Thinking Captured in the Blink of an Eye
Wise & Well Weekly: The newsletter helping you make tomorrow a little better than today
Welcome back to your weekly dose of wisdom and wellness, with science-backed insights you can use to improve your physical, mental and emotional well-being. If you like what you see, please follow Wise & Well and/or subscribe to this newsletter.
THIS WEEK’S SNAPSHOT
Blinking keeps the surface of your eyeballs moist and well-oxygenated. That’s the main purpose of the largely automatic behavior. But when we’re stressed, we blink more rapidly, lab studies have shown. Why, it’s not clear.
In a clever new study, scientists examined 25 episodes of the British game show Mastermind to analyze the blink rates of a hundred contestants. Among the findings, reported this week in the journal Psychophysiology:
- Contestants blinked at the start of their response, in some sort of “punctuation of thought,” the scientists concluded.
- Overall during the game, they blinked twice as often as the normal 20 blinks per minute, considered the average for a person at rest. The rapid blinking has been shown in previous research to be a sign of stress.
- Yet while they were specifically thinking about how to respond to a question, the contestants actually blinked less.
- Older contestants blinked more than younger ones.
- Women blinked more than men.
The research did not explain why these differences exist, but the scientists say using game shows to study blinking is a novel research approach that could cast fresh eyes on human thought and behavior.
HEALTHY READING
A selection of this week’s informative and insightful Wise & Well articles:
Before Thanksgiving Turns Ugly
The holiday linked to gratitude and family togetherness has morphed into a conversational minefield. To understand why, the writer explains the brain’s ancient ways of dealing with conflict and emotions, then experts weigh in on strategies and tactics to lower the temperature and keep your sanity intact.
— By Kathleen Murphy
Why I Won’t be Taking Vitamin D Supplements This Winter
This medical doctor and clinical nutrition resident has been taking vitamin D every winter. But after getting beyond the hype to learn more about the vitamin’s benefits and limitations, she’s learned that while it’s necessary for some people with specific conditions — under advice from a physician — most of us don’t need it.
— By Denny Pencheva, MD
Is Ketamine Over-Hyped?
Websites for ketamine infusion clinics tout the powerful benefits of ketamine for ADHD. Yet while the once-popular party drug can help with depression and pain, evidence that it works for other conditions is weak. In a deep dive on the power of ketamine, this writer, psychiatrist and neuroscientist explains why we should not fall for the marketing claims while we await actual research on the product.
— By John Kruse MD, PhD
The Overwhelming Lack of Intellectual Humility
Most of us have way too much confidence in our views and beliefs, which are often based on selected evidence. We get into a thought groove and nothing can change our minds. It’s why we argue so much. If we wish to achieve actual wisdom, we need to think good, which starts with seeking intellectual humility — acknowleding we don’t know as much as we think we know. That can cultivate empathy, which can then lead to wisdom.
— By Robert Roy Britt
Your Amazing, Personalized Mental Dictionary
If you’re average, you know more than 40,000 words. How you retrieve and use them in milliseconds is astonishing. But why is it sometimes so hard to find the right word? This expert explains those strange but (usually) normal tip-of-the-tongue experiences, and a whole lot more about word retrieval that you never knew.
—By Nichol Castro
The Great (and Risky) Melatonin Experiment on Children
Use of melatonin to deal with sleep problems among children has soared, a new survey finds, even though the supplement is of dubious effectiveness, the chewables and gummies don’t always contain what they say, and long-term health effects are unknown. This has a lot of pediatricians and sleep experts worried. Find out what pediatricians and sleep experts advise.
— By Robert Roy Britt
FURTHER READING
Helpful health and wellness articles elsewhere:
- How Step Counters Can be Useful for Weight Management (The Conversation)
- This Man Has Run Every Day for 48 Years (Runners World)
- More Americans, Including Young Adults, Struggle With Cognitive Fog (NY Times)
- Broken Hearts: Why Couples Often Die Together (Medium/Crow’s Feet)
- Life Expectancy Gap Between Women and Men Widens (UCSF)
RANDOM BIT OF WISDOM
“The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.”
― Terry Pratchett, in Diggers
Wise & Well writers are physicians, psychiatrists, research scientists, dieticians, fitness experts, journalists and other professionals who share their expertise to help you make tomorrow a little better than today. If you like any of these highly curated, professionally edited stories, please follow Wise & Well and/or subscribe to this newsletter. — Rob
