Don’t spend time indoors with people outside your household.
Also, humidify your home. And look into omega-3 supplements to improve behaviour!
Happy Friday! We’re heading into the holiday season and I’ll be off next week for holiday season reasons.
🦃 For U.S. readers: giving thanks safely.
This is the last one before Thanksgiving in the U.S. We’ve seen what Thanksgiving did to Canada. Let’s learn from that:
How to use this: don’t spend time indoors with people outside your household.
🕎🎄🕯* For more people in the U.S. and around the world.
Hanukkah, Christmas, and Kwanzaa aren’t next week, but same. Rachel Gutman:
I asked Atlantic writers who have spent months reporting on the pandemic for their simplest advice on making it to the new year. (…) My colleagues’ guidance boils down to this winter’s golden rule for interacting with anyone outside your immediate household: Don’t spend time indoors with other people.
How to use this: don’t spend time indoors with people outside your household.
🎞 Helping your immunity.
This week I directed our latest live chat (it was a new platform and we had an audio incident at the beginning, apologies for that). It was strangely uplifting. There was lots of talk about the mRNA technology of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines (behold all the lovely scientific giddiness).
More relevant to your daily life is the fact that as soon as we ended the broadcast, I got up and dusted off our humidifiers (the top Wirecutter pick since 2015). Watch it here:
How to use this: humidify the air where you live as much as you can. It really helps the inside of your nose defend your body against viruses you can inhale.
📛 Fighting off aggression with… omega-3 supplements?
This one is an idea that came from my friend John Brecher, who, as a photo and video journalist, has covered science a lot.
They are experimenting with omega-3 to ward off aggression in juvie:
Omega-3 supplementation resulted in both short-term and long-term declines in self-reported antisocial and aggressive behavior. Findings were stronger for a reactive-impulsive form of aggression than for proactive aggression and psychopathy.
I had no idea this was even a line of research and it turns out it’s not new:
"Immediately after three months of the nutritional intervention rich in omega-3s, we found a decrease in the children's reporting of their aggressive behavior," Richmond said.
Adults, too:
There is a high variability in omega-3 status of a NSW prison population, and inmates with lower omega-3 index were more aggressive and had higher ADD scores.
How to use this: this seems super helpful if you have a loved one who has a hard time containing their explosive emotions.
Be safe, everyone.
*Turns out there’s no Kwanzaa emoji 😒