Box of delight

• The study examined the dietary choices of students who were asked to begin regular workouts over a 15-week period.
• Although students were asked not to significantly change their diets, most began choosing healthier foods.
• Interestingly, the types of foods they chose seemed to be associated with the intensity and lengths of their workouts.

In traditional ground-fought wars, the command post behind the lines would often have hot coffee, good food and dry clothes. Was this because the generals were selfish? Or because they deserved it for having made the highest ranks in the military?

This year I’m focusing on habits to help me build new skills and look after my health. One of these habits is to do push-ups every morning. I went from not doing push-ups at all, to doing them every single morning. As I write this, I’m on a streak of 45 days in a row. From zero to more than a month without stopping, here’s how I did it.

For years neuroscientists have been trying to correct the old assumption that our minds are reducible to our brains. Research into what is known as the gut microbiome, for example, has shown that mood and mental health are intimately linked to the functioning of an ecosystem of microorganisms within the digestive system. As researchers write in the Journal of Neuroscience, “experimental changes to the gut microbiome can affect emotional behavior and related brain systems [and] may play a pathophysiological role in human brain diseases, including autism spectrum disorder, anxiety, depression, and chronic pain.”