Age Wise

This is the first in a four-part series on preventing depression, a serious and growing mental disorder that can strike at any age and, if untreated, persist and worsen.

Naomi Osaka’s withdrawal from the French Open — precipitated by “huge waves of anxiety” the 23-year-old feels over obligatory press events and the “long bouts of depression” she says she has dealt with since 2018 — highlights the reality of the shadowy world of depression, an increasingly common condition that can sneak up on any of us, at any age, for reasons obvious or mysterious.

Osaka’s decision to “exercise self-care,” as…

In certain situations, there can be nothing more aggravating than someone telling you to “take a deep breath.”

Maybe you’re having a panic attack. Maybe you’re stressed because you‘re raising children in a pandemic. Maybe the IRS has just told you that you’re a victim of Social Security fraud. Whatever the reason, the idea that an automatic physiological process we do thousands of times per day without thinking could even marginally improve such a situation can feel ridiculous. Insulting, even.

Except it can. I know. I’m sorry to sound optimistic in these times. But I want you to know that…

Age Wise

Desire for sex hasn’t changed much for me over the years, and while it’s none of your business, it’s still good, sometimes better than ever.

According to science, I’ve got three things going for the older me: I get a lot of physical activity, I feel younger than my actual age, and apparently I’ve developed a little “sexual wisdom.” So if you’re fumbling through your young-adult sex life, or stressed out in middle age wondering where the magic went, trust that there are ways to improve your sex life now and as you get older.

But don’t take my word…

Good Question

Americans are inveterate snackers.

More than 90% of the U.S. population eats at least one snack a day, and most of us eat several. Some experts have called snacking “a hallmark of the American dietary pattern.”

Our enthusiasm for snacking isn’t new. Between the early 1970s and the late 2000s, the average number of snacks we consumed hardly budged; we ate two or three snacks a day back then, and that’s about how many we eat now.

While we may not be snacking more frequently than we used to, there’s some evidence that our snacks have gotten bigger.

Measured in…

I’m a sleep geek. Like many who are caught up in the personal development and biohacking craze, I have read, listened to, and I tried nearly every trick in the book — a dark room, eight-plus hours of sleep, exercise, decreased caffeine, a better bed, specialized sleep music, meditation, no alarm. Yawn!

Even though getting to sleep was never a problem for me, no matter what I did, I’d often wake up feeling tired, anxious, and riddled with aches and pains. Sadly, I even started to think these issues were normal.

Then, a little over a year ago, I listened…

GOOD QUESTION

The internet makes quite a fuss about the ways we arrange our bodies in repose.

Googling “best sleep position” turns up a cool 765 million results, and some of the top hits maintain that how you sleep — back, stomach, left or right side, fetal — has profound implications for your spine, heart, breathing, appearance, and much else. There’s even some Freudian pseudoscience linking certain sleep positions to personality traits, which seems to have about as much solid scientific backing as palmistry.

All of these claims are somewhat confounded by the fact that we all tend to sleep in a…

One night in the early 1960s, when he was about 17, a high school football star and all-state wrestler named Donald Galvin smashed 10 dishes to pieces — all at once, while standing in front of the kitchen sink.

His father wrote it off. So did his mother. Donald was a teenager, moody. It was the ’60s. Other kids were doing worse.

But Donald knew there was something wrong. He’d known for a while. He knew that being a star on the football field and having a friendship with another person were two very different things. Sometimes, he would say…

Yoga is an ever-evolving, ancient practice with South Asian origins. But for many people living in the West, yoga has meant something very specific for the past several decades: thin, lithe, usually white women bending in spandex in a minimalist hardwood floor studio.

The past year has thankfully changed some of that perception.

For the first time, people who want to practice yoga have had no choice but to do so from home. Luckily, there has been no shortage of Zoom classes, YouTube videos, and fitness apps for both experienced practitioners and eager pandemic beginners. And beautifully, many people have…