Quote of the Day: “Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful.” – Norman Vincent Peale
Photo: by Can Pac Swire, CC license on Flickr
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Quote of the Day: “One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas Day. Don’t clean it up too quickly.” – Andy Rooney
Photo: by rjcox, CC license on Flickr
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quotes page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
Oh the holidays!
We may love our family and enjoy seeing them, but we may also have very differing perspectives on the world. Family gatherings seem to be a catalyst for uncomfortable conversations with family members, whether it be about politics, religion or just having to update the entire family on your life. After a challenging political season and vastly differing views on certain topics, some may consider sitting out the holidays all together. Although the holidays are a time to be grateful for the people you’re bonded with for life, it can sometimes be difficult. The holidays bring together a lot of opinions and personalities which pave the way for awkward moments. Fortunately, we have 7 tips to help you survive the uncomfortable conversations you may be about to have with family.
1. Ask the Host for a Debate Free Zone. Whether you’re the host of the family gathering or someone else, ask that “hot” topics not be discussed during the gathering. This could pertain to politics, religion or known differences in opinion. Family will be more likely to come and with a good attitude if they know controversial topics will be avoided.
RELATED: Grandma Accidentally Invites Stranger to Thanksgiving, Tells Him to Come Anyway
2. Realize You Probably Can’t Change Opinions of Others. You can avoid arguments by realizing something you’ve probably figured out in life on your own already—trying to change someone’s opinion (especially an older family member)—is just about useless. People don’t change their mind by arguing with them. Attempting to change your uncle’s mind will only get you both more defensive of your opinions.
3. Be Ok With Silence. Maybe the conversation is uncomfortable because you have nothing in common with a relative. If this happens, don’t try to say something for the sake of talking. Be okay with the silence and use it to plan something intelligent to say. Too many awkward moments happen when we feel the need to blurt out something, to realize a moment later we just stuck our foot in our mouth.
4. Change the Subject. Sometimes tricky, sometimes smooth, changing the subject is almost a conversational art. You can deflect an uncomfortable question by responding vaguely or look at others around you to join in so you’re not alone handling a response. Don’t be afraid to mention something random either. Like you just remembered something cool you wanted to share. You’d just need to think of something on the spot.
MORE: What Mindfulness Has Taught Me About My Father’s Suicide
5. Plan Indoor Activities. Where there’s entertainment, there’s little time for debate. Keep the party going by planning activities for everyone to enjoy. Bring out the board games, plug in the karaoke machine, plan a craft table, and have family bring instruments if they play one and get a sing-a-long going. Who doesn’t love a good holiday movie? Play a good movie family can watch together like Miracle on 34th Street or Home Alone. This will insure the guests have sweet memories about the holiday vs. negative ones.
6. Plan Outdoor Activities. Fresh Air and exercise are good for everyone’s mind, body and spirit. If the weather is cooperative, organize an outing for ice skating or snow shoeing. If there’s snow, gather the troops for a snowman building contest. At the very least, get those who are interested out for a quick walk or a drive to view holiday lights.
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7. Stay Confident. Our families are often our biggest critics. A family gathering may bring with it a smorgasbord of opinions and advice from aunts, uncles, grandparents and cousins. And they all like to put in their two cents about what you should be doing in life. In situations like this, remain confident. They don’t live your life and although you’ll listen to their advice, you don’t have to follow it.
Don’t let the anticipation of uncomfortable conversations with family bring you down this holiday season. Keep your chin up, go with a good attitude and enjoy the holidays!
Justin Lavelle is Communications Director at PeopleLooker. PeopleLooker is the fast, affordable, and easy way to access public records and search for people. Find out ages, marital status, addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, criminal records, and more. PeopleLooker is a popular tool for online daters who use the app to check the background of potential dates.
Click To Share These Helpful Tips With Your Friends – Photo by Didriks, CC
In a world first, a small robot was deployed to plant thousands of baby coral in a mass repopulation project for the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.
The LarvalBot is a briefcase-sized underwater drone that recently dispersed over 100,000 microscopic heat-resistant coral larvae across damaged segments of reef.
In a bid to protect the marine life from climate change, the coral larvae was derived from species that have been shown to be especially tolerant of warmer waters. Scientists will monitor the reefs during the coming months to ensure that the larvae grows properly – and if it proves to be successful, researchers plan on developing the LarvalBot so that it can deploy millions more coral larvae in the future.
Furthermore, they hope to deploy a small army of LarvalBots that will be able to repopulate coral reefs around the world.
“This year represents a big step up for our larval restoration research and the first time we’ve been able to capture coral spawn on a bigger scale using large floating spawn catchers then rearing them into tiny coral larvae in our specially constructed larval pools and settling them on damaged reef areas,” said Professor Peter Harrison from Southern Cross University, one of the colleges that helped to develop the project.
“With further research and refinement, this technique has enormous potential to operate across large areas of reef and multiple sites in a way that hasn’t previously been possible,” he added. “We’ll be closely monitoring the progress of settled baby corals over coming months and working to refine both the technology and the technique to scale up further in 2019.”
(WATCH the video below) – Photo by Gary Cranitch / Queensland Museum / Great Barrier Reef Foundation
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A compassionate combat veteran and his wife are donating almost all of their worldly possessions to firefighters who were combatting the blaze in Paradise, California.
Kim Ringeisen and his wife Annette will be moving to North Carolina from their home in California. Instead of paying to ship all of their furniture and household goods across the country, however, they opted to donate it all to the 40 firefighters who lost their homes in the wildfires last month.
Apart from a few sentimental possessions, the two of them filled up a 26-foot shipping truck with the contents of their house and donated it to the firefighters.
The Ringeisens also donated an additional storage unit filled with their stuff to California firefighters as well – and since Annette makes dolls for a living, she packaged up dozens of her homemade toys as Christmas gifts for the children of the civil servants.
To top it all off, Kim raised over $850 in online donations to cover any financial needs the firefighters might have.
“They’re out there every day protecting lives and protecting property and doing the best that they can with it and I think we can help them out when needed,” the combat veteran told Inside Edition.
(WATCH the video below) – Photo by Kim Ringeisen
Be Sure And Share This Inspiring Story With Your Friends On Social Media
Erin Schulte may not get to see the fruits of her labor in person, but she has been working like an elf to spread a little Christmas cheer to homeless people across North America.
Schulte, who is from Delta, British Columbia, has been collecting thousands of holiday cards to place on the pillows of people living in homeless shelters on the nights leading up to Christmas.
The Canadian woman began the “Christmas Card Collective” last year when she asked her friends and family members to send her cards that she could pass on to the less fortunate.
After setting a modest goal of 225 cards, Schulte was stunned to receive over 800 letters – so this year, she took to social media in the hopes of collecting even more.
Sure enough, Schulte says that she has already received thousands of additional cards from strangers young and old, and their heartfelt messages have moved her to tears.
“These are the most words from complete strangers. You don’t know if it’s someone in kindergarten, an 80-year-old lady… it’s just a big beautiful bundle of Christmas spirit and giving,” Schulte told CTV Vancouver as she sorted through piles of cards.
Over the course of the last few months, Schulte and her friends have been reading each individual card before packing them up and sending them to homeless shelters across Canada.
This year, she says that she even sent cards to shelters in Los Angeles, and she planned on hand-delivering a shipment of cards to a youth shelter in Seattle.
(WATCH the news coverage below) – Photo by CTV Vancouver
Be Sure And Send This Sweet Letter To Your Friends On Social Media
Quote of the Day: “Christmas is a tonic for our souls. It moves us to think of others rather than of ourselves. It directs our thoughts to giving.” ― B.C. Forbes
Photo: by Alan Cleaver, CC license on Flickr
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quotes page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
So many millions of people travel for the holidays that there are bound to be mishaps—and some of you may be expecting the worst when you head to the airport.
Yet, so many folks are in such a jolly mood, you are just as likely to be blessed by a ‘travel angel,’ someone who is eager to assist or offer you something that makes you break out in the biggest smile.
On my trip back to Virginia last week, I saw a stranger offer her lotion to a toddler who likes to rub it on her tummy. I was pointed in the right direction toward the gate by someone who heard me asking myself out loud, ‘where is number four?’ Most impressive, was the treatment I received on United Air flight 653 to Dulles airport.
Four or five years ago, my husband would dread flying United due to their constant flight delays and over-booking, but, apparently, changes are in the air.
A month ago, United launched some heartwarming videos on social media documenting a few ways that the airline had helped passengers in need. One featured a woman who had lost her laptop and frantically needed it for a presentation the next day. As Editor-in-Chief at Good News Network, I thought about sharing them, but reconsidered for various reasons (not the least of which was imagining commenters on Facebook loudly griping about the many ways United had failed them, which would require heavy moderation to keep our community a positive place).
However, when I experienced an afternoon flight that was on-time, with stellar service in the air for myself, I decided to share my story, and ask others what kind of travel angels they were running into this week.
The first angel of kindness arrived when I ordered 2 mini bottles of scotch to drink on the long cross-country flight, and the woman with the drink cart said, ‘2 for 1’, and only charged me for one.
The second angel showed up after none of the electrical outlets in our seat row were working. I became frustrated after paying for 5 hours of wifi, to only get a chance to use 2.5 of those because my laptop had run out of battery life so quickly. I walked to the back galley to see what could be done. The flight attendant immediately took out his phone and, needing only my seat number, offered me a $75 flight voucher or 3750 free miles on my frequent flyer account.
I commented, “You guys are upping your game at United,” and he told me, “They’re giving us more tools” to keep people happy.
RELATED: JetBlue is Delivering Gift-Wrapped People to Their Loved Ones for Christmas
Happy enough with that consolation, I asked if he could warm up a ham and cheese croissant that was leftover from an earlier lunch. He said he had no way to do that, but another flight attendant from First Class had arrived just then and said he could do it in the other galley. I touched his shoulder to spin him around to take note of his name badge so I could thank him properly. The thought of melted cheese at that moment revised my spirit.
Miguel whisked away my sandwich and another flight attendant later brought it to my seat, warm and flakey. Ten minutes later, however, she showed up again with a surprise, saying, ‘This is from Miguel.’
It was a little glass bowl sitting on a glass saucer with a silverware spoon. Inside was a scoop of the most delicious frozen ice cream, with chocolate sauce and whipped cream on top!
I sat there just beaming. I was incredulous that this had just happened on an airplane—IN COACH. This wasn’t Virgin, or Swiss Air, or Southwest. This was United.
Apparently, The Friendly Skies is no longer just a slogan. Thank you to all the wonderful workers on this Tuesday flight from LAX.
I would love to hear your stories about any ‘travel angels’ who floated into your life wearing a holiday halo—so please share in the comments!
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Three Women Are Being Praised for Coming to the Rescue of Stressed Mother at the Airport
SHARE the Expectation of Having Good Things Happen—on Social Media
The Lesson: In this helpful take on relationships, a clinical psychologist discusses the principle qualities to be concerned with when you are looking for a long-term partner. Caution should be used when there is too much mismatch between the five fundamental personality types. He describes the five types, and the reasons that finding a person whose personality meshes with your own is so important—but also he also believes that being too alike will hamper one’s personal growth. What happens when opposites attract?
Notable Excerpt: “I think of marriage the same way, people think ‘oh, they lived happily ever after’ but that’s not what you want in a marriage. You want someone to contend with because you learn through that wrestling […] you learn where you’re an idiot and where you should stop being (fill in the blank). It’s the fact that you have to contend with someone under all sorts of circumstances. Theoretically, it’s a manner of promoting psychological, you could say, spiritual growth, and it’s genuine.
The Guest: A renown Canadian clinical psychologist and professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, Professor Peterson’s lectures are available on YouTube, and he also hosts his own podcast. He is the author of “12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos” and “Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief”.
The Host (relevant only for the second clip): H3H3 Productions is a comedy YouTube channel created by the Israeli-American husband and wife team Ethan and Hila Klein. Together, the duo produce reaction videos and sketch comedy. They also host the H3 Podcast which you can find on Soundcloud, iTunes, and Stitcher.
(LISTEN to the fascinating talk below)
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A cross-country skier is lucky to be alive after being saved from icy waters earlier this month thanks to some newly-trained firefighters and their innovative new rescue device.
Just two hours after the St. Paul firefighting team underwent ice rescue training, they were called to the aid of someone who had fallen into the waters of McCarrons Lake in Roseville, Minnesota.
“The new firefighter who actually went in the water to effect the rescue said the training that day was the first time he had been in the water with the ice rescue suit doing those maneuvers,” Tom McDonough, St. Paul deputy fire chief of training, told Pioneer Press.
The firefighters are much more capable of successfully completing such rescue operations now that they started using the ARM-LOC: an inflatable sleeve that attaches to a drowning victim’s arm and allows rescuers to pull them to safety.
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Inventor Connie Sylvester and her family in Duluth, Minnesota, were inspired to develop the device after they saw a woman on television who was unable to be saved from icy waters because her hands were too cold to grip the rescue rope.
The ARM-LOC, however, ensures that an endangered person can be pulled to safety without having to grab hold of anything.
The Pioneer Press says that there are now over 100 fire and sheriff’s departments around the state that are using the ARM-LOC, engineered by Sylvester’s company Water Rescue Innovations.
The cuff easily slips over the victim’s forearm and they only have to pull the ring for the sleeve to inflate and create a tight hold around the arm.
The company has further developed the cuff to be used in fire rescues.
(WATCH the demonstration video below)
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When you give a veterinarian a mouse suit, you know that any surgery on an anxious pup will turn out well.
Though you can imagine the tactic being used by pediatricians, Mike Farrell had a hunch that donning the huge grey and pink onesie-style outfit would be a big help with Rupert the Dalmatian, who needed an operation on his leg last week.
The suit smelled like Rupert’s owner, Sonya Schiff, who brought it along on the day of the surgery to help sooth the dog in Hertfordshire, England, after he previously showed signs of aggression whenever the vet tried to touch him.
On the day of the surgery for hip dysplasia and cruciate ligament problems, Schiff hoped that her smell could lull the devoted pet to sleep while he was in care, but when the ailing pooch was still too skittish to handle, Doc Farrell jumped into the costume himself.
The result—while looking ridiculous—proved highly effective, as Farrell was able to examine Rupert thoroughly before performing surgery on the ligament.
“As dogs have a superior sense of smell, 10,000 and 100,000 times better than people, their brain processes information in a very short period of time,” said Monika Kafno, a dog behaviorist who attended the surgery at Davies Veterinary Specialists. “This triggers an association of the smell with a particular experience or event in their life.”
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Ms. Schiff doesn’t know what the plush gray outfit will trigger in the future, since its brilliant use at the clinic, but surely these sweet photos will provide a lasting memory of the day Rupert got a new leash on life.
Be Sure And Share This Pawesome Story With Your Friends On Social Media
Quote of the Day: “I’ve learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way they handle three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights.” – Maya Angelou
Photo: by Ryan Dickey, CC license on Flickr
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quotes page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
The Corona brewing company has just announced that they will be launching a pilot program in which they will be replacing their plastic 6-pack ring packaging with something that is 100% plastic-free and biodegradable.
The new plastic-free rings are being made from plant-based biodegradable fibers, with a mix of by-product waste and compostable materials.
If left in the environment, they break down into organic material that is not harmful to wildlife, whereas the industry standard plastic six pack rings are made from a photodegradable form of polyethylene that results in increasingly smaller pieces of plastic if not recycled—at a terrible cost to the environment.
Corona will begin testing the plastic-free rings in their homeland of Mexico at the start of the new year. If the initiative proves successful, they plan on expanding the rings to the UK as well.
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The plastic-free packaging is part of Corona’s partnership with Parley for the Oceans. Since the partnership launched last year, Corona and Parley have conducted over 300 clean-ups in more than 15 countries, including the Maldives, Palau, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Chile, Indonesia, Italy, South Africa and Australia, resulting in more than three million pounds of plastic waste collected.
“The beach is an important part of Corona’s DNA and we have been working with Parley to address the issue on the frontlines where plastic is physically accumulating,” said Corona Better World Director Evan Ellman in a statement. “We also recognize the influence a global brand like Corona can have on the industry, and with the support of Parley, are pursuing scalable solutions like plastic-free six pack rings that can become a new standard to avoid plastic for good.”
Corona is now the second global beer brand to implement such sustainable packaging, since Danish-based brewer Carlsberg announced that they would begin piloting a similar initiative back in September.
Clean Up Negativity By Sharing The Good News To Social Media – Photo by Corona
7-year-old Tyler Stallings may not have superpowers, but in light of how many people he’s helped, he definitely deserves to wear a cape: the youngster has spent the last three years helping thousands of Maryland veterans.
He first became inspired to lend a helping hand when his mom Andrea taught him about about veteran homelessness in 2015.
“On a whim, I showed Tyler a video about the sacrifices that people make to serve our country,” says Andrea, who is from a family of veterans.
When she went on to say that their family was unable to build homes for the veterans who don’t have them, Tyler asked if he could simply give them everything else they might need.
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He began filling “Hero Bags” with clothes, shoes, snacks, toiletries, soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste, lotion, shaving gel, and hand sanitizer—and with his mom’s help, he was able to start handing them out to local vets at the Maryland Center for Veteran Education and Training (MCVET). But it didn’t end there.
“At first, it was hard for people to take a four-year-old seriously,” says Andrea. “It took me a while to find a shelter that would let him come in and help. But when shelters like MCVET finally did, they loved having him there. It’s nice to have a child in an environment like that. We would take them care packages with toiletries and grooming products to thank people for their service, and they would take whatever they needed.”
Over the course of the next three years, the youngster has given away over 2,000 Hero Bags and gift cards to homeless vets.
Additionally, he partnered with local mattress manufacturers to provide 250 mattress for the vets living at MCVET.
To date, the youngster has raised over $17,200 in GoFundMe donations for his mission. He one day hopes to raise use a portion of the donations to start his own nonprofit so he can help other kinds of homeless people as well – and his mother could not be any more proud of him.
“Recently, Tyler showed up to an event to thank a veteran who has suffered from 15 strokes. The look on the man’s face when Tyler handed him a Hero Bag… it was just amazing,” said Andrea. “Maybe no one has ever made these veterans feel like their contributions are significant. This is how we show them our appreciation.”
Be Sure And Share This Sweet Story Of Kindness With Your Friends – Photos by GoFundMe
A doting dad was overcome with emotion when someone showed up at his door with a bag filled with 14 years-worth of gifts from his neighbor, who had just died. Hear The Good News Guru tell her feel-good story of the week (from the December 21, 2018 Ellen K. Morning Show on KOST-103.5 radio in Los Angeles).
READ the full story at GNN.
Subscribe to our Good News podcast on iTunes, or for Android devices on Podbean.
LISTEN to this story from our podcast, told by The Good News Guru (GNN Founder) on Friday’s radio broadcast with Ellen K on KOST-103.5 — Or, READ the story below… (Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes – or for Androids, on Podbean)
_________________________
Ken Watson may have passed away in October, but a simple act of kindness that he performed before he died has already resulted in a lasting legacy.
Ken Watson was the 86-year-old neighbor of the Williams family. Owen Williams and his wife first moved into their home in Barry, Wales three years ago, and Owen says that he first caught a glimpse of Watson while the octogenarian was nudging a 20-foot ladder across the front of his house, all while he was balanced at the top.
The family formed a fast friendship with Watson, which was further strengthened when they gave birth to their daughter Cadi two years ago.
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Watson became a grandfather figure to the youngster, and every Christmas, he made sure to get her a gift.
After he died two months ago, the Williams family was stunned when his daughter showed up to their house with a massive plastic bag.
Inside the bag was 14 years worth of wrapped gifts that Watson had purchased for Cadi.
Our elderly neighbour passed away recently. His daughter popped round a few moments ago clutching a large plastic sack. In the sack were all the Christmas presents he’d bought for *our* daughter for the next thirteen years. ? pic.twitter.com/6CjiZ99Cor
— Owen Williams ??????? (@OwsWills) December 17, 2018
“I kept reaching into the bag and pulling out more presents,” Williams told The Washington Post. “It was quite something.”
Williams believed that Watson chose 14 presents because he always told them that he would live to be 100 years old – and he died 14 years early.
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The family decided to start a new Christmas tradition called, “A Present from Ken”, but they couldn’t decide whether to unwrap ’em first in order to figure out which ones were age-appropriate for each year.
My wife and I think it might make a nice Christmas tradition to give our daughter “a present from Ken” for the next 14 years.
— Owen Williams ??????? (@OwsWills) December 17, 2018
Issue is, we really have to open them now. Nobody wants to give a fifteen-year-old Duplo!
A quick Twitter poll revealed that 69% of Williams’s followers believed he should do the “lucky dip” by leaving the presents wrapped and letting fate decide which gift Cadi would be unwrapping.
“Message received loud and clear, Twitter!” wrote the doting dad. “We’re definitely going to open one every year till 2032 … It’ll be our way of remembering an immensely generous gentleman – our new Christmas tradition.”
He assured his new influx of invested followers that he would keep them updated by posting photos of the gifts to the same thread each year.
Williams also had some advice for Twitter: Get to know your neighbors.
“Take your neighbors a small gift, a token. Just say, ‘Hi.’ You can open a new world just like we did.”
Share This Sweet Story Of Holiday Kindness With Your Friends On Social Media – Feature photos by Owen Williams
A Christmas-mad office worker has transformed his desk into Britain’s most festive workspace: a snow-covered castle complete with a ‘smoking’ chimney.
For the third year running, engineer Jack Makepeace has created a merry masterpiece of his workspace so he can celebrate Christmas while on the job.
What started as a competition amongst his colleagues at Ibsecad, a building services firm in Leeds, West Yorkshire, has now become a tradition that his colleagues eagerly anticipate every holiday season.
This year, the newly-married Yuletide fan drew inspiration for his makeshift winter palace after he spent his recent honeymoon at the Ice Hotel in Sweden.
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The engineer has always loved Christmas, but especially so because his new wife Charlotte is partially blind, and she loves to see the vague sparkles of holiday decorations.
Makepeace said: “Charlotte has a genetic disorder called retinitis pigmentosa which meant she lost her sight at 14 years old. She only has a little light perception left so she can see all the sparkles, on the tinsel and from the lights, so it is a very special time for us.”
The 24-year-old then built a cardboard castle covered in white felt that resembled snow . He even equipped the creation with a working drawbridge and a chimney for escaping ‘smoke’ – or more accurately, if somebody vapes through it.
It also comes complete with fairy lights, tinsel, penguins, and sugar canes – and whenever Makepeace isn’t sitting inside of his castle to do his work, he sets his computer’s screensaver mode to a video of a burning log fire.
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“It took me about three hours to make,” says Makepeace. “I have a degree in engineering, so luckily, the drawbridge didn’t pose too many problems to construct.
“I then went into the office on Sunday to staple the whole thing together – [and] I promise it was all done in my own time.”
He goes on to say that he had only been working at the firm for a few months when they first launched the desktop competition in 2016.
“Others had put Christmas trees on their desk and I decided I wanted to go ‘out there’,” says Makepeace. “I wasn’t quite sure whether it was the right thing to do, with me only working here a short while, but I thought ‘sod it, it can only make people smile.”
“It went down such a storm that my colleagues said I had to make a bigger house next year – which I did – so this year I thought I better build a castle.”
His ambitious creativity is especially brave considering how Makepeace’s desk is located next to the boss.
But on the contrary, the firm’s officer manager, David Coy, said that Makepeace “knocked it out of the park.”
WATCH: This Jolly King Has Lived in His Sandcastle for the Last 22 Years
“I set up the competition in 2016 to create a bit of festive cheer in the office,” says Coy. “The rest of us used a bit of tinsel and a tree, then Jack created a masterpiece that was absolutely incredible” adding that “he deserved the prize of a bottle of Jack Daniels” and they are already “excited to see what he’ll do in 2019.”
“We were slightly worried about what he could be getting up to in his boxed-in castle, but he does sit next to the regional director and he has put a window in there so we can have a peek in.”
(WATCH the festive footage below)
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Quote of the Day: “You must love in such a way that the person you love feels free.” – Thich Nhat Hanh
Photo: by Dan Foy, CC license on Flickr
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quotes page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
Written by Mark Waghorn / SWNS
If you can’t figure out why you’re so desperately craving junk food late at night, this new research says that it might be because you’re not getting enough sleep.
Based on studies from Cologne University in Germany, tiredness boosts both production of brain cells and hunger hormones that are linked to comfort eating and hunger respectively.
Additionally, researchers say that participants who went an entire night with no sleep were willing to fork out more cash for snacks like chocolates and biscuits compared to non-food items. On the other hand, they would not spend the same excessive amounts of money after getting a proper night’s rest.
It explains why we are more likely to reach for the biscuit tin than a piece of fruit late at night. Britain is among the most overweight and sleep-deprived nations in the world – and evidence shows that the two are linked.
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Psychologist Julia Rihm said: “We found a full night of sleep deprivation compared with a night of habitual sleep increased the subjective values of snack food rewards compared with non-food rewards.”
Using MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) brain scans, her team showed losing sleep fired up neurons in the amygdala and hypothalamus. The former is an area of grey matter that has been linked to reward seeking behavior – such as eating – under stress. The latter controls appetite.
“The data suggests one way a lack of sleep can promote overeating and obesity risk,” said Rihm. “This behavioral result was paralleled by increased amygdala and hypothalamus activity selectively after sleep deprivation.
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Blood tests also showed increased levels of ghrelin, the hormone that tells us to eat.
The study published in JNeurosci was based on 32 healthy 19 to 33-year-old men of normal weight who were kept awake and allowed to sleep normally.
Each experiment followed an evening meal of yogurt and pasta and meat in a creamy mushroom sauce at Rihm’s laboratory on two separate nights.
At each visit, they were instructed to either return home to get a normal night’s sleep while wearing a watch that monitors activity or to spend the night at the lab where they were kept awake. This allowed the team to compare their desire for snack foods – along with their brain activity and hormone levels – during each morning after the experiments.
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The next day, they were given €3 to spend on snacks, such as popular brands of German chocolate bars or chips, or everyday household items or university merchandise.
In an online auction, images of the goods flashed up on screen with prices going up in increments of 25 pence. Only after sleep deprivation were the participants willing to pay extra money for the junk food items, which they were then allowed to eat afterwards.
“Sleep loss is associated with increased obesity risk, as demonstrated by correlations between sleep duration and change in body mass index or body fat percentage,” said Rihm. “We found ghrelin concentrations were increased after sleep deprivation compared with habitual sleep.
“Despite similar hunger ratings due to fasting in both conditions, participants were willing to spend more money on food items only after sleep deprivation.
“Furthermore, MRI data paralleled this behavioral finding – revealing how a food reward-specific up-regulation of hypothalamic valuation signals and amygdala-hypothalamic coupling after a single night of sleep deprivation.”
She said the findings shed fresh light on the link between sleep deprivation and obesity.
“One problem of modern society is sleep restriction building up constantly over a week of work rather than total sleep deprivation,” said Rihm. “However, in our approach, we used a total night of using sleep deprivation as a first step in unravelling mechanisms underlying sleep loss-associated increased food valuation.
“Taken together, our findings reveal a mechanism through which sleep deprivation might promote food intake by enabling food cues to gain access to processing in hypothalamic circuits via the amygdala.
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A similar study conducted by Swedish researchers last year found that their participants went on to purchase food that was higher in calories and weighed almost a fifth more than their normal intake after losing one night’s sleep, which implies that grocery shopping while tired could have a knock-on effect for our overall wellbeing.
So if you’re anxious about your junk food intake, try hitting the hay a little earlier and see if it affects your dietary choices.
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Brian Armstrong has become the first CEO of a cryptocurrency company to join a pledge that commits the majority of their wealth to causes benefiting the greater good.
Armstrong, who is the founder of Coinbase, signed The Giving Pledge: an agreement that recruits billionaires from around the world to donate their finances to philanthropic initiatives.
The pledge was started by Warren Buffett and Bill Gates in 2010, and it has since been signed by such entrepreneurial moguls as Elon Musk, Michael Bloomberg, and 150 other international philanthropists.
Though Armstrong’s exact financial contribution has not yet been disclosed, Forbes estimated that his net worth clocked in somewhere between $900 million and $1 billion in February.
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Furthermore, since Coinbase has become the leading U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange, it reportedly generated $1 billion in revenue in 2017, and they are expected to bring in an additional $1.3 billion during the coming year.
“Once a certain level of wealth is reached, there is little additional utility from spending more on yourself,” said the 35-year-old CEO in a statement. “One’s ambition begins to move outwards. I’ve always admired founders and leaders whose ambition to improve the world supersedes any goal related to personal wealth.”
“There is a quote I saw recently which read ‘The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches, but to reveal to him their own.’ This stuck with me. Whether it’s through improving education, creating a more level playing field, or increasing economic freedom, I’m interested in helping more people see their ideas come to fruition in the world.”
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