Month: February 2020

Why leap years exist | Popular Science

Why leap years exist | Popular Science

Here’s a mind-bending thought: Time, if not measured, does not exist. People create calendars, with designated weeks and months, that sync to a variety of earthly and extraterrestrial cycles. The people of the Trobriand Islands in New Guinea, for example, used to start their year when a species of sea worms made their annual swarm onto their southern coasts. In our culture, we pick dates according to the way the sun and moon are moving. We have prioritized a calendar that matches with the solar year. Our months are made of lunar cycles, and we restart the year after the Earth has made one full rotation around the sun. But sometimes these cycles don’t sync up. If the sea worms didn’t show up at the usual lunar cycle period, the Trobrianers would say that the “moon has gone silly,” according to Kevin Birth, a professor of anthropology at Queens College and the Graduate Center at the City University of New York (CUNY). The year would thus be extended. Calendar followers have a similar, though more …

Don’t stress: The scientific secrets of people who keep cool heads

Don’t stress: The scientific secrets of people who keep cool heads

YOU know that person. The one who uses a delayed train as an excuse to get stuck into a good book. The one who can make a joke 10 seconds after breaking their ankle. The one who loves giving presentations and never falters under pressure. They seem to float through life unfazed by the stress that can overwhelm the rest of us. What’s their secret? Are they blessed with stress-resistant genes? Did their upbringing make them exceptionally resilient? Have they learned specific ways of coping with life’s challenges? Or do they just know how to avoid stress altogether? To answer these questions, researchers have been examining how humans and animals react and adapt to adversity, identifying those who are particularly resilient to stress and teasing apart the factors that contribute to this ability. It is a journey that has taken them from orphanages in Romania and interrogation chambers in North Carolina to fire stations in Indianapolis and humour classes in Austria. This work is helping the military recruit candidates for high-stress jobs. It has also …

45 Ways To Make A Tough Divorce Easier On You, According To A Divorce Coach | Karen Finn

45 Ways To Make A Tough Divorce Easier On You, According To A Divorce Coach | Karen Finn

When it all began, did you have any idea how difficult getting divorced would be? No one does. The divorce process is one of those life experiences that no one truly understands unless they’ve been through it themselves. The problem is that once people have been through it and moved on with their lives, they forget the depths of despair they experienced as they struggled with getting over their divorce. So your friends and family who have been there may not have any easy answers for you when you ask for advice on how to move on. And it’s not like there’s a guidebook you received when you got married about how to get over a divorce. But easy answers are exactly what you most want and need right now. You’re tired of hurting and wondering when it will all end. RELATED: 3 Hard Lessons I Learned From Being On The Loneliest Side Of Divorce — Twice Here are 45 ways to make a tough divorce easier, according to a divorce coach: 1. Accept that …

The 6 Biggest Mistakes People Make Right After Getting Divorced | Karen Finn

The 6 Biggest Mistakes People Make Right After Getting Divorced | Karen Finn

The process of healing after a divorce can feel like an insult to injury. You just want to move on and heal your broken heart. The divorce process stinks. It just does. The hurt, the anger, the loss of seemingly everything: companionship, security, self-esteem. It’s tough enough trying to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. But, now, you have to fight against being your own worst enemy as you work on getting over it ending. The inherent challenge of moving on from the end of a relationship is fighting the urge to connect. You build a relationship by striving in all you do to connect more genuinely, more intimately. To suddenly have that call-to-action ripped out from under you is a real blow. It’s like expecting a moving train to stop on a dime and go back to where it came from. But, whether or not it is apparent to you now, this time of healing and rebuilding your life after divorce is a time of great potential. Sure, you didn’t want or plan to be …