Category: Mom & Dad

Working long hours can lead to people having issues moderating behaviour due to ‘ego depletion’, research shows

Nicola Davis, Science Correspondent | the Guardian | Mon 11 Nov 2024 15.00 EST

If a hard day in the office leaves you crabby and uncooperative, you may have an excuse: scientists say exercising self-restraint can exhaust parts of the brain related to decision-making and impulse control, leaving you less able to manage your behaviour towards others.

The researchers say their results tie into the theory of “ego depletion” – a controversial idea in psychology that willpower is a limited resource that gets used up by effort.

The results, they add, suggest it might be best to take a break after a day of mental exertion before engaging in other tasks.

“If you want to have a discussion with your partner and feel that you are mentally exhausted, don’t,” said Erica Ordali, first author of the study from the IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, in Italy. “Take your time. Do it in another day.”

While the idea of ego depletion has been around for decades, it has garnered criticism, with some studies failing to replicate results. Ordali, however, noted an important factor may be that the tasks used in these studies to sap self-control often only last 10 minutes.

Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Ordali and her colleagues reported how they explored the impact of a longer duration, by asking 44 participants to undertake various computer-based activities for 45 minutes, including watching emotive video clips.

While half the participants were asked to use self-control during the activities, for example not showing their emotions in response to the videos, the other group did not have to exert self-control.

Each participant was also fitted with an electroencephalogram (EEG) headset, allowing the researchers to measure their brain activity.

Among other results, the team found participants in the self-control group showed increases in delta brain wave activity in the areas of the prefrontal cortex related to decision-making and impulse control, compared with their brain activity at the start of the activities. No such change was seen for the other group.

Crucially, said Ordali, delta waves are typically seen during sleep rather than wake – suggesting parts of the brain had “dozed off” in participants who had exerted self-control.

The team then asked both groups to take part in a variety of games, including one known as “hawks and doves”, where individuals had to decide whether to cooperate to share resources, or behave in a hostile manner to secure them.

The results reveal 86% of participants who were not asked to exert self-control at the start of the study behaved like doves, engaging in peaceful cooperation. In contrast, the figure was just 41% among participants initially given self-control tasks, suggesting they tended to behave like hawks.

The team found no differences when it came to games that examined participants’ general social preferences, such as how altruistic they were.

The team then split another 403 participants into two groups and repeated the study, but without recording participants’ brain activity. Again, participants who were asked to show self-control subsequently behaved more aggressively.

Michael Inzlicht, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto who was not involved in the study, urged caution noting most of the behavioural results did not show significant effects, while the connection between brain and behaviour was not strong.

“These are interesting results and are consistent with a commonsense view of fatigue,” he said. “But given all the past controversy and the weakness of this data, I would want to see if they were replicated independently before calling the press about it.”

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/nov/11/exhaustion-work-difficulty-controlling-emotions-scientists

HILLEL ITALIE, The Associated Press | The Seattle Times | Aug. 27, 2024 at 10:06 am

NEW YORK (AP) — Leonard Riggio, a brash, self-styled underdog who transformed the publishing industry by building Barnes & Noble into the country’s most powerful bookseller before his company was overtaken by the rise of Amazon.com, has died at age 83.

Riggio died Tuesday “following a valiant battle with Alzheimer’s disease,” according to a statement issued by his family. He had stepped down as chairman in 2019 after the chain was sold to the hedge fund Elliott Advisors.

“His leadership spanned decades, during which he not only grew the company but also nurtured a culture of innovation and a love for reading,” reads a statement from Barnes & Noble.

Riggio’s near-half-century reign began in 1971 when he used a $1.2 million loan to purchase Barnes & Noble’s name and the flagship store on lower Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. He acquired hundreds of new stores over the next 20 years and, in the 1990s, launched what became a nationwide empire of “superstores” that combined a chain’s discount prices and massive capacity with the cozy appeal of couches, reading chairs and cafes.

“Our bookstores were designed to be welcoming as opposed to intimidating,” Riggio told The New York Times in 2016. “These weren’t elitist places. You could go in, get a cup of coffee, sit down and read a book for as long as you like, use the restroom. These were innovations that we had that no one thought was possible.”

He grew up working class in New York City, liked to say he preferred socializing with childhood pals over fellow business leaders and was informal enough among associates to be known as “Lenny.” But in his time no one in the book world was more feared. With the power to make any given book a bestseller, or a flop, to alter the market on an idle whim, Riggio could terrify publishers simply by suggesting prices were too high or that he might sign up such top sellers as Stephen King and John Grisham and publish them himself. He even tried to buy the country’s biggest book wholesaler, Ingram, in 1999, but backed off after facing government resistance.

By the end of the 1990s, an estimated one of every eight books sold in the U.S. were purchased through the chain, where front table displays were so valuable that publishers paid thousands of dollars to have their books included. Thousands of independent sellers went out of business even as Riggio insisted that he was expanding the market by opening up in neighborhoods without an existing store. Instead, independent owners spoke of being overwhelmed by competition from both Barnes & Noble and Borders Book Group, the rival chains sometimes setting up stores in close proximity to each other and to the locally owned business.

Barnes & Noble became so identified as an overdog that one of the 1990s’ most popular romantic comedies, “You’ve Got Mail,” starred Tom Hanks as an executive for the “Fox Books” chain and Meg Ryan as the owner of an endangered independent store in Manhattan.

“We are going to seduce them with our square footage, and our discounts, and our deep arm chairs, and our cappuccino,” Hanks’ character confidently declares. “They’re going to hate us at the beginning, but we’ll get ’em in the end.”

Acrimony from independent booksellers
For a time, it seemed industry conversation was an ongoing response to Barnes & Noble. Publishers were known to change the cover or title of a book simply because a Barnes & Noble official had objected. “Angela’s Ashes” author Frank McCourt found himself condemned by the American Booksellers Association, the trade organization for independents, after agreeing to appear in a Barnes & Noble commercial. On the floor of the industry’s annual national trade show, long hosted by the ABA, independent store employees would hiss at attendees wearing Barnes & Noble badges.

When novelist Russell Banks, addressing Barnes & Noble’s annual shareholder meeting in 1995, declared that he was both a stock holder and a happy B&N customer, some independent sellers stopped offering his books.

“You must know that I’ll never read, buy or sell another word you write,” Richard Howorth, owner of Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi, wrote to him. “These are the kindest things I can think of to say to you.”

Tensions led to legal action when the ABA — on the eve of the 1994 convention — announced it was suing Barnes & Noble and five leading publishers for unfair trade practices. Some of the publishers were so angered they boycotted the gathering the following year and only returned after the ABA sold the show to Reed Exhibitions. In 1998, the ABA sued Barnes & Noble and Borders for unfair business practices (both cases were settled out of court).

The internet shifts bookselling
Riggio began the 2000s at the height of power, with more than 700 superstores and hundreds of others outlets. But internet commerce was growing quickly and Barnes & Noble, with its roots in physical retail, lacked the imagination and flexibility of the startup from Seattle that called itself “Earth’s Biggest Bookstore,” Amazon.com. The online giant launched in 1995 by Jeff Bezos gained business throughout the 2000s and by the early 2010s had displaced Barnes & Noble through such innovations as the Kindle e-book reader and the Amazon Prime subscription service.

Bezos would liken himself to David taking down Goliath, although the contrast between the leaders also had the feel of an Aesop’s fable: The muscular, mustachioed Riggio, a boxer’s son, upended by the quick and clever Bezos.

“We’re great booksellers; we know how to do that,’’ Riggio acknowledged to the Times in 2016. “We weren’t constituted to be a technology company.”

Barnes & Noble started its own online site in the late 1990s, but such initiatives as the Nook e-book reader and a self-publishing platform failed to stop Amazon. Not even the collapse of Borders after the 2008-2009 economic crisis mattered for Barnes & Noble, which after decades of expansion closed more than 100 stores between 2009 and 2019.

An unlikely ally of independent booksellers
By the time of Riggio’s retirement, independent sellers regarded the chain not as a threat, but as an ally in the fight against Amazon to keep physical stores alive. At the 2018 booksellers convention, Riggio and ABA CEO Oren Teicher, once enemies in business and in court, praised each other during a joint appearance.

“My standing here, doing what I’m about to do (introduce Riggio) would have been impossible to imagine several years ago,” Teicher said at the time. “The simple fact is that our business is stronger and American readers benefit when there is a vibrant and healthy network of brick-and-mortar bookshops all across the country.”

During the 2010s, Barnes & Noble seemed unleadable and unwanted. The board announced in 2010 that the company was for sale, but no one offered to buy it. Four CEOs left in five years and Barnes & Noble’s stock dropped 60% between 2015 and 2018. New rumors of a sale lasted for months before Elliott Advisors, which had previously purchased the British chain Waterstones, bought Barnes & Noble for $638 million and hired Waterstones chief executive James Daunt to lead B&N.

“I don’t miss being a business person, I had enough of that. But I do miss the bookselling part, helping to find books to recommend to customers,” Riggio told Publishers Weekly in 2021.

Riggio’s roots and early bookselling ventures
Bookselling and family often overlapped for Riggio. His brother Steve Riggio served for years as vice chairman of Barnes & Noble and another brother, Vincent “Jimi” Riggio, helped run a trucking company that shipped the store’s books. After being interviewed in 1974 by the trade publication College Store Executive, Leonard Riggio met for coffee with the editor, Louise Gebbia, who seven years later became his second wife (Riggio had three children, two with his first wife, one with his second).

Leonard S. Riggio was the eldest son of a prize fighter (who twice defeated Rocky Graziano) turned cab driver and a dress maker. Even in childhood, he advanced quickly, skipping two grades and attending one of the city’s top high schools, Brooklyn Tech. He studied metallurgical engineering at New York University’s night school before focusing on commerce, and by day absorbed the bookselling world and the rising cultural rebellion of the 1960s.

Working as a floor manager at the campus book store, he learned enough to drop out of school and start a rival shop in 1965 — SBX (Student Book Exchange), where he allowed student activists to use the copying machine to print copies of anti-war leaflets. SBX was so successful he bought several other campus stores and was in position by 1971 to buy Barnes & Noble and its single Manhattan store. A few years later, he became the rare bookseller to run television commercials, with the catchphrase “Barnes & Noble! Of Course! Of Course!”

Riggio and the independent community may have seemed to hold opposing values, but they shared a love of reading and the arts and a liberal political outlook. He was a generous philanthropist and a prominent supporter of Democratic politicians. He was even friendly with the consumer activist and presidential candidate Ralph Nader, who featured Riggio, Ted Turner and Yoko Ono among others in his 2009 novel “Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us!”, in which Nader imagines a progressive revolution from above.

“Ever since he was a boy from Brooklyn, he’d had a visceral reaction to the way workings stiffs and the poor were treated on a day-to-day basis,” Nader wrote of Riggio, who did at times stand apart from his management peers. When some 200 business leaders were questioned by Fortune magazine in the 1990s about their political ideas, only Riggio supported the raising of worker pay.

“Money can become a burden, like something you carry on your shoulders,” he told New York magazine in 1999. “My nature is to be a ball-buster, but my role is to help people.”

This story has been updated to correct the names of Riggio’s second wife and one of his brothers. They are Louise Gebbia, not Louise Altavilla, and Vincent “Jimi,” not Thomas.\

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/leonard-riggio-who-forged-a-bookselling-empire-at-barnes-noble-dead-at-83

Research shows walk or cycle improves cognitive performance for day ahead – and day after

Nicola Davis, Science correspondent | the Guardian | Mon 9 Dec 2024 19.01 EST
Share

For cycle-to-work commuers and those who start the day with a brisk walk, the benefits of banking some early exercise is well understood.

Now scientists believe activity is not just a good idea for improving the day ahead – physical activity could be associated with small increase in memory scores the next, too.

A study from University College London has shown that 30 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity and sleeping for at least six hours at night, could contribute to improved cognitive performance the following day.

“The takeaway is just [that] physical activity is good for your brain and good sleep helps that,” said Dr Mikaela Bloomberg, first author of the study.

The researchers noted physical activity had previously been associated with both short-term improvements in cognitive function and a reduced risk of dementia.

However, Bloomberg noted many studies looking at short-term impacts had been laboratory based, and primarily tracked responses on a timescale of minutes to hours. These studies suggested benefits could be down to an increased blood flow to the brain and stimulation of chemicals known as neurotransmitters.

Now researchers say they have looked at the short-term impact of physical activity carried out in real life, not only finding benefits to the brain but revealing these appear to last longer than expected.

Writing in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, Bloomberg and colleagues report how 76 adults aged 50-83 years old, and who did not have cognitive impairment or dementia, were asked to wear an accelerometer for eight days to track their sleep and physical activity as they carried out their normal life.

Each day, participants were also given simple online cognitive tests to probe their attention, memory and processing speed, among other faculties.

The team said their results reveal that each 30-minute increase in moderate to vigorous physical activity on the previous day corresponded to a 2-5% increase in episodic and working memory scores the next, although only the latter remained once participants’ sleep data was considered.

While Bloomberg noted it is difficult to say whether this corresponds to a tangible – clinical – difference for participants, she said the next step is to carry out similar work in people with cognitive impairments.

“The idea is for people who have mild cognitive impairment, a very minor boost in cognitive performance on a day-to-day basis can make a huge difference,” she said.

The team also found each 30-minute increase in sedentary behaviour was associated with a small drop in working memory scores the next day – although Bloomberg said exactly how sedentary time is spent could be important – while those who slept at least six hours a night had higher scores for episodic memory, attention and physical response speed the next day, after taking into account levels of physical activity, than those who had less sleep.

However, the study has limitations, including that the participants had high levels of education, excellent health and high levels of everyday physical activity.

Bloomberg added it is not clear exactly what is driving the impact of exercise on memory the following day, with benefits from neurotransmitters only thought to last for a few hours. She also noted different mechanisms may be behind long-term benefits of exercise to the brain.

The study ties into a focus on protecting our brains as we age. “We all experience cognitive decline as we get older, it’s a normal part of ageing,” Bloomberg said. “So that’s the age group where we start to think: what are these little things we can do on a day-to-day basis to improve our cognitive function and our independence and social participation?”

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/dec/10/exercise-improves-memory-walk-cycle

Andrew Gregory, Health editor | the Guardian | Tue 3 Dec 2024 18.30 EST

Bursts of intense movement such as climbing stairs can make big difference to health, finds UK Biobank research

Women who add four minutes a day of high-intensity routine activities such as climbing the stairs instead of taking a lift could halve their risk of heart attacks, a study suggests.

Less than five minutes of brief bouts of exertion in everyday life could have a significant effect on heart health, reducing the risk of serious cardiovascular events, researchers found. The results were published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

Experts not involved with the study said the findings were clear evidence that getting your body moving and raising your heart rate even just for a few minutes daily can really make a difference to having a healthy heart.

Longer bouts of high-intensity physical activity are well-known to be associated with significantly lower risks of cardiovascular disease.

But until now it was unclear if much shorter bursts of this type of activity, which are often part of a daily routine, may also be effective at boosting heart health, and if so, what the minimum threshold for measurable effects might be.

The researchers said this was particularly important for women who don’t or can’t exercise regularly, for whatever reason, because women tended to have a lower level of cardiorespiratory fitness than men at any given age.

In the study, researchers examined the effect of “vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity” on heart health in women and men.

The benefits of these bursts of effort, which could include walking quickly for the bus, for example, were pronounced in women – with 1.5 to four minutes a day leading to “substantially lower risks” of heart problems.

Researchers suggested they could act as “a promising physical activity target”, particularly for women who are unable or unwilling to exercise.

The study used data from 81,052 middle-aged people taking part in the UK Biobank study, who wore an activity tracker for seven days between 2013 and 2015. Among them, 22,368 people reported doing no regular exercise or if they did only went for a walk once a week.

Their heart health was tracked until the end of November 2022.

Women who recorded a daily average of 3.4 minutes of intense activity, but reported no formal exercise, were 45% less likely to have a heart attack, stroke or heart failure compared with women who did not manage any activity.

Specifically, the risk of a heart attack was 51% lower, and the risk of developing heart failure was 67% lower.

The associations were less clear and less significant in men. Men who managed 5.6 minutes of these activity bursts a day, but no formal exercise, cut their risk of heart attacks, strokes and heart failure by 16%.

Regina Giblin, a senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, who was not involved with the study, said: “We know already that any amount of exercise is beneficial when trying to lower your risk of heart attacks and strokes. This large study is evidence that getting your body moving and raising your heart rate even just for a few minutes daily can really make a difference to having a healthy heart.

“The study showed even just a few minutes of vigorous activity per day can significantly lower the risk of overall cardiovascular events for middle aged women, who do not do regular exercise.”

However, for people able to exercise, the recommendation remained that you should aim for at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise a week, Giblin said.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/dec/03/women-high-intensity-routine-four-minutes-daily-halve-heart-attack-risk-uk-biobank-study