Does Your Busy Lifestyle Lead to Overeating?

If you're super busy, your hectic life may lead to being overweight.
How is a busy lifestyle connected with emotional eating and overeating?
There are lots of ways. First, we become nervous that eating healthy will require time (more time than we have). We react to this by not even trying, by going out to eat, and by grabbing food on the run. I know that I end up eating more carbs (think, frozen pizza) when I'm crazy busy.
Second, when we’re rushed we don’t pay full attention to what we're eating. This is why people who eat on the go or while doing work or watching TV tend to eat more.
Did you know that normal weight people underestimate what they eat by 30%? And people who are overweight underestimate their calorie intake by 60%! One reason for this is that we don’t pay attention to what we eat and then we don’t realize how much we eat.
Finally, an extremely busy lifestyle can lead to more intense emotions which can lead to emotional eating. When we’re super busy we often sacrifice sleep—and lack of sleep is a major cause of emotional instability. When we’re exhausted, we experience emotions more intensely and they often spike up quickly. We also act more impulsively without thinking decisions through.
And we’re less likely to exercise (since we’re so busy and tired) and exercise helps to stabilize

mood and therefore reduce emotional eating.

So What Do We Do About All This?

You're probably thinking that your life will not be any less busy any time soon. This is okay, but you'll have to make some minor changes. First, recognize that if you plan and shop well, it won't take longer to eat healthy food.
You can always prepare food for several days and freeze it and buy healthy organic frozen meals. Get prepackaged little bags of nuts and dried fruit (or make your own). Stock up on low-fat string cheese and other snacks you can grab and go.
Second, when you're eating, eat mindfully. To begin mindful eating, take 5-10 minutes and pay attention to your food. Realize how much you're eating. Eat slowly and savor it so a little goes a long way. The other day I ate a Take 5 bar (leftover from Halloween) while I was working on a book. After finishing it, I realized I hadn't even enjoyed it because I was focused on what I was writing. Don't make this mistake- pay attention to your food.
Third, work on keeping your sleep and emotions stable so you're less likely to engage in emotional eating. And if you know you're having a sleepy, cranky day, stay away from the drive-throughs and cookie aisle!
Now enjoy the health and weight loss benefits that these changes will bring you!

Ten Minutes Of Talking Improves Memory And Test Performance

Spending just 10 minutes talking to another person can help improve your memory and your performance on tests, according to a University of Michigan study to be published in the February 2008 issue of the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
"In our study, socializing was just as effective as more traditional kinds of mental exercise in boosting memory and intellectual performance," said Oscar Ybarra, a psychologist at the U-M Institute for Social Research (ISR) and a lead author of the study with ISR psychologist Eugene Burnstein and psychologist Piotr Winkielman from the University of California, San Diego.
In the article, Ybarra, Burnstein and colleagues report on findings from two types of studies they conducted on the relationship between social interactions and mental functioning.
In one study, they examined ISR survey data to see whether there was a relationship between mental functioning and specific measures of social interaction. The survey data included information on a national, stratified area probability sample of 3,610 people between the ages of 24 and 96. Their mental function was assessed through the mini-mental exam, a widely used test that measures knowledge of personal information and current events and that also includes a simple test of working memory.
Participants' level of social interactions was assessed by asking how often each week they talked on the phone with friends, neighbors and relatives, and how often they got together.
After controlling for a wide range of demographic variables, including age, education, race/ethnicity, gender, marital status and income, as well as for physical health and depression, the researchers looked at the connection between frequency of social contact and level of mental function on the mini-mental exam.
The higher the level of participants' social interaction, researchers found, the better their cognitive functioning. This relationship was reliable for all age groups, from the youngest through the oldest.
In a second experiment, the researchers conducted a laboratory test to assess how social interactions and intellectual exercises affected memory and mental performance. Participants were 76 college students, ages 18 to 21. Each student was assigned to one of three groups. Those in the social interaction group engaged in a discussion of a social issue for 10 minutes before taking the tests. Those in the intellectual activities group completed three tasks before taking the tests. These tasks included a reading comprehension exercise and a crossword puzzle. Participants in a control group watched a 10-minute clip of "Seinfeld."
Then all participants completed two different tests of intellectual performance that measured their mental processing speed and working memory.
"We found that short-term social interaction lasting for just 10 minutes boosted participants' intellectual performance as much as engaging in so-called 'intellectual' activities for the same amount of time," Ybarra said.
"To our knowledge, this experiment represents the only causal evidence showing that social interaction directly affects memory and mental performance in a positive way."
According to Ybarra, the findings suggest that visiting with a friend or neighbor may be just as helpful in staying sharp as doing a daily crossword puzzle.
The findings also suggest that social isolation may have a negative effect on intellectual abilities as well as emotional well-being. And for a society characterized by increasing levels of social isolation—a trend sociologist Robert Putnam calls "Bowling Alone"—the effects could be far-reaching.