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As fires burned tens of thousands of acres across Los Angeles County, officials were warning residents that the air was a toxic soup of pollutionfueled by the fact that not only vegetation but cars, buildings, homes, and all the plastics and electronics inside them were going up in flames. But to some residents surprise, the Air Quality Index (AQI) on their phones didnt relay that same message. That’s because AQI doesnt capture the full scope of air pollutionwhich, during the fires, was made up of toxins including lead, chlorine, and bromine. To give residents a fuller picture of what exactly was in the air around L.A., scientists with an air monitoring project made their advanced air pollution measurements available to the public. Lead data, Los Angeles 1/1/2025-1/28/2025 [Screenshot: ASCENT Data] What doesnt AQI capture in air pollution? The Environmental Protection Agency developed the AQI to measure five major pollutants: ground-level ozone, particle pollution (also called fine particulate matter or PM2.5, meaning particles that are 2.5 microns or less in size), carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen dioxide. PM2.5 and ozone tend to be the primary pollutants. The index gives all this air pollution a value based on the total mass concentration. That means the general AQI reading can lack specificity, says Roya Bahreini, a professor of atmospheric science at University of California Riverside and a co-principal investigator of the Atmospheric Science and Chemistry mEasurement NeTwork, or ASCENT project. Its also missing certain toxins that may be released during events like urban wildfires. Just looking at the value of PM2.5 cannot tell you how toxic the air is. The way many cities measure the aerosols in their air doesn’t show a full, real-time picture, she adds. While some may measure air pollutants continuously, they may only analyze the air filters every three or five days. Theyre also aggregating all that data into a 24-hour period. You dont get these very dynamic profiles, Bahreini says, We dont know if the high concentration that one filter sees is because of something that happened in the morning rush hour or the afternoon rush hour or at night. These gaps are what the ASCENT project, which was funded by the National Science Foundation in 2021, hopes to fill. We wanted to have a continuous look at the chemical composition of the PM2.5, and this fast, sort of state-of-the-art network has not existed in the U.S., Bahreini says. ASCENT set up its network at 12 sites across the country, including two locations in Los Angeles. With this network, we see continuously how dynamic the aerosol composition can be, and also how things change. Chlorine data, Los Angeles 1/1/2025-1/28/2025 [Screenshot: ASCENT Data] Lead and chlorine in L.A. wildfire air ASCENTs goal is to have all its measurements public by September 2025, but it rushed to make a website with its L.A. readings available during the fires as researchers realized the importance of what they were capturing. Early on, ASCENTs monitoring site in Pico Rivera, which is part of southeastern Los Angeles County, saw massive spikes in airborne leadjumping, at its worst, to 472 nanograms of lead per cubic meter of air. The EPAs safe levels for lead in the air is 150 nanograms per cubic meter averaged over three months. Before the fires began, L.A.s levels were less than 3 nanograms. Around the same time. ASCENTs tools also clocked spikes in chlorine to more than 13,000 nanograms per cubic meter of air, when the background level in the region is usually less than 50 nanograms. Bromine levels also saw significant spikes. Exposure to all of these can come with health impacts: Breathing in lead has been associated with brain and nervous system damage; chlorine can damage the respiratory tract and lungs, and bromine exposure can cause lung inflammation. (Though for the latter two, its difficult to know the risk given how they were distributed through the air during the fires.) Breathing in lots of particulate pollution in general can cause respiratory issues and even premature mortality. These three chemicals are very unique to something like an urban wildfire, Bahreini says. Lead could have gotten into the air from soil deposits that were burning, as well as lead pipes or paint from older homes. Chlorine is often added to plastics, including PVC piping, computer casings, or the insulation around wires. You can imagine how much of that got burned, Bahreini says. Bromine could be in all sorts of household materials, from mattresses to sofas to carpets, because its often used a component of flame retardants. Checking the air qualityand masking up The highest levels of those three toxins did decrease after the most active periods of the fires. Still, even once they decreased, their levels were still above normalpossibly because of wind, cleaning efforts, or other disturbances that can redistribute the particles in the air. ASCENT is planning to keep its publicly-available L.A.-area data online as long as there is interest, and fire risk, so residents can keep an eye on these pollutants with real-time data. (L.A. did rcently get some rain that eased the wildfires, though officials warned that fire conditions could still persist afterwards, especially if the Santa Ana winds return.) Bahreini encourages residents to wear a mask, like an N95 or Kn95, that protects against PM2.5.
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Donald Robertson is a cognitive-behavioral psychotherapist. He has been researching Stoicism for over twenty years and is one of the founding members of the nonprofit Modern Stoicism. He is also the founder and president of the Platos Academy Centre nonprofit in Greece. Whats the big idea? The philosophy and methods of Socrates can help bring calm and clarity to the distracted, nervous, and angry modern mind. His training techniques share remarkable overlaps with modern cognitive-behavioral therapy. Below, Donald shares five key insights from his new book, How to Think Like Socrates: Ancient Philosophy as a Way of Life in the Modern World. Listen to the audio versionread by Donald himselfin the Next Big Idea App. 1. How to practice the Socratic Method. Socrates, despite being one of the most influential philosophers in history, wrote nothing. At least, thats what people like to say. However, Plato, his most famous student, tells us that while in prison awaiting his execution, Socrates wrote poetry. More intriguingly, Epictetus, the famous Stoic philosopher who lived four centuries later, claimed that Socrates jotted down countless notes that were designed for his own self-improvement but never intended for publication. Another of his students describes how Socrates taught a young man to practice philosophy by means of a formal written exercise. For this exercise, Socrates drew two columns, the first headed Justice and the second Injustice. His companion was invited to list examples of wrongdoing under the heading of injustice, such as theft and deceit. Its often easier to understand our values if we begin by defining their opposites. However, the basic skill underlying the Socratic Method really comes into play in the next step. Socrates asked his friend to imagine any situations where the things hed listed under Injustice might be placed under the heading of Justice. For instance, a general who seized the weapons of the enemy during a war might be said to be stealing, but perhaps thats not unjust. Likewise, a father might be considered justified in concealing medicine in his sick childs food despite this being a form of deceit. Socrates was skilled at coming up with these sorts of examples. Training yourself to think of exceptions to rules and definitions can help you avoid applying them too rigidly. This skill is important because the advice and techniques we learn from self-help books are often of limited value. Whats good advice in one situation may become bad advice in another. Solutions that work well for some problems may backfire when applied to others. Wisdom consists of thinking for yourself by adapting rules to fit new situations. Socratess two-column technique only teaches one small part of his famous philosophical method, but its a great way to start thinking more flexibly and adaptively about life. 2. Generate alternative perspectives. Epictetus said, People are distressed not by events but by their opinions about events. This was one of the main inspirations behind cognitive therapy, the leading form of modern evidence-based psychotherapy. The idea goes back to Socrates, a century before the Stoic school of philosophy was founded. Modern psychological research has confirmed that our beliefs shape our emotions more than we normally assume. By changing the way we think, we can change the way we feel. Socrates, at times, behaved rather like a modern-day cognitive therapist. An obstacle stands in the way. Some of our beliefs are so entrenched that we find it difficult to imagine ever viewing events differently. When were gripped by strong emotions, such as fear or anger, it may feel natural to view certain events as catastrophic or certain people as unbearable. Socrates, at times, behaved rather like a modern-day cognitive therapist. He would ask his friends whether they imagined that the events that upset them might be viewed differently by other people. What you see as a catastrophe, someone else might view as bad but only temporary, whereas a third might even look at it as an opportunity. By becoming aware that multiple alternative perspectives are conceivable, you can attune to the way your beliefs influence your emotions. 3. Separate your thoughts from external events. Cognitive therapists say our beliefs are like colored lenses through which we look at the world. Suppose youre wearing blue lenses, which color the world with sadness. Theres a difference between looking at the world through your sad, blue lenses and looking at them. This shift in perspective can be compared to observing your own biases as if you were observing someone elses. When we can distinguish between our thoughts and external reality, we experience two main benefits. The most obvious is that our emotions tend to be reduced in intensity. The second is more subtle but arguably even more valuable: We become better at exploring alternative ways of looking at problems. With this flexibility, we find creative solutions to improve how things work out in the long term. Therapists today have fancy names for this, like cognitive distancing or defusion, but it basically means learning to separate beliefs from the things they refer to. It allows you to view your own thinking with greater objectivity and has been found especially helpful for emotional problems such as anxiety and depression. The simplest way to do this is by writing your thoughts down and observing them from a detached perspective. Another method is to tell yourself, I notice right now that I am having the thought . . . and then state the thought you were having as if you were putting it in quotation marks. You can also imagine that some thought or belief has been painted in big letters on a wall, picturing the color and shape of the letters or changing their appearance until you have a sense of the words being like external objects. Therapists may also ask their clients to repeat a troubling thought aloud rapidly for around 30 seconds or to say it more slowly, with longer pauses. Its interesting to try worrying in slow motion! These techniques allow us to experience a thought or belief with greater detachment by looking at our mental lenses rather than looking through them. Youre not avoiding the thought, and you can still discuss evidence for and against it. Youre just experiencing it from another perspective. I believe that Socrates gained this sort of detachment from his own beliefs by discussing them with his friends. He compared self-knowledge to an eye that sees itself, and the best way to achieve this, he thought, was by engaging in philosophical conversations where you view the other person as a mirror for the mind, in which you contemplate your thinking more objectively. 4. Illeism, meaning talking in the third person. When Socrates finished discussing philosophy with his friends, he would go home and continue the conversation with himself in private. He would imagine another Socrates interrogating him about his assumptions concerning wisdom, justice, and other virtues. Socrtes appears to have been known for referring to himself as if he was another person. A similar technique, which involves talking about yourself using your name or third-person pronouns, is called Illeism. It is occasionally used in modern psychotherapy to help clients manage anxiety and other distressing emotions. We often seem better at giving other people advice than solving our own problems. The psychologist Igor Grossmann heads a center that conducts research on the nature of wisdom at the University of Waterloo, in Canada. He was intrigued by a paradox: We often seem better at giving other people advice than solving our own problems. He and his colleagues carried out a variety of experiments and found that when people write about their problems in a journal using the third person, they exhibit more wisdom than when writing in the first person. He calls this method distanced reflection, and it can improve your ability to reason, especially about problems that normally evoke strong feelings. 5. Anger and perceived injustice. Philosophers have debated the nature of justice for thousands of years, but we dont normally think doing so is therapeutic. However, studies have found that individuals who suffer from clinical depression often perceive themselves as victims of injustice. Ancient Greek philosophers understood that anger is often associated with a desire for those we perceive as having acted unjustly to be punished. Cognitive psychologists have arrived at a similar conclusion:Anger often involves blaming others for violating some rule. Socrates insisted that the injustice of others could not harm him. He was not angry with the men responsible for his unjust trial and execution. Paradoxically, he believed that injustice harms the perpetrator more than the victim. Few people today would accept such a radical position, but we can imagine how it may have helped Socrates show extraordinary fortitude and resilience in the face of persecution. Get into the habit of asking what does you more harm: your anger or the things youre angry about? Although there are real injustices in the world, anger is seldom the most helpful response. In trivial cases, it may be best to let go of our sense of injustice so that we can move on. When facing more serious problems, it may be easier to replace anger with assertiveness. It can be challenging to decide whether our feelings are justified, but its important to spot when anger is doing us more harm than the wrongdoing were concerned about. This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission.
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Our cognition and mental well-being are crucial factors for our quality of life and put us in a good position to contribute to society. Ultimately, it can be near impossible to achieve physical goals and demanding life challenges if our brain health is not optimal. Yet most of us appear to be more concerned with physical health than brain health. According to the YouGov website, the most popular New Years resolutions in the U.K. in 2024 were doing more exercise, saving money, losing weight and dietingwith about 20% reporting they were failing some resolutions just six days into the year. A large study of approximately 1,000 participants showed that mental health featured in only about 5% of resolutions. Its easy to monitor your physical health using mobile devices and wearable technology. It may be more unclear, however, how to improve and monitor brain health and mental well-being. In our new book, Brain Boost: Healthy Habits for a Happier Life, we draw on research to offer practical tips. A number of factors contribute to our happiness in life, including genetics, our social and physical environment, cognition, and our behavior, such as lifestyle choices. Studies have shown that good cognitive function is related to better well-being and happiness. Interestingly, according to the 2024 World Happiness Report, all five Nordic countriesFinland, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, and Swedenare among the top 10 happiest countries. The U.K. and the U.S., however, do not feature in the top 10. In the U.K., the YouGov website has been tracking mood states, and while it reports that happiness is the most commonly expressed emotion, only 45% of people feel it. Ideally this number should be much higher. In addition, feeling stressed and frustrated are the next top emotions, with 40% and 35% of people having these feelings, respectively. Disappointingly, optimism is also low; for example, only 23% of 18-to-24-year-olds and those older than 75, and just 17% of 45-to-54-year-olds, report feeling optimistic on average. Happiness and well-being in general reduces the effects of stress and promotes health and longevity. Nurturing your brain In our book, we draw on the latest scientific evidence, including our own, to highlight seven essential lifestyle factors that improve our brain health, cognition, and well-being. We demonstrate how simpleand often surprisingadjustments to our daily habits can enhance brain fitness, boost cognition, and promote overall well-being. We suggest small incremental steps to improving lifestyle habits and ensuring these fit within our daily activities, as well as being enjoyable and pleasurable. In this way we can ensure that, unlike New Years resolutions that we give up within six days, we can maintain these throughout life. This puts us in a better position to achieve physical challenges in the future. These lifestyle factors include exercise, diet, sleep, social interactions, kindness, mindfulness and learning, and knowing how to get the best out of work. For example, exercise is an all-rounder, as it can boost our physical health but also our brain health, cognition, and mood. In fact, studies have shown that exercise can increase the size of our hippocampus, which is critical for learning and memory. Similarly, sleeping the optimal number of hours each night can improve our immune system, brain structure, and mental well-being. Our own study showed that sleeping seven to eight hours per night in middle to older adulthood was associated with better brain structure; cognition, such as processing speed and memory; and mental health. Staying socially connected also plays an important role in our brain health. We have shown that being socially isolated in older adults is associated with a 26% increased risk of dementia. Whereas having the optimal number of friends in adolescence, about five, is linked with better brain structure, cognition, educational attainment, and well-being. Learning new things is also essential to keep the neural circuits in our brain functioning at their best level for as long as possible. We need to challenge ourselves mentally to keep our brains activejust as we need to do physical exercise to keep our bodies fit. This builds cognitive reserve and helps us in times of stress. We can also keep our brains active in a number of ways, for example by learning a new language or how to play a musical instrument. Or you can read an educational book about something that interests you. Keeping our bodies healthy is incredibly important. But we need to also nurture our brains if we want to be happy, mentally sharp, and well protected against diseases such as dementia. Embracing these simple strategies to prioritize our brain health and well-being is essential for a happier and more fulfilling life. Ultimately, lifestyle choices play a significant role in reducing stress and promoting resilience, creativity, and overall quality of life. Barbara Jacquelyn Sahakian is a professor of clinical neuropsychology at the University of Cambridge. Christelle Langley is a postdoctoral research associate of cognitive neuroscience at the University of Cambridge. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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