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When given a task, who hasn't set about it with great gusto and panache, hoping to get it done quickly? Well now a new study is saying that's not the way to do it. According to newswise.com, real productivity comes when we have an initial push, yes, but then lie back a little. Researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing (figures, right?)  developed a model to gain insight into how workers’ efforts are best distributed over a single workday. The ideal profiles of effort follow one of two patterns, depending on the nature of the work: A high-low-high effort pattern, they found, is the best way to manage fatigue when the  rate  at which the employee works can be modulated. The idea is to begin and end the day with maximum intensity, but take it easier in the middle. But in some jobs, effort cannot be modulated. Workers operating a machine, or attending to customers at a retail store or restaurant, or performing mental tasks that require constant conce...

Here I was, killing myself to run a 10-minute mile, and now, new research is saying the slower you jog , the longer you live. We've all been taken in by the idea that the more intense exercise is, the better it is for us.  But this new study, according to The New York Times, has found that "slow runners come out ahead." Gretchen Reynolds writes that the ideal amount of running for someone who wants to live a long and healthy life is less than most of us might expect, according to this study, which also suggests that people can overdo strenuous exercise and potentially shorten their lives.  So, what's the deal? There is increasing consensus among physicians and exercise scientists that people should exercise intensely at least sometimes, she points out. Past studies have found , for instance, that walkers who move at a brisk pace tend to live longer than those who stroll, even if they cover about the same distance. A similar study with cyclists came up w...

As I've said (more than) once here, I'm prey to road rage. But, according to smartplanet.com, some day soon my car may be able to talk me out of it. Charlie Osborne writes that they may come equipped with " emotion detectors ," not too far off in the future.   What is that, you say?   If road rage is detected, the system can then work "to limit a vehicle's speed, or flash and sound a warning [..] to calm down," according to Gizmodo, Osborne reports. He adds that Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), the one behind this, has developed an in-car emotion detector which can tell when we are at the boiling point. "After teaming up with automaker PSA Peugeot Citroen, the team invented an emotion detector which uses an infrared camera that can detect a driver's stress levels. In particular, emotions related to anger or disgust are of interest as markers of "road rage" -- where anger has the potential of getting in the wa...

You wouldn't know it from me but it's better to wait a little before making decisions , according to a new study. I constantly make snap judgments (sometimes I'm right, in the case of a husband, and sometimes I'm wrong, also in the case of a husband, and yes, the same one) but this new study has found that hesitating even a fraction of a second makes for a better decision, newswise.com reports. “Decision making isn't always easy, and sometimes we make errors on seemingly trivial tasks, especially if multiple sources of information compete for our attention,” the Web site quotes first author Tobias Teichert, PhD, a postdoctoral research scientist in neuroscience at CUMC at the time of the study and now an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh. To make a good decision?  Simply, do nothing.  At least for a while.   “Postponing the onset of the decision process by as little as 50 to 100 milliseconds enables the brain to focus attentio...