This Year Is Better

tw: broken right rib 5 tw: broken right rib 6 tw: broken right rib 7 tw: broken right rib 8 tw: broken right rib 9 tw: broken right rib 10 tw: broken right rib 11 tw: broken right rib 12 tw: broken cervical vertebra 1 tw: broken cervical vertebra 2 tw: broken cervical vertebra 3 tw: broken cervical vertebra 4 tw: broken cervical vertebra 5 tw: broken cervical vertebra 6 tw: broken cervical vertebra 7 tw: broken thoracic vertebra 1 tw: broken thoracic vertebra 2 tw: broken thoracic vertebra 3 tw: broken thoracic vertebra 4 tw: broken thoracic vertebra 5 tw: broken thoracic vertebra 6 tw: broken thoracic vertebra 7 tw: broken thoracic vertebra 8 tw: broken thoracic vertebra 9 tw: broken thoracic vertebra 10 tw: broken thoracic vertebra 11 tw: broken thoracic vertebra 12 tw: broken lumbar vertebra 1 tw: broken lumbar vertebra 2 tw: broken lumbar vertebra 3 tw: broken lumbar vertebra 4 tw: broken lumbar vertebra 5 tw: broken sacrum tw: broken coccyx tw: broken left humerus tw: broken right humerus tw: broken left radius tw: broken right radius tw: broken left ulna tw: broken right ulna tw: broken left scaphoid bone tw: broken right scaphoid bone tw: broken left lunate bone tw: broken right lunate bone tw: broken left triquetral bone tw: broken right triquetral bone tw: broken left pisiform bone

tw: broken right pisiform bone tw: broken left trapezium tw: broken right trapezium tw: broken left trapezoid bone tw: broken right trapezoid bone tw: broken left capitate bone tw: broken right capitate bone tw: broken left hamate bone tw: broken right hamate bone tw: broken left metacarpal 1 bone tw: broken left metacarpal 2 bone tw: broken left metacarpal 3 bone tw: broken left metacarpal 4 bone tw: broken left metacarpal 5 bone tw: broken right metacarpal 1 bone tw: broken right metacarpal 2 bone tw: broken right metacarpal 3 bone tw: broken right metacarpal 4 bone tw: broken right metacarpal 5 bone tw: broken left proximal phalanx 1 tw: broken left proximal phalanx 2 tw: broken left proximal phalanx 3 tw: broken left proximal phalanx 4 tw: broken left proximal phalanx 5 tw: broken right proximal phalanx 1 tw: broken right proximal phalanx 2 tw: broken right proximal phalanx 3 tw: broken right proximal phalanx 4 tw: broken right proximal phalanx 5 tw: broken left intermediate phalanx 5 tw: broken left intermediate phalanx 2 tw: broken left intermediate phalanx 3 tw: broken left intermediate phalanx 4 tw: broken right intermediate phalanx 5 tw: broken right intermediate phalanx 2 tw: broken right intermediate phalanx 3 tw: broken right intermediate phalanx 4 tw: broken left distal phalanx 1 tw: broken left distal phalanx 2 tw: broken left distal phalanx 3 tw: broken left distal phalanx 4 tw: broken left distal phalanx 5 tw: broken right distal phalanx 1 tw: broken right distal phalanx 2 tw: broken right distal phalanx 3 tw: broken right distal phalanx 4 tw: broken right distal phalanx 5 tw: broken left innominate bone tw: broken right innominate bone tw: broken left femur tw: broken right femur

tw: broken left patella tw: broken right patella tw: broken left tibia tw: broken right tibia tw: broken left fibula tw: broken right fibula tw: broken left calcaneus tw: broken right calcaneus tw: broken left talus tw: broken right talus tw: broken left navicular bone tw: broken right navicular bone tw: broken left medial cuneiform bone tw: broken right medial cuneiform bone tw: broken left intermediate cuneiform bone tw: broken right intermediate cuneiform bone tw: broken left lateral cuneiform bone tw: broken right lateral cuneiform bone tw: broken left cuboid bone tw: broken right cuboid bone tw: broken left metatarsal 1 bone tw: broken left metatarsal 2 bone tw: broken left metatarsal 3 bone tw: broken left metatarsal 4 bone tw: broken left metatarsal 5 bone tw: broken right metatarsal 1 bone tw: broken right metatarsal 2 bone tw: broken right metatarsal 3 bone tw: broken right metatarsal 4 bone tw: broken right metatarsal 5 bone tw: broken left proximal phalanx 1 tw: broken left proximal phalanx 2 tw: broken left proximal phalanx 3 tw: broken left proximal phalanx 4 tw: broken left proximal phalanx 5 tw: broken right proximal phalanx 1 tw: broken right proximal phalanx 2 tw: broken right proximal phalanx 3 tw: broken right proximal phalanx 4 tw: broken right proximal phalanx 5 tw: broken left intermediate phalanx 1 tw: broken left intermediate phalanx 2 tw: broken left intermediate phalanx 3 tw: broken left intermediate phalanx 4 tw: broken right intermediate phalanx 1 tw: broken right intermediate phalanx 2 tw: broken right intermediate phalanx 3 tw: broken right intermediate phalanx 4 tw: broken left distal phalanx 1 tw: broken left distal phalanx 2 tw: broken left distal phalanx 3 tw: broken left distal phalanx 4 tw: broken left distal phalanx 5 tw: broken right distal phalanx 1 tw: broken right distal phalanx 2 tw: broken right distal phalanx 3 tw: broken right distal phalanx 4 tw: broken right distal phalanx 5

tw: bruising

She got the idea for the study while walking with her advisor at Stanford to discuss her thesis topic, and the paper she eventually published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology in 2014 is sharp enough that it should have ended the seated meeting on the day it came out.

She ran 4 experiments on 176 people. Same person tested twice. Once sitting, once walking. The creativity tasks were the standard ones psychologists have used for decades to measure how good a brain is at generating novel useful ideas.

81% of participants in the first experiment produced more creative ideas while walking than while sitting. In the second experiment, 88%. In the third, 100%. Every single person walked into a more creative version of themselves. On average, people generated 60% more novel useful ideas the moment their legs started moving.

The skeptical question is the obvious one. Maybe it was the fresh air. Maybe it was the scenery passing by. Maybe it was the change of environment doing the work, not the walking itself.

Oppezzo killed every one of those explanations with one experimental decision. She put people on a treadmill facing a blank wall. No scenery. No fresh air. No environmental change. Just legs moving in place while staring at white drywall. The 60% boost held.

Then she ran the experiment that closed the case completely. She took participants outside in two conditions. Half of them walked through a Stanford courtyard. The other half were pushed through the exact same courtyard in a wheelchair. Same outdoor stimulation. Same scenery passing at the same speed. The only difference was whether the legs were moving.

The walkers produced dramatically more novel high-quality ideas than the wheelchair group. The outdoors did almost nothing on its own. The walking did everything.

She also tested the opposite kind of thinking. Convergent thinking. The kind where there is one right answer and you have to narrow down to it. Word puzzles where 3 words share a hidden fourth word that connects them. The seated participants did slightly better on these. Walkers got slightly worse.

Walking is not a general intelligence enhancer. It does one specific thing. It opens up the divergent search inside your brain. The part that generates options. The part that produces unexpected connections. The part that takes a problem and finds five ways into it instead of one.

When you need to converge on the single right answer, sit down. When you need to find the answer in the first place, get up.

The mechanism is now well understood. Walking selectively activates what neuroscientists call the default mode network, the system inside your brain that runs when you are not consciously focused on anything. The DMN is where mind-wandering happens. Where memories cross-reference each other. Where ideas that have been sitting in separate folders inside your head finally bump into each other.

When you sit at a desk and force yourself to concentrate, you suppress the DMN. When you walk at a natural pace, the executive part of your brain gets just busy enough handling the walking that the DMN comes online and starts doing the work that focus was blocking.

The most useful finding in the entire paper is the one almost nobody quotes. The boost did not turn off the moment people stopped walking. Participants who walked first and then sat back down stayed elevated. Their next round of seated creativity work was still significantly better than people who had been sitting the whole time. The rest lingered for at least several minutes after the legs stopped moving.

You do not need to do creative work while walking. You need to walk before the creative work. The brain holds the state.

Now I’m an adult and people my age have their lives in order and I’m stuck here, confused, because I never planned to be alive and I’m so far behind.

I want to make an addition to this. I made this post a long time ago.

I’m currently back in university, and I’ve made so much progress with my trauma. I’m in a loving relationship.

Things can and will get better. It’s not too late.

I’m getting married. I’m still in that loving relationship.

I’ve been married a little over two years. I just got home from friendships that feel like home and family. My husband and I have our own place. I have a full ass book ready to be published.

They were us.

Like literally genetically they were US, just like. A while ago.

Like

Would you trust a TV caveman with a baby? Probably not

As long as homo sapiens have existed, we have had the same emotional and mental capacity as you and I do today. You nailed it. They were US. Even Neaderthals existed alongside and had offspring with Homo Sapiens for many thousands of years.

There's much evidence that cavemen would have had complex spoken language, culture (learned information passed down), symbolic interpretation, and I think they most certainly would have been able to handle holding a baby. In fact I have my suspicisions that an ancient homo sapiens mother may be a more present, attentive, and knowledgable mom than I could be today.

Do not let media trick you into believing we are the pinnacle of humanity. Unilinial evolution theory (google it quick I beg) is BUNK, GARBAGE, and the root of so much evil.

At the beginning of the next class, my teacher showed us a cave painting of a horse. And then he showed all of our horses, which he had scanned and put into the presentation.

He then pointed out all the ways that our horses looked similar to the prehistoric horse. Same features, drawn from the same angle, etc.

And then he asked us, "Isn't it cool that you draw horses the same way as someone who lived 20,000 years ago?"

Yeah. That stuck with me for a while.

Scientists are now pretty sure the scribbles were made by kids ages 3-6, more or less on their own. The adult cave artists were probably doing what any modern parent might do when they want to keep small children out of their hair for awhile: they gave the kids some drawing tools of their own and a small section of wall to work on, out of the way but still close enough to keep an eye on them, and let them have at it.

The team compared the ancient art with the developmental stages exhibited by modern children: the furiously scribbled circles and push-pull lines typical of 3-year-olds just learning to control their bodies, for example, or the wobbly, right-angled figures of slightly older kids beginning to master fine motor skills.

Both are apparent in the cave, superimposed on each other as though two or more kids were drawing at once. That’s a clue the Las Monedas marks were likely made by “siblings or a mixed-age play group within the sphere of safety around adults, but also within their own space,” says co-author Felix Riede, an Aarhus archaeologist.

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It's for me