School-Caused ER Visits

Crux of The Danger of Back to School by Peter Gray:

• The number of children’s psychiatric ER visits falls drastically during the summer vacation.
• In Connecticut Children’s Mental Center in Hartford, it falls from an average of about 140 visits per month to about 70.

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Deliberate Practice Doesn’t Matter Much

Crux of Actually, practice doesn’t always make perfect – new study by Alfie Kohn:

• The popular idea of 10,000 hours is disproved by research: “the amount of deliberate practice in which someone engages explains only 12 percent of the variance in the quality of performance.”
• The effect of practice depends on the domain: “Practice explained 26 percent of the variance in achievement for games, 21 percent in musical accomplishment, 18 percent in sports, 4 percent in college grades, and less than 1 percent in professional success.”
• Other factors that do, in fact, contribute to performance: “how early in life you were introduced to the activity […] how open you are to collaborating and learning from others, and how much you enjoy the activity.”
• It is possible that the amount of practice is a result of intrinsic motivation, and that it is this motivation that affects the performance more than the practice.

Durable Learning Requires Taking Breaks

Crux of Ditch the 10,000 hour rule! Why Malcolm Gladwell’s famous advice falls short by Katie Mcdonough:

• “Rapid fire practice leans on short-term memory. Durable learning, however, requires time for mental rehearsal and the other processes of consolidation. Hence, spaced practice works better. The increased effort required to retrieve the learning after a little forgetting has the effect of retriggering consolidation, further strengthening memory.”
• “The learning from interleaved practice feels slower than learning from massed practice. (…) But the research shows unequivocally that mastery and long-term retention are much better if you interleave practice than if you mass it.”
• “learning gained through the less challenging, massed form of practice is encoded in a simpler or comparatively impoverished representation than the learning gained from the varied and more challenging practice which demands more brain power and encodes the learning in a more flexible representation that can be applied more broadly.”

Optimal Times For Daily Activities

Crux of Why most olympic records are broken in the afternoon: Your body’s best time for everything by Belle Beth Cooper:

Science has identified some activities work better at specific times during the day, including:

• “we should try to get most of our calories earlier in the day, and have lighter, earlier evening meals when possible.”
• Muscle strength and hand-eye coordination peak in the afternoon, so this is an optimal time for physical exercise.
• Analytical work is best done in the morning, while creative work is better left for the late evening.

Replace “I can’t” With “I don’t”

Crux of A scientific guide to saying “no” by James Clear:

• People who use empowering language like “I don’t eat cookies” are more likely to keep their health resolutions.
• People who use disempowering language like “I can’t eat cookies” are less likely to keep their health resolutions.

Schizophrenia May Be Caused By Wheat And Dairy

Crux of Schizophrenia and the Gut by Emily Deans:

A recent paper published in Schizophrenia Research shows that “folks with schizophrenia tend to have markers of inflamed guts and have reactions to common food proteins in wheat and dairy, [namely] gluten and casein.”

Tylenol May Increase Risk of Autism And Asthma

Crux of Asthma, Autism, and Antioxidants by Emily Deans:

• Children with autism make less of the body’s own antioxidant – glutathione – and that makes them more vulnerable to toxins in the environment, since their body is less able to repair oxidative damage.
• “Children under three […] have naturally low glutathione levels”
• Our brain and airways are especially vulnerable to oxidative damage.
• “the commonly used over the counter painkiller, acetaminophen (brand name Tylenol), is well-known for rapidly depleting the body’s glutathione stores.”
• “the rise in childhood asthma does correlate with the disuse of aspirin (due to deadly Reyes syndrome) and increases in the use of Tylenol starting from the 1980s.”
• There is a rough correspondence between sales of Tylenol and rates of asthma and autism in the 1980’s.