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Plus, he has always had an affinity for the character: “I remember feeling really connected to him because he seemed like a regular person who by his own volition became heroic.” Krasins

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YOUR ULTIMATE ARM BLAST

Want big biceps? Here’s the plan

28

BED BUDDIES

Sleeping poorly? There’s plenty of reasons

and plenty of products that promise to

help Here’s which will… and which won’t

16

SO EXACTLY WHAT’S THE

PENIS MARKET RATE?

What’s the real average size these days,

and does she even care?

72

KETO NATION

Inside the low-carb craze- does it really

help you get to your fi tness and life goals?

64

SHAOLIN SWOLE SECRETS REVEALED!

This issue’s cover guy trained with warrior

monks for 6 weeks- here’s what went down!

LIND

ART

JAS

68 REAL TIPS FOR WEIGHT LOSS

Losing weight isn’t easy, but these real strategies fromregular folks can help speed

up your progress

W W W M E N S H E A L T H C O M S G

42 WANT A SUPERHERO CHIN?

Don’t have that imposing chin that all Hollywood alpha males have due to bad genetics? We try a cosmetic solution

76

MAKE THAT RUNNING

RESOLUTION

Want to meet your pavement

pounding targets? Here’s the

roadmap

18

SLIDE INTO HER DM’S

Instagram dating is possible-

but you gotta play your likes

right

60

BUILD THAT CHEST

AND BACK

The workout to build a chest

and back worth fl exing

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Global Editions/ EDITORS-IN-CHIEF

Serbia and Montenegro

EL SALVADOR GUATEMALA HONDURAS MEXICO NICARAGUA PANAMA PERU VENEZUELA

APRIL FOOL’S

DAY, EVERY DAY

We all know that laughing feels good

It’s a bonding, endorphin rushing

sensation that can actually boost

your brainpower Einstein always

attributed his brilliant mind with a

childlike sense of humour, and he

was right An Austrian study found

that funny people - particularly

those who enjoyed a darker sense of

humour - show signs of high IQ It’s

thought it’s a ‘heritable trait’ that

signals mental, emotional and

intellectual agility to a prospective

mate.

Still need convincing? Regular

laughter can protect your recall

ability It reduces the production of

stress hormone cortisol, high levels

of which not only eat away at muscle

but, “can cause damage to your

hippocampus, the area of the brain

that deals with memory,” says Loma

Linda University’s Dr Gurinder Bains

He advocates a daily chuckle to keep

you bright Even if only to summon

timely Peep Show references.

In addition, a Florida International

University study found that hospital

patients who were shown classic

comedies like A Fish Called Wanda

while recovering from surgery

reported perceiving faster recovery

They also requested fewer

painkillers than patients who were

shown thrillers such as Die Hard II

In this case, John Cleese outwits

John McClane It’s a reason to laugh

hard with a vengeance.

TIPS THAT WORK 18

3 HOW TO SLEEP BETTER 28

4 WHAT SHAOLIN

TRAINING IS LIKE 64

5 IF YOU’RE DYING 26

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Can flexible dieting (or “If It Fits Your Macros”) actually be good enough for you to see results?

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diet-flexible/

if-it-fits-your-macros-iifym-What Is The IIFYM Diet &

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Mock Meat On Pizza: Does PizzaExpress Verde Vegan Pizza Taste Like Real Meat?

Most people don’t like the taste of mock meat, but can this new vegan pizza alternative with plant-based “meat” change your mind?

https://www.menshealth.com.sg/weight-The Most Useful E-mail In Your Inbox

Sign up for our newsletter when you register to be a member on Menshealth.com.sg and receive free expert advice and tips delivered straight to your inbox Each week, you’ll learn how to upgrade your muscle gains, look like a million bucks and get the girl

Sitting for a prolonged period of time

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8

EVER WONDER WHY YOU CAN NEVER LOSE ‘BABY FAT’,

OR ‘MANBOOBS’? HERE’S WHY, AND A POSSIBLE SOLUTION

DO YOU HAVE FAT

DNA? HERE’S HOW

TO FIGHT IT.

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We’d like to say “fat chance”,

but if your parents are packing a

few extra pounds the odds are

good that your double helix can

predispose you to a double chin

Research in the International

Journal Of Obesity estimates

that around 79 per cent of your

body mass index (BMI) is

determined by your DNA, with

environmental factors making

up the rest

But don’t panic According to

Harvard University research, if

you make sure at least 25 per

cent of your calories come from

protein, you may lessen the

effects of certain

obesity-that men who ran 3km to 6km

a day reduced the influence

of genetics on their BMI by 29 per cent

So what if your best efforts at working out and dieting aren’t giving a killer blow to fats at trouble spots like your chest?

You might want to consider body sculpting options like VASER® Hi-Def Lipo, or surgery

to treat gynecomastia – a medical term used to describe excess glandular and/or fatty breast tissues in men- that will help you get the physique you want under that shirt

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removes both the superficial and deep fat that surrounds muscle groups to enhance the visibility of underlying toning and musculature During the procedure, targeted areas will be marked out, and fat will

be removed via a sculpting process to create a frame around the muscles that are to be enhanced A more precise sculpting follows where

a small amount of fat will be left

to amplify your underlying muscle tone

In the case of gynecomastia, the surgery involves the removal of the tissue or excess glandular underneath the breast When the gland is removed, it is permanently removed and does not recur.Looking to find out more? Head to Amaris B Clinic, one of Singapore’s aesthetic clinics to introduce VASER® Hi-Def Lipo a full decade ago You’ll get to meet Dr Ivan Puah, who received his body sculpting and liposuction training in Italy, USA and Argentina- and he’s a VASER® certified physician! He has also received advanced training in gynecomastia surgery in San Francisco

published studies Legitimate experts simply don’t offer guarantees We give probabilities and caveats It’s not sexy, and that’s why so many people want to trust these

‘experts’ who seem so certain.”

I never know if I’m overdoing

it when texting a prospective date Are there rules to this? – John

A text has no context Without your tone of voice or body language cues, your coy responses might not translate

in a chat bubble Not saying you shouldn’t be flirty and funny in your texts, but it’s easy for a less direct message to miss the mark In the first few weeks, use texting to set up your IRL dates, offer some insights about your interests, and let her know you’re thinking about her You don’t have to play games, but less is still more

G E T M O R E A N S W E R S TO L I F E ’ S Q U E S T I O N S AT

M E N S H E A LT H C O M S G /A S K- M H

over-egg it, Tom

How can you tell if some health studies can be trusted? – Carl

The best advice for not getting duped by a health fad comes from Men’s Health Advisory Panel nutritionist David L Katz, M.D., M.P.H., FACPM, F.A.C.O., FACLM:

“To navigate the world of health claims, consider Bertrand Russell: ‘The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.’ Those who are not legitimate experts often speak in certainties They use definite language, like ‘the way’, ‘the cure’ They use words like ‘guarantee’ But if a medication or cure were so certain, the entire medical community would be in on it and there would be tons of

Acute responses are the physiological changes that happen as

a result of the individual exercise Long-term responses are a result of the body recognising the stress associated with a single bout of exercise, by gradually increasing its ability to withstand the stress associated with that stimulus Think about training for a marathon and slowly building up endurance You wouldn’t get that from high-intensity interval training (HIIT) There are numerous rewards that come from HIIT, and it should certainly

be a part of every person’s routine However, that does not mean you can get away with only two minutes of exercise, even if at very high intensity, and expect to reap the same long-term performance benefits as with longer workouts.

The Expert: Mark D Peterson, Ph.D., C.S.C.S.*D, associate professor, Medicine, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation

Michigan-CAN YOU FORCE AN

EX TO DELETE YOUR OLD INTIMATE PICS?

DO YOU HAVE A QUESTION ABOUT THE LAW THAT YOU WANT TO FIND OUT?

Please send it to us at magmenshealth

@sph.com.sg.

The legal information here does not constitute legal advice You should always consult a lawyer for the professional assurance that our information, and your interpretation of it,is situation, before you commence any sort of legal action We are not liable if you fail to do so.

As the macro of the moment

and so-called building block of

muscle, protein is fetishized as

much by supermarket giants as

it is by pneumatic gym bros

While devouring a whole

chicken in one sitting has long

won you judos in some circles,

now you can’t move the

supermarket without being sold

protein ice creams and cereals

Sadly, it is possible to have too

much of a good thing

According to the Reference

Nutrient Intake, you need 0.75g

of protein for each kilogram of

your bodyweight, so an 80kg

man requires around 60g a day

– roughly three salmon fillets

But the greater the physical

stress placed on your body, the

higher its demands For a man

of the same size who trains

hard, the International Society

of Sports Nutrition recommends

112g per day Exceed this,

however, and the benefits are

soon negated One study found

those who ate more than 1.62g

of protein per kilo of weight

(around 130g, or two juicy

steaks), built no more muscle

than more moderate diners

Shakes, steaks and (fortified)

ice creams all have their time

and place, of course But if you’re

eating three well-balanced

meals a day, you’re unlikely to

fall short It might even end up

where you don’t want it “Your

body struggles to digest excess

protein,” says Harley Street

nutritionist Rhiannon Lambert

“It may simply wind up being

stored as fat.” In a nutshell, don’t

Currently, there is no law which criminalizes the possession of such risqué photographs/videos taken and shared consensually between your partner and yourself However, there may be legal repercussions if you eventually choose to share the content for the purposes of blackmail or revenge, for example, by posting them online for other parties to view (typically known as

“revenge porn”) In April

2017, a man was imprisoned for four weeks after posting his ex-girlfriend’s nude photographs on Tumblr despite revenge porn not being an offence in Singapore.

Although having possession of such risqué photographs is not illegal

in Singapore as of now, it would be the right thing to

do on your part to delete the photographs/videos

on your phone as requested by your ex-partner.

CHANGE SINCE EVERYMAN JOHN KRASINSKI

POSTED HIS “OUT OF THE OFFICE”

NOTE, HE’S BECOME A DAD, A

RED-HOT DIRECTOR, AND JACK RYAN

DISCOVER HOW HE KICKED HIS LIFE

INTO OVERDRIVE.

Back in 2016,

writer-actor-director John Krasinski and his

wife, actress Emily Blunt, sold

their place in the Hollywood

Hills—to Kendall Jenner, as it

happens—and moved to a

townhouse in Brooklyn, next to

Prospect Park These days,

when work brings him back to L

A., Krasinski stays just a few

blocks down the hill from his old

neighbourhood, at the Chateau

Marmont hotel This is where we

find him on a Monday in June,

high above Sunset Boulevard in

suite 69, barefoot and bearded,

still reeling from two of the

wildest months of his life

Krasinski, 40, is something of

a Chateau buff He and Aaron

Sorkin have been talking for

years about making a show

about the hotel—something big

and complicated, with story

lines spanning the place’s

nine-decade history, an epic worthy

of a building with a Hollywood

legend attached to every room

Suite 69 is famous for two

reasons: It’s where Stephen

Dorff lived while filming Sofia

Coppola’s Somewhere, about

an actor undergoing a low-key

existential crisis while staying in

room 59, one floor below It’s

also where Jim Morrison stayed

the night he attempted to exit

his room by shinnying down a

drainpipe, fell several stories,

and survived by bouncing off a

shed

“That’s amazing,” Krasinski

says when informed of his room’s place in Doors lore He immediately steps out onto the balcony to check out the drop

The view is vertiginous The infamous drainpipe seems to have been removed, perhaps

to discourage stunts by copycat Lizard Kings—which doesn’t stop Krasinski from leaning a little too far over the edge to look for it “It would be great if I plunged to my death while trying to figure this out,”

he says with a grin

Krasinski steps back inside, kills the air-conditioning, and leaves the balcony doors open

to let the breeze cool down the room “I hear this is how Stephen Dorff used to do it,” he says He calls room service, orders a pot of coffee, and folds his 1.91m frame into an armchair It’s four o’clock in the afternoon; a long day of calls and meetings is coming to a close

As of our conversation, Krasinski has finished shooting the first season of Jack Ryan for Amazon He plays the title role, stepping into a part made famous by Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford and

subsequently rebooted, with diminishing returns, by Ben Affleck and Chris Pine; Amazon pitched it to Krasinski by suggesting that serialized TV might be a better medium for the sprawl of Tom Clancy’s books Plus, he has always had

an affinity for the character: “I remember feeling really connected to him because he seemed like a regular person who by his own volition became heroic.” Krasinski’s Ryan is a low-level modern-day CIA drone—the human, cubicle-bound kind—who gets pulled into the line of fire after picking

up the trail of a terrorist he’s

convinced is the next Osama bin Laden It’s the perfect part for the actor he has become since The Office—a Jim Halpert whose buttoned-up exterior conceals a core of reluctant-action-hero steel

But when we meet at the Chateau, the public has not seen the show yet If the phone is ringing more insistently, it’s largely due to the surprise box-office success of Krasinski’s film A Quiet Place, in which he and Blunt star as harried post-apocalyptic parents trying to protect their kids from extraterrestrial monsters who hunt by sound Shot for a paltry USD$17 million (SGD$22.9 million) and—it has to be said—

directed by a guy still best known for playing nice-guy paper salesman Jim, A Quiet Place unexpectedly raked in USD$50 million (SGD$67.6 million) during its opening weekend, unseating Ready Player One, helmed by a slightly more established auteur named Steven Spielberg By early

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June, the movie had already made more than USD$300 million (SGD$405.6 million) worldwide.These are career-altering, life-changing developments for a guy

in Krasinski’s position But what he’s really grateful for, he says, is that during opening weekend and the days after, he was at home in New York, in his own headspace, hanging out with his wife and kids instead of breathing the industry’s hot air “It was awesome,” he says,

“because I don’t know if I trust myself to have processed it properly if I was out here It was nice to have a week of nothing but introspection.”

That Monday, he and Blunt were walking home after dropping off their older daughter, Hazel, at school Then, Krasinski says, “in true New York fashion, a garbage truck rips around the corner, screeches up to these cans, and the guy jumps off the back He grabs a trash can, goes

to the back of the truck, sees me, goes, ‘Saw it Sunday F***ing awesome’—without making eye contact—dumps the can, and keeps going Emily turned to me and we high-fived,” he says “She was like, ‘That’s the coolest review you’re going to get.’ ”

In a sense, A Quiet Place is really a movie about parental love and sacrifice that happens to include a few monsters; it’s the kind of film only someone who looks up to his father could have made Accordingly, when asked to name a hero outside his own profession, Krasinski doesn’t hesitate: Dad “My mom, too,” he quickly adds “But as far as being

a man—if I can be a quarter of the person my dad is, when I perish from this earth, I would feel like I’d achieved something.”

Krasinski’s father, Ronald, was a general practitioner; his mother, Mary, was a nurse He grew up in Newton, Massachusetts; served

1 4

A L P H A M A L E

as an altar boy until he was 18;

and played high school

basketball just like his two older

brothers They were good; he

was okay He arrived at Brown

University thinking he’d play

ball there; that idea evaporated

once he showed up to a

practice and glimpsed his

would-be teammates

“I remember the [gym] door

opened,” he says, “and as it

shut, I was like, ‘No.’ It wasn’t

only how good and how big

they were—you could see the

commitment You could see

that this was their second

practice in a day and they woke

up at 4:30 for morning lifts I’m

like, ‘This is not my college

experience I can’t do this.’

“And I know this sounds

convenient,” he says, “but that

same day, I’m walking back

from the gym, now looking for a

group to be part of, and there’s

a leaflet on a tree I’ll never

forget this, because at Brown

that’s a big no-no, to put a nail

in a tree.”

The leaflet turned out to be a

recruitment flyer for a

sketch-comedy group Thus did a

preppy-looking Newton kid

who’d just come from

basketball practice fall in with a

crew Krasinski describes as

“the coolest alt kids you’ll ever

meet,” kids who turned him on

to Nick Drake, Noah Baumbach,

and countless other artists who

would blow his world open

Maybe you’ve heard him tell

this story before The role he

took in a staged reading of

David Foster Wallace’s Brief

Interviews with Hideous Men—

directed by future MSNBC host

Chris Hayes—that convinced

him there might be more to

acting than making people

laugh (Krasinski directed a

low-budget movie based on

Wallace’s book in 2009; reviews

who encouraged him to hang in there; three weeks later, he booked The Office

No one expected the American version of Ricky Gervais’s British sitcom to succeed when it premiered in

2005 But after an awkward first episode—essentially a word-for-word restaging of the original pilot—the show began

to cohere, in part by building stories around its superb supporting cast Audiences became deeply invested in the slow-burning romance between Jim and receptionist Pam Beesly (Jenna Fischer)

The final U S Office episode aired in 2013, but Jim Halpert has enjoyed a second life on the Internet, where GIFs of Krasinski’s classic reaction shots have become social-media shorthand for joy, horror, confusion, and dismay

Krasinski insists—believably—

that he’s okay with being a human emoji He thinks it’s fantastic, in fact And while he’s

made some moves over the years that could be read as attempts to distance himself from the prank-loving cubicle jockey he played on TV for nine seasons—stepping in to deliver one of the nastiest monologues

in Brief Interviews himself, for example, or getting ripped for Michael Bay’s 13 Hours—he says that wasn’t really the plan

“None of those things were about running away from Jim,”

he says “Jim is one of those things that, I know, at the end of

my career, I’ll still be most known for And that’s awesome That’s an honour But I wanted

to try different things I wanted

to set myself up to explore things that were scary, and things I wasn’t sure I was going

to be good at.”

This being Men’s Health, let’s talk about the abs, just for a second There’s a shot in 13 Hours in which Krasinski walks out onto a Benghazi porch His shirt is off, his core resembles a narrow cobblestone street I ask him if he can articulate what the transformation did for him, both career-wise and psychologically

“Someone in the Marvel world or the leading-man world said to me, ‘Hollywood can’t imagine you doing it until you

do it And once they see it, it can’t be unseen by them.’ And that’s exactly what happened

to me,” Krasinski says “When I went out for Captain America, people were like, ‘Really?’ Then I did 13 Hours, and people are like, ‘Okay, yeah, you can do these roles now.’ I’m like, ‘You don’t care about the acting? You just care about the physical shape?’ And they’re like,

‘Correct.’

“Not to get into the whole regime,” he continues, “but on

13 Hours, I did it for the role, and

“I REMEMBER THE [GYM] DOOR OPENED,” HE SAYS,

“AND AS IT SHUT, I WAS LIKE, ‘NO.’ IT WASN’T ONLY HOW GOOD AND HOW BIG THEY WERE—

YOU COULD SEE THE COMMITMENT.

at the time were mixed, but it plays today like a prescient meditation on the theme of toxic masculinity.) The stint at theatre school after Brown, and the promise he made to his parents when he moved to New York to be an actor—that if he hadn’t made it within three years, he’d try to be something else When those years were almost up, he called his mom,

his love and envy for his brother, Krasinski cries—hard

“I’m weeping so much I thought

he would hear me onstage,” he admits

When the show is over, Krasinski’s buddies pressure him to go say hello to Hoffman and, reluctantly, he goes “I was still very volatile emotionally,”

he says, “and I went up, and he’s like, ‘John?’ And I almost started crying again He’s like, ‘Are you still acting?’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, I just got this thing called The Office,’ and he was like, ‘That’s awesome, man I’m so glad you’re still acting.’ I’ll never forget that he had that level of care and dedication.”

He tears up a little just telling this story This is who he is He cries at the drop of a hat, at the memory of the drop of a hat

And yet the fact that Krasinski, with his Soft Batch heart, ended

up directing a blockbuster horror movie isn’t actually as counterintuitive as it seems

When he was handed the original spec script for A Quiet Place—which came to him via producers Andrew Form and Brad Fuller, who also executive-produced Jack Ryan—his younger daughter, Violet, was about three weeks old

“I was wide-open emotionally,” he says “ The version I read had a lot of the standard elements of a horror movie, but I thought there was

an opportunity to go deeper with the theme of parenthood

That’s when I decided to rewrite it—because I could write about

my experience right then, the protective mode I was in with

my kid.”

There’s a famous anecdote about Dustin Hoffman emerging from a screening of The Graduate and

encountering an older woman

then I definitely got addicted to

it I take periods off I remember

my trainer saying, ‘Try to stay

within three weeks, so that

whatever part you get, within

three weeks we can get you

down.’ That’s the goal, to be

able to shift back and forth I

think that’s better than saying,

‘Stay ripped your whole life.’

Because that’s really annoying,

and the people who do it really

easily annoy me Yes, I’m talking

to you, Chris Hemsworth

“I think mentally, it’s cleared

my head for things like

directing and producing,” he

says “Staying really busy If I

didn’t work out a few times a

week, I would start to

overanalyse It definitely takes

me out of myself for a minute

And it gives me my best ideas

Your brain definitely works

better when it’s all lubed up

with endorphins and sweat and

blood.”

He came close to being

Captain America, for the record

“Yes, I put on the suit Yes, I did

the screen test But I knew

they’d offered it to Chris [Evans]

like four times, and eventually I

got the call ‘Chris is engaging.’

And I was like, ‘Of course he is!

Look at that dude He is Captain

America!’ It’s the way I was

brought up—I’ve always been a

realist and I respect the

situation You can’t fight against

things you can’t control I

remember we were on our way

to a party for Emily’s birthday

when I found out I hung up the

phone and [told her], ‘Yeah, it’s

not me.’ She was like, ‘Do you

want to cancel?’ And I said, ‘No,

let’s go.’ ”

He was happy the role went

to a fellow “Boston guy”—Evans

grew up in Sudbury, across I-90

from Newton—and, although

he doesn’t say it, he seems cool

with not having spent the past

seven years making superhero movies I’m also unable to get him to concede that it was hard

to watch as Casey Affleck won

an Oscar for Manchester by the Sea—based on a story Krasinski came up with and initially developed for himself to star in Again: At least a Boston guy got it

More than once over the course of our conversation, Krasinski alludes to a “dark hole” he might have fallen into

in response to a setback, or a success, if not for his upbringing, his wife and kids, and certain tough or fortuitous breaks that came along later in life, when he was ready to deal with them But when I ask him

to explain the hole, and whether he’s consciously putting in work

to stay out of it, he admits he’s not really sure what a dark hole would consist of

“I was too boring and clean of

a kid,” he says “I never got into a lot of trouble Drugs and alcohol, all that stuff I was never a big partyer I’m more of

a wine-party type If someone brought out some cheese and wine, I’d be here until 2:00 A.M I love talking.”

Near the end of the interview Krasinski tells me a story about Philip Seymour Hoffman They were both in David Mamet’s State and Main Hoffman was one of the leads, and Krasinski, who was still in college, made

an uncredited appearance as a caddie But they were in a few scenes together and got to know each other a little Cut to a year later Krasinski has booked The Office but he’s only just shot the pilot He goes to see Hoffman in Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night

on Broadway As Hoffman’s character, Jamie, delivers his final monologue, confessing

in the lobby who tells him, prophetically, “Life is never going to be the same for you from this moment on.” I ask Krasinski if—despite what he’d achieved in film and television

up to that point—the reception

to A Quiet Place felt like a similarly huge existential shift

“Yeah, kind of,” he says “The difference is that I definitely don’t trust that I would be the most mentally stable person if this had happened to me at 27 The fact that I’ve had a career and have had successes and failures that have reshaped the bent metal that is life— that experience grounds me and helps me understand the goods and the bads and the dark corners and all that But more importantly, I know I’ll never do another movie that’s this successful, this original, this underdog-y, and then on top of it have it be with my wife every step of the way

“I said to Emily, ‘There’s no greater gift that the universe could have given me than to go through the biggest success of

my career and I don’t have to explain to you how it felt.’ We were both in the boat I said to her, ‘I don’t know if it can ever be like this again.’

“And—again, leave it to Emily, who is better at everything than me—she goes, ‘It can’t.’ She just

so perfectly encapsulated it ‘It can’t be like this again, and it shouldn’t So take this and put it

on a mantel, this really special treasure that we experienced together And now go out and

do something else.’ ”

Most men worry about how

big they are But guess what?

Most men with concerns

about penis size actually have

completely normal-sized

penises, says Debra

Herbenick, Ph.D., M.P.H., a

professor and director of the

Center for Sexual Health

Promotion at Indiana

University Bloomington

Here, she tells Men’s Health

what the average penis size is,

how to do away with nagging

insecurities, and have the

best dates (and sex) of your

life — no matter your size

WHAT’S THE AVERAGE

PENIS SIZE?

About 5.6 inches (14cm) of

erect length The range is

around 4-something inches to

6.25 inches (10cm to 15.8cm)

It’s pretty consistent But a lot

of these email marketing

campaigns for pills that are

supposed to make you bigger (they don’t) talk about the average penis size being seven inches (17.8cm) long No study has ever found an average penis size of seven inches long So, we get emails from men who are in the fives

or even six inches and have been led to believe that they’re smaller than average

HOW DOES SIZE IMPACT SEX?

Most people don’t really enjoy having intercourse with penetration with a partner who is on the very long end

The very small end poses challenges, too But the studies that have looked at physical characteristics like genital size compared to the emotional characteristics, like how connected people feel always find that connection trumps size Size is just one small factor; it’s not the primary factor why somebody

is with a partner Depending

on a partner’s size, you might want to use more or less lubricant or do some sex act rather than others, but it’s not

so critical for the vast majority

of people that it makes or breaks a partnership

IF YOU’RE REALLY ON THE SMALLER SIDE, HOW CAN YOU MAKE SEX BETTER?

Unless their partner wants to, you’re probably not going to use lubricants during intercourse You probably want to have as much sensation as possible Some men use penis extenders, which give an extra one, two,

or three inches (2.5cm to 7.5cm) Others focus more on oral sex or sex toy play

Positions where there’s like a likelihood of slipping out

easily, such as spooning, likely won’t be best Missionary and partner on top are better options

WHAT IF YOU’RE ON THE MUCH LARGER SIDE?

You want your partner to control the penetration

Partner on top is great for that

Penis sleeves provide some stimulation at the base of the penis and your partner won’t have as much of the penis to take into their body You’re probably almost always going

to use lubricant too, to go in and out easily Don’t be afraid

to use globs of lube

NO MATTER YOUR SIZE, WHAT DO YOU DO IF YOU STILL FEEL INSECURE ABOUT YOUR SIZE?

Ask yourself why you’re feeling insecure Have women in videos you’ve watched

basically look like penis worshippers? You might feel like you’re not getting enough excitement about your penis when really your partner’s responding in a very normal way Were you made fun of as

a kid in the locker room? If you can realize some of these things and think, “My penis works fine, it looks fine, and

my partner likes it,” you can work to let insecurities go For most of our emotional needs

in life — and security around penis size is an emotional need — we ultimately have to fill those needs ourselves It’s not somebody else’s responsibility to cheer us up.Also: Be curious about your partner We don’t know everything about our partners They are changing all the time Ask them what they want, how they feel about their careers,

or what they think is sexy The answers may be very different than they were a year earlier All of these things take the pressure off of you, help you get to know somebody better, and help your sex life

HAVE WOMEN

IN VIDEOS YOU’VE WATCHED D BASICALLY LOOK LIKE PENIS

WORSHIPPERS?

YOU MIGHT FEEL LIKE YOU’RE NOT GETTING ENOUGH EXCITEMENT ABOUT YOUR PENIS WHEN REALLY YOUR PARTNER’S RESPONDING

IN A VERY NORMAL WAY.

Between dating apps and

social media, it feels like

everyone is meeting online

these days When was the last

time you met an actual human

in an actual bar?

If everyone is meeting

online, where the scope of

people to choose from is

dauntingly limitless, what are

the rules for messaging a

person you’re into?

There are so many different

social media platforms out

there that a new guide for

DM-ing feels in order

Eighty-three percent of Millennials at

least have a Facebook

account, and 44 percent are

RIGHT WAY FLIRTING ON SOCIAL MEDIA IS OKAY

JUST FOLLOW THESE RULES.

R E L A T I O N S H I P S

AVOID PRODUCED MESSAGES THAT SOUND LIKE THEY’RE COMING OFF A CONVEYOR BELT YOUR RECIPIENT MAY RECEIVE DMS ON THE REGULAR.

MASS-on Instagram New world, new information So here’s what you need to know about sliding into the DMs without being weird or creepy about it

DON’T COMMENT ON A PERSON’S APPEARANCE

Don’t comment on their looks

At all In any way This is the first rule of DM-ing anything to anyone This sends the message that you are creepy

Immediately Don’t Seriously

It doesn’t matter how looking you are; when your recipient — especially if she’s

good-a womgood-an — sees good-a messgood-age about how beautiful or hot they are, they probably won’t

be down

“I find DM messages to be much more inviting when someone shows that we’ll have something in common

to talk about, rather than just

LOOK FOR COMMONALITIES

ON THEIR SOCIAL MEDIA

Steer clear of messages like,

“Hey sexy.” Instead, take a sweep over the person’s pictures or tweets and look for things you have in common You want to come across as genuinely interested in their life

Does she post a lot of pictures with her dog? Does

he seem to be in the great outdoors on the reg? Is she into working out? Is he interested in yoga? Find those threads and work with them

“Send an opener like,

‘Seeing you and your dog’s pic totally made my day! Thank you!’ or ‘What a superwoman you are! I just hiked Bryce Canyon last week, and I know how tough it can be Respect!’

says Mal Harrison, a sexologist and director of the Center for Erotic Intelligence

“This way, you’re not demanding a response, and

you’re being respectful and appreciative.”

This isn’t someone in a bar

or at a party You want to establish a friendly connection and make it clear you’re a real, genuine person while peaking their interest by paying attention Anyone can say, “Hey babe Nice booty” and “we get that lame basic stuff all the time,” Harrison says You want to stand out

KEEP IT REAL

Avoid mass-produced messages that sound like they’re coming off a conveyor belt Your recipient may receive DMs on the regular If

so, they know when you’re sending a run-of-the-mill line you shoot off to every cute person you see It gets boring

“Avoid pick-up lines, or anything from a pick up artist website,” Bradbury says “They might sound funny and clever, but we’ve heard them a million times They’re not original, and make you sound like a player who’s sending copied lines.”

Be genuine and send messages that are tailored to the person you’re speaking to

A personalized message shows you’re respectful and your interest is real

Bradbury adds that if your profile is private, you should make it public “We’re more likely to respond to someone who we can verify is a real person, and see if we have some shared interest and mutual attraction.”

IF THEY’RE INTO IT, YOU’LL KNOW

If you’re an Instagram DM-er, you know that the “Decline” button exists If that happens, well, you know they’re not down

1 8

M E N S H E A L T H C O M S G // A P R I L 1 9

tea along with an invitation to

“swap stories” about all the things you have in common.Bradbury says to take the conversation offline within the first few days “Offer to exchange numbers or Snapchat, or show them another social media profile

to vouch that you’re a real person,” she says

If the person isn’t interested, move on It happens If they are, go have that coffee date with your Instagram-Dream and find out what happens next

GIGI ENGLE IS A CERTIFIED SEX COACH, EDUCATOR, AND WRITER LIVING IN CHICAGO FOLLOW HER ON INSTAGRAM AND TWITTER AT @ GIGIENGLE.

If you have a chat going with

a person, ask questions and

listen to their answers “Once

she [or he] responds, then

start asking [them] questions

about [their] biggest passions

or favourite experiences

pertaining to the

conversation,” Harrison says

It’s pretty simple: Read the

words they’re sending you,

and respond to them Offer

your perspective, or a story

from your life that is

contextually relevant This is

not a Rubik’s cube, it’s a

person

If they’re interested in you,

they will respond That’s all

there is to it If the

conversation seems to

lacking, take a look at the

responses you’re getting: “If

they’re short one word

responses after you’ve started asking questions, chances are, [they’re] not into it,”

Harrison says

What if you have a conversation going and they disappear? Bradbury says to simply make like Elsa and let it go: “It might be tempting to keep reaching out to show that you’re interested — but,

on social media, less is more

Wait for them to respond, rather than messaging them every time they post a story update.”

TAKING IT FROM THE DMs TO IRL

Listen to your gut See how the conversation goes, and if you’re vibing, you can go ahead and ask them out

Harrison suggests coffee or a

Somewhere between anxiety and dread

is that feeling that creeps in on a Sunday

evening You still haven’t finished the

spreadsheet that was due Friday EOD Or

cleaned up after the party on Saturday Or

bathed the bulldog Or yourself Oh, and

it’s five minutes to midnight The

Germans, who have an uncanny ability to

capture in one word a feeling that would

take a full sentence in English to explain,

call this dread Torschlusspanik Literally

“gate-shut panic.” It’s the medieval fear of

DOES THAT HEADLINE

STRESS YOU OUT AS

MUCH AS IT DOES US?

THERE’S A WORD FOR

THAT (A GERMAN

WORD, OF COURSE.)

JEFF CSATARI HAS

A WAY TO FIX IT.

G U Y W I S D O M

not making it safely behind the castle gate before nightfall In modern usage, it describes the fear of running out of time to act, to accomplish, to meet deadlines real or perceived

Torschlusspanik can be triggered by trivial stuff like an overly ambitious weekend chore list or, say, a surprise visit from the boss, who plants himself in your office to chat when you have less than an hour to prep for a critical meeting Often, all it takes to get that feeling started is

procrastination and the guilt that stems from that inaction (“You shouldn’t have left such a complicated project for the last minute!”) Or, on a grander scale, upward comparison, the dangerous practice of holding yourself up to someone you think is almost at the top

of the mountain while you’re still trying

to figure out which ropes to use Whether your fear of time running out is short-term or more epic, there are ways to make it kaput:

2 0

If you’re faced with 60 minutes to finish

a report, answer “urgent” emails, and

fill out this week’s

fantasy-football-team roster, tackling three tasks at

once may seem wise But studies prove

the opposite: Multitasking lowers

attention span, increases stress, and

makes each task take longer So keep it

simple, says Jordan Etkin, Ph.D., a

professor at Duke University’s Fuqua

School of Business who’s researched

multitasking When you have deadlines

of 60 minutes or less:

1 TRUNCATE YOUR TO-DO LIST

High achievers are ruthless about

prioritizing, she says: “Take a step back,

figure out what’s most important, and work

on that thing.”

2 REFRAME THAT HOUR

Duke researchers discovered that when

students cramming for an exam thought of

one hour as 60 minutes, the hour seemed

longer, they felt more productive, and they

found the subject matter more interesting

3 TAKE TEN SLOW BREATHS

We know everyone and their six-year-old

has told you to “belly breathe” when you

feel stressed It’s not BS: Dozens of studies

have shown how deep breathing activates

the part of the nervous system that works

like a brake on the stress train, helping you

focus enough to get stuff done In other

words, when you’re under the gun, these

breaths help you be filled with fewer “I can’t

pull this off” worries and have more

success at just pulling things off

THIS HOUR TODAY THIS YEAR / THIS LIFE

WHEN TIME IS RUNNING OUT .

Now you have 24 hours to play with The trick to feeling like there’s still sand in the top of the hourglass is to stop glorifying being busy Our culture values action, so working through lunch makes us feel more productive and less guilty while in fact ceaseless work makes us less efficient

Instead:

1 DO 90-MINUTE INTERVALS

“Humans weren’t made to work in a linear way,” says Andrew Deutscher, managing director of the Energy Project, a performance consulting firm “We’re built to pulse like waves.” So step away from work every 90 minutes; people who do so have a

28 percent higher level of focus than people who take one or no breaks

2 LET NATURE HELP

Hunt for a natural scene When a group of students viewed a rooftop meadow for 40 seconds, they had greater concentration and made fewer errors on an attention test than those who looked at an empty concrete rooftop

3 KNOW WHAT TO IGNORE

President Dwight D Eisenhower used what became known as “the Eisenhower Box” to get things covered before nightfall Try it:

Draw four boxes, two stacked over two In each, write one of these things: urgent and important daily tasks; important but not urgent work; urgent but not important tasks;

work that’s neither urgent nor important Use

it to determine what to ignore, leave for later, delegate, or do immediately— you know, like launch the D-Day invasion of Normandy

Perhaps your head has run these lines: How is it March? How did I get to be this age without starting a family/hot VC firm/ counterculture revolution (hell, I haven’t even broken 10,000 Twitter followers yet)? This is a deeper level of fear than the temporary panic of having too much to do It’s the anxiety of falling short of your own expectations coupled with the feeling that you don’t have enough time left to meet them When it hits, breathe and:

1 ASK BIGGER QUESTIONS

The larger question you should ask isn’t how

to cram it all in It’s why you think you have to

do all those things you set out for yourself, says Raj Raghunathan, Ph.D., of the University of Texas, Austin Instead of tallying

up a life by job titles and degrees earned, he says, rethink what a meaningful life is It might not be what’s on your LinkedIn page

2 GO OUT MORE

People who meet with friends more than once a week are 27 percent more likely to be satisfied with life than those with no friends or who get together only a few times a year

3 TDON’T OVERTHINK IT

Regrets over things we could have done can instigate Torschlusspanik too These tend to haunt us much longer than regrets over things we should have done (like go to your friend’s son’s wedding), says Cornell psychologist Tom Gilovich, Ph.D So stop wasting additional time fretting over the

“what if”s and “wish I had”s, and just plunge

in After all, the gate is closing But there’s time to make it in

AN EMAIL JUST CAME IN

YOU SHOULD

Ignore it for now

Ignore it forever

Jump on it

 Answer: A Interruptions force

you to pick up the pace to get

back on track, which increases

your sense of pressure and

stress, per UC Irvine research

Check email at preset intervals

rather than replying to every

message as it comes in

IF YOUR JOB KEEPS YOU

ON YOUR FEET, YOU DON’T

NEED THE GYM.

True

False

 Answer: B A study in the

British Journal of Sports Medicine

found that men who are highly

physically active at work are less

healthy (as in 18 percent more

likely to die earlier than their

peers) So in your off-hours,

augment with the right stuff: If

you lift heavy objects at work, fit

in a Sunday sprint session; if

you’re standing all day, build

GIVE YOUR JOB

A PROMOTION YOU SPEND NEARLY A THIRD OF YOUR

LIFE ON THE CLOCK (WE’LL LET YOU

TAKE A 15-MINUTE BREAK TO PROCESS

THAT.) ARE YOU GETTING THE MOST

FROM THOSE HOURS? SEE IF YOUR

OFFICE SMARTS NEED AN UPGRADE.

C A R E E R

2 2

Your screen Your chair The little gap between the restroom stalls Stressful!

 Answer: B Cornell University scientists say that sitting puts up to 90 percent more pressure on your back than standing Give it a break:

Place your chair’s lumbar support at the curve of your back and sit so your hips and knees are bent at right angles

WHICH OF THESE COULD HELP LAND YOU A JOB INTERVIEW?

Abs Glasses Facial hair Your impeccable reputation

 Answer: D, obviously But also C Believe it or not, your stubble could swing you a new job In one study, job seekers who sported a beard

in their LinkedIn profile photo were perceived as having more experience than their clean-cut competitors

YOU’LL BE MORE PRODUCTIVE IF YOUR DESK IS

Pristine Tastefully done up Personal and lived in

“And over here’s the breakfast nook ”

 Answer: C Sparse offices don’t help you get more done

Studies at the University of Exeter found that people in spaces decorated with plants and pictures were 17 percent more productive than those in pristine ones But those who cluttered their offices as they liked—sticky notes, team gear—were the most

productive (32 percent more than sparse-space workers)

THE BEST WAY TO HANDLE

A HOSTILE BOSS IS

Push back Don’t engage

 Answer: A An Ohio State University study found that people who push back against combative bosses are likely to have higher job satisfaction, more commitment to their employer, and possibly an easier time getting respect from their colleagues

THE BEST WAY TO STOP STRESS EATING IS TO

Pound extra water Sleep more Stop going to work

 Answer: B Job stress wears down your mood and your self-control, as everyone who’s come home and torn right into a bag of chips before dinner (and maybe after, too) can attest But research in the Journal of Applied Psychology suggests that when stress is everywhere (as in too much work, too many frustrating people), a good night’s sleep leaves you more resilient and less at the mercy of Doritos

PEOPLE WHO PUSH BACK AGAINST COMBATIVE BOSSES ARE LIKELY TO HAVE HIGHER JOB SATISFACTION

weight training into your

 Answer: B The freedom to

sit anywhere you choose—aka

hot-desking—sounds like a

perk (no getting stuck next to

the loud eater) But

researchers at the University

of Wolverhampton in England

say that having your own desk

makes you feel more in

control, which means less

stress and more motivation

No choice? Try this: Focus on

what you can change, such as

the background on your

screen or the design of the

coffee mug you bring

YOU WORK BEST

LISTENING TO

Your new playlist Loud

The sound of silence

“The Sound of Silence”

(It holds up!)

The noise from the

kitchenette

 Answer: D Silence isn’t your

smartest soundtrack, and

your playlist isn’t so helpful,

either According to research

from the University of British

Columbia, a moderate level of

ambient noise, such as

running water or soft chatter,

stimulates creative problem

solving more than working

where there’s a lot of noise or

nearly none at all

WHICH OFFICE HAZARD

WRECKS YOUR HEALTH

MORE?

WHEN YOU’RE FACING A BIG DEADLINE, HIT THE GYM

Early in the morning

On your lunch break When all the work is done

 Answer: B You’re not going AWOL; you’re getting stuff done Swedish researchers found that exercising during your workday makes you more productive when you clock back in Even a short, brisk walk can help you reduce anxiety, dial up your energy, and make that project history

HOW MANY DID YOU GET RIGHT?

0 TO 3: OUT OF OFFICE

Maybe you’re just distracted Embrace your inner Luddite and silence technology A Stanford study found that tuning in to several streams

of electronic information at once messes with your ability to concentrate and to remember things.

4 TO 7: WORKING ON IT

You’ve got the basics; now master your mental game University of Washington researchers found that meditation training not only helped people stay focused

on their work; it helped them feel less stressed when they were required to multitask.

8 TO 10: EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH

You’re killing it, so don’t be afraid to take a time-out A study in Human

Performance discovered that for younger workers, short breaks of Internet browsing (not multitasking, but a true break) can improve your ability to sustain focus when you go back and do actual work.

M E N S H E A L T H C O M S G // A P R I L 1 9

The New Year has come and gone, and it was

a time when many of us would have inevitably

gone about making, and then abandoning,

absurdly ambitious resolutions—to do more

burpees, to homebrew kombucha, to easily

reach ketosis or achieve a permanent in-box

of zero

Let me instead propose an eminently

doable resolution: Try meditating for one

minute on most days—for just one month

Forming healthy habits is hard, and there’s a

reason most of our resolutions ultimately go

down in flames We may be wired to fail

Evolution has bequeathed us a brain that

optimizes for survival, not long-term health

planning Natural selection primed us for

detecting threats and finding food and sexual

partners, not for flossing our teeth The fact that

we are up against this evolutionary challenge is

why I like this modest, month-long proposal

ONE MINUTE MOST DAYS

BIG RESULTS DAN HARRIS

SHARES HOW CONSISTENT

MEDITATION CAN MAKE A

BIG DIFFERENCE.

H E A L T H

2 4

reward.” You can experiment with constructing a cue-routine-reward loop that gets you to meditate For example,

“After I park my car [cue], I will meditate for five minutes [routine], and I’ll feel a little calmer and more mindful [reward].”

Repeat this loop to ingrain the habit You can even put your daily meditation session in your calendar, which you may find helpful That said, if, like me, you have

an unpredictable schedule, thinking strategically might mean trying to fit your meditation in whenever and wherever you can

MAKE YOURSELF ACCOUNTABLE

Some people may not institute a healthy

habit on their own, but they will do it when other people are holding them

accountable One way to create that kind

of accountability is to join a community of some sort It can be as simple as just getting a few of your friends together and starting Another option is to join a regular sitting group at your local meditation centre Or form your own sitting group I’ve found that hanging out with other meditators sets up a kind of HOV-lane effect Being around people who take the meditative principles seriously and are endeavouring to apply these concepts in their own lives can create positive peer pressure Or as meditation teacher Jeff Warren says, “It sort of normalizes the whole weird thing.”

FOCUS ON THE BENEFITS

In many ways, we are all like rats in a maze, constantly pressing the levers that deliver food pellets to us Behaviour-change science strongly suggests that the best way to ensure a consistent meditation habit is to identify where and how the practice is giving you pellets Just like rats, we are much more likely to keep doing something if it feels good and we get something out of it There are at least two levels to this The first level is to pay attention to how the act of meditating in itself can be pleasurable The other level

is to notice the benefits as they arise in the rest of your life, in terms of both inner weather and outer comportment I’ve found meditation can make me feel better and act better

I believe that meditation is the über resolution—the healthy habit par excellence—because a regular dose of mindfulness can give you the clarity and sanity to figure out which other

resolutions to pursue, and how best

to do so

Give it a try For the past few years, whenever I’ve spoken publicly about meditation, I have been issuing the following challenge: Try meditation for a month, and if it does nothing for you, hit

me up on Twitter and tell me I’m a moron During this time, lots of people have called me a moron on Twitter—but never for this

I BELIEVE THAT MEDITATION IS THE ÜBER RESOLUTION—

THE HEALTHY HABIT PAR EXCELLENCE—

BECAUSE A REGULAR DOSE OF MINDFULNESS CAN GIVE YOU THE CLARITY AND SANITY

TO FIGURE OUT WHICH OTHER RESOLUTIONS

TO PURSUE, AND HOW BEST TO DO SO.

Two aspects make it easy to adopt:

First, aiming to meditate most days,

rather than every day, is a good goal

Consistency counts—the more often you

meditate, the easier it gets and the

deeper and more enduring the benefits—

but if you miss a day, your inner critic

won’t have a chance to call you a failure I

call this approach “daily-ish.” It has

elasticity, or “psychological flexibility,” a

key concept from behaviour-change

research, which can help lead to an

abiding habit, be it a meditation practice,

a new gym routine, or a commitment to

learn Esperanto

Second, one minute is a supremely low

bar The proposition of a single minute is

uniquely unintimidating What’s more, it’s

scalable After one minute of meditation,

people often think to themselves: I’m

already here; might as well keep going a

bit As the meditation teacher Cory

Muscara explains, this is a key moment,

because you’re moving from “extrinsic”

motivation (that is, meditating because

you feel like you have to) to the more

powerful “intrinsic” motivation (that is,

meditating because you want to) And the

second you opt in for more meditation,

you’re doing it out of actual interest, which

makes it much more likely to have a

lasting effect

My company, 10% Happier, has been

testing an annual month-long “Mindful

Minute” challenge with employees from

your friendly neighbourhood trillion-dollar

company, Apple The goal is for

participants to log at least one mindful

minute for 25 out of the 30 days, enabling

them to get a taste for how mindfulness

can benefit their lives, while also giving

them freedom to miss about a day a week

without feeling like a failure

Even with that low threshold, there are

more strategic ways to make a new

meditation habit stick:

THINK STRATEGICALLY

ABOUT YOUR SCHEDULE

Some people find that having a set time

every day—right before bed, first thing in

the morning, just after a workout—helps

establish a habit Scientists who study

habit formation talk about “cue, routine,

M E N S H E A L T H C O M S G // A P R I L 1 9

Artificial Intelligence is elbowing its way into

the doctor’s office, and M.D.’s are nervous—

especially since studies have found AI better

than dermatologists at diagnosing skin cancer,

and it boosts the fracture-diagnosing accuracy

of doctors alone It’s promising enough that the

consulting firm Accenture predicts the value

of AI technology will climb about 40 percent

a year, turning into a SGD$8.9 billion industry

by 2021

Closer to home, people are a little more

excited about AI’s role in medical care, by which

they mean shouting into their living room’s

voice-activated smart speaker, “Alexa, here’s

what’s going on with me,” and receiving a

competent response that tells them what’s

WEIRD FEELING IN YOUR

CHEST, ONE OF THE

MOST COMMON THINGS

PEOPLE WANT TO KNOW

ABOUT THEIR HEALTH

PROBLEM IS “AM I

DYING?” WITH AI

SEEPING INTO HEALTH

CARE FROM ALL

so I told the AIs I’d had a pain

in my chest for two days, shortness of breath, and difficulty speaking Google Assistant went straight to life-threatening heart attack and chronic obstructive

pulmonary disease Alexa’s Mayo Clinic app told me to call 911—and then suggested I ask

it further about CPR and sunburns “When people interact with these AIs, they expect answers that are one, maybe two sentences

Unfortunately, things are rarely that simple in medicine,” says Christopher Kelly, M.D., a cardiology fellow

at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center He and his colleague Marc Eisenberg, M.D., wrote Am I Dying?!, a new book about how to self-diagnose without driving yourself into a panic “If you say the magic words ‘chest pain,’ anyone is going to think

anxiety related,” says Dr Kelly,

“and it would be very hard for

an AI, as they’re currently designed, to get at those.”After a few more tests and confusing answers, that was

as clear to me as it is to Dr Kelly, who noted that as they exist today, voice-activated AIs take an already inexact system—self-diagnosing online—and make it worse by speeding up the process and giving catchall answers while often obscuring or

oversimplifying how they came to their conclusions In the interest of a streamlined experience, they can leave you sceptical and burned out,

he says

Someday we’ll look back on these stumbles as quaint Companies are doubling down on improving AI so it can become a common

household reference

Rumours are floating that Amazon is building a health-and- wellness team for Alexa, although the company hasn’t commented publicly

Improvements will happen And they need to: A

Northeastern University study found that when 54 people posed symptoms of common injuries and illnesses to these assistants, Alexa (equipped with the WebMD, Mayo Clinic First Aid, and American Heart Association skills) failed to provide any relevant information 92 percent of the time Google Assistant did a little better but still missed on more than half of the questions You could try to avoid a visit to your doctor with an AI, but you’ll likely end

up with a slim portion of the iffy advice already floating around the Internet Plus a headache

wrong and what to do I

wondered how well the

at-home AIs might do at that,

so I decided to test them

I gave a second-generation

Amazon Echo Dot and a

Google Home Mini a couple of

medical scenarios to see if I

could trust my life to either of

them (I didn’t use Siri, which is

more like a voice-activated

Google search.) I downloaded

the WebMD and Mayo Clinic

First Aid skills to the Echo Dot

Google Assistant can give

answers directly, so the Home

Mini didn’t need apps These

devices are pretty good at

giving first-aid answers, so I

skipped those and started in

with some tougher stuff Right

off the bat, I could tell there

were going to be problems

For the first scenario, I had

gastroesophageal reflux

disease GERD can have a lot

of symptoms that don’t involve

a burning gut or spicy burps,

of your heart, including any doctor,” says Dr Kelly “The difference is that the doctor will ask a lot of questions to determine if that’s probable.”

I raised the degree of difficulty in the next test, so much so that I had a simulated panic attack I was cold but also sweating, and

my hands were tingling My heart was racing so fast I thought I was going to faint

The Mayo Clinic app said only,

“You may request an appointment at Mayo Clinic by phone or by using our secure online form,” but some other apps came close by landing

on hyperventilation as a possibility They also floundered around with low blood sugar and arrhythmia, because so many conditions have the same racing heartbeat and tingling hands

“Many people present with symptoms that turn out to be

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Some mornings you jump out of bed,

raring to go when that alarm goes off

Other mornings? You feel like death

dragging yourself to work, much less

a morning workout Sometimes, it’s

because what you’re putting on your

plate may actually mess with your

sleep cycle As an example, having

tomato-based pasta sauce is actually

a bad idea- it can cause heartburn for

guys with acid reflux, and also

contains the amino acid tyramine,

triggering your brain to release

norepinephrine, a stimulant that

boosts brain activity and inhibits

sleep

But what if you’ve tried every health

tip and sleep still eludes you? Here’s a

few products that promise to help

that we tried and tested over several

SLEEPING POORLY? THERE’S

PLENTY OF REASONS WHY…

AND PLENTY OF PRODUCTS

THAT PROMISE TO FIX YOUR

SNOOZE TROUBLES WE TRY

OUT THESE TO SEE WHICH

WORK, AND WHICH WON’T

AND THERE’S A

NON-PRODUCT BASED OPTION

IF ALL ELSE FAILS

H E A L T H

H E A L T H

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INNERSPRING

SYSTEMS MEAN

THAT YOUR NECK,

BACK AND HIPS

AND BACK PAINS

WHEN YOU WAKE,

What They Promise:

“Exclusively designed for

correct support and superior

comfort, Hennsley™ 7-Zone

Pocketed Innerspring System,

provides you the perfect

balance of comfort and

support, as it’s designed by our

body shapes and contours

With each part of your body

fitting nicely into the correct

zones, the result is a more

consistent and even body

support “

Sleeping with a partner is

challenging even in the best of

times No, we’re not talking

about whether she wants to

cuddle, and how you can do

the patented F.R.I.E.N.D.S Ross

“hug and roll” move (go

YouTube this if you haven’t

learnt it- it really works)

Sometimes she wants to read,

while you want to crash early

to wake up for that early 4am

and the acid test- we took Hennsley’s Eremurus model out for a spin Some background- it’s under their new Ergopeutic series, with the mattress divided into seven sections- head, neck, shoulder, back, hips, legs nad feet, which

is to help provide the correct support for our body shape and contour It’s also got a Belgium-imported therapeutic top panel fabric, which keeps you cool and dry through effective evaporation of body moisture, as well as reduce body stress by reducing body voltage/static during sleep The first few nights we actually slept far more poorer- apparently it does take some time for your body to get used

to sleeping on another mattress- but the subsequent week after we woke up far more rested, and our stiff neck ached a lot less in the mornings as well

The best thing about the mattress- it seemed to work really well for us side-sleepers and bolster huggers Our hips didn’t sink too deep into the mattress, which alleviated any backaches, and also made for good lying down during long Netflix phone sessions If you’re hunting for value for money, we were also pretty impressed by their full ten-year warranty- most brands only offer a ten year limited warranty which means if the springs go kaput in the third year you’ll still need to pay, but theirs covers the inner springs for the full decade… which comes in really handy if you’ve got a boisterous six-year old who likes to jump on the bed!

FOR MORE INFO, HEAD TO WWW.HENNSLEY.COM

Champions Leagues Other times, she’s fast asleep while you slip in from a late-night with the boys In both instances, your both bound to wake or disrupt each others sleep And let’s not even start if you’ve got kids, of course

But that’s the plus with good mattresses with an inner spring system- they’re less likely to wake the other half or have you get woken as the structure means the whole mattress doesn’t flex and shift just because one side has movement

And it’s not just for the couples- for single blokes, good innerspring systems mean that your neck, back and hips are contoured perfectly during rest, which means less shoulder and back pains when you wake, even if you’re the type that moves a lot in your sleep

Did They Work: Before we even tried out the mattress Hennsley’s head honcho Marcus Goh actually gave a real in-depth analysis of what kind of mattress would suit each kinda guy- are you skinny

or heavyset etc?

This is because the head and feet of their mattresses have softer springs to keep both appendages higher up compared to your body, which

is supported by firmer springs

In addition, factors like back, knee or shoulder injuries (which unfortunately, we did suffer from) also play a factor into determining which mattress would relieve, rather than aggravate, the pre-existing injuries After about an hour of lying around, we ended

up trying out their premium series mattress, and waited for about a month for it to arrive

30 days later, it was bedtime

H E A L T H

SO WHY WOULD WE TRY THIS PRODUCT IN OUR QUEST FOR BETTER SLEEP?

BECAUSE APPARENTLY, ACCORDING TO THE INTERNET, OUR WOMENFOLK HAVE

BEEN HIDING THIS SECRET SLEEP PANACEA

FROM US

LUSH SLEEPY BODY LOTION

What They Promise: “You’ll

sleep well after dipping into

this dreamy lotion, made with

a gentle oatmeal infusion,

calming lavender flower and

comfortingly sweet tonka

absolute.”

If you haven’t heard of this

brand or product before, I

don’t blame you- it’s really

more of a favorite for the

ladies Creators of pioneering

beauty products such as the

fizzing bath bomb, shower

jellies and solid shampoo

bars, Lush places emphasis

on fresh ingredients like

organic fruits and vegetables

Yep, basically products that

your other half buys that

smells of rainbows and cream

So why would we try this

product in our quest for better

sleep? Because apparently,

according to the Internet, our

womenfolk have been hiding

this secret sleep panacea

from us

Fashionista.com calls it

“sweet dreams in a jar”; a

review on Bustle.com claims

“it’s the only lotion that’s ever

put them to sleep”, and

various videos on YouTube

with titles like “Insomniacs Try

Lush’s Sleepy Body Lotion” all

scream the same thing- Lush

isn’t messing around when

they called this “Sleepy” So

yes, we had to try this to see if

the Internet was capable of

giving good advice from time

to time

Did They Work: So, we

couldn’t bring ourselves to

walk into Lush… which meant

we got the missus to pick up a

bottle when she was shopping

for herself instead She gave

us a weird look when handing

it over, quipping: “I hope you’re

not going to start using my

cosmetics next?” We ignored

Suddenly, the reason hits us- because we’re hungry Because Lush’s Sleepy Lotion smells too damn good We turn on the light, look through the list of ingredients: almond oil, oatmeal infusion,

limonene… and suddenly remember there’s a piece of leftover carrot cake in the fridge from a recent birthday party

This clearly isn’t working, so

we get up, wash off the lush Sleepy Lotion, and head to the kitchen to finish said carrot cake Then we go to bed, and have one of the best sleeps we’ve ever had

So, does Lush Sleepy Lotion work? We don’t know But it’s really, really bad for our diet, that’s for sure And that, my friends, feels even more insidious than bad sleep

$47, FOR MORE INFORMATION HEAD TO WWW.SG.LUSH.COM/PRODUCTS/SLEEPY

her and left the bottle by the bedstand to apply before sleep Only to forget about it

For a day Then two Until a full week later See, the trouble for blokey guys is grooming regimes are usually done in the shower- sure, we’ll use facial washes and scrubs, but once done, that’s as far as the primping and preening goes…

except for the hair, of course

That pompadour isn’t going to style itself

So finally we’re in bed with Lush Sleepy Lotion in hand, and after some googling on how to use it, we unscrew the top, and a bouquet of sweetness hits our nostrils

There’s no getting away from it- it’s EVERYWHERE Somehow even capping the top back doesn’t seem to stop the scent from permeating the room It’s not that terrible, mind- in fact, it smelt like a dessert cake- but subtle, it is not

We unscrew the top and give it another go- the directions say to put some on our upper back, neck and shoulders right before bed Its consistency feels like smearing syrupy sunscreen all over, and after rubbing it all

in our skin does feel more supple and moisturized But that’s not why we bought this for, so after turning off the lights we close our eyes and wait to see how long it takes to fall asleep

Minutes pass More minutes pass It must be half an hour

by now Why are we still awake? We lean over to the bedstand and check our phone- the light blazes our corneas back to wakefulness,

by the way- it’s only been five minutes since we got into bed

But why can’t we fall asleep?

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H E A L T H

3 4

What They Promise:

“Quality is the most important

thing The products just need

to be awesome Second, we

wanted to manufacture

responsibly with top quality

materials And finally, try our

best to offer products at

accessible prices.“

So, you’ve probably seen

their ads pop up everywhere,

especially when you start

Googling for good sheets to

buy- Brooklinen clearly

spends a lot of advertising

And they are cheap, to be

honest- offering decent thread count at reasonable prices… without you needing

to go to IKEA, which, lets face

it, doesn’t exactly scream

“you’ve made it” What exactly

is their USP? The secret: Brooklinen uses long-staple cotton fibers for its sheets—which reduces itchiness and pilling—and less-dense yarns What you get is a lighter, crisper, and more comfortable bedspread at a

270 thread count than quality fibers at a higher count

lesser-Did They Work: Well, yes, and no Were the sheets comfortable? Yes, sliding into bed brought a cheesy smile

on our faces- the material feels very comfortable But here’s the weird thing though-

as the night went on we started feeling warm under the comforter, which led us to

do the whole “pull on, pull off” thing throughout the night And it also doesn’t help that the Brooklinen sizing isn’t exactly the same as the local pillows, beds and sheets, so you’ve really got to read the dimensions right on their website and make sure you don’t get the wrong size If you’re like us with abit of a night sweat, perhaps Brooklinen isn’t for you- get bamboo viscose sheets instead- they’re more absorbent than cotton, say Turkish scientists Or if you suffer from allergies, you’re going to need to splash out

on sheets with a thread count

of 1,000 or more to keep the allergens out But to be fair- still better than IKEA!

FOR MORE INFO, HEAD TO WWW.BROOKLINEN.COM

BOSE NOISE-MASKING

SLEEPBUDS

What They Promise: “They

look like tiny headphones,

using pre-loaded, soothing

masking sounds to cover up

unwanted night-time noises so

you can get to sleep and stay

asleep.”

Some background here-

what is noise-masking?

Essentially, using

signal-processing tech, noise and

sound masking systems emit a

soft-inconspicuous

background sound that makes

brain not to get distracted

Basically, like the white noise apps that were popular some time back, only in earbud form

There’s a variety of what Bose calls “soothing sounds”, with 10 divided into those for noise masking and for relaxation

Did They Work: First things

first- don’t set them up right before you want to go to bed It takes some time to download the Bose Sleep App, and you’ll have to swipe past the usual signups and multiple “how to use” slides, and then fit them with different rubber tips to get them staying on your ears That whole process might irritate you so much you won’t be in the mood to sleep The good thing is- the Sleepbud’s wingtips are really soft and pretty

comfortable so sleeping on them won’t hurt

The downside? They didn’t really work Firstly, the sound quality of the white noise didn’t seem that high, and the pitch abit high The trouble with that

is that’s the kind of thing that’s likely to make us fixate on, like fingernails on chalkboard

Some nights we did get better sleep wearing them, and others poor… which basically was our normal sleep pattern anyway

One thing they seemed good for though- reading on the MRT

If you’re like us and find the roar

of the train and fellow commuters distracting from your daily read, pop these on and you’ll breeze through your chapters with ease Fingers crossed, maybe you might even fall asleep, even if we didn’t

$379, AVAILABLE AT AUTHORIZED BOSE DEALERS

undesirable noises and distractions less audible An example- your spouses snoring; cats making out in the void deck; mahjong players in the hall

To clarify, this isn’t cancelling- these don’t use the noise-cancelling tech that you see in headphones in the marketplace There’s no microphone tracking the audio around you, and you can’t play music on these Instead, these are really like earplugs that play low-level sound to train your

noise-H E A L T noise-H

BONUS BEDSIDE BUDDIES

HERE’S A FEW OTHER USEFUL TRINKETS WE FOUND ON THE

INTERNET THAT’S GREAT FOR SLEEP

Moonbeam Alarm Clock with USB Port Proof positive that

something doesn’t have to look techy to do the job, L L Bean’s classic

mid-century clock (the first iteration was introduced in 1952) uses a

brightening LED light to rustle you awake and has a USB outlet—in

case you really need the phone beside you.

 www.llbean.com

Sleep Number 360 i8 Smart Bed The Sleep Number 360 i8 Smart

Bed tracks your slumber and sends data back to an app, then

adjusts the bed’s air chambers around your body It also has a

temperature-balancing layer that soaks up extra heat, a welcome

feature for guys who run hot

 www.sleepnumber.com

Athlete Recovery Ultra Comfort Sleepwear Powered by Celliant

technology (which makes it an FDA medical device), Under Armour’s

Recovery sleepwear uses a bioceramic pattern to bounce infrared

energy back to you That improves blood flow and boosts oxygen,

readying you for your next workout

 www.underarmour.com

Lounge Short Go minimal and go comfortable These Tommy John

Second Skin shorts give you serious underwear innovation

(extra-soft tri-blend fabric, contour crotch for movement, and pockets)

worked into a pair of drawstring shorts built for rest

 www.tommyjohn.com

Ostrich Pillow The Ostrich Pillow is sleep mask, neck pillow, and

earplugs all in one Pull it over your head for the benefit of not seeing

yourself in it

 www.ostrichpillow.com

And The Cheapest Option?

Sleep naked No, really, we’re not kidding Firstly, it’s to do with body heat One study found that sleep cycles of hunter-gatherer tribes in Africa were linked to temperature: they fall asleep when temps start to dip and wake up when temperatures are at their coldest Matthew Walker, author of Why We Sleep and a professor of neuroscience at

UC Berkeley, says this suggests that covering up may make it harder for our bodies

to release heat Additional research also suggests that cooler temperatures are advantageous to quality sleep, with one study from Science Advances suggesting that people get worse sleep as temperatures increase Redditor lurking_for_sure agrees, writing: “I’m like a sleeping furnace so at the most I wear a pair of boxers Nude sleeping > Any other bullshit way of sleeping.”And it could also help you lose weight: A study published

in 2014 found that men who slept in cooler rooms produced more brown fat, which is a healthy fat that burns calories to generate body heat, compared to when they slept in warmer

temperatures, Men’s Health previously reported According

to study co-author Francesco

S Celi, M.D., lowering body temperature lower by sleeping naked may mimic the same effect

And on top of that, it could help with your sex life! There’s tons of evidence that skin-to-skin contact creates a boost in oxytocin, the bonding hormone, which contributes to increased feelings of intimacy and bonding While most of

3 6

this research focuses on

mothers and infants, it follows

that skin-to-skin contact could

help boost feelings of intimacy

between you and your partner

as well

Of course, there are obvious

advantages for your sex life,

too “I like sleeping naked with

company because it makes

spontaneous sex more

convenient,” Reddit user wynyx

writes And if you’re a briefs

guy, take note- sleeping naked

can also boost your sperm

health According to one 2015

study, men who wore boxers

and slept naked had less DNA

fragmentation in their sperm

(i.e., higher-quality sperm) than

men who wore tighty-whities

both during the day and to bed

Researchers speculate that

this may have something to do

with lower room temperatures

keeping the testes nice and

cool

At the very least, going commando in bed can also reduce risk of infections After all, Bacteria loves warm, moist environments like your underwear Urologist Brian Steixner, M.D., based in Atlantic City, N.J., previously told Men’s Health that sleeping in underwear increases your chances of getting a bacterial infection Give your nether regions a breather while you sleep to keep your genitals cleaner, drier, and healthier

Olive oil could quite possibly

be one of the most nutritious foods on the planet Research shows that the fat, a

cornerstone of the Mediterranean diet, may help your heart, ward off cancer, and improve your body’s ability to absorb other nutrients

But olive oil may also be one of the most confusing foods on the planet

Give the language on a

something, and some of them mean everything if you’re looking for an olive oil that is both nutritious and delicious

To sort out some of this madness, turn to the advice

of Meagan Cole, a certified oleologist (like a sommelier, but for oil) at Lucini, an olive oil brand

“COLD-PRESSED” MEANS NOTHING.

Olive oil producers once extracted oil by pressing olives, often with large, heavy stones pulled by horses But for the last 50 years or so, they’ve used centrifugal machines These machines separate the oil from the olive’s solids and water But

“cold centrifuged” just doesn’t have the same ring to it, so the old term stuck

The truth: Almost none of them are cold-pressed, but many bottles bear that language So if an oil doesn’t say cold-pressed, don’t sweat

it The real indicators of quality are what you’ll read about next

HARVEST DATE TELLS YOU EVERYTHING.

Producers harvest all their olives for the entire year in the fall Picking at that peak time is crucial The longer they wait, the more time the olives have to ripen, which means the more of their fat turns into water The result is more oil, but lower quality.Many brands print the

U T R I T I O N

BECOME

A KNOW -IT-OIL

HOW TO COOK WITH OLIVE OIL, WHAT TO LOOK FOR ON THE LABEL, AND WHAT THE HECK

“EXTRA-VIRGIN”

MEANS ANYWAY.

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