Light is a Drug If reading this at night, you might want to dim the lights. Q: What is the drug everyone is sensitive to? A: Light. (Some, but not all blind people are exceptions – more below) Q:What does it do? A: Change body clocks; in the daytime improve mood and create vitamin D; […]
Want to control your weight? Treat food as information (1/6/11)
Information is Physical Now that the holidays are over, you really want to control your eating – forever. One useful way is to see food as information, as a series of messages given to the body. So look at your body the way many physicists do – as a giant information processing machine. […]
Caffeine, alcohol, and the holidays (12/23/10)
What Will You Do This Year? What do people do during the holidays? Many will drink too much and eat too much (please see the recent article “Don’t Stuff the Wrong Turkey” for help controlling excess eating.) What else do lots of us do? Stay up late with relatives and friends, talking and drinking – […]
If I get sick can I blame the weather? (12/06/10)
Can you blame your illness on weather changes? If you’re injured, yes. Just check your emergency room. Evidence from Warwick University shows significant increases in accident visits when the daily maximum or minimum temperature goes up or down more than five degrees Centigrade (9 degrees Fahrenheit.) The effects were largest in winter and summer. With […]
Don’t let daylight savings get you down (11/21/10)
Messing with Mother Nature It happens like clockwork every year. Patients arrive and tell me they can’t handle daylight savings. The body clock change of merely one hour, compared with a flight to Europe, where the change is usually six hours, makes them feel uneasy, skittish, unhappy, unmotivated, and fatigued. How come? Here are some […]