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Daily Edition • Wednesday, July 15

Can Bad News Age Your Brain?

An elderly couple strolls through a vibrant landscape with yellow flowers and a stylized tree under a light blue sky.

Midjourney

Weighing You Down: With nonstop headlines and doom-scrolling, many of us are exposed to suffering and negative emotions every day. Researchers from Switzerland wanted to understand how the brain responds to those experiences, especially as we age. They looked at what happens when older adults are confronted with someone else’s suffering, and the results, recently published in Nature Aging, suggest repeated exposure to negative emotions can affect the aging brain.

The Study: Researchers showed young and older adults videos of people experiencing real suffering, then scanned their brains afterward. In older participants in particular, negative emotions appeared to alter neural connections in brain regions associated with emotion regulation and memory. Younger brains didn’t show the same pattern.

The Takeaway: How we handle hard emotions might matter more for brain health than we previously realized. The researchers suggest meditation could help process difficult feelings before they leave a lasting mark.

Keep in Mind: Stress and occasional bad news are a fact of life, but we can control how we respond.

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The Hair-Drying Upgrade That Feels Like Self-Care

Black hair device with a hose and digital controls, placed on a countertop with a towel hanging in the background.

Courtesy: RevAir

Self-care isn’t always about adding another step. Sometimes, it’s finding a gentler way to handle the routine you already have.

RevAir uses reverse-air technology to dry, stretch, and smooth hair in one step, drawing moisture away in the direction of hair growth rather than blasting strands with high heat. The result is up to 70% faster drying than a traditional blow-dryer, with less tension, breakage, and heat exposure.

Variable settings make it suitable for all hair types, including curls, locs, braids, extensions, and wigs. It’s a simpler approach designed to preserve your curl pattern and keep hair looking shinier and healthier.

Use code AH10 for 10% off through Oct. 1.

See How It Works

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Nutrition

The Overlooked Vitamin That Supports Strong Bones

Hands holding dark leafy greens above several bins filled with various vegetables, including squash and lettuce.

Jordan González/Unsplash

Unsung Hero: When it comes to bone health, calcium and vitamin D usually get all of the glory. Yes, they’re both important — vitamin D helps the body absorb calcium, which hardens to build a strong skeleton and maintain bone mass. But there’s another vitamin that can also keep our bones healthy: vitamin K.

How to Do It: Research suggests vitamin K supplements might not be very beneficial, so eating it in food is the best way to get it. The recommended daily amounts for adults are 90 micrograms for women and 120 micrograms for men. Good sources of K are leafy greens (like kale, spinach, and collards), edamame or fermented soybeans, broccoli, cabbage, cashews, blueberries, and figs. Eat these foods with some fat, as K is a fat-soluble vitamin.

The Benefits: Vitamin K is part of the support team for our skeleton. A recent study with mice found that vitamin K facilitates messaging between osteoblasts (cells that form new bone) and osteoclasts (cells that break down old bone). They both have to work together in a balanced way in the bone-building process. Vitamin K appears to work by slowing down the activity of the osteoclasts, helping to maintain bone density.

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SPOTLIGHT

Why You Shouldn’t Let AI Think for You

A smiling man with glasses and short hair, shown in a black and white portrait.

CORY DOCTOROW
Science Fiction Author

Courtesy: Cory Doctorow

If you’ve heard people compare the future of work to a “centaur” — a human assisted by AI — you’ve already encountered one of the ideas that caught science fiction author and technology critic Cory Doctorow’s attention.

In his new book, The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI, Doctorow flips the metaphor on its head, defining a “reverse centaur” as a machine served by a human. When it comes to AI and work, he argues, the most pressing question isn’t how AI can make us more productive, but whether we’ll remain in charge, or if we’ll become the ones serving the machine.

Doctorow is known for writing about the ways technology companies shape our lives, including his concept of “enshittification,” which describes how digital platforms, like social media, tend to worsen over time as companies prioritize profits over experience. His latest book expands that critique, asking what happens when AI is built to maximize efficiency and profit rather than humanism.

Doctorow doesn’t tell people to reject AI outright (and reminds us that it’s not going to be a good day when the bubble bursts), but encourages us to consider morality when using it and to preserve the parts of life that require human judgment, creativity, and genuine connection.

READ | LISTEN | FOLLOW

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Quick Picks

You Are What You Eat — Could your diet be aging you faster?

Budget, Without Compromise — Find out why more people are booking stays with Spark by Hilton.*

Hard to Stomach — This tropical parasite is behind the growing U.S. outbreak.

Playing Catch-Up — Can you ever really repay a “sleep debt”?

Feeling the Heat? — These 8 hydrating foods can help keep you cool.

^*Indicates a brand partnership

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What We're Cooking

Watermelon & Goat Cheese Salad with a Verbena Vinaigrette

A bowl of diced watermelon mixed with crumbled feta cheese, chopped pistachios, and fresh herbs.

Courtesy: Food52

Serves: 4 | Cook Time: 1 hour 20 minutes

This salad really only takes about five minutes to pull together — the only step that takes a little extra time is grinding the lemon verbena with olive oil and letting it sit to release its lemony essence. Sweet watermelon is the star of this dish, paired with creamy chunks of goat cheese and lightly toasted pistachios for an extra crunch. A simple vinaigrette made with the verbena-infused olive oil and red wine vinegar adds a bright, floral-citrus finish. It’s refreshing, light, and the lemon verbena offers a unique twist on a summer staple.

Get The Full Recipe

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This, Not That

Backup Dinner

A refrigerator shelf filled with various groceries including eggs, strawberries, vegetables, and jars of sauce.

THIS

Two people prepare to share a variety of takeout foods on a wooden table, including bowls and containers of different dishes.

NOT THAT

Darrien Staton/Unsplash, Kateryna Hliznitsova/Unsplash

This: Keep a backup dinner
Not That: Pretending every night will go according to plan

Some nights, cooking inspiration simply will not arrive. Keep one low-effort dinner ready for those moments: eggs and toast, frozen dumplings with vegetables, rice and beans, rotisserie chicken with salad, or soup from the freezer. A backup plan beats a panic order.

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A Gentler Way to Dry Your Hair

Your hair routine shouldn’t leave your strands feeling worse for wear. RevAir uses gentle reverse-air suction to dry, stretch, and smooth hair without the high heat and repeated brushing of a traditional blowout. It works across hair types and textures, with adjustable tension settings for a more personalized routine.

Use code AH10 for 10% off through Oct. 1.

Rethink Your Routine

Thank you for supporting our sponsors! They help us keep All Healthy free.

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HEALTHY HABIT

Schedule a “Worry Window”

If your brain likes to spiral at inconvenient times, give it an appointment. Set aside 10 minutes to write down what’s bothering you and what, if anything, you can do about it. Containing the worry won’t solve everything, but it can keep it from leaking into the whole day.

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Final Thought

Pink flowers among tall grass under a partly cloudy sky.

People who know little are usually great talkers, while men who know much say little.”

– Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile; or, On Education

Annie Spratt/Unsplash