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StillnessReflection

You lose the thread of an explanation and feel tempted to nod along. Asking to hear it again can feel awkward for a moment. It also gives the other person a chance to clear up what you missed before you have to act on it.

Original reflection

Mind

The story behind the card

Many people stay quiet because they fear a question will make them look slow. A 2015 study by Alison Wood Brooks, Francesca Gino and Maurice Schweitzer points the other way: in their experiments, people who asked others for advice were judged more competent, not less, especially when the task was hard. Asking to hear something again sends a similar signal: you care about getting it right rather than guessing.

Türkçe oku
Bir açıklamanın bir yerini kaçırırsın ve anlamış gibi başını sallamak istersin. “Bir daha anlatır mısın?” demek o an biraz utandırabilir. Ama böylece karşındaki kişi, sen işe koyulmadan önce kaçırdığın yeri yeniden anlatma fırsatı bulur.

Çoğumuz, soru sorarsak yavaş anlayan biri gibi görüneceğimizden korktuğumuz için susarız. Alison Wood Brooks, Francesca Gino ve Maurice Schweitzer'in 2015'teki araştırması tersini gösteriyor: Deneylerde başkasına akıl danışan kişiler daha az değil, daha yetkin bulundu; özellikle de iş zor olduğunda. Bir şeyi yeniden anlatmasını istemek de benzer bir izlenim bırakır: Tahmin yürütmek yerine işi doğru yapmayı önemsediğini gösterirsin.

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Memory consolidation is the slow process that turns a fresh, fragile memory into a lasting one, and much of it happens during sleep. In 1997 the German researchers Werner Plihal and Jan Born showed that different parts of the night help different kinds of memory. Twenty healthy men learned lists of word pairs and practised mirror tracing, drawing a shape while watching only its reflection. Recall of the word pairs improved most over the first half of the night, when deep, slow-wave sleep dominates, while the drawing skill improved most over the second half, when REM sleep, the stage of vivid dreams, lasts longer. Researchers think that during sleep the brain replays the day's experiences and moves new memories from temporary storage in the hippocampus, deep in the brain, into longer-lasting networks in its outer layer, the cortex.

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The CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) is the United States' national public health agency, founded in Atlanta in 1946. Its advice on exercise follows the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, whose second edition, published in 2018, drew on a review of the previous decade's research. Earlier advice had focused on preventing disease over the years; the new edition also listed benefits people can feel at once. Besides easing anxiety and lowering blood pressure, a single session helps the body respond to insulin, the hormone that moves sugar from the blood into cells. Most of these effects grow with regular activity, while others, such as fitness, strength and a lasting fall in blood pressure, take weeks or months. The guidelines recommend at least 150 minutes of moderate activity a week.

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Regular physical activity protects the heart, lifts mood, eases anxiety and improves sleep, according to the World Health Organization. These benefits do not depend on losing weight: people of every shape and size gain them, even when nothing changes on the scales or in the mirror.

The World Health Organization counts any movement that uses energy as physical activity: walking, cycling, sport, active play, housework and physical work. Its 2020 guidelines advise adults to do 150 to 300 minutes of moderate activity a week, such as brisk walking, or 75 to 150 minutes of vigorous activity, such as running, plus muscle-strengthening exercise on at least two days. In 2022 about 31% of adults worldwide, some 1.8 billion people, fell short of that. Weight is a poor guide to these benefits. The US Physical Activity Guidelines state that they are generally independent of body weight, and a 2014 analysis of ten studies found that fit people who were overweight or obese had death rates similar to fit people of normal weight, while unfit people had about twice the risk, whatever their weight.

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Kerb cuts, the small ramps where a pavement meets the road, were won by disabled campaigners for wheelchair users. They now help anyone pushing a pram, pulling a suitcase or wheeling a trolley.

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Braille is a writing system read with the fingertips: each letter is a pattern of raised dots within a small cell of six.

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