One might think the advantage of being a journalist is that you get to hear all the news, and you hear it first. I’m not sure that’s such a good thing. Yes, the phones in the newspaper office are always ringing and the mail boxes—both physical and digital—are always overloaded, but a lot of the information coming in can only be described as less than overwhelming. Filtering the news from the views, and the sense from the nonsense takes rather a lot of time, and energy.
There’s also the matter of whom to believe—and trust. Because contradiction is the name of the game. It’s not just in the big stories about the people who will change the course of the country, or at least the future-telling of its history. The discrepancies pop up in health reports, as well as hygiene, in books and behavioural science. A tome which is the “last word” on theology today needs to be banned tomorrow; salt is the killer as well as saviour; sugar is a friend when it’s not the enemy, and alcohol helps the heart and lacerates the liver.
I could go on. But for now, let me just share with you some stray pieces of information that have crept our way, and onto some news pages, over the last week.
A study in England has found that people between 40 and 79 who take daytime naps at office or home run the risk of kicking the bucket soon. If that’s too scary, let’s say these people are “nearly twice as likely” to head for a better world compared to those who do not nap at all. It may not be sleeping per se that is unhealthy; the naps may be triggered by undiagnosed medical conditions that affect their risk of dying. Here are the details: People aged 40 to 79 who nap for under an hour daily are 14 per cent more likely to die over a 13-year period, compared to those who do not; while people whose daily naps last an hour or more are 32 per cent more likely to die over the same period.
Scared by the revelations? Don’t be. Because researchers on the other side of the pond have found that one must take naps whenever one can to boost one’s immune system and fight infection (better than pills could). “It is an intuitive response to want to sleep when you get sick,” says Julie Williams, who led the study at University of Pennsylvania. Just give into that need, because post-infection sleep increases resistance to infection and improves chances of survival, says her team.
There’s more. In case you’re taking your child for an injection or yourself to a tattoo parlour, an Italian scientist suggests that you ask the doctor/artist to let you see the body part that’s about to be invaded through a large magnifying glass. Because drawing a person’s attention to the place where he is expecting pain not only helps the sufferer to prepare for the pain better, it also dulls its intensity, says the man from Milan. If you’d rather put your faith in an Australian, you’re better off putting away the magnifying tools. Because a professor of pain science at the University of South Australia has found that visually expanding any area only makes the pain there worse.
See what I mean? These are just minor reports. But whom do you believe?
shampa@newindianexpress.com