20 MEN’S FITNESS JULY 2019
■Taking up yoga
and meditation may
strengthen your
cognitive skills and
even help to combat
age-related mental
decline, according to
research published
in the Journal of
Alzheimer’s Disease.
Subjects in the study
were split into two
groups: one followed
a 12-week yoga and
meditation program,
while the others did
a dedicated brain-training program.
When scientists
conducted cognitive
tests on the entire
group, they all
experienced an
uplift in their mental
performance, but
only those in the
yoga group got a
mood boost, too. Not
into yoga and find
meditation boring?
Other ways to buffer
your brain include
exercise, a healthy
diet and lots of sleep.Mind
BreakthroughsStretch your brain
People who
experience anxiety
might be helped
by regulating the
microorganisms
in their gut using
probiotic and non-
probiotic foods and
supps, suggests
a review of studies
published inGeneral
Psychiatry. A Chinese
research team
reviewed 21
different studies to
investigate if there
was evidence to
support improvement
of anxiety symptoms
by regulating
intestinal microbiota
and found that that
more than half of
these studies showed
it was possible. So
odds are it could help.■If you want to
appear more
dominant in a social
situation, tilt your
head down. That’s
the advice of a study
inPsychological
Science,which found
it’s not just facial
expressions that we
draw inferences from
- it’s the position of the
head itself.“We show
that tilting one’s
head downward
systematically
changes the way
the face is perceived,
such that a neutral
face – a face with no
muscle movement
or facial expression - appears to be more
dominant when the
Heads down
The internet has changed a lot –
online dating means you don’t
have to leave your house to meet
someone; telecommuting lets you work
all day in your PJs; Instagram has given
skinny yogis on juice cleanses a whole
new way to annoy people. But it turns out
the internet could be changing something
far more important – our brains. An
international team of researchers has
found the internet can produce acute
and sustained alterations in specific
areas of learning and understanding,
which may reflect changes in the brain,
affecting attention, memory and social
interactions. For example, endless
notifications from the net means our
attention is often divided, which
decreases our ability to focus. And given
that we now have most of the world’s
information literally at our fingertips, this
has the potential to change the way we
store – even value – facts and knowledge.A tangled web
Tilting your head
down changes
the way your face
is perceived.
Ooh, look- a cat video!
head is tilted down,”
explain researchers
Zachary Witkower
and Jessica Tracy.
“This effect is caused
by the fact that tilting
the head downward
leads to the artificial
appearance of
lowered and
V-shaped eyebrows- which in turn
elicits perceptions
of aggression,
intimidation
and dominance.”
Rebel
GUT warrior.
FEELING