If you google “What comes to mind when you think of the word 'fun?'” you might come across this Reddit thread from six years ago. Not surprisingly, a fair number of the replies have something to do with sex or alcohol. But the most common image among 93 commenters was a bouncy castle or a trampoline. One commenter simply wrote “the past.”
Fun is a concept too many people give up on after childhood has ended. As adults we’re often encouraged to focus on “happiness” -- a more general overall sense of wellbeing.
But psychologist and author Mike Rucker says striving for happiness can be a trap, making you constantly ask yourself what’s going right and what’s going wrong.
In contrast, fun is achievable. "Fun is something you can do, Rucker writes in his book, The Fun Habit. “All it requires is intentionality."
And we could all use a little more fun: A survey from October showed 76% of adults in the U.S. say stress from politics, race relations, violence and inflation has hurt their health.
Some of you already get it. NPR audience members wrote in last year about what thrills them, from building robots, to thrift shopping, to flying trapeze.
If you’re like me, a major obstacle to cooking your own meals is the prep. You know, peeling onions (they make me cry!), stripping parsley off the stems, chopping up ginger into thin slices for a stir fry. When you’re hungry and tired at the end of the day, you can find your fingers busying themselves with ordering takeout instead of cooking.
But restaurant food tends to be heavier on sugar and fat than home-cooked meals, not to mention pricier.
The solution might be “meal-prepping”, the concept of assembling ingredients or cooking food ahead of time so it’ll be ready later, when willpower has weakened.
Kevin Curry started meal-prepping when he noticed he was getting out of shape, feeling sluggish and his doctor warned him of rising blood pressure. He now runs FitMenCook, an online community and blog where he educates would-be meal-preppers.
Curry spoke with NPR’s Life Kit and shared some of his personal secrets, including designating Wednesdays and Sundays as meal-prep days. Imagine you only have to cook those two nights to have fresh homemade food every day?
If you rolled your eyes reading about complaints of "Ozempic face” – a sudden, unpleasantly gaunt appearance of the face after rapid weight-loss – you would not be alone. For the well-off, this seems to be the most frequently discussed downside of the new, shockingly effective class of weight-loss drugs like Wegovy and Ozempic sweeping the market.
But the drugs were never intended for cosmetic weight loss. Ozempic is approved for people with diabetes, and Wegovy is for those with obesity who also have weight-related conditions that put them at risk of heart disease. That's millions of Americans – and many of them lower income.
The drugs work – and can make a difference in people’s health. Unfortunately at a cost of about $1,400 a month — out-of-pocket when insurance doesn't cover it — many people can't afford to stay on them for the long term. And when they stop taking them, most people gain back most of the weight within a year, a study found.
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