SPICE UP YOUR LIFE

We have all heard the phrase “you are what you eat”, understandably so as it’s an old one. In fact it’s thought to have originated back in 1826 when Anthelme Brillat-Savarin wrote “Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are.” Ultimately, what we consume has a significant impact on our bodies and the way in which they function. If we nourish them, our bodies have a better chance of performing optimally. The nutrients in the food that we eat help formulate the foundation of the function and structure of all the cells within our bodies, it’s what fuels us and also what helps us grow and heal. They are […]

CUTENESS OVERLOAD

Moo Deng the baby hippo, Biscuits the seal and Pesto the giant, baby penguin have taken social media by storm, it’s hard not to doom scroll without seeing a cute critter or a few hundred flooding the feeds lately. The real question is why do we find these animal babies so cute? Why do they light up parts of our brains and emotions like they do, even though they don’t resemble our own young? The brains’ perception of cuteness even distinguishes the young from old i.e. animals such as lions that are dangerous and terrifying as an adults, but as cubs we associate them with the (relatively) harmless domestic kittens that we know and love. The […]

MIND ALTERING IMAGES

How much time do you spend on the internet per day? Be honest. It’s more than you may be comfortable admitting to others, or yourself. The truth of the matter is though, that you aren’t alone. The average person spends approximately six hours and forty minutes online every day. South Africa is significantly above average in this regard. According to 2023 statistics, the average South African spends a whopping nine hours and 27 minutes online daily across multiple devices. It is estimated that we spend slightly more time on mobile devices at an average of five hours and 13 minutes a day versus the four hours and 25 minutes spent on computers. With so much […]

Adult ADHD

The terms ADHD and ADD are often thrown around to describe children with high to excessive levels of activity and ‘excitement’, although the flippant use of these terms is often incorrect. Not every super active or distracted child or adult for that matter suffers from ADD or ADHD. The same analogy can be made between hyper-organisation and Obsessive Compulsive Order (OCD) as well as someone who is sad being termed depressed. In actuality, all of these classify as mental health disorders and need to be properly diagnosed by a medical professional.

While ADHD and ADD are largely associated with children and are more commonly diagnosed at that age, that’s not to say that adults don’t suffer from […]

AI-Allies

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is not so slowly working its way into our daily lives, whether we are cognisant of it or not. Some AI functions and tools are overt and we go looking for them purposefully, just like ChatGPT. It requires some level of input from us in the form of prompting in order for it to assist. If you ask the App how it defines itself, it provides the following explanation: “ChatGPT is considered an overt form of AI. Users interact directly with the model through conversation, making it clear that they are engaging with an AI. This transparency allows users to understand that they are communicating with a machine designed to generate text-based responses.”

On the […]

Is the end of Ultra-processed Foods in sight?

The term Ultra-processed food comes from the NOVA food classification system which was developed by researchers at the University of São Paulo who devised a system that divides food into four different categories based on the levels of processing they undergo throughout their production. The four categories are defined as follows: unprocessed foods which include the majority of our fruit and vegetables as well as eggs, nuts and seeds – ultimately foods that have had very little added to them, they aren’t altered. This is then followed by Processed Ingredients i.e. “foods that are added to other foods” such as oils, salt and sugar. Processed foods are the third category […]

Soft skills to set you apart

These days it’s no longer enough to purely posess an education and the technical qualifications and skills that go with that, employers are looking for more. ‘More’ comes in the shape of soft skills that help set you apart from your colleagues as these aren’t skills that can necessarily be taught in a typical classroom. Soft skills are often used interchangeably with ‘people skills’ and can be innate, rely heavily on a person’s emotional quotient and general environmental exposure too. Soft skills are defined by the Oxford Dictionary as the “personal attributes that enable someone to interact effectively and harmoniously with other people.” To simplify it further and perhaps to state the […]

Heritage Day 2024

On the 24th of September annually, South Africa celebrates Heritage Day. This day was first declared as a public holiday in 1996 with the intention of encouraging South African’s to “celebrate the day by remembering the cultural heritage of the many cultures that make up the population of South Africa.” This is especially pertinent in a country as culturally diverse as South Africa, as the acknowledgement of our cultures plays a big role in shaping the future too. South Africa is known as the ‘Rainbow Nation’ for precisely this reason. It is also known as a ‘Rainbow Nation’ due to the different ethnic groups that our country is home to, the majority of the population […]

Getting sick for the greater good

The vast majority of people hate getting sick, feeling ill or being out of commission in any shape or form, so to speak. For populations in under-devloped countries, viruses and diseases can be absolutely disaterous. For the working population globally, missing work due to illness or being incapacitated is often simply not an option. Therefore we deploy methods of keeping ourselves as healthy as possible for as long as possible. Often these preventative methods come in the form of vaccinations to keep us from falling prey to seasonal and contagious diseases and viruses. One of the most recent vaccines was borne out of necessity during the COVID-19 pandemic, and with it came […]