Things to Worry About This Week: Phones, Caffeine, and Meditation
There seems to be a new health study coming out every day. What was bad for you before is good for you, or vice versa. It turns out that most of these groundbreaking discoveries don’t really matter much: sometimes they only apply to mice or represent a splash that doesn’t change the general scientific understanding of the topic. So let’s take a look at some of the stories this week and see which are important news and which are not.
Parenting and smartphones
Headline: Research: Your smartphone addiction may be linked to your kids’ misbehavior.
Story: We’ve all seen a careless parent check their phone in the playground instead of playing with their kids. On the other hand, many of us have been such parents, and sometimes you just need to take a break from screaming to check out Twitter. Is parental smartphone use really harmful to children? Sounds like a good research question.
During the study , parents were asked how attached they are to their phone, how often the phone interrupts communication with the child, and what behavioral problems they have observed in their child over the past two months. The parents were overwhelmingly white, educated and heterosexual.
The more mothers reported being interrupted, the more their children had behavioral problems. However, this did not apply to the fathers. Is it because the mother-child relationship is more important? Or is it simply because mothers spend more time with their children, so they have more opportunities for distraction?
However, all of this is self-esteem: the researchers did not count the breaks or rate the children, they just handed out the questionnaires to the parents. So it is possible that parents of children who behave aggressively are more likely to blame their use of technology (especially in a survey like this) and respond in line with that theory. Or maybe families who are stressed for other reasons are more likely to have misbehaving children and parents who seek comfort in their phones. Research really does nothing to identify these very different scenarios.
Takeaway: Smartphone use can be annoying for your child, but you probably already knew about it. This study does not provide us with sufficient evidence that telephones are harmful to parenting. But if you feel like you’re a slave to your notifications, turn them off when you’re with your kids – as you probably already knew you should.
Caffeine for exercise
Caption: Improve Your Workout With Caffeine, Even If You Drink Coffee Every Day.
History: We already know that if you drink coffee all the time, not a single cup of it will wake you up. You have developed tolerance. We also know that caffeine can improve athletic performance by helping you run faster, or at least keep running longer.
It seems that you can develop a tolerance for some caffeine superpowers, but not others . This is not news, but there isn’t enough research to get a complete picture of what to expect from caffeine if you drink regularly. This new study provides a little more detail.
In a study of 40 healthy male athletes, they were asked to cycle as quickly as possible until they burned 450 calories, which should take about 30 minutes. If they had previously taken a caffeinated pill, they completed the test about 3 minutes faster. (The pill contained 400 milligrams of caffeine, the same amount as venti-sized Starbucks black coffee.) And that was true whether they usually drank heavily of caffeine or not.
Big caveat: Since the experiment did not involve non-athletes (or, for that matter, women), there is no guarantee that the results apply to all of us.
Takeaway: Caffeine affects the body in different ways, but this study is a big hint that if you use it to speed up your cycle (or run?), You don’t need to give up coffee before a race. That said, 400 milligrams is a lot, so take a test drive before the big day.
Meditation and stress
Headline: “The Dangers of Meditation: It Can Really Lead to Insomnia, Fear, and Hypersensitivity to Light.”
History: Meditation is better known for helping us to relax and maintain good mental health. However, every good thing has a downside, so psychologists and social scientists want to know if bad things can happen when you meditate.
For the study, researchers interviewed people who practice Buddhist meditation extensively and said they could share an experience that they found difficult or difficult. These experiences included hallucinations, feelings of fear or anxiety, pain, and much, much more.
But the average person has nothing to worry about. The people in the office didn’t open Headspace for about fifteen minutes here and there; they were serious, avid meditators. Half of them were meditation teachers. And many said that their bad experiences usually came after ten hours of meditation , such as at a retreat.
Takeaway: Your usual meditation habit is probably fine. If you like it, this research gives you no reason to stop. And if you are really into Buddhist forms of meditation and practice them for many hours a day, talk to your teacher or mental health professional if you start to feel anxious or have any other problems.