Thanksgiving marks the beginning of the holiday season. While the holidays should be a happy time, for many people, it is a time filled with sadness, self-reflection, loneliness, and anxiety.  Typical reasons for the holiday blues include stress, fatigue, financial concerns, and separation from family and friends. Stress and depression can ruin your holidays and […]

There’s good news and bad news. First, the bad news. As you’ve probably noticed, 2016 has been an absolute garbage year. Our country elected a profoundly unqualified narcissist for President, tensions borne from race, gender, and sexual identity threaten to split us apart, and Florence Henderson, the mom from The Brady Bunch just died. Is it because […]

We’ve come a long way in our understanding of how the body works and how food influences the body’s performance.  Back in the 80s and 90s, we were obsessed with the low-fat lifestyle, eschewing foods with fat like cheese, butter and yogurt, for their low-fat, and usually less satisfying, siblings. Recently, a trend called Carb […]

Okay, guys, confession time. Like all right-thinking people, I’ve read the Harry Potter novels and thoroughly enjoyed them. Unless you’re the constantly allergic to fun New York Times,* who wouldn’t? J.K. Rowling single-handedly created a book series that was not just fun and wondrous, but also perceptive, possessing subversive wit, and a profound understanding of the human condition. There’s […]

My mother has dementia. When I talk to her it is like talking to a pre-school age child — stream of consciousness-style ramblings of reality mixed with fantasy. It is disturbing to compare this woman to the person my mother was before dementia.  She was smart, witty, and quite opinionated.  She was a modern woman […]

These are interesting times for science fiction. You can be excused for thinking that science fiction is just shorthand for an action movie set in space, or with aliens, or time travel. Yeah, we’ve had a lot of that, particularly with Star Trek Beyond and Star Wars: The Force Awakens.* But we’re also living in a bit of a […]

Now that Daylight Savings Time has ended, we face a few months of shorter days and less sun exposure.  For those who suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), this is a particularly difficult time of year. SAD is a type of depression triggered by seasonal light changes. In most cases, symptoms begin during late fall […]

We’re 14 movies into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In and of itself, that is a massive triumph. Most franchises really start to suck hard by the third installment, if you’re lucky. But I’m hard-pressed to think of another film series that has the energy and longevity of Marvel Studios. Luckily, they had a blueprint to […]

There seems to be some confusion about whether dairy should be part of the American diet.  While some dietitians recommend dairy, specifically milk, because it’s a good source of calcium and vitamin D — nutrients that contribute to bone health — researchers say that the science behind milk consumption and bone health is not conclusive.  […]