A racing heart, flushed cheeks, a desire to flee social situations: If this sounds familiar, you may suffer from social anxiety disorder, which plagues an estimated 15 million Americans. It can stop those who have it from applying for jobs, initiating friendships and this time of year, attending holiday parties.
But psychologists say there are learnable skills that can help sufferers learn to enjoy social events. Sometimes it means having a safe word to tell friends it’s time for you to escape ("If I say the word 'circus,' it means I'm ready to leave the party" says Angie Ebba, 39, of Portland, Ore.) Or it could be a mantra that can calm fears when they start to spike.
Want to lose belly fat? Try eating only between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. each day. Or between, say, 9 a.m. and 7 p.m.. It really might be that simple, a recent study of “intermittent fasting” suggests.
Doctors at the University of California, San Diego asked 19 overweight people to eat whatever they wanted each day – but keep all meals, snacks and other calories inside a 10-hour window. After only about three months, these folks were typically downing 8.6% fewer calories. They’d lost 3% of their weight, on average, and 4% of their “visceral body fat.”
Their high blood pressure was down, and cholesterol profile improved, too. The study was small, but the findings build on other research.
If you're one of the millions of Americans who owns a rescue dog, you may be curious about what breed your best friend is. Increasingly, pet owners are buying DNA testing kits to try to figure out their dog's ancestry. Some kits provide some information about possible health risks too. But the promise of these kits may be getting ahead of the science, according to some geneticists and animal researchers.
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