Weird Science
A rocking way to sleep well
Swiss scientists say the gentle rocking of your backyard hammock can bring broad benefits for sleep — including boosting memory consolidation.
Laurence Bayer and colleagues at the University of Geneva Bayer enlisted 18 healthy young adults to undergo sleep monitoring in the lab. The first night got them used to sleeping there.
They then stayed two more nights — one sleeping on a gently rocking bed and the other sleeping on an identical bed that wasn’t moving.
The data showed that participants fell asleep faster while rocking.
Once asleep, they also spent more time in non-rapid eye movement sleep, slept more deeply, and woke up less.
To assess memory consolidation, participants studied word pairs.
The researchers then measured their accuracy in recalling those paired words in an evening session compared to the next morning when they woke up.
They found that people did better on the morning test when they were rocked during sleep.
Streaming chill vibes? Here’s why
What music we listen to is influenced by time of day and season, gender, age and geography.
Cornell University researchers studied 765 million online music plays streamed from Spotify in 2016 by a million people from 51 countries. They rated the musical intensity from “highly relaxing (acoustic, instrumental, ambient and flat or low tempo) to highly energetic (strong beat, danceable, loud and bouncy).”
The study found that people in the West tend to play more arousing music, while those in Asia play more relaxing music.
And while globally women listen to music with lower intensity, particularly in the evening, the researchers found a hemispheric gender difference.
In the Southern Hemisphere, women chose music with higher intensity than men; in the Northern Hemisphere, the pattern was the opposite.
“Night owls” streamed music of lower intensity, while “evening people” listen to music with the highest intensity scores.
However, the increase in intensity of night owls’ choices for their daytime music choices was proportionately greater than other chronotypes, which may reflect their use of musical stimulation to help them remain alert during the day.
Body image: why not caring is good
Spending time with people who aren’t hung up about their bodies can improve your own eating habits and body image.
Canadian researchers found there was a detrimental effect to being around people preoccupied with body image — and a positive one with interacting with people who weren’t.
Kathryn Miller, PhD candidate in clinical psychology at the University of Waterloo, and colleagues asked 92 female undergraduate students aged 17 to 25 to complete a daily diary over seven consecutive days and reflected on their interactions with “body focused” and “non-body focused” people.
The study measured participants’ frequency of daily interactions, body satisfaction, and whether they ate according to hunger and cravings, rather than fixating on their dietary and weight goals.
It ultimately found that spending more time with non-body focused individuals may be advantageous in protecting against disordered eating and promoting more intuitive eating.
“If more women try to focus less on their weight and shape, there may be a ripple effect shifting societal norms for women’s body image in a positive direction,” Miller said.