2019-10-01 Australian Men\'s Fitness

30 MEN’S FITNESS OCTOBER 2019

■Needtochillthe

hellout?Geta pet,or

borrowone(justask

first).Researchhas

foundthat 10 minutes

ofinteractingwith

animalscanproduce

a significant

reductioninthe

stresshormone

cortisol.Researchers

studying stressed-

out students found

that those who were

provided with 10

minutes of interaction

with dogs and cats

showedsignificantly

lesscortisolintheir

salivathanstudents

whogotnopuppy

love.If youdowant

a pet,gofora pooch–

a surveycarriedout

bytheUniversityof

Chicago,US,found

thatdogownersare

twiceaslikelytobe

happy as cat owners –

36% of dog owners

reported being “very

happy”, compared

to just 18% of those

with feline friends.

Mind

Breakthroughs

Dogdays

Hittingthegymcan

helptokeepyour

mindsharp.A studyat

theUniofMaryland,

US,showedthat

justoneworkout

increasedactivation

in braincircuits

associatedwith

memory,including

thehippocampus,

whichdeteriorates

withage.In the

study,participants

performeda memory

testafter 30 minutes

ofmoderatecardio,

andona separateday

aftera restperiod

brainactivitywas

greaterafterexercise

than after rest, and

the test suggests that

the effects of working

out on grey matter are

almost instant.

■Whatwouldyou
do if you found a lost
wallet? It seems
most of us would
“do the right thing”,
which is nice. An
international team
of scientists turned
17,303 “lost” wallets
containing varying
amounts of money
into public and
private institutions
in 355 cities across
40 countries. Their
goal was to see just
how honest the
people who handled
them would be when

Lost and found

Next time you pour yourself

a glass of wine, take a good,

long sniff. Researchers from

Canada and the US have found that

master sommeliers – people who rely

on their sense of smell to do their job

• have more advanced regions of the
  memory and olfactory (sense of smell)
  network of the brain than us regular
  plonkers. These regions of the brain
  are the ones most likely to be the first
  areas affected by neurodegenerative
  diseases such as Alzheimer’s and
  Parkinson’s diseases. Even better?
  Another study found that people
  who drank a glass of wine every
  day were less likely to experience
  early cognitive decline. So after
  you’ve given that bad boy a good
  snuffle, drink it on down and say
  cheers to your brain health.

Goodness

nose

Lost your wallet?

The Pope might

have it.

Heavy

petting.

it came to returning

the “missing”

property. The wallets

either contained

no money, a small

amount or a larger

sum. Amazingly,

they found that in

nearly all countries,

the wallets with

greater amounts of

money were more

likely to be returned.

Not all wallets were

returned, however.

Those dropped off

at the Vatican and at

two anti-corruption

bureaus were

among those that

never made their

way back to the

“rightful owners”.

Captio

BRAIN TRAINING here