Peeples writes with infectious enthusiasm, and the result is an engaging look at a field with huge potential.
A study of how understanding the natural cycles of time could open up new pathways of health and well-being.
One of the most interesting fields attracting new scientific inquiry is chronobiology, which examines timing processes, including periodic cycles, in organisms. Aside from animals and plants, writes science journalist Peeples, there is evidence that the deep-seated natural rhythms of the human body are crucial to our physical and mental health. Unfortunately, as the author shows, they have been severely disrupted by modern lifestyles. Peeples is willing to dive wholeheartedly into her subject, and her research even included a period in an underground bunker to see how it affected her. She tracks through the history of clocks and artificial lighting, which pushed people into unnatural schedules, and she presents new research that has revealed how the parts of the light spectrum have different effects on the human body and mind. Blue light, especially early in the day, can provide an extra burst of energy, while orange is good for winding down after activity. Peeples ranges widely, delving into jet lag, the problems for astronauts and polar scientists in dark environments, and the damaging impact of excessive artificial light on the ecosystem. She also looks at experiments suggesting that the right lighting conditions can help to treat dementia, depression, and other mental illnesses. The importance of circadian rhythms is slowly being recognized, Peeples notes, although the current research needs better systemization. She hopes that chronobiology will eventually become part of the standard health tool kit, but until that time, she offers useful advice. Throw away the alarm clock, get some sunshine every day, and listen to what your body is telling you.
Peeples writes with infectious enthusiasm, and the result is an engaging look at a field with huge potential.Pub Date: Sept. 24, 2024
ISBN: 9780593538906
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2024
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.
The chef, rapper, and TV host serves up a blustery memoir with lashings of self-help.
“I’ve always had a sick confidence,” writes Bronson, ne Ariyan Arslani. The confidence, he adds, comes from numerous sources: being a New Yorker, and more specifically a New Yorker from Queens; being “short and fucking husky” and still game for a standoff on the basketball court; having strength, stamina, and seemingly no fear. All these things serve him well in the rough-and-tumble youth he describes, all stickball and steroids. Yet another confidence-builder: In the big city, you’ve got to sink or swim. “No one is just accepted—you have to fucking show that you’re able to roll,” he writes. In a narrative steeped in language that would make Lenny Bruce blush, Bronson recounts his sentimental education, schooled by immigrant Italian and Albanian family members and the mean streets, building habits good and bad. The virtue of those habits will depend on your take on modern mores. Bronson writes, for example, of “getting my dick pierced” down in the West Village, then grabbing a pizza and smoking weed. “I always smoke weed freely, always have and always will,” he writes. “I’ll just light a blunt anywhere.” Though he’s gone through the classic experiences of the latter-day stoner, flunking out and getting arrested numerous times, Bronson is a hard charger who’s not afraid to face nearly any challenge—especially, given his physique and genes, the necessity of losing weight: “If you’re husky, you’re always dieting in your mind,” he writes. Though vulgar and boastful, Bronson serves up a model that has plenty of good points, including his growing interest in nature, creativity, and the desire to “leave a legacy for everybody.”
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4478-5
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.
A study of swimming as sport, survival method, basis for community, and route to physical and mental well-being.
For Bay Area writer Tsui (American Chinatown: A People's History of Five Neighborhoods, 2009), swimming is in her blood. As she recounts, her parents met in a Hong Kong swimming pool, and she often visited the beach as a child and competed on a swim team in high school. Midway through the engaging narrative, the author explains how she rejoined the team at age 40, just as her 6-year-old was signing up for the first time. Chronicling her interviews with scientists and swimmers alike, Tsui notes the many health benefits of swimming, some of which are mental. Swimmers often achieve the “flow” state and get their best ideas while in the water. Her travels took her from the California coast, where she dove for abalone and swam from Alcatraz back to San Francisco, to Tokyo, where she heard about the “samurai swimming” martial arts tradition. In Iceland, she met Guðlaugur Friðþórsson, a local celebrity who, in 1984, survived six hours in a winter sea after his fishing vessel capsized, earning him the nickname “the human seal.” Although humans are generally adapted to life on land, the author discovered that some have extra advantages in the water. The Bajau people of Indonesia, for instance, can do 10-minute free dives while hunting because their spleens are 50% larger than average. For most, though, it’s simply a matter of practice. Tsui discussed swimming with Dara Torres, who became the oldest Olympic swimmer at age 41, and swam with Kim Chambers, one of the few people to complete the daunting Oceans Seven marathon swim challenge. Drawing on personal experience, history, biology, and social science, the author conveys the appeal of “an unflinching giving-over to an element” and makes a convincing case for broader access to swimming education (372,000 people still drown annually).
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-61620-786-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
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