Author: CityWomen

November 05, 2018 at 02:36PM Photo: St. Martin’s Press Known as “the world’s most connected person,” Chris Dancy has between 300 and 700 systems running at any given time—including fitness trackers, a smart-mattress, social media, and time-tracking apps (to name a few)—in order to capture continuous data about his life. You know how Google Calendar defaults to being set up in 15 minute increments? He’s set up an alternate view for his, giving a second-by-second rundown of every choice he makes throughout the day. In these times it’s oft-repeated that you need to be disconnected to be present, which makes being so plugged in feel downright rebellious. But while Dancy is clearly Team Tech, which he makes abundantly clear in his new book, Don’t Unplug, he doesn’t think you need to go on an app-downloading spree in order to use technology to make your life better. It’s one of the most basic phone features of all, the Notes app, that’s played a big role in helping with his anxiety. “I’ve had anxiety attacks since I was 16,” he says. “Anxiety has a way of masking every other time it happens,” so that each anxiety attack feels like the first one you’ve ever experienced—and it’s terrifying. Which is why he started using his Notes app to log what he calls his “Wikipedia of fear.” “I would write down my symptoms as they were happening, like my heart rate increasing and starting to perspire,” Dancy says. “What that allowed me to do was the

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November 05, 2018 at 12:44PM When you do your routine bathroom cleaning, chances are that the sink, tub, and toilet all get a nice little scrub down. Maybe you even mop the floor and organize your medicine cabinet—if you’re feeling a little extra motivated. But there’s one oft-overlooked spot to pay a bit more attention to: the shower head. Researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder took DNA samples from 656 households and found that the majority contained a harmful bacteria lurking in the shower slime, mycobacterium, which has been linked to lung disease. Who knew the shower could be so dirty, right? There were a few factors that made certain shower heads more susceptible to the bacteria. One was that metal shower heads make better breeding grounds than plastic ones. Another is that treated water tends to produce more instances of mycobacterium than H2O from wells. Even though the results of the study certainly sound alarming—um, lung disease?!—Noah Fierer, PhD, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at CU Boulder says it’s not cause for a freakout. “Don’t worry, there is definitely no reason to fear showering,” he says. “There is a fascinating microbial world thriving in your shower head and you can be exposed every time you shower. Most of those microbes are harmless, but a few are not, and this kind of research is helping us understand how our own actions—from the kinds of water treatment systems we use to the materials in our plumbing—can change the

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