You can try to reuse wrapping paper, of course, but have you ever seen a kid tear into a Christmas present? You can try wrapping with simple brown paper, which is recyclable, but doesn’t feel particularly festive. You could buy eco-friendly wrapping paper, shelling out a pretty penny for something that’s still going to have to be purchased again and again.
OR you can go a whole new route by ditching the paper altogether and going for the truly old-fashioned, easy peasy solution of cloth gift bags that you either purchase or make yourself. If you think that sounds like a bit of a stretch, hold the judgment until you see how utterly adorable these bags are.
Cloth bags save so much time and headache compared to paper wrapping. Weirdly shaped gifts no longer matter as long as they fit in the bag. They also save you money over time if you use them for your household’s gifts and store them away with your holiday decorations each year. If you make them yourself, you can choose any color or pattern theme you want, but there are plenty of readymade coordinated options out there now to go with any decor.
And no, kids don’t care—in fact, they will probably appreciate the fact that their gift wrap is eco-friendly and they may even get nostalgic about seeing the familiar wrappings each year. (Our family has used cloth to wrap for presents for years, and our kids have actually developed favorites.)
Here’s a simple example—a mix of classic red-and-white patterns in assorted sizes for a bright, classic look. How lovely would a stash of these look all gathered under the tree?
Red and white always works for Christmas. <a href="https://amzn.to/3v7H1fh">Amazon</a>
What if you went with a classy gold theme for this year’s decor and want the presents under the tree to match for a perfectly Instagrammable Christmas morning? Here’s a similar set in a gold-and-white pattern.Go for the gold with this set of Christmas gift bags. <a href="https://amzn.to/3RN1miF">Amazon</a>
Maybe you’re going for more of a cozy, casual, log cabin-y feel for your holiday. Plenty of plaid in Christmas colors right here.Cozy, cozy flannel bags with Christmas sayings on them <a href="https://amzn.to/41uzwuX">Amazon</a>
If you’re more drawn to the classic, Norman Rockwell, Christmases-of-yore vibe, check out these nostalgic Christmas prints:These gift bags look like a throwback to "It's a Wonderful Life." <a href="https://amzn.to/3GRMMjP">Amazon</a>
Maybe you’re a modern maven with monochromatic merry-making methodologies. Or perhaps you’d like to be able to reuse your bags at other times of the year, too. These black-and-white babies might just do the trick.
These black-and-white bags could be used for any occasion. <a href="https://amzn.to/3RNXj5O">Amazon</a>
How about a standard-Christmas-wrapping-paper look, only as cloth Christmas gift bags instead?
Get your colorful Christmas on. <a href="https://amzn.to/41wgTHa">Amazon</a>
Or maybe you don’t want a distinctively Christmas feel at all, but rather a mix of pretty, festive bags that could be used for the holidays or any time of year. There’s a whole assortment to choose from here to go with whatever your particular color theme might be.
Christmas bags don't have to be Christmas-themed.. <a href="https://amzn.to/3NABeVY">Amazon</a>
There’s just no shortage of options for cloth gift bags that are worth investing in to save time, money and the environment. Just be sure to check sizes so there are no surprises, grab a wide assortment and then revel in the fact that you’ll never get a paper cut or have to search for another roll of tape while wrapping presents for your family again.
A single door can open up a world of endless possibilities. For homeowners, the front door of their house is a gateway to financial stability, job security, and better health. Yet for many, that door remains closed. Due to the rising costs of housing, 1 in 3 people around the world wake up without the security of safe, affordable housing.
Since 1976, Habitat for Humanity has made it their mission to unlock and open the door to opportunity for families everywhere, and their efforts have paid off in a big way. Through their work over the past 50 years, more than 65 million people have gained access to new or improved housing, and the movement continues to gain momentum. Since 2011 alone, Habitat for Humanity has expanded access to affordable housing by a hundredfold.
A world where everyone has access to a decent home is becoming a reality, but there’s still much to do. As they celebrate 50 years of building, Habitat for Humanity is inviting people of all backgrounds and talents to be part of what comes next through Let’s Open the Door, a global campaign that builds on this momentum and encourages people everywhere to help expand access to safe, affordable housing for those who need it most. Here’s how the foundation to a better world starts with housing, and how everyone can pitch in to make it happen.
Volunteers raise a wall for the framework of a new home during the first day of building at Habitat for Humanity’s 2025 Carter Work Project.
Globally, almost 3 billion people, including 1 in 6 U.S. families, struggle with high costs and other challenges related to housing. A crisis in itself, this also creates larger problems that affect families and communities in unexpected ways. People who lack affordable, stable housing are also more likely to experience financial hardship in other areas of their lives, since a larger share of their income often goes toward rent, utilities, and frequent moves. They are also more likely to experience health problems due to chronic stress or environmental factors, such as mold. Housing insecurity also goes hand-in-hand with unstable employment, since people may need to move further from their jobs or switch jobs altogether to offset the cost of housing.
Affordable homeownership creates a stable foundation for families to thrive, reducing stress and increasing the likelihood for good health and stable employment. Habitat for Humanity builds and repairs homes with individual families, but it also strengthens entire communities as well. The MicroBuild® Initiative, for example, strengthens communities by increasing access to loans for low-income families seeking to build or repair their homes. Habitat ReStore locations provide affordable appliances and building materials to local communities, in addition to creating job and volunteer opportunities that support neighborhood growth.
Marsha and her son pose for a photo while building their future home with Southern Crescent Habitat for Humanity in Georgia.
Everyone can play a part in the fight for housing equity and the pursuit of a better world. Over the past 50 years, Habitat for Humanity has become a leader in global housing thanks to an engaged network of volunteers—but you don’t need to be skilled with a hammer to make a meaningful impact. Building an equitable future means calling on a wide range of people and talents.
Here’s how you can get involved in the global housing movement:
Speaking up on social media about the growing housing crisis
Volunteering on a Habitat for Humanity build in your local community
Travel and build with Habitat in the U.S. or in one of 60+ countries where we work around the globe
Join the Let’s Open the Door movement and, when you donate, you can create your own personalized door
Every action, big and small, drives a global movement toward a better future. A safe home unlocks opportunity for families and communities alike, but it’s volunteers and other supporters, working together with a shared vision, who can open the door for everyone.
One Richmond, Virginia, man shared with WTVR News why he shows up at Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU every Tuesday and Thursday to hold babies. Dave Whitlow, 73, has been a baby cuddler for eight years, calling it “the best gig I’ve ever had.”
Baby cuddling involves more than just holding babies
Cuddling babies in the NICU is delicate work. Whitlow puts on a gown and gloves before picking up the babies, who can sometimes weigh as little as two pounds. He’s been trained to watch the monitors while cuddling them. If a baby’s oxygen saturation dips, they may need to be repositioned.
Whitlow, a retired local government manager, also checks with the nurses to see what a baby’s specific needs are.
“I ask the nurse, ‘Tell me. Tell me what this child is receiving. What kind of treatment? Is there anything special I need to know about it?’” the father of two and grandfather of three told WTVR.
But perhaps the best part of Whitlow’s time with the dozen or so babies he cuddles each week is what he whispers in their ear: “Grow strong, grow smart, grow kind.”
That’s really what he wants from people in general, he said.
Charity never failith ❤️ ❤️Lyn Harris, an 80yo Vietnam Veteran, spends his free time comforting babies. He’s part of the NICU Cuddler Program at St. David’s Medical Center in Austin. He’s says he’s happy to help the staff and parents. Lyn says it’s very rewarding and he’ll help the cuddles coming for as long as he can.❤️ Credit to @stdavidshealthcare/IG #children#hospital#childrenshospital#volunteer#love
If baby cuddling sounds like a dream volunteer opportunity, check with your local hospital to see if it has a program. Some hospitals have volunteer coordinators you can speak with or sections on their websites for volunteers.
Though volunteer requirements differ from place to place, you can likely expect:
age requirement (often a minimum age of 18 to 21)
commitment of a certain number of hours per week over a minimum time period (such as a year)
personal interview
background check
health screening, including immunization verification and updated flu vaccines
orientation and training
Baby cuddlers serve an important purpose in infant care
Cuddling a baby may be beneficial for the cuddler, but it genuinely helps the infants as well. One study found that the length of stay in the NICU for newborns with Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome was six days shorter for babies who were part of a volunteer baby cuddling program. And according to Intermountain Healthcare, research shows that human touch helps a baby’s brain and body develop. Short-term and long-term benefits of positive touch for babies include increased stability in vital stats, faster weight gain, shorter hospital stays, better pain tolerance, improved sleep, stronger immune systems, and more.
Baby cuddling truly is a win-win volunteer experience, especially when you’re someone who whispers words of strength, wisdom, and kindness in babies’ ears.
Some explainer videos fill you with a newfound sense of appreciation for little things you took for granted. This is not one of those times.
“Make hotel scrambled eggs with me,” Elizabeth Emmert, a hotel kitchen worker, began in a now mega-viral clip on TikTok.
However, before delving into the process, she warned, “You might never want them again.”
What followed was a breakfast routine that seemed better suited for a spaceship—or maybe a horror movie
Nary an egg was to be seen as Emmert grabbed a plastic bag full of sunny yellow goop (yum) and tossed it into a microwave. After the egg sack cooked for a few minutes, its yolk-like contents coagulated into a squishy, solid substance. She then cut the bag open, dumped the contents into a tray, and mashed them into small chunks.
“Whelp, that’s ruined my appetite,” one viewer lamented
“[Hotel eggs] taste like they’re made exactly like that,” quipped another.
Why hotels use pre-mixed eggs
There are a few benefits hotels and other buffet-style establishments get from using pre-scrambled batches for their breakfast rushes. The first and most obvious is efficiency. Pre-mixed eggs allow for large-batch cooking in advance, without the need to crack hundreds of shells or do as much cleanup. Not to mention, you get a consistent batch virtually every time.
Then there’s cost. Premixed eggs are significantly cheaper, at around 19 cents per ounce (according to one restaurant food supplier, at least). Compare that to anywhere from $2.50 to over $6.00 for a carton of eggs.
However, this method does come with health concerns
Apart from the fact that these “eggs” may not taste as good as the real thing, there are a few other issues to consider. For one thing, the longer this dish sits out, the greater the risk of salmonella and other bacteria—especially if the tray remains open and the heat source goes out.
Plus, depending on the brand of liquid or powdered eggs the hotel is using, there may be preservatives in the mix to improve shelf life. And then, as many mentioned, there’s the potential consumption of what one viewer calls the “secret ingredient” of hotel eggs: microplastics.
And yet, for some commenters, there simply isn’t a deterrent strong enough to decline a free breakfast
“I mean if it’s free with stay, I ain’t complaining.”
“Girl move, I DON’T CARE. Give me my free hotel breakfast.”
“Lil pepper and hot sauce and some of that nasty cheap bread toasted and I’m all set babe.”
To each their own. But suddenly, the yogurt-and-banana option looks way more appetizing.
In American culture, which still carries a hint of Puritanism from its early years, excessive partying can be seen as hedonistic, immature, and unhealthy. Party people are often criticized for being undisciplined, directionless, and irresponsible with their money.
Dan Buettner, a National Geographic fellow and expert on Blue Zones, says that going out and dancing until the crack of dawn is good for us and can even help us live longer. He learned the power of partying through his research on Blue Zones, five regions of the world where people live longer and have the greatest chance of reaching 100.
“So in America, we tend to associate partying with decadence. But in the Blue Zones, partying is actually a longevity hack,” Buettner said in an Instagram video. “Why? Because when people get together for celebrations in the Blue Zone, they’re dancing. It can be an all-night dance party where they’re getting great physical activity. They’re remaking social bonds that exist throughout the village, and they last for years.”
Buettner adds that in many Blue Zones, people don’t just party to hang out with their friends; they also help their communities.
“In Icaria, for example, people donate all the food and the wine. The partygoers pay for that food and wine, but the proceeds all go to a school or to build a bridge the village needs or to a family that’s down on its luck,” he said. “So it’s this beautiful, virtuous circle. People get physical activity, build their connections, and help others. That’s what builds a Blue Zone, and that is the foundation to longevity.”
According to Buettner, there are nine common denominators across the five Blue Zones, and their party habits satisfy four of them:
Move Naturally
Dancing and milling about socializing is practical exercise. “The world’s longest-lived people don’t pump iron, run marathons, or join gyms. Instead, they live in environments that constantly nudge them into moving without thinking about it.”
Downshift
A party is a great way to de-stress after a hard week. “What the world’s longest-lived people have that we don’t are routines to shed that stress.”
Wine At 5
There’s nothing wrong with having a drink or two; in fact, it may help with longevity. “People in all Blue Zones (except Adventists) drink alcohol moderately and regularly.”
Purpose
Having a party that supports the community gives people a sense of purpose. “Knowing your sense of purpose is worth up to seven years of extra life expectancy.”
Plant Slant (eating a lot of vegetables and beans)
Belong (having a faith-based community)
Loved Ones First (centenarians in the Blue Zones put their families first)
Right Tribe (strong social networks)
Buettner’s video asks us to rethink what’s really going on when people go out to party. On the one hand, it can look decadent, but on the other, we’re building stronger social connections, getting some exercise, and enjoying a few drinks—which may help us live longer.
To your left, the self-checkout area: a collection of blinking, beeping, whirring, computer-speaking machines with bright LED screens and audible prompts to “please select a payment type.” To your right, a single lane with a human cashier…and a line that snakes into the next aisle and out of sight.
You look down. You have six things; the math is obvious. The kiosks will be faster.
But somehow, you and your little basket find yourselves at the back of that winding line.
What’s going on here? If you have ever steered your cart away from self-checkout, even when it is the faster, more efficient option, you are not alone. It may seem like a simple preference on paper: You’re either a “kiosk person” or a “not-kiosk person.” Optimized or old-school. But for many shoppers, that choice is rooted in a human desire for connection and emotional safety, and a small, stubborn refusal to do more work under cameras.
A ritual quietly disappears
Within a single generation, grocery shopping moved from “you hand your stuff to a person” to “you become the person.” For most of the 20th century, buying groceries meant interacting with at least one other human: You chose the lane, loaded items onto the belt, and handed your entire life—cloves of garlic, wine that costs $2, strawberry ice cream, tissues infused with lotion and Vicks VapoRub—to another person. They scanned, bagged, and told you, “Have a good night.”
Today, 40% of checkout lanes at major U.S. grocery chains are self-checkout. They are everywhere: In 2026, 96% of grocery stores in the U.S. offered self-checkout technology, while 86% of consumers claim to use it. You scan. You bag. You look up codes for organic green onions. You do all this on camera, with a disembodied voice ready to tell you about an “unexpected item in the bagging area.”
There was a time when a “full-service checkout” meant that someone else—a trained professional—handled everything. They asked about your day, made sure that egg cartons never wound up at the bottom of your bag, and sometimes carried everything out to your car. It felt like being taken care of.
Self-checkout machines didn’t just replace a series of tasks. They erased the human at the end of a grocery trip.
The importance of “weak ties”
So, you avoid self-checkout lines. Psychologists say a few different things are going on here.
Researchers use the term “weak ties” for the small, casual relationships we maintain with people we don’t know well: the kind cashier who always smiles, the guy behind the fish counter who saves his best salmon for you, and the bus driver who recognizes your face even if they don’t know your name.
Weak-tie connections make you feel important in the world. Photo credit: Canva
Brief, ordinary, easy to overlook—and, for many people, irreplaceable. Toni Antonucci, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, explained the significance to the Daily Mail: Weak ties are “somebody who makes you feel important in their world—somebody who makes you feel human.”
When self-checkout replaces the cashier, it eliminates one of the last reliably recurring weak-tie interactions in many people’s daily lives.
Studies on social connectedness show that these fleeting moments play an important role in our day-to-day lives and measurably improve our mood and sense of belonging, particularly for people who otherwise move through their days in relative isolation.
Imagine the person who works from home or whose apartment falls quiet by 9 a.m. When that cashier remembers something they mentioned weeks ago, they experience the “weak-tie connection.” It’s not friendship. But on certain days, it’s the only exchange that reminds them they exist outside their apartment. It’s a microdose of belonging: proof that they still live in the minds of others.
When habits don’t meet expectations
Researchers who study checkout behavior note that many shoppers—particularly older ones—carry a strong expectation that being served by a person is simply part of what it means to be a customer. It is not entitlement in the pejorative sense. It is a social contract that made sense for decades: You bring items to the cashier, and they handle the transaction. When a kiosk breaks that contract and hands the transaction back to you, it is not just inconvenient; it feels like a small breach in the way the world works.
If you have spent 50 years handing your groceries to a human, your nervous system quietly codes that as “how this is supposed to work.” A touch screen, no matter how “user-friendly,” does not feel like a convenient feature. It makes many older shoppers ask, “Wait, why am I suddenly doing this part myself?”
“These systems aren’t really about innovation or collaboration between companies and consumers,” said Mathieu Lajante, a business management professor at Toronto Metropolitan University. “They’re about maximizing profits while weakening social norms of reciprocity and responsibility.”
Layer tech anxiety on top of that—worrying about “doing it wrong,” getting stuck in the bag selection menu, holding up the line—and the kiosk feels antagonistic. It is an intrusion into a ritual they have followed for decades.
“Am I supposed to be doing this? Really?”
People who do not like self-checkout often hold a strong sense of how labor should work. They remember when a grocery trip included a checker, a bagger, and sometimes even someone who walked your cart out. In their mental contract, paying for groceries includes paying for human help: people who do the things you’re bad at, like the game of Jenga happening in your brown paper bag.
Handing that job to a machine—and, by extension, back to them—can feel like a tiny erosion of what they’re owed as a customer.
When they say, “I’m not doing that—that’s not my job,” it’s not “self-entitlement” or brattiness: it’s a fairness instinct kicking in. They’re refusing to do unpaid work.
All the small stuff in between
Research shows that people who prefer human lanes are often at least partly extroverted: They get energy from small talk, feel safer in familiar social scripts, and like the feeling of being known in their regular spots. Even if they’re shy in other areas of life, the grocery line gives them a structured stage where they know their role and the beats.
And for some, there’s a softer motive: protection. They want to preserve human workers and, by extension, a way of life. They’ve watched their local supermarket cut hours, close lanes, and replace faces with screens. Choosing a cashier feels like a tiny act of solidarity: “If I keep standing here, maybe this job doesn’t disappear as fast.”
3 big reasons you might be right
Then there are the people who see that same setup—self-checkout kiosks to the left, a single checkout lane, and a long line to the right—and make the opposite call.
You know them: the person who snakes past the full‑service lanes and beelines for the one open machine. They move at their own pace, bag their groceries the way they like (frozen together, produce on top, no smashed bread), and skip the part where they talk to a stranger. They can buy late‑night junk food, an embarrassing product, or six cans of cat food and wine without bracing for a comment.
“When you’re at a cashier register, the cashier sees everything you purchase. When you’re at self-checkout, you can control what others see, so you might be more likely to buy embarrassing items.” – Becca Taylor, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Plenty of introverts and people with social anxiety describe kiosks this way. They don’t hate people; they have a limited social battery, and they’d rather use it for work, friends, kids, or a long Lyft ride to the airport. A machine that lets them coast through in near‑silence feels like mercy.
1. You’re doing unpaid labor
Here’s where the research complicates the convenience story. Across four separate experiments, researchers found that shoppers using self-checkout felt less rewarded, less satisfied, and less likely to return compared to those who used a staffed lane.
According to these studies, when you do everything—scan, bag, troubleshoot—this extra effort can shrink the feeling of reward. That means dollars saved and loyalty points don’t hit the same when you’ve had to work for them. You feel like you’re owed something.
Santiago Gallino, a professor at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, states this plainly: “For retailers, it’s a combination of cutting labor and adding flexibility. It’s not to make checkout more efficient. They are basically transferring the labor to the customer.”
Self-checkout didn’t show up because shoppers begged for more chores; it showed up because it lets stores shift paid labor onto us without lowering prices. We didn’t vote for fewer workers; we voted for the only thing the store put in front of us.
2. It’s possible you’re being watched while you work
Self-checkout stations rely on a kind of slightly menacing, almost dystopian level of ambient suspicion: overhead cameras, weight sensors that double-check every bag, pop-ups that demand an attendant’s key before you can move on. AI-based loss-prevention systems increasingly use computer vision and facial recognition to flag suspected shoplifting.
Retailers say this is necessary—theft occurs at a much higher rate at kiosks than traditional lanes—but the solution includes treating everyone like suspects. When you use a self-checkout kiosk, you can see yourself on a little security screen in the corner. So can their security team, and they’re watching closely.
Psychologists would call this a fairness gap: doing more work while being trusted less. Investigations have found that these cameras and the AI systems running them mis‑flag people of color more often, which makes every beep feel a little more loaded.
“AI technologies frequently mirror existing inequalities as they are developed by individuals in environments lacking diversity, which prevents the technology from being fair. If the same stereotypes that are used to profile Black individuals in daily interactions are integrated into algorithms, the resulting facial recognition systems will perpetuate those stereotypes as a human would.” – Shaun Harper, Forbes
3. The plight of the kiosk keeper
Meanwhile, the workers who once stood at a single lane are now sent to babysit the self-checkout kiosks, responsible for eight machines at once. They half‑jog from flashing light to flashing light while a walkie‑talkie crackles in their ear and apologize for errors they didn’t cause. Helper and hall monitor, all in one fluorescent vest. The employee who runs the self-checkout corral holds an impossible dual role: be warm, be helpful, and also watch for theft while fielding the frustration of kiosk users who all think their machine is broken.
Research from the Harvard Shift Project, which surveyed tens of thousands of service-sector employees, found that stores with self-checkouts were more likely to be chronically understaffed and that understaffing drove higher rates of customer hostility aimed at the employees who remained.
Let’s be clear: self-checkout lanes aren’t evil. But when we reduce everything to “convenience,” we miss what’s really at stake.
That little fork in the floor—screens on one side, a person on the other—has become one of the everyday places where we decide how much work, how much watching, and how little conversation we’re willing to accept in exchange for speed.
We’ve all been there: it’s 90 degrees outside, absolutely sweltering, and you’re walking home from a new smoothie shop less than a mile away from your apartment, and everything is melting. The smoothie in your right hand. The açaí bowl in your left. Your old, broken headphones slowly slip off your head as a song you’ve never heard before blares through the speakers. Your willpower is diminishing by the second, and no one is around to help you.
Okay, that might be a bit specific (and precisely what happened to me about an hour ago). Still, you’ve likely had a similar experience: an encounter that left you annoyed, frustrated, or feeling hopeless.
But what if I told you that, according to Mo Gawdat, a former Google executive who has spent the last 20 years researching the mechanics of happiness, you only need to endure that emotional roller coaster for precisely 90 seconds?
Meet the man behind the 90-second rule
It’s time to meet the man who is revolutionizing our understanding of our emotions by giving us all a science-backed way to hit the reset button on our worst days.
Mo Gawat isn’t your typical wellness guru peddling crystals and manifestation journals. This is a guy who spent years as Chief Business Officer at Google X, the company’s “Moonshot Factory,” where he pursued ambitious, high-risk but potentially world-changing projects that tackled large-scale global problems like climate change, healthcare, and communications. But his most profound discovery about human happiness stemmed from his darkest hour.
When Gawdat’s 21-year-old son Ali died from preventable medical negligence during what should have been a routine surgery in 2014, he faced a darkness that would define the rest of his career. A clear choice emerged. He could either let this grief consume him, or honor his son by dedicating his analytical mind to a path Ali had always encouraged him to pursue: spreading happiness to as many people as possible.
Seventeen days after losing his son, Gawdat sat down and began writing Solve for Happy: Engineer Your Path to Joy. Through this book, he uncovered a revolutionary truth: our emotions aren’t permanent. They have expiration dates.
The fascinating brain science behind your emotional meltdowns
Here’s where things get fascinating. When developing what would later be known as the “90-second rule,” Gawdat stumbled upon the findings of Harvard-trained neuroscientist Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor. Similarly, her research was also formed in the pressure cooker of an unexpected, dramatic life experience: the moment when she underwent a massive stroke.
As Dr. Taylor’s left brain hemisphere shut down, she gained unprecedented real-time insight into how emotions function in the body.
What she discovered is that when something triggers you, be it a spilled smoothie or a coworker’s passive-aggressive “per my last email” message, your amygdala (think of it as your brain’s overly cautious security guard) floods your system with stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline. Your heart starts to race as if you’ve just spotted a bear and begun to run, your muscles tense up, and that instinctual fight-or-flight response surges through your body.
However, this chemical cascade has a built-in timer. As Dr. Taylor discovered, it takes approximately 90 seconds for these stress hormones to be flushed from your bloodstream. Meaning that, after that initial surge, the physical component of your emotional reaction is over.
But why doesn’t it feel like that? Why do we marinate in our emotions (anger, sadness, confusion, delusion) for hours, days, or more? That’s because, after those 90 seconds, we make a choice, usually without realizing it, to keep those emotions going by mentally rewinding and replaying the triggering event.
Why do we keep choosing emotional suffering?
“What happens is, you run the thought in your head again, and you renew your 90 seconds,” Gawdat explains. It’s like poking a bruise that’s formed on your knee, or hitting refresh on your personal stress response button. Every time you mentally revisit a stressful event, analyzing what you should have said, reimagining confrontations, and crafting the perfect comeback, you’re essentially retriggering that same potent chemical reaction that occurred in the first place.
So, while that 90-second episode of emotions ends quickly, we end up ruminating about what happened: over and over and over and over again.
This is more than a mere annoyance. Ift’s rewiring our brains in a bad way. Research shows that rumination doesn’t just prolong our bad moods, it intensifies them and can lead to anxiety and depression. We’re thinking ourselves into extended mental states simply by focusing too much on the past.
The three questions that reality-check your brain
What happens when you’ve successfully coasted through those initial 90 seconds but still feel like the world is out to get you? Gawdat developed a handy three-question reality check that serves as an emotional fact-checker for your brain:
Question 1: Is it true?
Gawdat claims that “90% of the things that make us unhappy are not even true.” Think about it: your partner seems distracted during dinner, and suddenly your brain spins an entire narrative about how they’ve fallen out of love with you. But how much of that is real? And what percentage of your little daydream can be chalked up to your brain being its usual dramatic self?
At best, our brains are excellent storytellers. The problem is that they’re prone to writing fiction and presenting it as truth.
So, the next time you find yourself spinning up a stressful “what if?” situation in your head, take a beat, and ask yourself a different question: “Is it true?”
Question 2: Can I take action?
If the answer to question one is “Yes, it is true,” then move on to Gawdat’s second question. Are there steps you can take?
If you have a real problem on your hands, then perfect! Channel that energy into solving it rather than drowning in it.
Question 3: Can I accept it and still create a better life despite it?
Here’s where things get tricky. If you can’t do anything about the situation, the final question before you becomes about “committed acceptance.” No, not passive resignation, but actively choosing to move forward and build something better despite the circumstances.
This can be difficult (remember, this process began with Gawdat searching for a way to make sense of his son’s death) but these questions aren’t about forcing toxic positivity or pretending like problems don’t exist. They help your brain make sense of what’s happened, distinguishing between productive and unproductive emotional energy.
Your brain: the overprotective parent
To understand how this works, it helps to think of your brain as an overprotective, hovering parent who sees danger everywhere. “Your brain isn’t your source of truth,” Gawdat explains. “It’s just a survival machine. A search party. It throws thoughts at you, hoping something will protect you. But that doesn’t mean any of them are true.”
Your mammalian brain evolved to keep you alive, not happy. When modern life presents you with stressful situations like traffic jams, work pressures, and particularly hot and evil temperatures, your ancient survival systems register these “threats” with the same emotional urgency as a saber-toothed tiger attack.
Putting the 90-second rule into practice
So, what does this really look like in real life knowing the science is only half the battle?
Step 1: Notice the surge
When you feel that familiar rush of anger, frustration, or anxiety, create a mental note. “Okay, this is a chemically induced wave of emotion,” you might say to yourself without judgment.
Step 2: Set a timer, literally
For the first 90 seconds, your job is to observe. Feel every emotion to its fullest: your heart racing, your muscles tensing, your breath shortening. Acknowledge these physical sensations without trying to fix or stop them.
Step 3: Breathe and wait
Deep breathing can help calm your nervous system after an onslaught of chemical reactions and prevent your brain from fueling the emotional fire mentally.
Step 4: Choose your response
When those 90 seconds pass, you have what Gawdat calls a “buffer,” a moment of clarity when you can decide what to do next.
Step 5: Apply the three questions
If you’re still upset after the initial wave, run through Gawdat’s reality-check framework.
The 90-second rule offers a unique perspective on relating to your vitally essential emotions. Emotions provide information about the environment and motivate us to take action. The 90-second rule helps us experience our emotions fully without letting them hijack our entire day or our entire life.
The happiness equation connection
This framework connects to Gawdat’s broader “happiness equation,” which posits that happiness equals life events minus expectations. Much of our suffering comes not from what happens to us, but from the gap between the triggering event and what we think should happen.
As Gawdat puts it, “Life doesn’t give a damn about you. It’s your choice how you react to every one of [life’s challenges].” Which may sound harsh, but when put into practice, can prove quite liberating.
The next time you feel yourself crashing out, remember: you have 90 seconds to feel as irrational as humanly possible. After that? You get to decide how to spend the rest of your day.
This article originally appeared one year ago. It has been updated.
Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson is seemingly driven by an endless amount of curiosity. Whether it’s the tiniest sea quark or the biggest black hole known to astronomers, he wants to dig in and make it make sense. And what’s especially unique is his need to not only understand the science around us, but to make us understand too.
In a recent clip posted from the account of Tyson’s popular podcast StarTalk, we see Tyson giving a quick rundown of where “energy” goes when we die. With a chyron reading, “You don’t disappear. You transform. Some of you returns to Earth. Some of you travels the universe,” Tyson leans in and speaks directly to the camera. “In death, you’ve got pretty much two choices in modern society.”
When we are buried
He makes a case for being buried, as we see a traditional coffin being lowered into the ground. “You can be buried. That’s my choice, so that the energy content of my body—which is still there when you die—your molecules were built up from your lifetime of eating and exercise, and the building of your organs and your muscles and other tissue. In death, those molecules still contain energy.”
The clip cuts to a graveyard as Tyson continues. “If I’m buried and I decompose, all that energy gets absorbed by microbes, by flora and fauna dining upon my body the way I have dined upon flora and fauna my whole life. And that way, giving back to the Earth.”
When we are cremated
We then see a fire moving in warm yellow, orange, and red tones. Tyson explains what happens during cremation. “If you’re cremated, the energy content of those molecules doesn’t go away. It gets transferred to heat that then radiates infrared energy that was once the molecules of your body. It radiates it out into space, moving at the speed of light.”
He adds a most intriguing thought, which is that one could conceivably track that energy after cremation. “After somebody has been cremated, you can keep a timeline.” A photo of an AI-generated video of a milky, gaseous star system swirling around a bright light is shown. Tyson continues, “Where has their radiant energy been by now? If they were cremated four years ago, they would have reached the nearest star system, Alpha Centauri. So that, in a way, you’re still a part of the universe, just in a different form.”
In his piece, “What Happens to Your Atoms After You Die?” chemical/mechanical engineer Arvin Ash gives a specific step-by-step as to what happens to our atoms after we pass on. In cremation, he explains, “What are these ashes composed of? Phosphate and calcium make up your bones, so that’s where these atoms come from. What happens to these ashes? These ashes are likely to make their way eventually to soil, where they will be incorporated into the structure of plants. These plants will be eaten by animals and humans, and end up back in your body. Eventually, tiny bits of you will end up in your great-grandchildren’s morning cereal or hamburger.”
And he too believes that some of our atoms will reach the farthest corners of the universe. “Your body also has a tiny amount of radioactive elements. Tiny amounts of thorium and uranium will eventually become lead. But along with this decay, some atoms of helium will also be formed. Earth’s gravity isn’t strong enough to hold helium to our planet, and so tiny bits of what once was you will float off into space. So some of your atoms are in for a fantastical and exciting journey, forever floating to the farthest reaches of the universe until the end of time.”
On the Facebook, where this clip was also posted, this received over 3,000 comments, many of whom seemed fascinated by the cross-section of science and spirituality.
“Green burial”
Many had their own two cents to add. “Cremation, but then the ashes are used in a bios urn to plant a tree. You get a twofer… radiant energy from cremation to travel the universe, and then your ashes are used as nutrients for the tree.”
Some note that even though the video clip showed a coffin, they believe Tyson was most likely referring to a “green burial.” After one Facebooker asked, “How does your ‘energy’ get out of that sealed coffin to feed flora and fauna?” another answers, “That is exactly the point—in a traditional sealed casket and concrete vault, it doesn’t… at first. It actually delays that natural cycle for decades. That’s why there is such a growing interest in green burials or human composting; they remove those barriers so our nutrients can actually rejoin the ecosystem and support new life immediately. Over a long enough time, the coffin will probably decay too. Most things do.”
American food doesn’t have a reputation for being very spicy. But if things keep going the way they have over the past 20 years, that could change. America is going through a spicy renaissance that is hard to miss at fast-casual restaurants, drive-thrus, and in the snack aisle.
As of 2025, 19 out of every 20 restaurants in the United States offer at least one spicy item. Frito-Lay now sells at least 26 varieties of Flamin’ Hot snacks, and as of last year, more than half of Americans were likely to buy an item listed as “spicy,” compared to 39% in 2015.
While this massive shift in American tastes sounds like it is bound to cause more pain than pleasure, research suggests the opposite. In fact, multiple studies associate eating spicy food with living a longer life. A 2025 study published in the Chinese Medical Journal found that people who ate spicy food at least once a week had a lower risk of vascular disease than those who rarely or never ate it.
A 2017 study from Larner College of Medicine at the University of Vermont found that Americans who ate hot red chili peppers had a 13% lower risk of death. Here is the big one: In 2020, research presented at American Heart Association Scientific Sessions, using data from more than 570,000 people, found that those who regularly consumed chili peppers had a 26% lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease and a 25% lower overall risk of death.
The studies show that eating spicy food is associated with greater longevity, but they have yet to pinpoint a direct cause. Correlation is not causation, so other lifestyle factors could be involved. However, capsaicin, the compound that gives peppers their heat, has been found to have numerous health benefits that may directly affect longevity, particularly heart health. Plus, it binds to receptors throughout the body, so its greatest benefits may yet be discovered.
According to Mayo Clinic, capsaicin has been found to increase the body’s ability to burn calories. It is also known to fight low-grade inflammation, which may contribute to heart health. One study found that capsaicin significantly reduced risk factors in adults with low HDL cholesterol levels.
“Chili peppers have many life-extending benefits and can be used in many meal preparation strategies,” Dr. Philip Goglia told Your Tango. “Capsaicin, which can be found in chilies, has been shown through past studies to have antibacterial, anticarcinogenic, and anti-diabetic properties. Additionally, it can reduce cholesterol levels in obese individuals.”
In a world where things that taste good are often bad for your health, this is great news for people who love food with a kick. It is a great excuse to carry a little bottle of Tabasco wherever you go. If you are not into spicy food but want the health benefits of capsaicin, take it slow by trying a little spice here and there, and you may build a tolerance. Before you know it, you could be graduating from mild chicken wings to Molten Lava Atomic Inferno sauce and cruising down the road to longevity.
Beth Lunn was doing what hairstylists do: examining a client’s hair, moving pieces up and checking the texture and color. Then she stopped. She picked up another section. Looked closer. And then, without any prior conversation about it, asked her client, “Are you pregnant?”
The video she’d been recording for her Instagram page, @honeylunnhair, cut off there. The client, later identified as Chanelle Adams, laughed nervously and kept asking, “What? Why?” Lunn asked again. Adams repeated, “Why?” A few rounds of that, and then Adams looked straight at the camera and said, “Not in the video,” before Lunn ended the recording.
Within three days, the clip had reached 126 million views and 5 million likes, with one question dominating every comment section: how on earth did she know?
The answer, it turns out, is rooted in real biology. Lunn followed up with a second video after being flooded with questions, sharing photos of a client who was five months postpartum and walking through the science. As she explained it, “hormonal change causes an increase in estrogen and progesterone, which can alter the hair’s pigment (melanin).” She was careful to note that results vary from person to person, and that there is no “scientific evidence” that coloring one’s hair while pregnant causes harm to the baby, though she leaves that decision to her clients.
The hormonal explanation holds up. According to experts at BehindTheChair.com, elevated estrogen and progesterone during pregnancy can prolong hair growth cycles, change density, and shift the way hair looks and feels entirely. Texture, color, and even how it takes dye can all change.
On the question of coloring specifically, the NHS notes that most research shows it’s safe to dye or color your hair while pregnant. The chemicals in permanent and semi-permanent dyes could cause harm, but only in very high doses, and the amount absorbed through the scalp during a normal appointment is very low. Still, many people choose to wait until after the first 12 weeks, when the risk is lower. Worth knowing: if you’re in your second or third trimester, your hair may react differently to color than it normally would.
Commenters who watched the original video had their own theories about exactly what Lunn saw. @nicole.marie44 wrote, “Your hair tells you so much about your health! She probably saw banding in her hair, and that is common with pregnancy.” @asmaiel_soulvane put it simply: “If she could tell someone is pregnant from their hair. She’s worth the money hands down.”
Lunn hasn’t revealed exactly what visual cue tipped her off, which probably explains why people keep watching.
You can follow Beth Lunn (@honeylunnhair) on Instagram for more entertaining and hair-related content.
