What's in a summary?
Happy holidays! It's been a couple weeks since my last post and I thought I would give an update. My goal for Wellness Researched is that it becomes a trusted resource for people to verify claims on how to live well that they read online, hear from friends and family, or watch on TV. There is so much misinformation out there that it's hard to know what's real and what isn't.
I believe that the best solution to this problem is to make scientific research more accessible to the public. I want to summarize the latest research on how to live well and link it to popular claims a person is likely to encounter. By living well, I mean that I want Wellness Researched to focus on what scientific research says regarding the most fundamental things about being human: what foods are known to promote or hamper good health, how our environment affects our health, how mental and spiritual practices can affect our health.
At the start of the pandemic, I was really concerned with spending so much time in my apartment. I wanted to know if there were ways I could improve my home indoor environment that I was about to spend a lot more time in. I researched indoor air pollution, indoor plants, colors and lighting. I found a lot of contradicting research and a lot of claims with very little to back it up. That is when I started thinking that I should create a place online where I can collect my research and organize it by "wellness claims".
Since researching the indoor environment was what prompted me to make this site, I decided that was what I would research first. I have already made some progress.
I had always wondered if the carbon dioxide we breathe out can build up indoors if the windows are not opened. My mom, when I was growing up, always told me to leave the windows open. She said that the out door air was always healthier than indoor air. I've maintained the habit of keeping my windows open whenever possible. These reflections lead me to this great research paper by Harvard and Syracuse University researchers that found pretty compelling evidence that high levels of carbon dioxide can affect cognitive performance.
After reading this paper and a few others on the topic, I am trying to figure out how to organize my summary in as digestible format as possible. If you have any ideas please reach out and email me.
Stay tuned as this site evolves!