How to Spot Bad Health Advice

Does the acai berry really slow aging?  How about that daily glass of red wine to prevent heart disease?  Newspapers are packed with new, exciting research from so-called “experts”, giving us simple, authoritative claims to improve our health.  The fads are usually rooted in weak, reductionist science which can be quickly debunked.

As a health nut myself, I try to skim through the massive volume of health tips from a skeptic’s perspective, but it’s easy to get overwhelmed by all the contradictory information scattered about.   Rather than blindly following the words of an unknown figure, I want to interpret scientific data on my own and make my own informed decisions.  The question is, how do you categorize the good from the bad?

Let’s break down at a recent news story from BBC, titled “Daily Aspirin ‘prevents and possibly treats cancer’.  I chose this article arbitrarily; you can do the same kind of analysis on any kind of health study.  The complete article can be found here:

The Buteyko Technique: The Correct Way to Breathe

Stressed?  Anxious?  You know the drill.  Stop for a moment, take a deep breath, and everything will be better.  Or will it?

4 Ways to Stop Overeating

Ever reach for a bag of chips twenty minutes after eating dinner?  It’s a widespread myth that overeating is a typical sign of emotional distress.  Most of the time, you’re simply tempted by your taste buds.  When you’re infatuated with the thought of food, you start tricking yourself into thinking you’re actually hungry.  Then, you overeat.

So how do you tell when you’re actually hungry and when you’re not?  Before you wolf down another plate, maybe these tips can help you.

5 Easy Tips for Good Sleep

We all know the importance of sleeping well, but many people find it very difficult. Regardless of whether or not you’ve been plagued by such problems, you’ve probably heard all the prototypical advice given to insomniacs. Unfortunately, “exercising more”, “listening to relaxing music” and the child favourite, “counting sheep”, don’t always work out. Before you resort to wolfing down sleeping pills, give some of these less well-known tips a try.

How to Live Longer Without Being Healthier

Don’t get me wrong; in spite of the title of this article, I’m all in favour of physical fitness.  Barring catastrophic circumstances, having good health will certainly extend your life expectancy.  The mystery is whether or not having these extra years equates to a longer life from a psychological standpoint.

In this context, I don’t believe that adding more years automatically makes your life longer.  You don’t measure your life by the number of revolutions you’ve made around this Sun; this is merely an arbitrary marker used to quantify time.  But what is time?

How Naturally Improving My Eyesight Taught Me the Secret to Relaxation

Up until recently, my teenage years have been a time of increasing myopia. Being such a personal development addict, I’ve never accepted the need to wear glasses or contact lenses and as a result, my eyesight didn’t deteriorate too rapidly. After purchasing my first pair of glasses a year ago, I was quick to realize that artificial vision correction simply doesn’t offer the same visual experience I had as a child with perfect vision. The general acuity may appear to be the same, but there’s just something lacking that’s very hard to describe. Maybe those who’ve worn them for a long time don’t remember, but subtle things like the speed of focus, the refraction of bright light, the depth perception, and the energy and vigour of the eyes actually seem quite noticeably dampened if you’ve been accustomed to perfect vision. I was frustrated, and I wanted a solution.