment hormones oxytocin and vasopressin are then released. This is the initial cocktail of love. And we're often attracted to people who are similar to us, in one study 53% of men and 43% of women listed their spouses their best friend.
- PERIODS: Humans are unique in that they have periods which is something that other animals although it might not be for apes don't have and we don't really know why even though it affects half the world population
- DIETING: Reducing your weight if you are overweight, it's a single best thing you can do to your health after giving up smoking.
Even when people keep food are they often underestimate how much they've eaten? Although this is different in people who suffer from anorexia, and they will often calculate that they've eaten more than they've actually eaten. It's interesting to know that in many low-calorie diets foods the sugar content is much higher than it would be in a normal food. Any food and diet information often seems to be contradictory to each other and seems to flip-flop in its opinion. Much of this is because this is research is often conducted by companies with personal stake in making you eat the kind of food that keeps shareholders happy and not really care much about your actual health and well-being.
- THE GUT: Looking after your gut can be beneficial and the people with mental health problems often have an abnormal gut function. Microbes live all over your body, and trillions of them live in your gut. They help the body extract nutrients from food, producer central vitamins, common overactive immune system, reduce inflammation and even bolster your defences against list helpful, disease-causing organisms. They also play a big part in how quickly you gain weight. People who are obese or who eat lots of highly processed food carry more kinds of super powered, food digesting bacteria. It seemed to help the body suck more energy than normal from each slice of cake, making it easier for you to gain weight. A Mediterranean diet has the most research to support weight loss by eating a wide variety of fruit and vegetables, moderate amounts of proteins such as fish. Consume plenty of nuts, seeds in legumes such as beans and lentils, use superior quality olive oil and avoid physical processed foods. And be physically active and get ample, undisturbed sleep.
- MENTAL HEALTH: get plenty of exercise and eat a varied diet to lift your mood. Take vitamin B6 and calcium supplements which help the body counteract the worst symptoms of depression. Take a hot shower and bath to stimulate blood flow and ask your GP about new treatments. Research shows that Viagra, used to treat male erectile dysfunction, may help ease period pain.
- SEX: Another interesting aspect of the book is when it gets to nighttime and how we've dropped in our desires for wanting sex and loss off libidos – and it seems to be occurring throughout the world and the question is why?
- SLEEP: The book finishes on the benefits of sleep which can't be an underestimated in the amounts of benefits and if you think you're going to sleep when you're dead, if you don't sleep the right amount, you're going to be dead a lot earlier.
The book finishes with all the benefits of sleep but what's remarkable about this book is it gives an incredible amount of good, researched evidence for how to live a better and healthy life.