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WEEPING WOMAN IN LA JOLLA
Near the Modern Art museum,
a non-virgin on the verge —
fighting tears, struggling to sustain
a quivery lipgloss smile.
Smile though your heart is breaking –
the first song I heard in America.
I shocked people then, not knowing
what it meant, the American dream.
Now the tearful, middle-aged, no longer
beautiful woman in La Jolla,
California’s most expensive town,
reminded me of those first weeks –
how I shocked the people on the bus,
myself a weeping woman
after staring from the window
at suburban homes — the real America —
how shocking I was in general.
A psychology professor explained:
being a woman from Eastern Europe,
you’re not supposed to sound smart
and quote Nietzsche. “People feel
uncomfortable because they can’t
put you in a convenient slot.”
Slot and slut — I was learning
to be careful about vowels,
not to mention the terminal
consonants as in ship. In Milwaukee
I was always being asked,
Did you come by plane or by boat?
Boat, I used to think, was too small
to cross the ocean, as in row, row,
row your boat. Useless, the English
they teach you in school. Still, I felt
a quickening when I saw
the sticker Rocinante on someone's
non-luxury car. And again
yesterday: after smiling at the weeping
woman in La Jolla, in the thick of
the American Dream, I drove behind
a car with NIHILIST on its license plate.
I blew telepathic kisses
to the driver, even though I’m against
nihilism — and besides, every woman
is a weeping woman.
~ Oriana
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MR. DARCY AS AN AWFUL MAN
Mostly miserable and even "unforgivably cruel", Jane Austen's famous romantic hero is not what he seems, writes the author Sebastian Faulks, in an exclusive extract to mark the 250th anniversary of Austen's birth.
Pride and Prejudice is not only Jane Austen's most popular book; it is one of the most famous and enjoyable novels in the language. First published in 1813, it was the second of Austen's major novels, following Sense and Sensibility in 1811; it still has a youthful sparkle when compared to the formal perfection of Emma or the gravity of Mansfield Park. For two centuries, readers have relished the characters and the comedy that lie within. It is a novel of almost boundless wit and charm that has withstood film and television adaptations and attempts to define it as a "fairy tale" or a "romcom."
Even a reader wary of such terms may at first take the novel at its face value: a story of two people destined for one another, each of whom must overcome one of the eponymous flaws to win their happy ending; as a comedy of manners that engages our emotions yet whose moral certainty ensures that the characters receive their just deserts.
From the opening sentence, however, things are not what they seem. It claims to state a "truth" that is clearly not true. The second paragraph contradicts it at once: it is not the wealthy man who is in search of a wife; it is the mother of daughters who is in search of wealthy husbands. Jane Austen not only subverts received ideas of society, she undercuts her own story and enlists the reader's help in doing so.
The glory of this novel is foremost in the life force of its characters, particularly Elizabeth Bennet, who is the most appealing of literary heroines, backing her own judgement and vitality against odds that are often overwhelming. But there is a richness to the reading experience that consists of much more than cheering on this spirited young woman. It lies in the multiple and inconsistent narrative standpoints Jane Austen adopts. As a reader you are made complicit in these, sometimes without noticing. The virtue of this method is that the novel becomes satisfying in ways more complex than you at first expect from the deceptive lightness of tone; the drawback is that the exuberance of Jane Austen's virtuosity can create problems of interpretation.
The principal of these is Mr Darcy. He is, to put it bluntly, such an awful man. The main thread of his story – the top line of the melody, as it were – is that, as an orphan, heir and older brother, he has been too much deferred to and has come to think of many things and people as "beneath" him. In the end, though, because he has a clear view of society, is generous with his fortune and has a kind heart despite his unfortunate manner, he needs only to fall in love with a woman who treats him not with deference but as an equal: then he will be fine.
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While it's certainly beguiling to think of an arrogant man being taught hard lessons by someone of a lower social class, this version of Darcy is not all that Jane Austen gives us. He is also unforgivably cruel. "Could you expect me to rejoice in the inferiority of your connections?" he asks Elizabeth, when making his marriage proposal. And that should really be the end of the matter. Mr Darcy's grudging offer of matrimony shows less self-knowledge than that of Mr Collins a few pages earlier; yet we are asked to accept that Darcy's deep ignorance of how to behave can be "fixed" by a witty girl.
An inconsistency of viewpoint helps make the characters vital and believable. We don't quite know how Elizabeth is going to manage the next challenge because our access to her mental processes is not continuous. She copes as real people do: impulsively, inconsistently and learning as she goes along. The changing way in which the story is told allows us to feel part of an unpredictable process.
'A morbid melancholy'
You feel Jane Austen wants you to recognize these contradictory qualities and come to your own conclusions. The problem is, however, that once you have joined in this interpretation game, you feel entitled to question and disbelieve even the top line of the narrative –especially in the matter of Darcy. We are told he is "clever", but there is no sign of it: his speeches have little wit and few of his actions show any understanding of other people. The key to him is provided by Bingley, a simple fellow, but one who has known Darcy well for a long time.
Bingley seems to suggest that his friend is the victim of a morbid melancholy: "I declare I do not know a more awful object than Darcy, on particular occasions, and in particular places; at his own house especially, and of a Sunday evening when he has nothing to do." But Darcy seldom has anything to do. He sportingly suggests Elizabeth's uncle go fishing on his estate at Pemberley, but never picks up a rod himself.
A good deal of Darcy's behavior becomes more explicable if we view him as suffering from a kind of clinical depression. He cannot rouse himself to be polite at Netherfield or Rosings or Longbourn: his melancholy silence is the only common factor in these very different houses. As his cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam – a sort of Darcy with manners – tells Elizabeth: "It is because he will not give himself the trouble." Think of the way he comes and sits in silence at the Bennets' house when Bingley is renewing his courtship of Jane; or the self-hatred he reveals when Elizabeth is at last his fiancée, talking of the faults of his past that must be confronted: "Painful recollections will intrude, which cannot, which ought not to be repelled.”
Colin Firth created an iconic version of the moody character in the BBC's classic 1995 TV series
When he does rouse himself to action he is unable to take responsibility for the consequences. He points out to Bingley how vulgar the Bennets are and claims, wrongly, that Jane does not reciprocate Bingley's strong feelings. Darcy persuades Bingley not to return to his house in Hertfordshire and conceals from him the fact that Jane is in London, where Bingley could meet her. Of this deception he later tells Elizabeth that he "condescended to adopt the measures of art" (lied, in other words) and that "Perhaps this concealment, this disguise, was beneath me… I have nothing more to say, no other apology to offer."
That a man can consider his own behavior to be both "beneath" him and not worth apologizing for makes one worry for his state of mind. But the truth is that Darcy badly needs to keep Bingley on hand to supply the energy he himself lacks; he cannot risk losing Bingley to Jane or he will also have to marry someone "beneath" him —Elizabeth — to secure the anti-depressant vitality he needs.
The anxiety for the reader consists in wondering how much Jane Austen wants us to reach our own conclusions about Darcy. It sometimes feels as though we are in a dangerous guessing game with a superior intelligence – and one who, as the storyteller, holds all the cards. Elizabeth famously dates the change of her own attitude towards Darcy to first seeing him in the grounds of his great house. She is not required by her incurious sister Jane or by the author to give a more serious answer. She does not use the word "love" to describe her feelings until after they are engaged.
Does Elizabeth really love Darcy?
So a new tension opens up in the closing pages of the novel. Is Elizabeth really "in love" with Darcy, and can she be happy with him? The marriage should work all right in a practical way. He has the house and the money; she has the wit and the energy. She will give him the vital spark he lacks; he will give her the stability and social status her courage and intelligence deserve. But, the modern reader wants to know, does she really "love" him? How could anyone love a man who believes her family is "repugnant" and "objectionable"?
For answers, we should look at what first drives Elizabeth towards Darcy. It appears to be the embarrassment she feels after having been misinformed about what happened between Darcy and Wickham. There is a strong class element in Elizabeth's shame: she has failed to understand, or guess, how "smart" people behave; she feels her indignation has been "middle-class" in a demeaning way. She is so keen to make amends and to restore her self-respect that she is even prepared to overlook the fact that Darcy has selfishly tried to spoil the happiness of Jane, the person she most loves.
Jack Lowden will star alongside Emma Corrin in a Netflix adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, due in 2026
What else can make her love such a man? Well, there is perhaps the sense that she can mother him or "cure" him of his melancholy, though there are signs that she is already exasperated when she chides him: "But tell me, what did you come down to Netherfield for? Was it merely to ride to Longbourn and be embarrassed?" It takes a miraculous intervention – that of Lady Catherine de Bourgh – to drive Elizabeth to Darcy at last.
I think it's fair to say that the ambiguities are intentional and that the idea of Darcy as a romantic gallant is a delusion of the reader not an intention of the writer. Elizabeth's embarrassment at the Wickham misunderstanding is partly a class humiliation; but what is wrong if social shame is the first driver of her new feelings towards Darcy? This a world in which such things mattered a great deal. Perhaps in the end Elizabeth is aware of Darcy's limitations and is "just in love enough" with him; there is clearly a physical attraction to be played out; and the shortfall of love may well be made up for by a practical consideration of finding the "pleasantest preservative from want.”
And Darcy compromises, too; instead of having a lively mistress, providing vitality as though on prescription, he has lumbered himself for ever with the whole Bennet ménage. That seems a fair reflection of the way such things were in Jane Austen's world. Motives are mixed; everything is more compromised than it seems at first. Marriage was a messy business in 1813.
The way Jane Austen allows the reader room for personal speculations seems both daring and ahead of its time; and the suspicion that some of this latitude is granted unwittingly takes nothing away from the exhilaration of reading this book.
We may disagree about the characters, but what seems beyond doubt is that these people are real. However we respond to them – and in most people's case the response changes over the years – the Bennet family and their friends remain as vital, as exasperating and as interesting as any we have met in real life.
It is their intense vitality that has made the book so much loved for 200 years – "That will do extremely well, child. You have delighted us long enough" – and may well do for 200 more.
~ This is an edited extract from Sebastian Faulks' introduction to Pride & Prejudice, from Jane Austen: The Complete Novels (Folio Society). ~
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20250908-why-readers-are-wrong-about-mr-darcy
'Real' Mr Darcy was nothing like Colin Firth, academics say
Academics have revealed what they claim is the first "historically accurate" portrait of Jane Austen's Mr Darcy - and he's a world away from the romantic hero of films and TV.
Instead of the broad shoulders and square jaw of Colin Firth there is a modestly-sized chest and pointy chin.
There is little description of him in Pride and Prejudice, so the academics used historical fashions from the 1790s, when it was written.
This version also wears a powdered wig.
"Our Mr Darcy portrayal reflects the male physique and common features at the time," says Amanda Vickery, professor of early modern history at Queen Mary University of London.
"Men sported powdered hair, had narrow jaws and muscular, defined legs were considered very attractive," she says.
Colin Firth got the nation's collective hearts racing in 1995 with his depiction of the mysterious Mr Darcy in the BBC's adaptation.
Further adaptations since have followed in the style of Firth's portrayal including Matthew Macfadyen in the 2005 film of Pride and Prejudice.
But the academics say their muscular chests and broad shoulders would have been the sign of a laborer and not a gentleman at the time the book was written.
The fans' favorite Mr Darcy moments — when Colin Firth walked out of a lake dripping wet and Matthew Macfadyen crossed a field in the mist, both showing off their chests would not have looked the same with the historically accurate Mr Darcy and his sloping narrow shoulders.
Alan Badel — the BBC's Mr Darcy in 1958 — looks more like the academics' impression.
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WHY COLLECTIVE FARMS FAILED (repost)
~ The Communist theory posits that large-scale, mechanized, collectively owned farming is much more productive than small and middle-sized private farming.
This was why in 1929–1933 Stalin refused the use of land to private peasants and transferred it to collective and state farms. Peasants were required to work on these farms for token money, with limited chances of escaping to the cities. They were required to deliver a huge production quota imposed by the state under the threat of prosecution and/or starvation.
They were allowed to share the produce between themselves only after delivering the quotas. The token money they earned was calculated on the basis of worked man-days. These didn’t account for qualifications or the quality of individual output.
The experience of all Socialist states has shown that farmers as state employees are consistently less productive than private farmers. Crop productivity drops. The cattle get sick and die. Much of the harvest rots before being processed.
Several factors are at play here:
In the fields and farms, you can’t achieve the level of managerial supervision you have on the industrial floor.
In farming, tacit knowledge, continuous experimentation, and improvisation influence output in many more ways than in manufacturing.
In farming, slackers are much harder to locate than on the assembly lines and other industrial facilities. The more division of labor and the more large-scale farming you introduce, the more time lag between the input and output you create. Try to supervise that, especially if your people see no connection whatsoever between hard work and good pay.
The overinvestment in agricultural machines and the arrival of chemicals in the 1950s helped to alleviate some of these shortcomings. But our agriculture never fully recovered until the collapse of Communism in 1991.
In the picture below you see college-level students in the USSR picking potatoes. This was our annual ritual. In autumn, millions of city dwellers were sent by their employers to help collective and state farms to harvest potatoes. This was 100% manual work. The farms simply didn’t have enough machines or people to manage that themselves. The machines were too crude, often malfunctioned, and left behind most of the crop. We saw a great many machines just sit there rusting, broken by careless use, incompetent repairs, and absent spare parts. ~ Dima Vorobiev
Russian college students picking potatoes
You’d think long-term planning would be one of the strengths of a command economic system. But in agriculture, each five year plan was pursued at the direct expense of every future one.
Liviu Vasile: My father told me that after the completion of collectivization (in our country, Romania, 1963) the peasants had to work for the “colectiva", many times on their former lands. Some of the works such as plowing were carried with tractors (which the farmers hated because they associated with losing of land), but many of those were still carried by hand. If the state robbed them of their land (for a farmer land was sacred) it was ok also for them to steal from the state. If they were put to harvest corn for the Colectiva (by hand) they would pick one of two and then all the village returned at night to carry the rest at home for their remaining livestock. Later they introduced corn harvesting combines which managed to gather only half of the harvest, leaving a lot of good corn to be gathered at night. Of course, it was not the fifties when stealing grains “from the state" could send you to prison or the Canal (our own Gulag built at the brilliant advice of Comrade Stalin to our own communists as way of getting rid off opposition).
One of my first memories as a child, 3 years or so, is crawling from our yard in my grandparents village to the nearby cornfield. It was late afternoon, sun was about to set and the yellow field of corn there were dozens of people, our neighbors, my grandparents quietly gathering corn from the cooperative field. It was precisely our land, and each neighbor was “stealing" from its former property. To the amazement and panic of all I began to scream: do not steal the corn from the CAP! The neighbors yelled at my parents, make him shut up, but they were also laughing.
Nearby my grandparents had until 1986 or so a beautiful orchard of Anna Spath plums which made very big plums. At one point the Colectiva cut the trees and plowed the land and we were no longer allowed to use it, only what remained in our fenced yard. My father who had planted those trees and looked after them for many years (they made and excellent plum brandy) — our țuica was visible affected. With my childish curiosity (5-6 years) and seeing him so sad I asked him while leaving to our city apartment why they cut the trees and we are not allowed to use the land, he replied to me: Because the State took it and you cannot fight the State.
I couldn't see the State anywhere on that hill, but I understood that State is something you should be afraid of. Little did I know how many of our relatives, grandparents were beaten down in the 50′s by the communists, how many stood hidden in the forests or rotted in jails for not wanting to give up their land. At the end of the 80s time was running short for the communists, but it was bad until its end. That's why I would say to Mr Putin that the collapse of the Soviet Union and communist regimes was the greatest blessing for Eastern European nations, Russians included. Maybe Russians after so much time under Soviet rule and oppression they could not imagine a different better world.
Mike de Angelo: In 1929–1933, the government had defeated most of the other groups that might oppose communism, or the central governments particular vision of communism. The peasant farmers were then targeted. The creation of large collective farms were as much an effort to subjugate this part of society as to increase productivity.
Annoy Young: Re: the “annual ritual” part, North Korea news still reports such city “volunteers” incl. military personnel join in farming routinely. Foreign embassy staffs take part too, including ambassadors for “ friendship”, in activities of sowing, plowing, and harvesting.
Miguel Arzak: Also the countryside was consistently and gradually depopulated. The lack of incentive to remain a rural worker meant that everybody who had the smallest chance would emigrate to cities.
James Thomas: In July 2001 I was lucky enough to travel from Moscow to Mongolia by rail. It was during the time the hay crop was being harvested. The hay seemed to be largely cut by hand, was not baled and was pulled into loose stacks such as you might see in Britain before the Second World War.
Was this because the farms had been de-collectivized following the collapse of the USSR ? Or was it because the Soviet system did not produce machinery for such operations?
Dima Vorobiev: Both. I never saw machine-baled hay anywhere in the USSR. And after it all collapsed in 1991, most of surviving collective farms struggled from a dearth of funding.
James Thomas: Interesting. The first nation to put a man in space but it was still using pitch forks on its farms!
Piers Sutton: I have read that transportation played a role as well, and often food simply didn’t get to where it was needed.
Stephen Oneil: What was interesting was the abundance of food bought from farmers personal plot which they sold in Farmers Markets and or just on the street….very expensive compared to State Stores but sought after… Capitalism was practiced and enjoyed by a few…
Mirko Nik: You forget one very important detail — lack of motivation.
Dima Vorobiev: Lack of motivation was everywhere, but in farming it was especially detrimental.
Rok Ružič: I heard this story; allegedly it happened often on Soviet collective farms.
Potato harvest time came, and there were no workers to pick the potatoes, and the machinery was all broken. So they sent in a regiment of conscript soldiers to pick the potatoes. The potatoes were stacked on one huge pile. Then the local communist party official came by, entered “so and so many tons of potatoes were harvested” in his forms, and everyone went home, while the huge pile of potatoes was left there to rot. Locals were not allowed to take the potatoes, because that would be stealing from the workers, and the potatoes rotted away, while more often than not, both local people, as well as people in nearest cities, didn't have enough to eat.
Atul Barry: Wasn’t another factor the lack of a robust distribution system? I used to hear during the Soviet days that millions of tons of wheat would rot on the farms because of that.
David Mason: Another consequence of the poor results of collectivization was providing private “garden plots” of a few hundred square meters (“sotniks”) each. Wherever the climate is suitable for agriculture, these plots still ring towns with populations in the thousands, as well as cities at a greater distance, in which case “dachas” (cottages) were improvised from whatever materials could be scrounged from the State.
It is interesting to look at these plots with Google Earth or Google Maps’ satellite views. They survived the breakup of the Union, helped stave off mass starvation in the ensuing economic dislocation, and are still easy to tell apart from residential districts on one side, and the much larger fields of collective and industrial farms on the other.
Despite Marxist optimism that collectivized and industrialized agriculture would be more efficient, these small plots, occupying at most a few percent of tillable land, produced something like half the Soviet (and immediate post-Soviet) diet, especially in terms of value at prevailing prices.
Roy Sakabu: Mao did the same thing in China with the “Great Leap Forward”. Even though Nikita Khrushchev told Mao to stop because it didn’t work, Mao ignored him and doubled down. As a result upwards of 55 MILLION Chinese died. That’s more than everyone who died in WW2! The Chinese dispute this and say it’s as low as 15 Million. Oh sorry, that’s a much better number. Josef Stalin said something like “the death of one person is a tragedy, the death of a million is a statistic”. The number has no meaning to someone who doesn’t care.
History has shown, the more concentrated the power, the higher the chances of a BIG mistake. Vlad, Xi, are you listening?
Good lesson for The Donald too.
Dima Vorobiev: I’m aware that the blame game in our propaganda shifted from Stalin to Khrushchev over the last 15 years. Khrushchev surely has his share of responsibility for the plight of our agriculture. But thanks to Khrushchev we avoided the famines that took lives of millions on Stalin’s watch in 1932–33, 1941–42, and 1946–47. Moreover, it was mainly under Khrushchev we had in retail groceries a relatively stable supply of meat and other foodstuff that increasingly disappeared from the shelves toward the end of Brezhnev’s rule.
Karl Machshevez: Communism does work, but only in a pre-consumer goods society. Once there are limited consumer goods or better cuts on meat, or better homes, communism will always fail.
Joe Milosch: I wonder why scholars ignore the effects of the feudal system on the Russian collective farming experiment when comparing collective to capitalistic farming. The feudal farming system developed over centuries, and by the late 1800s, it reached the end of its profitability. Several similarities exist when comparing feudal farms to collective farms; the Czar owned and controlled the land, and the nobility managed it.
The state owned the collective farms, and the Kolhoz chairman managed them. In practice, the chairman was as powerful as the lord. Like the noble, he controlled the means of production. As in the end times of feudalism, the chairman couldn’t kill or sell the worker. The noble could kick the peasant serf off the land, and the chairman could send a worker to Siberia by labeling him a defiant Kulak.
Still, the peasant serf and the worker remained tied to a particular farm or Collective. The Russian Czar did away with the feudal system in the 1860s, and it was less than 100 years when Stalin created the collective farm system. The abuses of the feudal system were alive in the memory of the Russian farmers. Thus, it wasn’t believable for Stalin to say that collective farming was good for the farmers.
The people thought it was propaganda when they heard that collective farming was a good business model because it provided employment, innovative farming methods, and increased profitability. Stalin’s ignorance about the similarities between the two systems created confusion in his messaging. As a result, the people felt a deep animosity towards the collective farm system and used sabotage to make the collective farm system unworkable.
Oriana: What saved Poland from famines and food shortages, common in the Soviet Union, was the private ownership of the farms. The Polish Communist government somehow knew better than try to impose collectivization and risk riots and famines. The farmers who worked the land also owned the land — and they knew how to take care of it, and of the livestock. Father-to-son and mother-to-daughter passing of knowledge paid off nicely. Produce, poultry, etc, brought good prices at “farmer’s market” type places. State-owned grocery stores had the"iconic" empty shelves. You might say it was the triumph of family business capitalism.
Now, one controversial (from a Western point of view) thing that the post-war Polish government did was expropriate the large landowners — those who did not work the land they owned, but only employed others, usually landless "farm hands" who lived in poverty, often sleeping in barns with the animals.
The “social parasites” large land owners found themselves suddenly deprived of their mansions and estates. Landless farm hands were given a plot of land, and the mansions were turned into schools, post offices, and other “community buildings.” So yes, you could say that that was the end of the remnants of the feudal system. Even though there were some voices saying the expropriated landowners should have at least gotten paid, somehow nobody felt sad to see them go. My father, a staunch anti-Communist, used to say that the Polish agrarian reform was the best thing the Communists ever did.
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EARTH AS THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE
One of the most engaging books I have read this year is A Little Learning: A Victorian Childhood, by the novelist Winifred Peck (1882-1962). Looking back from the 1950s, Peck describes her education at a number of different schools in the last decades of the 19th century – a time when the opportunities available to women, and ideas about how girls should be educated, were changing very rapidly.
Though she came from a scholarly and successful family (her father was a bishop), Peck’s checkered educational experiences reflect the gendered restrictions of her day. Some of the schools she attended were firmly early-Victorian in attitude, with no aspirations for women beyond demure wives and mothers. Others, more forward-thinking, were beginning to give girls an academic education equal to their brothers, and to fit them for careers in the world. It is astonishing to be reminded how much things changed for women in not much more than a century. Peck was very conscious of the revolution her generation had witnessed.
One phrase Peck uses in recalling her earliest religious education caught my eye: she describes her first perceptions of spiritual belief as a ‘childish crystal world in a safe center of middle earth’. ‘Middle earth’ is, of course, a phrase now indelibly associated with J.R.R. Tolkien, but Peck uses it several times in her novels. As a product of this late Victorian upbringing, what did the phrase evoke for someone like her?
The origins of ‘middle earth’ go back to the Anglo-Saxon word middangeard. The second element, geard, does not mean ‘earth’, but refers to an enclosed area of space (like its modern descendant, yard). Comparable to Midgard in Norse mythology, it is the ‘middle enclosure’ which is the home of humans, distinct from Asgard, dwelling-place of the gods, and Utgard, an outer realm where giants live.
Probably the Anglo-Saxon word originally had a similar cosmological meaning, but it was incorporated into a Christian worldview and is widely recorded in Old and Middle English. Over time, geard was replaced by the more familiar earth. If you asked a medieval English-speaker what ‘middle earth’ meant, they likely would have just said ‘the world’, the place where we live. Many of the medieval uses of the term are surprisingly ordinary. A 14th-century romance about Alexander the Great observes, matter-of-factly, that learned people ‘have divided this middle earth into three regions: Europe, Africa and Asia’.
What did they think ‘middle earth’ was in the middle of? The sense is that our world is located between other, invisible realms. That might mean heaven and hell, but it could also be understood in terms of physical space: ‘middle earth’ is not the unknown reaches of the sky, nor the secret abyss beneath the ground, but the area in between, which humans can perceive with our own eyes.
After the medieval period the phrase took on different connotations, coming to be used mostly in the context of fairy belief. Now it suggested the mortal world as seen from a non-human perspective: in The Merry Wives of Windsor, a character pretending to be a fairy exclaims (of Falstaff): ‘I smell a man of middle earth!’ It is particularly well attested in Scotland, where records of early modern witch trials speak of mortals being ‘carried away out of middle earth’ to live in fairyland. People with second sight, it was said, could see fairies mingling with ‘middle-earth men’ right next to oblivious humans.
In the early 19th century this usage was popularized by Sir Walter Scott, who frequently uses ‘middle earth’ to denote the mortal world as distinct from Elfland. Through Scott’s hugely popular works, Victorian children like Winifred Peck might learn to think of themselves as ‘inhabitants of middle earth’ – dwellers in a world apparently mundane, but with porous borders to other spiritual realms.
A Little Learning was published in 1952. Two years later the first part of The Lord of the Rings appeared, and after that no one would ever again be able to say ‘middle earth’ without thinking first of hobbits. But middle earth is not a place of fantasy; it is our world, seen from a different perspective. One of its defining features is that – unlike heaven, hell, or fairyland – it is a place of continual change: ‘All the things of this middle earth are ever turning and changing here’, as one 12th-century poet wrote. Women of Winifred Peck’s generation knew that better than most.
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NEWLY DISCOVERED STRENGTHS ASSOCIATED WITH NEUROTICISM
Neuroticism, also known as emotional instability, often gets a bad rap. Even to those only vaguely familiar with the psychological literature, the term connotes qualities that most people would rather not be associated with. And this reputation is largely justified. Neuroticism has been linked to a wide range of emotional problems including anxiety, depression, eating pathology, body dissatisfaction, and personality disorders. Indeed, many investigators now believe that neuroticism may underlie most emotion disorders and an entirely new approach to therapy, transdiagnostic therapy, is predicated upon this assumption (Barlow, Curreri, & Woodard, 2021).
When it comes to romantic relationships, there are numerous ways in which neuroticism may undermine relationships. Neuroticism is associated with negative emotion, which itself is predictive of relationship failure; those high in neuroticism are prone to complaining, may interpret innocuous comments as criticism, and are generally somewhat dissatisfied with, and critical of, most things in their environment including their partner. In addition to being negative, highly neurotic people are also highly reactive, often overreacting in ways that make problems worse (e.g., breaking up, or threatening to, in response to a completely manageable situation).
For these reasons, there is a robust relationship between neuroticism and relationship satisfaction which holds up across age, race, sexual orientation, region of the world, and length of relationship. Higher levels of neuroticism are associated with lower levels of relationship satisfaction. This applies to both being high in neuroticism and having a partner who is high in neuroticism.
Conscientious neurotics engage in better problem-solving and less negative conflict behaviors
New research, however, suggests that those high in neuroticism may not be quite as bad at relationships as we (or they) think. Xuan Quek, et al., (2025) examined the relationship between neuroticism and the ability to negotiate conflict. Negotiating conflict is, of course, an integral element of maintaining any relationship. Previous research has found neuroticism to be negatively associated with effective problem-solving during conflict (e.g., Tehrani & Yamini, 2020). However, because those data were based on self-report and thus filtered through the respondent’s self-assessment (which for those high in neuroticism were likely negative), it’s possible that conflict resolution skills of those high in neuroticism may have been underestimated.
Also, previous studies have failed to examine the influence of other Big 5 traits that may moderate the relationship between neuroticism and conflict negotiation. To address these gaps in the literature, the authors brought participants into a lab where they engaged in a hypothetical conflict negotiation discussion with another participant. These sessions were recorded and subsequently judged by independent observers. Participants also rated their own conflict resolution skills and completed a personality questionnaire.
The authors predicted and found that independent observers rated those high in neuroticism as more skilled negotiators than these idinviduals rated themselves. This suggests that the negative self-ratings obtained in earlier studies were likely driven by a negative bias on the part of the high neuroticism participants. Moreover, independent observers also found that when conscientiousness was high, neurotic individuals were less likely to engage in the kind of unconstructive negotiation strategies which they might otherwise be inclined to do. This suggests that neuroticism may only exert highly negative effects on negotiation when conscientiousness is low.
Each trait may be dependent on other traits
These findings underscore the importance of considering how each Big 5 trait interacts with other traits. For example, when most people hear the term "narcissism," they typically think of the grandiose narcissist; self-absorbed, insensitive people who crave attention and appear to have very high self-esteem. But narcissism can manifest quite differently depending on one’s level of neuroticism. When narcissism occurs in the presence of high neuroticism the result is known as vulnerable narcissism. This combines classic narcissistic egocentrism with neurotic traits such as self-consciousness and low self-esteem.
Similarly, high levels of neuroticism combined with conscientiousness results in what has been referred to as “healthy neuroticism.” Such individuals experience heightened anxiety, which is characteristic of high neuroticism, but they are better able to effectively manage their anxiety so that their neurotic traits may become an asset rather than a liability. Although the moderating influence of conscientiousness on neuroticism has been mixed, it appears that conscientiousness does increase positive problem solving in neurotic individuals who would otherwise struggle in this context.
Although researchers examined conflict resolution in previously unacquainted college students discussing a hypothetical issue, it may have implications for romantic couples as well. It suggests that those high in neuroticism may have unrecognized strengths that benefit their relationship and that it may be possible to cultivate these strengths in a romantic context. Importantly, it also highlights the fact that the negative self-appraisals of those high in neuroticism are not always reliable and that these individuals may be more capable than they may realize. And, finally, it also underscores the importance of recognizing how the Five Factor Traits interact with each other.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/personality-in-relationships/202509/newly-discovered-strengths-associated-with-neuroticism
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WHAT ONLY CHILDREN BRING UP MOST IN THERAPY
If you grew up as an only child, you’ve likely heard some of these stereotypical phrases at some point in your life: “That’s sad you grew up all alone.” “Your parents must’ve spoiled you.” “Do you have a hard time making friends?”
Yet recent research shows that many of these portrayals of only children are inaccurate. And even though the single-child family structure used to be a rarity, it’s now the fastest growing family unit in the United States. About 20% of households with children have one child, according to Pew Research Center.
Even though growing up without siblings is becoming more common, there’s still a long-lasting stigma around only children. We talked to therapists about the most common issues they hear only children bring up.
“Therapy can be a healthy space … to learn about themselves and how they interact with the world around them” as only children, Altheresa Clark, a licensed therapist and owner of Inspire4Purpose, told HuffPost.
Read on for what only children often talk about in therapy — and helpful tips for dealing with each issue.
They may yearn for a ‘sibling-like’ connection as an adult.
In therapy, adult only children sometimes share that they feel lonely because they come from a smaller family and don’t have any sibling relationships.
“They have fewer family members to rely on for support than someone who has multiple siblings,” explained Rebecca Greene, a mental health therapist and author of “One & Done: The Guide to Raising a Happy & Thriving Only Child.” “Holidays can be especially lonely for some only children because they often don’t have the big family gatherings that you see in movies and on TV.”
As adults, many only children will seek out close friendships that feel like family members to fill that void, Clark said.
“There’s a saying [that] if you don’t have family, then make your own family — and I believe this wholeheartedly,” she said. “In building your community, find friends, organizations and community work where you can find like-minded individuals who can provide support to you that feels like family.”
Additionally, it can be beneficial for only children to invite close friends to celebrate holidays and big milestones with them, Greene added.
“They can also help their own kids make close friends who are like first cousins,” she said.
They may feel solely responsible for their parents’ elder care.
“Many adult only children feel overwhelmed and stressed being the only person in their family to handle all the elder care responsibilities for their elderly parents,” Greene said.
If they live in the same area, this can include taking their parents to medical appointments, helping with meal preparation and assisting with financial management. It can be especially difficult when an only child lives far from their parents, Greene pointed out.
When possible, she recommends getting help with these types of responsibilities from geriatric care managers, social workers and companions for the elderly. She also emphasized the importance of planning ahead.
“Only children can talk with their parents as well as their own spouse or partner to discuss plans for their parents’ elder care ahead of time so that everyone is on the same page,” she said.
They may put pressure on themselves to be perfect.
Though having lots of attention from parents can lead to closer relationships with them, some only children may also feel like their every move is being watched.
“Only children can experience extreme pressure from their parents to excel in different areas of their lives that can lead to perfectionism or a type-A personality,” Clark said. “[This] can lead to living their lives in fear of disappointing people.”
Just understanding this association and having a safe space, such as therapy, to process these experiences can help only children not be as hard on themselves.
They may be very independent in relationships.
“Growing up as an only child can create a large sense of independence, which can be both a strength and a weakness,” said Priya Tahim, a licensed professional counselor and the founder of Kaur Counseling.
In terms of strengths, only children are often skilled at being self-reliant, entertaining themselves and feeling content in their own company.
“They are often take-charge kind of people who make great leaders and get things done in an innovative way,” Greene said. “However, others may sometimes view them as bossy or wanting to do things their way.”
Focusing on collaboration skills, such as clear communication, can help with this.
“One of the most effective ways to improve communication skills with others is to use ‘I’ statements,” Greene suggested. “This is a way of phrasing your feelings or needs that puts the emphasis on how you feel.”
In addition, Tahim suggests asking questions and listening to other people’s reasons for why they may have certain viewpoints.
They may feel misunderstood or judged for being an only child.
This is a common issue that only children bring up, particularly in support groups, Greene said.
“There is definitely still a stigma around being an only child because families with two to three children are still more of the norm in this country,” she said. “Having siblings is more of the typical family experience for most people.”
Further perpetuating these stereotypes, only children are often portrayed negatively in movies and TV shows, such as being spoiled, selfish and having poor social skills, Greene added.
“We need more positive portrayals that focus on the strengths and benefits of being an only child,” she said. “And we need for people to not judge only children just based on their lack of sibling status.”
If you’d like to connect with and seek support from other adults who grew up without siblings, Greene recommends joining support groups on Facebook for only children. (There are support groups available for parents of only children as well.)
“These have thousands of members and are a great place to ask questions, get resources and gain insights,” she said.
Therapy can also be an effective place to explore how your childhood is shaping who you are — no matter what your birth order is.
“Whether you are an only child, [oldest child], middle child or [youngest] child, there are pros and cons to each,” Tahim said. “It’s how we choose to grow, learn and adapt … that truly matters.”
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/what-only-children-bring-up-the-most-in-therapy-goog_l_68b99d83e4b041ed82bd886c?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us
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BENEFITS OF HAVING ONLY ONE CHILD
You can give your child a better quality of life.
“For me, it’s about the quality of life I can provide. I grew up very poor with five siblings. I am much better off now, and I can afford nice things for my son. He doesn’t have to pick between music lessons and sports. He can try a new one each year until he finds what he loves! If I had multiple children, I know I wouldn’t be able to offer that to all of them. We can also afford to go on better vacations because there’s always only two of us traveling. I didn’t get to travel when I was a kid because my family couldn’t afford it. When my son and I travel, oftentimes we experience the same places and things for the very first time.
Having only one child does mean you can afford more ‘things,’ of course, but it also means we can afford more experiences that we can share together, and it’s brought us closer.” — Alicia M.
You only have to go through hard stages once.
“Waking up all night, diapers, terrible twos, etc. Once and done. And no holding an older kid back for the limits or needs of a younger one.” — Gabrielle N.
Traveling together is more seamless.
“We sit three across on planes without having to divide and conquer, we can share a single piece of luggage for all of us and we don’t have to be considerate of a second child’s naps or bedtime and instead follow our daughter’s needs. Riding in taxis is easy, we’ve put an extra chair at a table for two, and we fit in all hotel rooms and sleeping train cars. It’s also, of course, that much more affordable.” — Rachael H.
Your house is more peaceful.
“As a teacher, coming home and decompressing from the day is key. My 12-year-old son feels this way, too. Sometimes, we just sit together on the couch or in my bed doing our own things, like phone games or something. We are able to calm ourselves and be there for each other. If there were siblings, the house would be much louder.” — Maricia S.
It’s easier to find someone to babysit.
“When my daughter was younger, it was easy to find a babysitter for just one kiddo — especially when my husband and I wanted to take a grown-up trip. So much easier to talk the grandparents into watching one kid for several nights than two or more!” — Megan R.
You have more time and energy to focus on your own health and well-being.
“For me, the most important thing is a better chance to balance my mental and physical health with the needs of my husband and child. Even though it’s easier with her at 5 years old versus when she was an infant or toddler, there are still days when carving out 20 minutes for me seems impossible. Add more kids to the mix and there’s no way I could carve time out for myself even monthly. I am a much better mom to my only, and I would not change a thing.” — Liz C.
You build close relationships with your kid’s friends.
“Building close and intentional connections with other families. Starting when our son was 8 or so, we would invite a friend of his to join us for outings large and small — trips to the museum or day hikes, ski trips, camping trips, a weekend in NYC doing museums and shows.
While we often enjoyed ourselves as a small family, we also realized that our son would probably have more fun with a friend around. So we got to spend some quality time with several of his friends over many years, and I consider a few of these guys, now in their 20s, my ‘bonus boys.’” — Elizabeth E.
You can tag-team with a partner more easily (if you have one).
“We trade doing bedtime and morning routine, so we don’t have to both do all the things. Built-in rest periods equals better parenting when we’re on! We love having our one and only awesome kid.” — Eva Z.
You’re able to show up for all — or a lot of — their games and activities.
“Not splitting time between multiple extracurriculars and schedules. I get to be all in at my daughter’s activities and never have to decide whose practice or game I’m attending due to conflicting schedules.” — Megan J.
“One is my mental, emotional and physical limit. It’s exactly what I can handle and still be a good mom.” — Megan R.
Your expenses are lower across the board.
“We were able to take family trips, save for one college education, didn’t have a super high grocery bill during the teen years, etc. Don’t get me wrong, there are definite downsides, but a huge upside is the cost.” — Katie M.
“Only paying for day care for one. I don’t know how families with multiple kids manage it.” — Erica L.
You don’t have to referee sibling squabbles.
“I grew up with my younger sister being only two years younger. We fought constantly over everything. My mom gave up on stopping the fights and let us figure things out on our own.” — Audrey K.
You’re able to support more of their interests.
“My daughter and I are truly best friends. My life revolves around her, raising her to be the best version of herself and supporting all her interests. We authentically explore everything she shows interest in. I have the time and mental space to jump from cooking to art to bugs to science — anything! — since it’s just her.” — Alexandra V.
You can comfortably drive a smaller car and live in a smaller house.
“We are comfortable in a smaller home, smaller vehicle, and smaller RV, which often equals more affordable. As an only child myself, my parents are able to help out without feeling like one grandchild is preferred over another. I can’t imagine it any other way.” — Megan C.
It can help you be the kind of parent you want to be.
“We didn’t plan to have one, but that’s how it worked out, and I love it. It made me realize that one is my mental, emotional and physical limit. It’s exactly what I can handle and still be a good mom.” — Megan R.
You can spend more quality time together.
“You don’t get to say, ‘Go play with your siblings,’ which means you truly spend more time with them. Our daughter gets one-on-one time with each of her parents very often. Daddy/Mommy and daughter date nights happen a lot where we can talk and enjoy one another’s company. I get to know her a little more every day, and I love that!” — Laura L.
It allows you to be more present with your kid.
“I also feel like only having one has helped me to savor all of the tiny moments that are actually really big because I realize they aren’t going to come around again.” — Liz S.
When your kid has plans, you get the night off.
“When she has a sleepover or other event out of the house, it’s de facto ‘me time’ or a date night with the hubs.” — Megan R.
Bedtime is more manageable.
“Not dividing yourself at bedtime. I think that’s what really made me stop and think. I couldn’t imagine two wanting me and needing me. Now I just get to snuggle with my little guy knowing we both have what we need.” — Raven K.
You create a special family bond.
“Definitely the tight bond. Being able to tell her straight out she’s not only my favorite child, but my favorite person ever. She’s not just my sun and stars. She’s the whole damn solar system.” — Meg C.
Oriana:
One of the “culture shocks” of having moved to the US, especially during my first ten years in the country (and especially during that first year in Milwaukee) was being asked, “How come your parents had only one child?” No questioner seemed to realize that the question was inappropriate, an intrusion of privacy. I developed several answers, but always resented being asked.
Actually, it was only many years into adulthood that I learned the actual answer when my mother confided that she wanted one more child, but my father vetoed it, saying that a baby was just too much work (I’ve decided not to translate the expletive he used to describe the child-rearing chores). I immediately understood this: that was the main reason why I didn’t have a child myself (though I dreamed of being rich enough to be able to afford a nanny; but even with a nanny, I would have stopped at one — I was 100% sure of that).
Once in a while I fantasized about having a child — my “one and done.” I imagined a quiet boy or girl with a curious mind and intellectual interests. I knew I would have enjoyed bedtime reading — I thought that was the number one joy of having a child. I also fantasized about being the child’s first teacher — taking him or her to museums, teaching the eager young mind (remember, those were fantasies) the names of plants and stars, buying the best educational books and toys.
An unexpected feature of those fantasies was that they persisted even past menopause.
But have I ever truly regretted not having a child? Not in any significant way. I gloried in the freedom of having had the freedom to develop myself as a poet and writer. I realized that I needed a great deal of quiet and solitude.
But serious regret did hit me twice. The first time happened during a party. To escape the noise and the crowd of strangers, I escaped to a little alcove, which was also a play space of several children who came with the guests. The children amazed me and delighted me: they were quiet, gentle, and attentive. Though all were under the age of nine, they could be entrusted with carrying a lit candle or a glass filled almost to the brim — they knew how to be careful.
Both boys and girls spoke in quiet voices, without shrieking, without beginning to argue or fight. If anything, they were affectionate toward one another. I sat there for at least an hour, perfectly content just watching them, smiling. It occurred to me that if my child could be like that, I would actually welcome motherhood (of course I realized that it’s never a non-stop idyll of that sort). What I felt was not regret, but a certain melancholy.
More twinges of that melancholy occurred when I discovered a beautifully engraved antique pocket watch that used to belong to my late father-in-law. I keep it on my computer desk so I can enjoy looking at it every day. Now and then I feel a bit sad that there is no one I could pass it on to so that this treasure could stay in the family and be cherished by several generations. But of course you can’t have everything, and I know that there no gaining something without sacrificing something else. My idea of heaven would be a place where you can have everything; nothing has to be bought with sacrifice.
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MORE PROGRESS IN THE THEORY OF HOW LIFE AROSE ON EARTH
For years, researchers have puzzled over how two ingredients for life first linked up on early Earth. Now, they’ve found the “missing link,” and demonstrated this reaction in the lab.
Scientists have made a major breakthrough in the mystery of how life first emerged on Earth by demonstrating how two essential biological ingredients could have spontaneously joined together on our planet some four billion years ago.
All life on Earth contains ribonucleic acid (RNA), a special molecule that helps build proteins from simpler amino acids. To kickstart this fundamental biological process, RNA and amino acids had to become attached at some point. But this key step, known as RNA aminoacylation, has never been experimentally observed in early Earth-like conditions despite the best efforts of many researchers over the decades.
Now, a team has achieved this milestone in the quest to unravel life’s origins. As they report in a study published in Nature, the researchers were able to link amino acids to RNA in water at a neutral pH with the aid of energetic chemical compounds called thioesters. The work revealed that two contrasting origin stories for life on Earth, known as “RNA world” and “thioester world,” may both be right.
“It unites two theories for the origin of life, which are totally separate,” said Matthew Powner, a professor of organic chemistry at University College London and an author of the study, in a call with 404 Media. “These were opposed theories—either you have thioesters or you have RNA.”
“What we found, which is kind of cool, is that if you put them both together, they're more than the sum of their parts,” he continued. “Both aspects—RNA world and thioester world—might be right and they’re not mutually exclusive. They can both work together to provide different aspects of things that are essential to building a cell.”
In the RNA world theory, which dates back to the 1960s, self-replicating RNA molecules served as the initial catalysts for life. The thioester world theory, which gained traction in the 1990s, posits that life first emerged from metabolic processes spurred on by energetic thioesters. Now, Powner said, the team has found a “missing link” between the two.
Powner and his colleagues didn’t initially set out to merge the two ideas. The breakthrough came almost as a surprise after the team synthesized pantetheine, a component of thioesters, in simulated conditions resembling early Earth. The team discovered that if amino acids are linked to pantetheine, they naturally attach themselves to RNA at molecular sites that are consistent with what is seen in living things. This act of RNA aminoacylation could eventually enable the complex protein synthesis all organisms now depend on to live.
Pantetheine “is totally universal,” Powner explained. “Every organism on Earth, every genome sequence, needs this molecule for some reason or other. You can't take it out of life and fully understand life.”
“That whole program of looking at pantetheine, and then finding this remarkable chemistry that pantetheine does, was all originally designed to just be a side study,” he added. “It was serendipity in the sense that we didn't expect it, but in a scientific way that we knew it would probably be interesting and we'd probably find uses for it. It’s just the uses we found were not necessarily the ones we expected.”
The researchers suggest that early instances of RNA aminoacylation on Earth would most likely have occurred in lakes and other small bodies of water, where nutrients could accumulate in concentrations that could up the odds of amino acids attaching to RNA.
“It's very difficult to envisage any origins of life chemistry in something as large as an ocean body because it's just too dilute for chemistry,” Powner said. For that reason, they suggest future studies of so-called “soda lakes” in polar environments that are rich in nutrients, like phosphate, and could serve as models for the first nurseries of life on Earth.
The finding could even have implications for extraterrestrial life. If life on Earth first emerged due, in part, to this newly identified process, it’s possible that similar prebiotic reactions can be set in motion elsewhere in the universe. Complex molecules like pantetheine and RNA have never been found off-Earth (yet), but amino acids are present in many extraterrestrial environments. This suggests that the ingredients of life are abundant in the universe, even if the conditions required to spark it are far more rare.
While the study sheds new light on the origin of life, there are plenty of other steps that must be reconstructed to understand how inorganic matter somehow found a way to self-replicate and start evolving, moving around, and in our case as humans, conducting experiments to figure out how it all got started.
“We get so focused on the details of what we're trying to do that we don't often step back and think, ‘Oh, wow, this is really important and existential for us,’” Powner concluded.
https://www.404media.co/scientists-make-breakthrough-in-solving-the-mystery-of-lifes-origin/
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“SMOKE AND MIRRORS” — ANDY WARHOL AND HIS MASKS
With his famous wig and shades, Warhol cultivated a mysterious, enigmatic persona. Now a new exhibition with unprecedented access reveals the man behind the elaborate façade.
"If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface of my paintings and films and me, and there I am. There's nothing behind it," the visual artist − famous for his Campbell's soup can paintings, Brillo box sculptures and screen prints of film stars − told journalist Gretchen Berg in 1966.
Andy Warhol, pictured here with his Flower paintings at The Factory in 1964, was famous for his aloof persona
A new exhibition in West Sussex, UK, Andy Warhol: My True Story, disagrees. Spanning 11 rooms at Newlands House Gallery in Petworth, the show reveals the hidden depths of this key figure in pop art − a movement that peaked in the 1960s and drew on popular culture, advertising and mass media. It demonstrates the gulf between the artist's public persona as a slick-quipping pop icon, and the private Andy, a profoundly shy and sensitive character. Family ephemera, early sketches unearthed from the archives, and intimate photographs that have never been exhibited all offer a new perspective on a figure as familiar to us as the Marilyn and Mona Lisa prints that are on display.
The show is curated by British art historian and author Professor Jean Wainwright, a world expert on Warhol and a longstanding friend of the Warhola family (Andy later dropped the "a"), who pours her extensive knowledge into a major exhibition on the enigmatic artist for the first time. A decade after Warhol's death in 1987, Wainwright, then writing a doctorate on Warhol's audio tapes, traveled back and forth to his home town of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to interview the artist's inner circle and to work her way through the more than 2,000 cassette recordings made by Warhol of the events he attended, the conversations he had and his private thoughts. The Andy Warhol Foundation has now placed the tapes under embargo until 50 years after his death (2037), meaning that people can listen to them but not transcribe them. So, no-one knows their contents better than Wainwright. "I had been given access in a way that nobody had before," she tells the BBC. "I got a real sense of him as a person.”
Mona Lisa (Four Times) (1979) is one of Warhol's most iconic artworks
Say the name "Andy Warhol", and a very particular image springs to mind: an aloof and effortlessly cool member of the New York avant-garde art scene; a style-setter dressed in dark glasses, leather jacket and spiky "fright" wig, who attracted a constellation of stars to the hedonistic gatherings at his studio, The Factory.
"We think of him being a party animal and the epicenter of New York," says Wainwright, but that perception of him changed as her research deepened. "I realized as soon as I started listening to the tapes and meeting the family that he was such a multi-faceted person," she says, describing herself "like a detective piecing things together."
The biggest misconception about Warhol, maintains Wainwright, is "that he didn't care and he's all about surface." A 1971 Gerard Malanga photograph titled Andy Warhol in a pensive moment at the Factory, shown for the first time in a museum, helps dispel such myths. Taken the day he learnt that Valerie Solanas, who shot him in 1968, had been released from prison, it depicts a downcast Warhol with a distant look in his eyes. Later in the exhibition, a sketch from 1985/6 – of a skull and a laser focus on a small area of torso – illustrates the profound physical and mental effects of the attack, so grievous that Warhol needed to wear a corset for the rest of his life. A year later, he would die from complications following surgery.
"Actually, he did deeply care," says Wainwright. "He made himself into that character [with wig and glasses], but underneath, there was so much going on, so many human traits: self-doubt, worry, nervousness, shyness, anxieties – all these things that we don't necessarily associate with Warhol." In his diaries, for example, he described being handed a microphone at a Studio 54 anniversary party in 1978, and being unable to articulate any thoughts into speech: "I just made sounds… and people laughed," he said.
An ink-and-graphite Warhol drawing from 1958-9
Further clues to the real, more tender Warhol seep through the exhibits. Downstairs, a 1956 drawing of a topless man reclining as tiny hearts wing their way like butterflies from his left hand, hints at Warhol's sexuality, which was not openly expressed. While upstairs, his good humor is apparent in an unseen Bob Adelman image from 1965 that shows a soaking wet Andy laughing as he pours water from a boot after being pushed into a pool by actor and close friend Edie Sedgwick.
'Surprisingly domestic'
Most surprising of all, perhaps, is the central role played by family in the life of this cult figure, communicated in the exhibition through private artefacts: postcards written to his mother from exotic locations, each beginning "I'm OK" or "I'm alright", and taped interviews revealing that he was also a doting uncle who'd play jokes on the children, such as pretending to be on the phone to someone famous. "We loved to visit him in New York," says his niece, Madalen Warhola on one of the tapes, which can be listened to in the exhibition. "His townhouse was like Never-Never Land [with] robots, tons of candy, toys and lots of Bazooka bubble gum."
For a famous artist, Warhol's private life was surprisingly domestic. His widowed mother Julia, whose legacy is felt throughout the exhibition, lived with him from 1952. She had migrated from what is now eastern Slovakia, and the two spoke her native Rusyn together and were regular attendees at a Catholic church. Warhol's footage of her from 1966 offers a rare glimpse into their home: the washing up accumulating by the kitchen sink, the net curtains and the chipped paint – a scene that is far removed from the upscale lifestyle we might imagine.
Pictured in 1967 or '68 at The Factory, Warhol was an expert at his own myth-making
Few people would know this side of him, says Wainwright, due to his "smoke-and-mirrors façade" and his tendency to "put out a different kind of image into the world." Speaking to the BBC in 2019, Eric Shiner, former Director of the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, describes Warhol as "a great artful dodger" who enjoyed sharing misleading information. "He really did like to get people off the scent," he continues. "When asked where he was born, he would sometimes say Cleveland, sometimes say Buffalo, other times say Pittsburgh… It was all in an effort to create a mythology around himself so that no one ever really knew the real Andy Warhol.”
Photographers also remarked on this elusive quality. "When I was photographing him, it felt like I was going after smoke," recalled David Bailey in 2019, whose rarely seen image of Warhol, Hallway (1973), appears in the show. "It's right there in front of you, you can see it, but when you reach out to grab it, it disperses and disappears."
As for his striking look, that too was smoke and mirrors. It not only hid his insecurities (thinning hair, the requirement for eye contact), but also helped fabricate his distinctive brand. "He'd learnt how to make yourself memorable from cinema," says Wainwright, and he made himself into something "instantly recognizable", just like his soup cans.
He also hid behind pithy soundbites, but even some of these, including the "surface" quote at the start, were reputedly fed to him by others, with Warhol simply agreeing with the statement. Often, he deliberately allowed others to build his image on his behalf. "I'm so empty today. I just can't think of anything," he told an interviewer in 1966. "Why don't you tell me the words and they'll just come out of my mouth?"
The following year, he even employed the actor Allen Midgette to impersonate him at events: a clever act of performance art and publicity that again separated the quiet, unassuming Warhol from his uncomfortably famous identity.
His glittering entourage was the ideal way to divert attention from himself and build his myth. In a bizarre appearance on the Merv Griffin show in 1965, Edie Sedgwick became his mouthpiece. "Andy won't say a word," she warned the presenter. "He'll whisper answers to me if you ask him a question." It was a ploy that added to the artist's mystique, while providing a convenient solution to his shyness.
The copious recordings he made on his tape recorder, which he nicknamed his "wife", also played a role. "He wanted to hear somebody else talk so he wouldn't have to talk about himself," his brother, John Warhola, told Wainwright. "We think of him as a pop artist, but he was almost an anthropologist," Wainwright says. "He was at the parties, but he's the quiet epicenter, and things are going on around him." As the photographer Billy Name told her in 2001: "He wasn't such a cultural hero as a cultural zero. You could pass right through him.”
The village in Slovakia where Andy Warhol's parents were born.
In a room dedicated to Warhol's Silver Factory period of the mid-1960s, when he also managed the band The Velvet Underground, we see him peering into his camera, or with it tucked under his arm — hoping, perhaps, to catch you before you caught him. The predatory way Warhol fed off those around him was noted by the Factory's resident photographer, Nat Finkelstein, who described him as "a black widow spider". "He consumed people like he consumed pizza," he told Wainwright in a 2002 interview. "He sucked the top off and discarded the rest.”
But, in this section of the show, it's a photograph by Bob Adelman from 1965 that most lingers in the mind. It's Warhol in the spotlight, surrounded by portrait lighting. His bare face, unhidden by sunglasses, wears an apprehensive, exposed expression. The seated figure is unremarkable and almost unrecognizable — an Andy Warhol without his entourage and accoutrements.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/culture/article/20250611-who-was-the-real-andy-warhol
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PLANTING “WEE FORESTS” IN SCOTLAND
Schoolchildren visit Queen Margaret University's wee forest
Grown using the Miyawaki method, fast-growing miniature forests in the middle of cities can bring surprisingly big benefits for people and the environment.
"It's like going on a bear hunt!"
Not quite, perhaps, but these kids are definitely excited. They are on a visit to a miniscule patch of forest in the grounds of Queen Margaret University on the outskirts of Edinburgh, Scotland, and are about to head out armed with a bucket of water, a jug and a stopwatch.
They are measuring how fast patches of soil inside and outside the forest absorb water, so we leave the small circular howff (a traditionally-built shelter with a wildflower roof) in the middle of the vegetation. The child in charge of the stopwatch does a couple of test runs and the pouring begins.
"I want you to decide when it's all gone," says Elly Kinross, the woodland and greenspace officer at Edinburgh and Lothians Greenspace Trust who is running this session for the kids. "The grass can be wet, but basically the water needs to be gone… Yeh I think that's gone. OK, good, give it a stop."
This class of eight- and nine-year-olds is spending the day in a tiny forest (known, in Scotland, as a wee forest): small tennis court-sized patches of land, usually in urban areas, rigorously prepared and planted with the makings of a fast-growing, dense native forest.
These petite patches of greenery have been springing up across the world for decades now. Japan has planted thousands; India, where the tiny forest concept was developed, hundreds. The Netherlands is a hotspot for them too, and they are also now beginning to spring up across the US. But it is the UK that has most recently seen an enormous push towards these miniature urban forests, with hundreds planted since 2020.
As I visit the site alongside these schoolchildren on a beautifully sunny spring day, I'm also on a kind of hunt. I'm trying to work out how big the benefits of foresting such tiny areas really are. As it turns out, I've stumbled onto a thorny, decades-long debate.
A tiny revolution
In many countries, including my home country of Scotland, there is now a huge effort to try to reforest large areas of land. This tends to concentrate on large, unbroken patches of land, and with good reason: such forests are critical for protecting wildlife and human health and have enormous benefits for carbon storage and water cycling.
But while smaller patches of forest have historically been somewhat dismissed as useful nature reserves, they do have benefits. One big plus is that they are easier to fit into an urban area – and thus be nearer to where most people live. And emerging evidence is showing we might have underestimated their benefits for nature too.
At around 200 sq m (2,200 sq ft), though, tiny forests are seriously small even compared to many urban forests. They involve around 600 trees being densely planted all at the same time in a heavily prepared soil. Ross Woodside, head of operations at Edinburgh and Lothians Greenspace Trust, the local delivery partner for this wee forest, points out to me some of the 18 different species planted here, from broom bushes to wild cherry and oak trees. As he does so, I wonder, how small a forest is too small?
This wee forest was planted just three years ago, so it's got a long way to go before its Scots pines and hazel trees become what looks like a forest. For now, though, butterflies and bees skit around the yellow gorse bushes and tree saplings.
Still, the method, which works particularly well on derelict land, has found a natural home in urban areas, where fast-growing greenery can be a welcome relief. And there is some evidence that Miyawaki plots are an especially effective way of planting small forests. A 2023 report by the Tree Council, a UK non-profit, found they are better at surviving droughts, have higher biodiversity and are lower cost than similar small forests planted using more conventional methods. A recent council project in Kent, England, concluded that while the cost to plant a plot using the Miyawaki method was higher than standard tree planting methods, it actually cost far less per surviving tree, since trees had much higher survival rates.
The UK's first tiny forest was planted in 2020 in Witney in Oxfordshire, England
A recent planting frenzy means the wider UK now has hundreds of young tiny forests. The non-profit Earthwatch has planted almost 300 of them in the past few years and aims for a further 200 by 2030. These are often financially backed by companies whose staff plant the forest as a corporate day out.
In 2020, the Miyawaki method caught the attention of Rosanna Cunningham, Scotland's environment minister, says Karen Morrison, the project officer at government agency NatureScot who supports the rollout of wee forests in Scotland. Cunningham decided to give tiny forests a go in Scotland.
Of course, there's been the odd hiccup, says Morrison. In one tiny forest in Dundee, Scotland, a straw mulch layer (put down to seal in moisture and repress weeds) was set alight. "I think it was a sort of big beacon, you know, 'come and set fire to me'," she says. "So, we're learning. We're learning along the way." Fortunately, she adds, the fire flashed through the straw quickly and the saplings actually survived.
Local benefits
Tree planting as a way of moderating climate change is complex and at times unreliable. Still, many cities across the world aim to vastly increase the number of trees they have, often citing carbon absorption as well as improved resilience to extreme weather and other benefits to local people. Edinburgh, for instance, is trying to become a million-tree city by 2030.
There's one very good reason to plant tree patches in urban areas: people who live near them benefit.
Around the world, many people are interacting with nature less and less. That's also the case for children: one 2017 survey in the US found by the time they were 12, children on average spent over three times as many hours on computers and watching TV as they did playing outside.
At the same time, research shows urban nature can improve physical, psychological and social well-being. A 2024 Canadian study, for instance, found the diversity of birds and trees in urban areas was linked to good self-reported mental health. Children who spend more time in natural environments have significantly better mental health, according to a 2024 study led by Fiona Caryl, a public health data scientist at the University of Glasgow.
Creating new urban forests is one way of making this happen. And they can also provide resilience benefits for locals in the form of everything from cooler microclimates to flood protection. In one study looking at Madison, Wisconsin, researchers found city blocks with more canopy cover had lower daytime temperatures than those without, especially when cover reached over 40%.
The tiny forest in Witney in 2024, four years after being planted
Earthwatch, meanwhile, monitors the impacts of the UK's tiny forests using measurements taken by locals – just as the schoolchildren were measuring during my visit. Its latest report found that tiny forests have cooler daytime air temperatures and faster water infiltration rates (by 32% on average) than surrounding areas.
Scotland's wee forests have a particular focus on school and community engagement. Its 34 sites are all planted near schools, with a particular effort to have them in areas of deprivation. Children and other locals are involved in planting and long term citizen science data collection, with some harnessed as "tree keepers" to help to monitor and maintain the forest in the long term.
Other wee forests in Scotland are connected with local health services, with two in the Dundee area on the land of medical practices which take part in green prescribing, which connects patients with free nature-based activities.
Patrick Boxall, a lecturer in teacher education at Queen Margaret University who was involved in planting the wee forest now uses it for outdoor learning with schools and his students. "We've got a lovely group of active primary school kids, all engaged, happy as Larry, and there's a rich experience," he says, pointing to the kids. "We're trying to build that into our curriculum."
NatureScot has a long-term vision to plant a wee forest within a short walking distance of every school in urban Scotland, says Morrison, with an initial focus on one per school cluster (there are around 250-300 of these in Scotland).
But for now, funds for further wee forests is limited, she says. "At the moment, it's being rather more opportunistic than strategic, just depending on that land, money, expertise and people coming together," she says. "So there hasn't been big jumps forward of swathes of new wee forests. It's more incremental." NatureScot's focus is on restoring far larger landscapes, she adds. "Wee forests scattered throughout an urban landscape are not quite that landscape-scale objective." The agency is exploring other routes for wee forests, though, she says.
A forest patchwork
Even nature-focused governments across the world face these types of tricky questions on how best to spend limited restoration funds. And it's complicated to unravel just how big a part urban and other smaller patches of forest can really play in tackling the dual climate and biodiversity crises.
In the 1970s, it was influentially argued that smaller fragments of land tended to be less valuable for conservation, since the probability of extinction of species in each was higher than for larger patches of land. Small nature reserves surrounded by altered habitat (such as urban environments) were compared to small, isolated islands. Despite other scientists disagreeing at the time, the idea became embedded in conservation strategies, says Federico Riva, a scientist at the Instituut voor Milieuvraagstukken in the Netherlands.
In the Miyawaki method, young saplings of a variety of native species are planted closely together in enriched soil
Riva, who researches the ecological value of smaller forest patches, thinks this was an oversight. He and other researchers argue we shouldn't underestimate the wider ecological benefits of smaller patches of forest.
Along with his colleague Lenore Fahrig, a landscape ecologist at Carleton University in Canada who has spent decades researching the biodiversity of fragmented habitats, he investigated this in a 2022 study. After analyzing dozens of land datasets, they concluded that small patches of land can actually have disproportionately large benefits for biodiversity. Sets of several small patches typically had more species per area of land than fewer larger patches in the same area, they found, including for species of conservation concern.
"Because every small patch is slightly different from the other, when you put them all together in a landscape, the entire landscape can have more biodiversity," says Riva. "[So] we shouldn't lose those fragments, because they have value as a whole.”
Other research also supports these findings. One analysis of the birds seen in around 500 parks in 21 US cities, for instance, found that collections of small parks actually had a higher number of different species, including rare species, than fewer, larger ones. And small patches of trees can add up to significant carbon intake. A study in New Zealand looking at tree patches smaller than a hectare (2.5 acres), for example, found they sequester the equivalent of 3-8% of the country's agricultural emissions.
It's an important debate, because globally it's smaller patches of forest which are most at risk of suffering further habitat loss, according to a 2022 paper by Riva, Fahrig and several other researchers. "If you have a landscape with habitat being broken, it is more susceptible to deforestation," says Riva.
Still, other researchers argue that restoring and preserving the largest areas of continuous, unbroken habitat should always be the priority. Another big concern is that when the focus turns to small patches of already degraded land, there's a negative payoff for the old-growth forests harboring the most threatened species.
Of course, no-one is arguing that biodiversity strongholds like the Amazon and Indonesian rainforests and the Congo Basin are not critical to protect. And it all depends on what is being weighed against what. A single isolated patch of dense forest in the middle of a sea of concrete and skyscrapers will be very different from a series of patches across a less sparsely populated area that also contains lots of gardens and parks.
Still, in highly populated places like the UK, Riva argues, restoring a bunch of smaller forests does have advantages. "If you have a landscape that is very diverse, maybe you want to capture all these different habitat types."
The areas of small land patches involved in Riva's research are not necessarily as tiny as the wee forests I'm visiting in Scotland. Earthwatch has found, though, that the UK's tiny forests are supporting a range of biodiversity, including less commonly observed urban species such as newts, solitary bees and slow worms. They also soak up a modest amount of carbon: based on tree growth measurements, the average four-year-old tiny forest already stores half a ton of carbon, with sequestration expanding each year.
"They are wee, so it's not the answer to everything," says Morrison. "But locally, a well designed, well chosen site can be really good.”
And at a bigger scale, the benefits could add up. "If you create hundreds of tiny forests in a city, then you're effectively establishing ecological corridors, in the form of 'stepping stones', for species to navigate the landscape," says Riva. Which species will be able to capitalize on those corridors will depend on things like their mobility, he adds. "Regardless, you're certainly providing people with space and opportunities to see biodiversity, from the tiniest things like flowers and butterflies to birds, trees, and mammals."
Queen Margaret University's wee forest has also seen an uptick in biodiversity since it was planted in 2020, says Boxall, noting that they are seeing more butterflies, amphibians and birds, as well as a bee colony now established on the green roof of the howff.
The fence currently around Queen Margaret University's wee forest will eventually come down, and the forest might spread outside the borders, adds Boxall. There are plans for the vast grassy lawn to be turned into a wildflower meadow. Boxall is eyeing another patch to become a second wee forest. "Hopefully we'll end up with half of Queen Margaret University feeling like a nature reserve," he says.
Boxall sees wee forests as something that could be planted pretty much anywhere, observing the area involved is not dissimilar to the lawn area of some American houses. He says they help to show the importance of small patches of municipal woodland. "You know, a hedge matters, little bits of woodland at the end of schools and parks and community centers, they actually matter.”
As the morning comes to a close, Kinross gives the kids some free time. They cheer and head off to look at the ducks in the river. A couple of the students stay to tell me their thoughts about the day though.
"I liked getting mucky in the soil," a boy named Jude tells me. "I learned that you have to measure the soil to see if it's alright."
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250910-the-tiny-forests-that-thrive-in-cities
Dr Akira Miyawaki (1828-2021) was a Japanese botanist and an expert in plant ecology who specialized in seeds and natural forests. He was active worldwide as a specialist in natural vegetation restoration of degraded land.
A Miyawaki forest is a type of dense, multi-layered plantation of native trees that grows rapidly in small spaces, often in urban areas, mimicking natural forest ecosystems to boost biodiversity and combat climate change. Developed by Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki, this method involves planting many different native tree species at a high density on prepared soil, creating a self-sustaining microforest that can become mature in about 20 years, compared to hundreds for a traditional forest.
Dense and Diverse:
Many different native plant species are planted together, not in neat rows, but with varied heights and layers to mimic a natural forest structure.
High-Density Planting:
A large number of trees are planted close together to outcompete weeds, provide better soil, and create more forest canopy coverage.
Native Species:
Only trees native to the specific region are used to support the local ecosystem and wildlife.
Fast-Growing:
The dense planting and focus on native species allow the forest to grow 10 times faster than conventional plantations, becoming self-sufficient within a few years.
BENEFITS OF A MIYAWAKI FOREST
Dense and Diverse:
Many different native plant species are planted together, not in neat rows, but with varied heights and layers to mimic a natural forest structure.
High-Density Planting:
A large number of trees are planted close together to outcompete weeds, provide better soil, and create more forest canopy coverage.
Native Species:
Only trees native to the specific region are used to support the local ecosystem and wildlife.
Fast-Growing:
The dense planting and focus on native species allow the forest to grow 10 times faster than conventional plantations, becoming self-sufficient within a few years.
Small-Scale Application:
The method is ideal for small urban spaces where conventional large-scale reforestation is not feasible.
Increased Biodiversity:
Provides forage and refuge for pollinators and birds, creating habitats for wildlife.
Climate Change Mitigation: .
Absorbs carbon dioxide, reducing the urban heat island effect, and improving air quality.
Soil Health: .
The leaf litter improves soil fertility and life, while the dense root system reduces soil erosion.
Resilience: .
The variety of tree species ensures the forest can better withstand pests and diseases. 
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HOW EXERCISE CHANGES YOUR BRAIN
We’ve all heard that exercise is good for us—how it strengthens our hearts and lungs, and helps us prevent diseases like diabetes. That’s why so many of us like to make New Year’s resolutions to move more, knowing it will make us healthier and live longer.
But many people don’t know about the other important benefits of exercise—how it can help us find happiness, hope, connection, and courage.
Around the world, people who are physically active are happier and more satisfied with their lives. They have a stronger sense of purpose and experience more gratitude, love, and hope. They feel more connected to their communities, and are less likely to suffer from loneliness or become depressed.
These benefits are seen throughout the lifespan, including among those living with serious mental and physical health challenges. That’s true whether their preferred activity is walking, running, swimming, dancing, biking, playing sports, lifting weights, or practicing yoga.
Why is movement linked to such a wide range of psychological benefits? One reason is its powerful and profound effects on the brain. Here are five surprising ways that being active is good for your brain—and how you can harness these benefits yourself.
1. The exercise “high” primes you to connect with others
Although typically described as a runner’s high, an exercise-induced mood boost is not exclusive to running. A similar bliss can be found in any sustained physical activity.
Scientists have long speculated that endorphins are behind the high, but research shows the high is linked to another class of brain chemicals: endocannabinoids (the same chemicals mimicked by cannabis)—what neuroscientists describe as “don’t worry, be happy” chemicals.
Areas of the brain that regulate the stress response, including the amygdala and prefrontal cortex, are rich in receptors for endocannabinoids. When endocannabinoid molecules lock into these receptors, they reduce anxiety and induce a state of contentment. Endocannabinoids also increase dopamine in the brain’s reward system, which further fuels feelings of optimism.
This exercise high also primes us to connect with others, by increasing the pleasure we derive from being around other people, which can strengthen relationships. Many people use exercise as an opportunity to connect with friends or loved ones. Among married couples, when spouses exercise together, both partners report more closeness later that day, including feeling loved and supported.
Another study found that on days when people exercise, they report more positive interactions with friends and family. As one runner said to me, “My family will sometimes send me out running, as they know that I will come back a much better person.”
2. Exercise can make your brain more sensitive to joy
When you exercise, you provide a low-dose jolt to the brain’s reward centers—the system of the brain that helps you anticipate pleasure, feel motivated, and maintain hope. Over time, regular exercise remodels the reward system, leading to higher circulating levels of dopamine and more available dopamine receptors. In this way, exercise can both relieve depression and expand your capacity for joy.
These changes can also repair the neurological havoc wreaked by substance abuse. Substance abuse lowers the level of dopamine in your brain and reduces the availability of dopamine receptors in the reward system. As result, people struggling with addiction can feel unmotivated, depressed, antisocial, and unable to enjoy ordinary pleasures. Exercise can reverse this.
In one randomized trial, adults in treatment for methamphetamine abuse participated in an hour of walking, jogging, and strength training three times a week. After eight weeks, their brains showed an increase in dopamine receptor availability in the reward system.
Jump-starting the brain’s reward system benefits not just those who struggle with depression or addiction. Our brains change as we age, and adults lose up to 13 percent of the dopamine receptors in the reward system with each passing decade. This loss leads to less enjoyment of everyday pleasures, but physical activity can prevent the decline. Compared to their inactive peers, active older adults have reward systems that more closely resemble those of individuals who are decades younger.
3. Exercise makes you brave
Courage is another side effect of physical activity on the brain. At the very same time that a new exercise habit is enhancing the reward system, it also increases neural connections among areas of the brain that calm anxiety. Regular physical activity can also modify the default state of the nervous system so that it becomes more balanced and less prone to fight, flight, or fright.
The latest research even suggests that lactate—the metabolic by-product of exercise that is commonly, but erroneously, blamed for muscle soreness—has positive effects on mental health. After lactate is released by muscles, it travels through the bloodstream to the brain, where it alters your neurochemistry in a way that can reduce anxiety and protect against depression.
Sometimes, the movement itself allows us to experience ourselves as brave, as the language we use to describe courage relies on metaphors of the body. We overcome obstacles, break through barriers, and walk through fire. We carry burdens, reach out for help, and lift one another up. This is how we as humans talk about bravery and resilience.
When we are faced with adversity or doubting our own strength, it can help to feel these actions in our bodies. The mind instinctively makes sense out of physical actions. Sometimes we need to climb an actual hill, pull ourselves up, or work together to shoulder a heavy load to know that these traits are a part of us.
4. Moving with others builds trust and belonging
In 1912, French sociologist Émile Durkheim coined the term collective effervescence to describe the euphoric self-transcendence individuals feel when they move together in ritual, prayer, or work. Moving with others—for example, in group exercise, yoga, or dance classes—is one of the most powerful ways to experience joy.
Psychologists believe the key to producing collective joy is synchrony—moving in the same way, and at the same time, as others—because it triggers a release of endorphins. This is why dancers and rowers who move in synch show an increase in pain tolerance.
But endorphins don’t just make us feel good; they help us bond, too. People sharing an endorphin rush through a collective activity like, trust, and feel closer to one another afterward. It’s a powerful neurobiological mechanism for forming friendships, even with people we don’t know.
Group exercise has managed to capitalize on the social benefits of synchronized movement. For example, the more you get your heart rate up, the closer you feel to the people you move in unison with, and adding music enhances the effect. Breathing in unison can also amplify the feeling of collective joy, as may happen in a yoga class.
We were born with brains able to craft a sense of connection to others that is as visceral as the feedback coming from our own heart, lungs, and muscles. That is an astonishing thing! We humans can go about most of our lives, sensing and feeling ourselves as separate, but through one small action—coming together in movement—we dissolve the boundaries that divide us.
5. Trying a new activity can transform your self-image
Every time you move your body, sensory receptors in your muscles, tendons, and joints send information to your brain about what is happening. This is why if you close your eyes and raise one arm, you can feel the shift in position and know where your arm is in space. You don’t have to watch what’s happening; you can sense yourself.
The ability to perceive your body’s movements is called proprioception, and is sometimes referred to as the “sixth sense.” It helps us move through space with ease and skill and plays a surprisingly important role in self-concept—how you think about who you are and how you imagine others see you.
When you participate in any physical activity, your moment-to-moment sense of self is shaped by the qualities of your movement. If you move with grace, your brain perceives the elongation of your limbs and the fluidity of your steps, and realizes, “I am graceful.” When you move with power, your brain encodes the explosive contraction of muscles, senses the speed of the action, and understands, “I am powerful.” If there is a voice in your head saying, “You’re too old, too awkward, too big, too broken, too weak,” sensations from movement can provide a compelling counterargument.
Physical accomplishments change how you think about yourself and what you are capable of, and the effect should not be underestimated. One woman I spoke with shared a story about when she was in her early 20s and found herself severely depressed, with a plan to take her own life.
The day she intended to go through with it, she went to the gym for one last workout. She deadlifted 185 pounds, a personal best. When she put the bar down, she realized that she didn’t want to die. Instead, she remembers, “I wanted to see how strong I could become.” Five years later, she can now deadlift 300 pounds.
Clearly, we were born to move, and the effects of exercise on our psychological and social well-being are many. So, why not add more movement to your life? No doubt you’ll feel better, be happier, and have better social relationships because of it.
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/five-surprising-ways-exercise-changes-your-brain?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us
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THE GOOD SAMARITAN
Delacroix: The Good Samaritan
My favorite biblical parable is the parable of the Good Samaritan.
Jesus’s parable of the Good Samaritan led me to the proper understanding of the christian religion.
Here’s how…
Let’s keep in mind that Jesus saved all his sternest and harshest criticism for religious hypocrites, calling them “nests of vipers” and “white-washed sepulchers full of dead men’s bones.”
So the last thing we would expect from Jesus is for him to be the world’s greatest hypocrite.
Which is what the parable of the Good Samaritan made Jesus, if christian theology is correct.
Why?
Because in the parable of the Good Samaritan we find Jesus commending a person of the “wrong” religion, a Samaritan, for putting aside religious differences to help a man of another faith who couldn’t help himself.
Well and good, so far.
Except that according to christian theology, Jesus will decline to be a Good Samaritan himself.
Not only will Jesus decline to help billions of people of other faiths and non-faiths, but he will condemn them to an infinitely cruel, purposeless hell, when, according to the gospel of Luke, he can save dying thieves with a nod of his head.
But only if they belong to the “correct” religion, by believing in Jesus.
Thus Jesus will condemn the saints of other religions, such as Gandhi, the great icon of peace, while saving the vilest sinners at the last moment.
Why?
Out of sheer ego.
Christianity turned Jesus into a “god” so needy that he needs puny human faith before he can do the right thing, by saving those he created (according to the gospel of John) to be unable to save themselves.
If this bizarre theology is true, it would make Jesus infinitely worse than the devil, who has no say where anyone goes when they die.
By thinking independently about the parable of the Good Samaritan, I was able so how vastly hypocritical the religion is.
And how can such hypocrisy have originated with Jesus?
Rather than blaspheming the name of Jesus, as billions of christians do, by claiming he talked the talk, but declines to walk the walk, I came to the conclusion that christianity is actually anti-Christ-insanity, if Jesus was wise and good.
~ Michael Burch, Quora
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MORE OBESE CHILDREN THAN UNDERWEIGHT CHILDREN
For the first time, there are more children in the world who are obese than underweight, according to a major study by children's charity Unicef.
Around one in 10 of those aged between five and 19 years old — around 188 million children and young people — are now thought to be affected by obesity.
Researchers blame a shift from traditional diets to ones heavily reliant on ultra-processed foods that are relatively cheap and high in calories.
Unicef, an agency of the United Nations, is urging governments to protect children's diets from unhealthy ingredients and stop the ultra-processed food industry from interfering in policy decisions.
Overweight and malnourished
When health experts used to refer to malnourished children, that was often read as those who were underweight.
Not any more – that term now also refers to the impact of obesity on the health and development of children. Even in poorer countries that is now a real concern.
Children are considered overweight when they are significantly heavier than a healthy weight for their age, sex and height.
Obesity is a severe form of being overweight, and is linked to a higher risk of type-2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and certain cancers, in later life.
Throughout childhood, good nutrition, including plenty of fruit, vegetables and protein, plays a vital role in growth, cognitive development and mental health.
But many traditional diets are being displaced by ultra-processed foods, often high in sugar, starch, salt, unhealthy fats and additives.
Unicef executive director Catherine Russell says the challenges posed by obesity should not be under-estimated. She said it's "a growing concern" that can affect the health and development of children. 1 in 10 are now obese.
Undernutrition — which can manifest itself as wasting and stunting — remains a significant problem in the under-fives in many low and middle income countries.
But the latest data from Unicef — a study that draws on data from more than 190 countries — finds the prevalence of underweight children aged 5-19 has declined since 2000, from nearly 13% to 9.2%.
Obesity rates however have increased from 3% to 9.4%, meaning that almost one in 10 children are now obese.
The number of overweight children — which includes those who are obese — has also increased to the extent that now one in five school-age children and adolescents is overweight.
That's roughly 391 million children across the globe, the study estimates.
Obesity now exceeds underweight in all regions of the world, except sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
The highest rates of obesity among children and young people are found in some of the Pacific Island states, including Niue (38%), the Cook Islands (37%), and Nauru (33%).
But many high-income countries also face a serious obesity problem. Among 5-19 year olds, 27% are obese in Chile, 21% in the United States, and 21% in the United Arab Emirates.
Unicef's Catherine Russell says: "In many countries we are seeing the double burden of malnutrition – the existence of stunting and obesity.
"This requires targeted interventions.
"Nutritious and affordable food must be available to every child to support their growth and development.
"We urgently need policies that support parents and caretakers to access nutritious and healthy foods for their children.”
Call to action
Unicef warns that the health impacts and economic costs of doing nothing are potentially enormous.
The report estimates that by 2035, the global economic impact of overweight and obesity is expected to surpass US$4 trillion (£2.95 trillion) annually.
It urges governments to take action, including on the labeling and marketing of food.
That might include legal measures to protect children's diets by removing ultra-processed foods from school canteens, introducing taxes on unhealthy foods and drinks and encouraging food producers to make changes to products — known as reformulation — to limit unhealthy ingredients and harmful substitutes.
The report also calls for policy making to be protected from interference by the ultra-processed food industry.
Ultra-processed food and drink producers could be banned from involvement in developing and implementing policy and any industry political lobbying would have to be officially reported.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c7v1e0jr9n8o
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THE FIRST VACCINES AND THE BIRTH OF THE ANTI-VAX MOVEMENT
Vaccine skepticism may seem like a new, growing movement. It’s probably a lot older than you think.
Since the dawn of human history, our species has been besieged by terrible viruses and deadly plagues. Smallpox, a viral disease defined by a rash of painful pustules across the body, has been one of the most lethal of all, claiming an estimated 300 million lives over the 20th century alone.
The disease killed about one-third of those it infected. Of those who survived, one-third were left blind. Almost all were scarred for life. Neither riches nor geography were shields against the disease. Among its victims were Emperor Joseph I of Austria, King Louis I of Spain, Queen Mary II of England, King Louis XV of France and Tsar Peter II of Russia. By the 1800s, smallpox was killing more than 400,000 people a year around the world.
And so, when UK doctor Edward Jenner developed the first version of the smallpox vaccine in 1796, he was hopeful that he might change history. He had observed that milkmaids were curiously immune to smallpox, likely because of their prior infection by cowpox – a related, but much less dangerous, virus. To test the idea that he could confer smallpox immunity this way, he took material from a milkmaid's cowpox sore and injected it into the arm of an eight-year-old child – an experiment that would be unacceptable by the standards of modern medical ethics. The boy proved immune to smallpox infection. Jenner named the procedure after the Latin for cow, vacca – and the first vaccine was born.
"The annihilation of the smallpox, the most dreadful scourge of the human species, must be the final result of this practice," Jenner wrote in 1801. And he would be proved right. In 1980, after a decades-long public health campaign that included widespread vaccination, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared smallpox had been eradicated. It remains the only infectious disease where this has been achieved.
A slew of other vaccines have been developed against other diseases, from influenza to human papillomavirus infections that cause certain cancers and the Sars-COV-2 virus behind Covid-19. In the past 50 years, an estimated 154 million lives have been saved by vaccines, according to one recent study.
Yet, opposition to vaccines – or hesitancy about accepting them – is widespread and on the rise in many parts of the world, even percolating into the uppermost branches of governments responsible for improving public health. This week, US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr was quizzed by the Senate Finance Committee over his vaccine policies, resulting in fiery exchanges. On the same day, the surgeon general of Florida also announced plans to end vaccine mandates in the state.
So, is this a recent phenomenon, or has distrust in vaccines been around for as long as the jabs themselves? Why do they face protests from relatively small, but vocal, segments of the public? And how have these arguments evolved? This is a look at the long, and strange history of the anti-vax movement.
Back in the early 1800s, a series of controlled experiments by Jenner and other doctors quickly showed inoculation to be extremely effective, granting immunity against smallpox in well over 95% of those vaccinated. Public health authorities worldwide took action to roll it out. In the UK, a series of Vaccination Acts, passed in 1840, 1853 and 1871, made immunization for children first free, then compulsory.
ANTI-VAX RIOTS
But almost immediately, another challenge emerged: a spate of anti-vaccination leagues sprung up around the country.
They produced pamphlets with provocative and fittingly Victorian gothic titles, like Vaccination, a Curse and Horrors of Vaccination, anti-vaccination tracts, books and even periodicals, including The Anti-Vaccinator (1869) and The Vaccination Inquirer (1879).
Think of the "anti-vaccination movement", and you might envision the public protests, court cases or inflammatory claims about the Covid-19 vaccine. But there is a long history of protests against them, including anti-vaccine riots in 1850s England, 1880s Canada and 1890s America. In 1905 in Boston, US, vaccination opposition led to widespread protests and a Supreme Court case, which would go on to deem vaccine mandates constitutional.
Interestingly, opposition to the idea of vaccination existed even before vaccines themselves. Variolation – a precursor to modern immunization, which used material from smallpox victims to induce a less serious reaction and immunity – was introduced in the UK and America in the 1720s.
It immediately drew the ire of critics. In a furious 1722 sermon entitled The Dangerous and Sinful Practice of Inoculation, English Reverend Edmund Massey insisted that diseases were divine retribution and punishment from God. Any measure to prevent smallpox was an inherently "diabolical operation" – one akin to naked blasphemy.
Religious opposition to vaccination was not the sole form of objection. After Jenner's discovery of vaccination, one common trope was that immunizations should be avoided because they were "unnatural" – making vaccines the latest victim of the "appeal to nature" fallacy, a rhetorical technique that frames something as "good" by virtue of it being natural (and "bad" if it's thought not to be). This isn't a logical argument – arsenic, Ebola and uranium are perfectly natural but ill-advised additions to one's breakfast cereal.
Some critics also believed that a vaccine might not just change your defenses against a disease, but somehow transform your body itself. In one illustration from 1802, patients being inoculated for smallpox are shown turning into cows. This is among the origins of the "vaccines permanently alter your DNA trope", says David Gorski, surgeon and editor of the publication Science-Based Medicine. "They didn't know about DNA back then, obviously, but the idea that vaccines somehow change your very essence is an anti-vax trope that goes far back.”
Claims that vaccines were poisons also were common. "Better a felon's cell than a poisoned babe" was one banner frequently unfurled at protests. Others claimed, without evidence, that vaccination was a secret ploy by doctors to enrich themselves, despite this being demonstrably false and an insult to pioneers, like Jenner, who had refused to profit off vaccines.
Many physicians of the era found themselves frustrated by the popularity of such false claims. These "falsehoods... impede the progress of the brightest discovery which has ever been made", lamented physician John Redman Coxe in 1802.
Many physicians of the era found themselves frustrated by the popularity of such false claims. These "falsehoods... impede the progress of the brightest discovery which has ever been made", lamented physician John Redman Coxe in 1802.
His complaint is strikingly similar to the WHO, which observed, two centuries later: "How one addresses the anti‐vaccine movement has been a problem since the time of Jenner. The best way in the long term is to refute wrong allegations at the earliest opportunity by providing scientifically valid data. This is easier said than done, because the adversary in this game plays according to rules that are not generally those of science."
But there were other reasons for anti-vaccine campaigning, too. One of the biggest arguments hinged on concerns about bodily autonomy and individual freedoms.
In fact, anti-vaccine leagues began as a reaction against government vaccine mandates, as well as a backlash against developments of the medical field in general, says Nobel Prize-winning vaccine scientist Peter Hotez, professor of pediatrics and molecular virology at the Baylor College of Medicine in Texas, US.
It was a "health freedom movement that began in the early 1800s as an alternative to scientific medicine", Hotez says.
The "personal freedom" argument, in particular, seemed to be especially compelling to the residents of Stockholm, Sweden – only 40% of whom were vaccinated against smallpox in 1873, while in the rest of the country, 90% of the population was. The following year, a massive smallpox outbreak hit Sweden, leading to a death toll of 330 per 10,000 residents of Stockholm – more than 10 times the mortality rate for the rest of Sweden. In the outbreak's wake, Stockholm saw a sharp rise in the number of people who sought out immunizations.
Long lines of people queued up to be vaccinated against smallpox when a small number of cases appeared in New York in 1947
Many outcomes of public health improved over the 19th century. Infant and child mortality, in particular, declined dramatically. Much of this was down to the smallpox vaccine: since the virus disproportionality killed children, protection against it was transformative. The contribution of vaccination to improvements in child health has remained true in more recent times, enabling at least 40% of the reduction of infant mortality over the last 50 years.
Still, the anti-vaccine movement denied all evidence of vaccine efficacy, attributing such improvements to things like improved sanitation. In the late 1800s in Leicester, anti-vaccine campaigners insisted that quarantining and mandatory reporting – measures supposed to be used alongside vaccination – were sufficient on their own. Following an outbreak in 1894, proponents declared this strategy a triumph: 20.5 per 10,000 people in the population were infected. But they ignored the fact that healthcare workers were already vaccinated, and that children were disproportionally hit, with two-thirds of cases in Leicester afflicting children.
By contrast, London, where most of the population was vaccinated, saw far fewer children sickened or killed. Its overall measles case rate also was just one-quarter of Leicester's, at 5.5 per 10,000.
Yet while vaccination made smallpox virtually extinct in several European countries, inequality of access to the vaccine meant that it continued to wreak havoc in poorer countries and areas under colonial rule. Killing upwards of two million people annually by the middle of the 20th Century, a concerted worldwide effort to eradicate the disease began in earnest in 1959. By 1979, sustained, global vaccination had completely eradicated the disease.
For the first time ever, a lethal virus had been confined to history books and a handful of carefully controlled samples in biohazard laboratories.
Improved understanding of immunology in the 20th Century also saw vaccinations against once-ubiquitous illnesses like polio and measles developed, saving millions of lives a year to this day. By 1994, the Americas were completely polio-free, followed by Europe in 2002.
Anti-vaccine activism did not disappear, however. Instead, the advent of the information age – particularly the internet – gave new life to some of the messages first spread 225 years ago. With the dawn of social media in the early 2000s, this only intensified. In 2018, nine in 10 UK adults said vaccines were safe and effective. In 2023, seven in 10 did.
Many of the arguments put forward by modern opponents to vaccines echo those who opposed the efforts of Edward Jenner and his colleagues.
Measles, for example, is so highly infectious that each single case leads to 12-18 additional cases, requiring over 95% of the population to be vaccinated to provide a firewall to vulnerable people and prevent outbreaks (often called "herd immunity").
In the year 2000 in the US, high vaccination compliance meant the disease was declared virtually eliminated. But since then, coverage has dropped in many communities to below herd immunity levels. A quarter of a century on, the US is battling a quickly growing number of outbreaks that have already caused the death of one unvaccinated child – the first pediatric death since 2003, and the first death from measles since 2015 – and the death of another unvaccinated adult. In July the number of reported measles cases in the US reached a 33 high.
As contemporary as the anti-vaccine movement might seem today, many of its arguments echo Victorian-era tropes – from the argument that anyone who supports vaccines is being paid off by the pharmaceutical industry, to the false claim that other public health improvements have rendered vaccines unnecessary. The popularity of these narratives, says Gorski, are a reminder of the stubborn tenacity of health misinformation. "The hesitancy and fear that lead to low vaccination rates are devilishly persistent and driven by misinformation," he says. If these ideas continue to spread, the US measles outbreak, he says, could be just the beginning.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250905-the-strange-history-of-the-anti-vaccine-movement
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OUR MICROBIOTA INFLUENCE HOW WELL WE SLEEP
~ I usually sleep quite well at night, but there are times when I wake up and can't seem to drift off again. Sometimes it's because I have too much on my mind, but other times there doesn't seem to be an identifiable cause.
As it turns out, my gut bacteria could be to blame. Emerging research suggests that the microbes inside us – vast communities of bacteria, viruses and fungi – can affect the quality of sleep we get. This could be good news for those of us suffering from sleep-related conditions, as scientists hope to use these microbes to help us rest better.
As you lie in bed tonight, your body will be a teeming mass of activity. Across almost every inch of you – and inside you too – billions of tiny organisms are writhing and jostling for space. But if that horrifying thought is likely to keep you up at night, consider this: they might also help you get a better night's sleep.
New research suggests that the communities of bacteria, viruses and fungi that make up our body's microbiota can influence our sleep. Depending on the composition of our personal microbial ecosystem, the amount of shut eye we get can either improve or deteriorate.
And tantalizingly, it could offer new ways of tackling sleep-related conditions caused by a disrupted body clock, described by sleep scientists as circadian rhythms. While many people currently rely on sleeping pills to quell persistent insomnia, the future might see friendly bacteria deployed to help us nod off, and even address obstructive sleep apnea, a condition in which people struggle to breathe normally while asleep. It would bring new meaning to the term "sleep hygiene."
"The predominant theory for a long time has been that having sleep disorders is disruptive to our microbiomes," says Jennifer Martin, a University of California Los Angeles professor of medicine and board member of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. "But some of the evidence we're seeing now indicates that it's probably a relationship that goes in both directions."
The balance of microbes in our mouths and our gut may affect how we sleep
Research has also shown that people with medically diagnosed insomnia have lower bacterial diversity in their guts compared to normal sleepers, something typically linked to a less healthy immune system and impairments in dealing with fats and sugars, which can lead to an increased risk of diabetes, obesity and heart disease. Another study, in which 40 people volunteered to wear sleep trackers for a month and have their gut microbiome analyzed, also found that poor sleep quality correlated with a less diverse population of gut microbes.
Plus, people with social jet lag – where their sleep patterns during the working week and weekend vary enormously – had significantly different gut microbiomes than those whose sleep patterns did not vary much, according to data analyzed by UK health-tech company Zoe.
"Circadian rhythm disruption occurs in people who stay up later and sleep in on the weekends, those who work long hours, like first responders, police and security, paramedics and the military, and in people who eat too close to bedtime," says Kenneth Wright, a professor of integrative physiology at the University of Colorado Boulder in the US. "This can cause gastrointestinal disturbances and metabolic diseases, which are common for example in shift workers, and a disturbed microbiome may play a role."
It's possible that individuals with disrupted sleep tend to follow less healthy diets, which then impacts their microbiome, suggests Sarah Berry, a nutritional sciences professor at King's College London and chief scientist at Zoe. She cites other research not conducted by Zoe that found that short sleepers tend to subconsciously increase their sugar intake.
"Part of the theory behind this is that when you've had a bad night's sleep, the reward centers in your brain are heightened the next day, and so you seek out that quick fix," she says. "Your brain is kind of tricking you into feeling, 'Ok, I need refined carbohydrates', to get that quick burst of energy.”
But changing dietary patterns in response to sleep deprivation is not the whole story. Berry and her colleagues found nine species that were greater in abundance and eight that were less abundant in people with social jet lag compared to those without this variation in sleep patterns. But they found that diet appeared to only account for changes in abundance for four of these microbe species.
Jaime Tartar, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Nova Southeastern University in Florida who was not involved in the Zoe study, says she has become increasingly convinced that certain microbes play a direct role in sleep. She cites Firmicutes, one of the most dominant taxonomic groups of bacteria found in the gut. In tests where Tartar and her colleagues monitored the sleep and tested the gut microbes of 40 men, they found 15 different groups of Firmicutes bacteria that correlated with a number of sleep metrics in varying ways. "We don't have all the answers right now, but it certainly seems that some can improve sleep and others can impair sleep," she says.
In some cases, sleep disruptions might actively drive shifts in these microbial populations through impairing the immune system and its ability to regulate microbes, which could in turn increase the likelihood of longer-term sleep problems.
But researchers including Tartar and Martin suggest that some sleep problems could also be initiated by microbial imbalances in the gut or mouth. They believe that certain bacteria may actively alter the quality of the sleep we get by shifting our circadian rhythms – the internal body clock that governs our sleep – and altering our food intake, which also impacts the sleep we get.
Some evidence for this comes from a series of studies involving so-called fecal transplants. In one 2024 study, scientists transplanted feces – along with the gut microbes it contained – from humans and implanted it into the intestines of mice. Rodents who received feces from people suffering from jetlag and insomnia developed insomnia-like behaviors, becoming more awake during their typical sleeping hours. In another study where mice received a series of gut microbes from humans before, during, and after recovery from jetlag, the transplantation of microbes during the jetlag phase saw them gain weight and struggle to control their blood sugar.
A number of small-scale studies in humans by researchers in China have shown that fecal transplants could help to improve the sleep of patients suffering from chronic insomnia and sleep disorders. Of course, it's worth remembering that many aspects of sleep involve psychological factors, so it is possible that receiving a transplant led patients to change their mindset in a way that allowed them to sleep more soundly. A randomized, double-blind clinical trial will be needed to test the efficacy properly, the researchers say.
If we can tweak or even replace the microbiota of patients with chronic sleep problems, it may provide a new way of treating them
But there are other reasons to think it might work. Diet, for example, is well known to affect sleep. When a group of 15 healthy young men followed a high fat, high sugar diet for a week, this altered their brains' electrical patterns during deep sleep, although it's hard to draw firm conclusions from such a small sample size. Similarly, in an experiment where volunteers had their sleep assessed after receiving antibiotics, evidence suggested that this reduced the amount of non-rapid eye movement sleep, an essential part of the sleep cycle where our bodies undergo repairs and new memories and skills are reinforced, although the findings did not apply for all antibiotics, and once again, the study was small.
Changes in the balance of our gut microbes may also alter the amounts of useful chemicals they produce as they help to break down our food. This in turn can influence sleep quality, says Tartar.
We know, for example that some gut microbes produce neurotransmitters such as gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin, or short-chain fatty acids such as butyrate, all of which play a role in sleep. "While they're produced in the gut, they can influence [the] brain," says Tartar.
If those microbes decrease in abundance, then their chemical influence on the brain will likely also lessen while other microbes that use foods such as saturated fat and sugar to synthesize inflammatory molecules can proliferate. Some of these inflammatory chemicals, including certain bile acids, are thought to be capable of disrupting the brain's circadian rhythms.
Martin says the same is likely to be true of the oral microbiome. Heightened inflammation, caused by microbes flourishing in people who have poor diets or poor dental health, could raise those individuals' risk of issues including obstructive sleep apnea, in which the walls of the throat relax during sleep, interrupting normal breathing.
"If the microbiome is unbalanced, that could lead to local and systemic inflammation that can cause narrowing of the airway, the release of stress hormones and a lot of things that are then disruptive to sleep down the line," says Martin. Narrowed or blocked airways can lead to obstructive sleep apnea and snoring.
With all of this in mind, it's possible that probiotics (pills that administer a targeted bacterial strain) or prebiotics (non-digestible food ingredients that selectively feed beneficial gut bacteria) could help to treat certain sleep disturbances. Tartar points to one study that showed how a particular probiotic, the Lactobacillus casei strain Shirota, improved sleep compared to a placebo in a group of 94 medical students while they were going through a stressful period in the academic year.
Berry says that Zoe recently completed a six week trial involving 399 healthy UK adults in a project called the BIOME study. The research, which is still undergoing peer review, saw participants receive one of three foods. One group were given a "super fuel for the microbiome" – a prebiotic blend containing more than 30 different whole food ingredients from baobab fruit to lions mane mushroom. Another group received a daily probiotic in the form of the bacteria L. rhamnosus. The final group were given bread croutons with the equivalent calories to the prebiotic blend as a control. Compared to the crouton group, a greater proportion of those receiving the prebiotic blend experienced improved sleep, although this was based on self-reports rather than objective measurements.
Martin, while intrigued by such results, emphasizes the need for larger, more robust trials that compare prebiotic or probiotic interventions to existing treatments, which are already known to be effective for tackling sleep problems. That includes cognitive behavioral therapy (a type of talk therapy often referred to as CBT) and various medications.
"I'm always cautious about suggesting that someone go spend $30 (£22) at a health food store on something that doesn't have proven effectiveness, when we know there are effective medical therapies out there," she says.
She expresses interest in finding out whether probiotics could help people with mild cases of obstructive sleep apnea, possibly in combination with existing oral devices that reposition the jaw in order to help prevent breathing disturbances. Since 20-30% of people with chronic insomnia do not currently respond to cognitive behavioral therapy, Martin wonders if probiotics or prebiotics could help them.
"I would love to see studies like that," she says. "Clinically, we struggle with how to help that subset of patients, a lot of whom don't want to use a sedating medication."
But if microbiology does prove to have a verifiable impact on sleep quality, that could help all kinds of people.
"Circadian disruption is very common in society," says Wright. "It can occur with jetlag, certain careers and lifestyles and age-related diseases. There is the potential for many people to benefit."
It would certainly put a new spin on bed bugs.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250905-how-your-microbiome-affects-your-sleep?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us
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A HANDFUL OF SUPPLEMENTS THAT ACTUALLY WORK — IF TAKEN IN CORRECT DOSES
BERBERINE—BETTER THAN METFORMIN for lowering blood sugar and a stunning lipid profile. I regard it as the “queen of supplements.” I wrote about the “miracle of berberine” soon after I discovered its benefits (validated by blood tests) in this blog:
https://oriana-poetry.blogspot.com/2021/01/camus-and-hope-myths-about-exercise.html
The blog had 550 views so far. Considering that thousands could be spared the ravages of diabetes, please spread the word. Again, I assure you that I receive no payment for writing about about the benefits of berberine. I write about berberine because I can’t quite understand that a substance with so many benefits (its stunning effect on the lipid profile is just the beginning) remains relatively unknown.
Berberine also shows anti-cancer effects in a wide range of cancers. It is particularly effective when combined with compounds such as curcumin.
CURCUMIN — BETTER THAN RAPAMYCIN for stopping arthritis pain, among its many gifts.
There are currently two known anti-aging drugs: metformin and rapamycin. Metformin is widely used to treat diabetes. Diabetic patients who use metformin tend to live longer than non-diabetics. Animal studies have confirmed that metformin extends life span as effectively as calorie restriction.
Rapamycin is rarely prescribed, It regulates the immune system, which becomes a hazard to us past a certain age, becoming overactive in the wrong way and causing auto-immune diseases. A lot of common disease of aging have a large autoimmune component. But to qualify for rapamycin, it’s best to be a kidney transplant patient.
My equating of curcumin and rapamycin is approximate at best, but — there are no side effects of curcumin (OMAX hydrocurc is the only brand that seems to benefit me, going by less line pain, my main indicator of effectiveness).
Since I have long been interested in the benefits of hormone replacement, I happened to find this: Progesterone suppresses the mTOR pathway and promotes generation of induced regulatory T cells with increased stability
mTOR means “mammalian Target of Rapamycin.”
Activation of mTOR isn’t all bad — we definitely need it just to function, remember things, replace old cells — it’s just a matter of the right degree. And as we grow older, less activation is apparently better. Fortunately, metformin and/or berberine inhibit mTOR when it’s called for.
Exercise inhibits mTOR in the liver and fat cells, but activates it in the muscles, brain, and heart.
Curcumin, green tea, and aspirin provide a lot of the same benefits.
For a thorough review of the benefits of curcumin, please check
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5664031/
CoQ10 — WHO IS AFRAID OF A HEART ATTACK?
For me, the "miracle" benefits of CoQ10 include pevention of chest pains (angina) and reduced blood pressure. For some people, the benefits for gum health are more important. If your gums bleed easily, you may want to try CoQ10 (ubiquinol).
Another way to reduce blood pressure is to combine berberine with amlodipine (amlodipine is a prescription medication, a calcium-ion blocker; it’s regarded as a life-extension drug).
The names “ubuiquinol” and “ubiquinone” have begun to appear in scientific literature. Here is an AI overview:
Ubiquinol may be better for certain individuals, particularly older adults and those with absorption issues, because it's the "active," "ready-to-use" antioxidant form of CoQ10, which is absorbed more effectively by the body than ubiquinone. Ubiquinone is the oxidized form, requiring the body to convert it to ubiquinol to be active, a process that becomes less efficient with age. However, for younger, healthy individuals, ubiquinone is also effective, and a well-formulated ubiquinone supplement can also be well-absorbed.
Both forms of CoQ10, ubiquinone and ubiquinol, are present in the body.
Because it
is the active, unoxidized form of CoQ10, ubiquinol is more bioavailable
and doesn't require the body to convert it before use, making it a
readily available antioxidant.
The body's ability to convert ubiquinone to ubiquinol declines with age, making ubiquinol a more readily available form for older individuals.
For Absorption Issues:
People with conditions that impair absorption may benefit more from ubiquinol, as it bypasses the need for conversion.
Ubiquinol offers benefits as a potent antioxidant, supporting cellular energy production and potentially improving heart health, reducing migraine frequency, and helping with blood sugar regulation and exercise performance. It may also counteract muscle pain associated with statin medications (but why use those when berberine is both more effective and available at a fraction of the cost?)
Ubiquinone (commonly known sa CoQ10) and ubiquinol shift from one form to the other inside the body.
GLUCOSAMINE SULFATE — WHO IS AFRAID OF JOINT PAIN?
Glucosamine sulfate has been recommended for arthritis, typically without the caveat that only a large dose will bring significant relief. People who take only one capsule a day, or at most two, fail to get results. But glucosamine is a natural substance produced by the body, rather than a synthetic drug alien to human physiology — meaning that larger doses are safe.
In my experience, for severe post-traumatic arthritis of the knee, ONLY MEGADOSES WORK — and they work spectacularly well. I take 1.5g OR MORE with each meal on days when I am especially physically active, be it in nature or shopping in huge stores like Walmart and Costco —those “super centers” can certainly require a lot of walking. If I return from an intense shopping trip and my knee hurts, I quickly swallow a handful of NOW glucosamine sulfate capsules. It’s inexpensive and vastly more effective than toxic painkillers.
An unexpected side benefit of glucosamine is that it helps the cardiovascular function. Since glucosamine is anti-inflammatory, it’s not surprising that it lowers inflammation not only in the joints but also in arterial walls.
I also use an inexpensive 30% methyl salicylate cream. This combination of high doses of glucosamine sulfate capsules and the methyl salicylate cream has been marvelously effective for me, after decades of chronic pain (sometimes acute) and two knee surgeries.
NIACINAMIDE (AKA NICOTINAMIDE) — MORE HELP FOR YOUR JOINTS
It was only recently that I discovered the benefits of combining glucosamine sulfate with niacinamide. Suddenly — not just less pain, but no pain. Pain can still occur if I do a lot of walking, but it generally ceases upon the application of my inexpensive methyl salicylate cream from Walmat. Falling asleep without pain and waking up without pain has been my latest miracle, especially once I added niacinamide to my usual dose of glucosamine. Powered by this combo, I can also walk longer distances without much pain — even in hilly terrain. True, I need more rest breaks than a person with healthy knees, but I can finish a hike, hurray!
(Yes, once again I can actually hike! I don’t mean strenuous mountain hiking, but our coastline hills are once more my hiking paradise. This means a great deal to me and my self-image as healthy and capable rather than sickly and disabled.)
Niacinamide has long been known for anti-inflammatory effects and improved tissue hydration. The source of these benefits? “Niacinamide plays a role in the synthesis of NAD+, a coenzyme crucial for many cellular processes, including DNA repair and antioxidant defense mechanisms, which can affect cellular health in joint tissues.”
Rheumatoid arthritis also responds to niacinamide, especially at higher doses. (Extremely high doses, however, can be harmful to the liver.)
I want to emphasize here that there is no substitute for experimentation. I can only speak for myself: the combination of glucosamine sulfate and niacinamide has been my personal miracle, allowing me to lead an independent life and even enjoy an occasional hike in the local hills, in spite of the life-long effects of a serious knee injury in my late teens that, combined with a disastrous knee surgery, led to severe arthritis. Without my supplements, I might by now be doomed to using a wheelchair.
While glucosamine is a very safe supplement, the same cannot be said of niacinamide. Taking 250 mg 3 x day should be enough to produce results, without creating a burden for the liver.
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a preview of a few upcoming posts:
REDUCE YOUR RISK OF STROKE WITH GREEN AND BLACK TEA
The benefits of both green and black tea are numerous and well documented, with a virtual avalanche of information online. For now, I refer you to this source: https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=benefits+of+green+and+black+tea
FISH OIL (EPA AND DHA) — LOWERS BLOOD PRESSURE
VITAMIN K2 — DIRECTS CALCIUM TO BONES TO TEETH; PREVENTS THE CALCIFICATION OF ARTERIES, KIDNEYS, AND OTHER ORGANS
CBD OIL — WHO IS AFRAID OF INSOMNIA?
That's a quick preview for now; I'll post more about these important benefits of various inexpensive supplements in future blogs.
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ending on beauty:
The forest, letting me walk among its naked
limbs, had me on my knees again in silence
shouting — yes, yes my holy friend,
let your splendor devour me.
~ Hafiz
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