What are some Easy Tricks to Improve Your Life in 2018?

apparently the plant slowly absorbs the water over vacation. Or if you want to turbocharge your sled, you can spray some nonstick PAM under the sled. But my favorite thing from it is how to immediately become more flexible. I can't wait, and so, so what's the trick here? Well, if you can't touch your toes, instead of just leaning over, if you take both arms and point them out at ninety degrees to one side, and then you slowly windmill them around all the way to your toes, you can

actually get closer to touching your toes. It's incredible. I kind of thought this one was gonna involve PAM as well, like under your feet, so you just slipped out into a split. That would be great too, But since it's a new year, we thought what better way to embrace our best selves than trick and cheat our way to results. So that's what today's show is all about. Let's dig

in aither podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good friend Man Guesh Ticketer and sitting behind that soundproof glass running the audio equipment from a handcrafted Nordic tractor. That's impressive. I guess he's getting his skiing in while he does this. That's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil. Now today we're ringing in two thousand eighteen with a look at some unusual ways to better your life in the year ahead.

So we're gonna check out some fun life hacks like you know, how to beat an ice cream headache. Will also get a bit more ambitious with ideas like how to be a better sner, or how to cram a year's worth of trash into a single Mason jar, and of course, to start the second year of ptg off Right, We've also got a ridiculous quiz lined up as well. So who's playing today Mango. Yeah. Today, we're gonna have

a very special guest, my wife, Lizzie Jacobs. She's been producing a fun new show for American public media called Mash Up Americans. But she also hates whenever I talk about life hacks, so we'll give her a little quiz about him. All right, So to get us started, I thought we should acknowledge the inspiration for today's show, which is the age old practice of making New Year's resolutions.

That's something humans have done for thousands of years, going all the way back to ancient Rome, when Julius Caesar rejiggered the calendar and named January one the starting point for each new year, and sees her name the first month in honor of the two face god Janice, who was believed to look both backwards at the previous year and boards into the future. So by offering sacrifices and making promises to be good, ancient Romans hoped to win

janice favor in the year ahead. Right, So fast forward a few millennia to today, and every January, a little over half the population pledges to lose weight, or quit smoking, or I don't know, spend more time outdoors. All in the hopes of making the new year better than the last one. And you know, this last for about a month or so until our old habits kicked back and and we're right back to where we started. Yeah, I guess without the threat of you know, Janice looming over us,

maybe people's resolve isn't what it used to be. Then is blaming on Janice? But everything on Janice, according to the University of Scranton, where the people who make resolutions fail to keep them. And of course I'm guilty of this every year when I claim I'm going to write my friends more or finish my novel which is tentatively titled How to Write Your Friends More. But the main reason for that low success rate is that we set ourselves up for failure by choosing goals that we're already

bad achieving. Yeah, you know, it's weird because we tend to go for things that we've already tried and failed at, you know, during the past year or so, whether that's going to the gym more often or eating better whatever it might be. Right, And so the science actually shows us that we get a sense of satisfaction just from the idea of accomplishing a difficult goal, which is why

so many people like making resolutions. In the moment, we feel good about saying that we're gonna lose weight this year, and we predict that will still feel that way in the future. But then when it's actually time to follow through, that initial happy feeling is faded, and suddenly the prospect of running three miles a day or whatever it doesn't

sound like fun anymore. Well, I'm glad you say that, because this actually brings us to our first life act, because there just might be a way to make ourselves think more concretely about the future. And this comes from the research of how Hirshfield, who's a marketing professor at u c l A School of Management. So they're using fm r I scans and they discovered that people process information about their future selves in a different part of the brain than the one that deals with their thoughts

about their presence self. And here's the crazy thing is that this part of the brain that's associated with future selves is actually the same one that's connected to thoughts about strangers. Wait, so are we actually thinking or seeing our future selves as strangers? I mean, we kind of are, actually, But but this is where things get interesting because there was a different study and Hirshfield was looking at students

and having them examined digitally age pictures of themselves. An amazingly test show that this helped the students develop more empathy for their future selves. Isn't that kind of strange? And so when this happened, they were less likely to procrastinate on things like studying for exams. And so apparently, if we can make our future sells feel less like strangers, we can actually use that motivation to better accomplish goals

in the present. That's so bizarre, And I thought you were going to tell us just to make more manageable goals like this, yere A'm gonna learn to make an omelet or something, but you should, though, you should learn to make someday. But you're saying if you want to keep your New Year's resolution and just get in touch with your future self, right, which I mean, I guess it's actually pretty easy now with us like old define an aging booth or whatever. Yeah, you can get super

old and seconds. It's pretty neat. But you know, as we mentioned, one of the most common resolutions people make is to exercise more often. I know, when we were in college, you always would say, I'm gonna start lifting weights on Monday, but then you can just go play basketball, and then it was Tuesday and you'd have to wait until the next Monday. I know, the basketball is so

much more fun. Well, if if you want a better shot at enjoying that workout, Actually, here's another hack, and it's it's a quick science tip that says, just smile and seriously, like the whole thing comes from this long standing belief among some athletes that smiling while exercising makes the workout feel easier and it turns out there right.

So there's a study done earlier this year and researchers from Ireland and Wales teamed up to see if a group of recreational runners performed better while smiling or scowling.

And the whole smile factor was downplayed to the runners, you know, just so it didn't skew the outcome of the test, and so they were only told that the experiment would test factors relating to quote running economy, which is, you know, how much oxygen someone uses to run at a given speech, So you can almost think of it like all economy, like how much gas do you need to get somewhere. So first, the researchers measured the runners

under normal circumstances. They weren't given any special instructions or any techniques. They just had to run on a treadmill until they were exhausted. Then, on a different day, each of the runners undertook a series of four six minute runs, using a different approach each time, some including smiling or frowning continuously through the run. And I mean, it seems like you're telegraphing this like that, the smiling runners outpaced

the frown ears. Well, not across the board. I mean, a few of the volunteers actually did best while frowning, and the researchers suggested that this might have been because those frowns were like their game faces, you know that game face you get on when every time we're about to start a podcast, and that may be helped their

you know, determination to perform well. But the most economical results came when the runners smiled, and so the group's running economy was as much as two point seven eight percent higher during the smiling runs than it was during the others. That's crazy, So do we have any idea why that is? Well, according to the lead researcher, the

smiling likely helped prompt this reduction and muscular tension. Now there's one catch to this, because the smiling has to be sincere, you can't fake it, So most of the runners smiles became more unnatural the longer the session went on, trying to run six minutes with a sincere smile on your face. So if you want to boost your performance while running, it's best to smile sincerely mango. In fact, one researcher suggests that you save your smile from near the end of the race and then use it in

thirty second burst. You know, so you don't wear out that sincerity. I love that you can just pocket into sincerity and then pull it small, InCor plan. There's nothing more sincere than planning out your thirty second smiles. It's all over my Google calendars. Here's one for any listener who wants to be a better performer but doesn't actually

want to break a sweat. So the next time you're at a karaoke bar and you need to hit a high note in your soulful rendition of I don't know my heart will go on, just try lifting a potted plant over your head as you sing. So if people don't look ridiculous enough doing karaoke, you know you might you might want to add a fern to the mix. I guess here, Well, it doesn't have to be a plant. But lifting something heavy above your head actually can help

you hit high notes in the higher registers. And this is one of those old chestnuts I learned at mental flaws. But basically that weight makes your muscles tense up, which in turn forces your larynx to stretch a little and that will actually help you land the high notes and impress all the people who would have otherwise thought you foolish.

All right, well I will, I'll keep that one in mind. Mega. So, staying on the subject to sound, did you know that our left and right ears are actually each equipped to hear different kinds of sound. So our right ears are better suited for deciphering speech patterns, while our left ears are better with musical qualities like pitch or timber or loudness.

You know what. I've read a little bit about this, and I might be mixing up the sides here, but isn't the idea that the right ear is paired with the left hemisphere of the brain, which is the side that's better at processing verbal information. Right, Yeah, you're completely right. So weirdly, the same kind of right ear preference shows up another species. I was reading about this earlier, and it's common for rats and dogs and also sea lions.

But one really cool thing I found out is that, uh, even apart from its left brain connection, our right ear is also physically better for hearing speech. So what do you mean by that? So this comes from this joint research effort from u c l A and the University of Arizona. But when you hear a sound, the tiny cells in your ear expand and contract to amplify the vibrations, and then inside these inner hair cells convert the vibrations and send them to the brain. And that's simplistic, but

that's kind of how your ear works. But the team measured the hearing of three thousand newborns using two different kinds of sound, and they looked at these rapid clicks like those found in speech, and then sustained tones like those found in music. And the results showed that the left ear actually gave extra amplification for tones like music, while the right ear did the same thing for sounds

like speech. So the weird thing is that your auditory processing really begins with the ear itself, and that's before your brain gets involved. And if you want to be a better listener, all you have to do is make sure you're using the correct ear for whatever you're trying to hear. That is pretty neat, and I guess helpful when you're at a cocktail party to know which side of your face you need to really lean in with.

I always think about which side of the pace got lean this side of my face and really hard here. But it actually reminds me of something else that that we're a little too quick to attribute to our brains, and that's the all too familiar pain of brain freeze. So I think I know where you're going with this, and this is an amazing trick. I not only use this all the time, but I've taught my kids this. But in the words of Kanye, I'm gonna let you finish.

Thanks Kanye. Al Right, So, as I was saying, most people go along with the brain freeze name and assume the pain is in their brain, which is why you know we instinctively grab our heads or start rubbing our temples when we scarf down ice cream or or during something really cold, but there actually aren't any pain receptors in the brain at all. Instead, scientists think the pain is due to these spasms brought on by the quick cooling of blood vessels in the back of the throat.

So the next time you need to relieve that brain freeze, you can drink something warm or just place your tongue against the roof of your mouth and that helps warm up those blood vessels and gets the brain freeze to go away. Yeah, so that's the trick, I know, Just shove your tongue against the roof of your mouth and that headache just melts away. But um, this isn't something I'm gonna tell my kids. But there's also another way to lesten that pain, and that's to use swear words.

I love how we're talking about resolutions for two thousand and eighteen, and a good one maybe to get your your kids to swear more. Yeah, I mean they're already from New York's right, But this is a real thing. So according to a study at Keel University, people who curse freely can endure pain almost fifty longer than those

who watch their language. Yeah, and and the researchers had sixty volunteers stick their hand into tub of freezing water for as long as they could while repeating their favorite swear word. Then they repeated the experiment, but they got to use a benign word instead, and shockingly, the volunteer, as you swore, endured nearly two minutes of pain, while those who use the benign words or something like eggplant over and over and over, they lasted just a minute

and fifteen seconds. That is wild, and that's a huge difference. So do researchers know why cursing, you know, lessons to pain? Yeah, they're not exactly sure, but their best guess is that the swearing helps us downplay the threat in order to overcome it. But the curious part is that the curses kind of have to mean something. So, just like your smile earlier, if you want to lessen your pain by swearing, you have to limit your casual curses. And as the

researcher put it, swearing his emotional language. But if you overuse it, it loses its emotional attachment. Well, all things in moderation, I guess, all right, Well, before we get into more life facts, why don't we take a quick break if you're listening to Part Time Genius and we're talking about some quirky ideas to make life a little

bit easier. So mago I mentioned this upfront that we would cover some life as that may be a bit more ambitious than using dental floss to slice up a cake or some of the other really silly things you find if you're looking online for life hacks. But I almost love the dumb and useless life hacks as much as the good one. Like there was this one that said, uh, never forget where you park your car in a parking lot,

just tie helium balloon to the antenna. That's good and I love that, like it just assumes that you always have freshly filled helium balloons up course, of course, And there was this other one where where you turn your hoodie around so the hoodie parts in front of you and it's considered an accessible snack pocket. So the picture I had this like fresh popcorn in the hood in front of this coder so that he could just borrow his face in the popcorn whenever he needed to bite.

And that was also he didn't have to move his hands. It's so dumb. I could totally see that being marketed toward coders, that's pretty sure, although I will say that those kind of life hacks do kind of give life hacks a bad name, especially when you compare them to

things that are really useful. You know, like how hand sanitizer gets tree sap off your hands, which he's actually pretty useful when you're bringing in Christmas trees or getting rid of them, and otherwise you kind of have to sit there for like fifteen minutes just hands in scalding water. Hate the stickiness of tree sticks. Can't stand sticky at all, and much less tree sap, so it drives me crazy.

And then there was that trash hack that you told me about that that I think also fits the bill here. Do you want to talk us through that one? Definitely? And so this one is related to this zero waste lifestyle movement that's really big right now, and it's basically an effort to reduce the insane amount of trash that

we produce on an individual level. And to give you an idea of why this might be necessary, consider the fact that the average American produces about four point five pounds of trash each day, which is over six hundred pounds per year. Ah, that is a ton of trash. Actually literally, that is almost a ton of trash that every single person produces. It's crazy. So obviously, with a population as large as ours, that kind of trash production adds up fast. So here's a clever way to reduce

your role in the problem. Stuff in entire year's worth of your garbage into a single Mason jar. Yeah. I mean it might sound crazy, but that's what Lauren Singer did, and it completely changed the way she looks at trash. Well, if Lauren Singer did it. Who is Lauren Singer. She's a graduate from n y USE Environmental Science program, and she runs this blog about sustainability called Trash Is for Tossers.

And a few years ago, a Singer got impressed because she realized that her interest in living sustainably hadn't extended past the classroom. And as she put it, I've got this quote here. One day I went home after class and opened my fridge to make dinner, and I realized that every single thing I had in there was packaged in plastic. So she made this decision to go plastic free and started making other changes in the life to live a less wasteful life, and so that's where the

mason jar comes in. Yeah, that that was kind of her way of keeping crack with the small amounts of waste that she just couldn't shake because like, even though she's sworn off buying I don't know, package goods and and plastic and whatever, there's still some random bits of

paper and plastic that can't be recycled or composted. So if you think about like fruit often comes with these little stickers, or the bits of plastic used to connect the price tag deer clothing, all of that's unavoidable waste and that goes into her trustees sixteen ounce mason jar. Wow. But so she crams a full year's worth of garbage into just one jar. How is that possible? She's actually even more efficient than that. So Singer claims to have

used the same jar for four years straight way. Yeah, and if that's true, it means she's personally saved over six thousand pounds of trash from heading to a landfill. I think she's hiding her trash somewhere, but that is incredible if this is true. But it also sounds like one of those resolutions that's too hard to achieve. So on the blog or anywhere else that this singer have any tips for people who are just starting to consider how to cut down their trash or yeah, she she's

got a whole process later out. So she suggests people start by getting to know their trash, kind of like what she did by looking at her fridge and examining that she had too much plastic packaging. But once you've identified what kind of trash you produced the most of, you can start looking for solutions and ways to reduce it.

So if you think about the fact that like you're throwing out a lot of wasted food, you can start composting or or maybe change the way you grocery shops so you're doing it more often but buying less each time, and that way you don't end up with all this excess food you can't use. But then the next step is to make smarter daily choices. And this is just little stuff like bringing reusable bags or coffee mugs with you when you're on about, or you know, refusing plastic

straws when you get offered them. But Singer's biggest advice is to transition to a d I Y approach, and this is the one we'll all get held up on. But it's things like making your own cleaning products using apple cider vinegar, or baking soda or using citrus juice. For that, Wow, I mean that is interesting. And for me making your own cleaning products, that does feel like a big hurdle to getting a percent there, So I'm just not gonna try it all. But I mean, honestly,

I do admire the commitment. One thing I do find appealing about singers single jar approaches just how much it limits her options because only allowing yourself such a tiny space for trash, it really restricts your choices, you know, for what you can consume exactly Like you might look at a box of oreos that look delicious, but you quickly realize how much less work you have to do by eating an apple. Yeah, and that's another tip for improving your lifestyle, and that is to limit your options.

It sounds counterintuitive, but when it comes to choice, less is actually better, at least according to Shena iron gar And. She's a psychologist at Columbia University, and she studies this paradox of choice. She says that the greater choice can be a problem because of the added strain. It puts

on your ability to process the information. You know, so think of all the time you spend weighing your different options, not to mention the fact that more choices also means a higher chance of making a mistake and maybe even passing up on a better option. So I mean, I like the idea, but what's alternative just settling for good enough? Actually, yeah,

that that is the solution. And Sina conducted a few experiments to test her theories about choice, and she found that people got more pleasure from choosing a chocolate from an assortment of five than when they choose from thirty. And when I think about that specific example, actually get it because it is kind of stressful when you're trying to choose from that thing of thirty and you're looking through the guide and you're like this one with peanut

butter or not. But that the idea is that if you know, if someone didn't make the absolute best choice, they'll still be happier in the long run, because you know, they didn't suck all the fun out of the experience

through all this endless deliberation in the process. That's uh, that's a really funny because I I think about things like video stores and one of the reasons I love browsing in them as a kid, or libraries too, is that because you have this entire world and you have to walk out with only one or two choices, like, there's so much pressure to pick well, but then there's the fun in choosing that and deliberating. But I mean, I guess it's paralyzing if that's what every decision is like.

If I always had to choose from three thousand chocolates to pick from, I'd probably avoid. But speaking of choice, there's one that I didn't even know I had, and that's which direction you're ceiling fans spins in. I don't know how I've gone so long without hearing about this, but apparently most ceiling fans have a two settings for your blade rotation, and that's clockwise or counterclockwise. I honestly don't think I've ever heard that either. So does the

direction actually make a difference, Yeah, it does. So it turns out that we should be changing our fans with the seasons, just like we do with our clocks. And in the summer, ceiling fans has been counterclockwise to produce a breeze from the air they forced downwards, and then in the winter the fans should be switched to its clockwise setting, and that way the warm air that's risen to the ceiling gets pushed down from the side of the room and more warm air will be drawn upwards.

That's pretty interesting. Yeah, all right, so we've covered a few tips for making home life a little more enjoyable. And now I think we should think about work life. What do you say? Yeah, and for it. But before we get started, let's take a quiz. Okay, it's quiz time and we've got Lizzie Jacobs in the studio today. Now, Lizzie is the producer of Mash Up Americans. She also has an Emmy, a Peabody, and a couple of best sellers to her name from her work at Story Corps.

But that's not even her most impressive work. I think you could say her biggest prize is being married to Magda and she's here to play a very important life hex quiz. So welcome, Lizzie. Thanks, I'm so glad to be here. Now, before we put you to the test that why, why don't you take a minute to tell us about your new show, mash Up Americans. Yeah, absolutely so.

The Mash Up Americans is a show um hosted by two first generation Americans, Amy and Rebecca, and they just we like to talk and to and celebrate some of the most exciting mash ups in America today, and those are people who are first generation American, who are in mixed uh cultural couples, are from mixed cultural families, and just really about being at the inner ste action of culture where that is a very exciting place to be. So, Lizzie, I'm around your work a lot, so I know a

little bit about this. But do you want to talk about some of the fun interviews you've been doing recently. Yeah, no, We've We've gotten to talk to a lot of exciting people. Um. One of the really fun interviews was with Randall park

Um from Fresh off the Boat. He's just so charming and he had this kim chi recipe that came to him from um, I can't remember his name, but a Jewish comedian and then he was like, but he's Korean, so then he had to make it his out and all this anyway, he was just like a totally lovely person. That was really fun. And then we had Dj Rika on talking about twenty years of Basement Bonga. Um, and that was super exciting um to talk with the woman

who began at all about you know, the whole twenty years. Yeah, Basement Bonga was this huge event in New York City where all sorts of celebrities would come to do yeah, and it was the longest running ever night like nightclub night, twenty years. The only time they didn't open was after Hurricane Sandy because they literally there was no electricity. But other than that they were open well, you know, first

Thursday of the month every every month. And even though I lived in New York for twelve years, I never went to it because I'm totally a nightlife low life, so I didn't never made it out, but I was excited to talk about it afterwards. That's pretty cool. What an interesting project, and no surprise, because you're always working on interesting projects. But I have to be honest, the reason that we brought you on today is because Mango says you shutter every time he says the words life hacks.

Is this true? And if so, why do you hate them so much? I'm shuddering actively right now. I hate the word life hack, So I'm okay with like hacking, right, computer hacking, fine goods, you know, important to the world. Uh ikia hacks. I like that because there's a lot of good things you can do with those flat you know,

flat pack boxes of furniture to make. But life hacks just always to me, seemed to reduce to some thing that some young dude just figured out and thinks he figured out, even though grandma's have been doing it forever. You know. It's just like I actually thought there was a life hack the other day about how to make tacos from tortillas. It's like, life hack, you can take tortillas and make tacos. It's like, yes, you can, because

that's what they're made of. Like it was just a thing, you know, or life heck, you know, try to separate your laundry before you do it's like, yeah, your mom did that, you just didn't attention. So I find it to be kind of this like columbassy or you know, sort of like dutification of culture that bothers me. I

don't know. Mango has got some pretty good ones. He had one the other day that if you feel you're spending too much time sitting at your desk, if you've eaten a banana that day, put it in your chair and then you won't feel like sitting down. I thought it was pretty good. I thought you're gonna say the banana it's smell so bad you had to get up and go to the trash can at least once. But now that that could be, and that's another like, Wow,

you're good. I probably I'm probably bitter about them because I should just have a career as a life hack artist. Well it's a good thing, because I think we're about to put you to the test on these what what what game are you playing with, Lizzie Mango. It's called real advice from history or nonsense life hacks. We just made up perfect all right. So we're going to read a statement to you, and all you have to do is tell us whether it's actual advice from history or

a nonsense life hack we just made up. You ready for these? I'm as ready as I'll ever be. Okay, here is number one. If you need to take a pie out of the oven, but don't have an oven mid handy, just use a metal dust pan to scoop up the pineton and keep it from over baking. This real or something we made up, I have to Can I ask a clarifying question here? No? Okay, so I'm just good answer. I'm gonna say that's real. Yeah, it's real.

This came from sixty years ago and it works. But as household Hacker points out, you have to use a metal dust pan and not a plastic one, right because everyone has a metal dustpan, handy, and everyone wants to be sticking their dust pan in the oven. That is just pie right right? All right, Well, she's one for one. Here we go number two. To deal with shards of broken glass that you might not see while sweeping, spread a little cracked corn on your floor and invite a

chicken or two into the house. Within a half hour, a hungry hen will eat both the seed and the glass, leaving a polished floor you can walk barefoot on. No, that's a nonsense, that's nonsense. Yeah, you know what, it's kind of not fair because Lizzie's used to your bowl man go to say this is she was able to read through that one. Okay too for two. Let's see how you do on number three to keep a beach

umbrella standing upright in the sand? Stack five the ten bagels on top of one another on the ground and insert the umbrella poll through the bagels to give the base of the pole extra weight. That's a tough one. Um, I'm gonna say it's nonsense. Yeah, it's nonsense. We made up. I was keeping my fingers crossed. Yes, it is nonsense. Okay too. Left. Number four. If you're doing work around the house, use an old potato as a pincushion to

hold your nails, screws and totally. That's that's real. That's real. Supposedly, an old potato is a handy way to carry around your nails and screws without misplacing them on the floor and stepping on them. Yeah, and you always have an old potato, so perfect, all right. Last one, let's see if you can get a perfect score. Number five. An easy trick for slicing tough bread with a dull knife is to heat up a knife, so you just submerge it in boiling water. Then watch how easily it cuts

through the loaf. Is this real or something we made up? I'm gonna give that a real That sounds real to me. Yeah, it's real. Advice and gives moto is actually recommended. This trick for slicing perfect cuts of cake as well. Oh so so mango. I think Lizzie may have as this one. How did she do? Yeah, she went five for five, which entitles her to a certificate of genius, which we'll put up on the fridge and I will use every day. I can't wait to share so many more lifects with

the listeners. I hope you'll all check out mash Up Americans. But thanks again for joining us, Lizzie. Welcome back to part time Genius. Okay, so we'll what's your idea for making the workplace a little more bearable? All right? Two words? Coffee naps. Well you heard it here first, folks. Coffee and naps will make work easier apparently. No, no, no, I didn't say coffee and naps. I say coffee naps.

And this sounds crazy because we tend to think of caffeine as a way to stay awake, But if you drink some coffee right before you take a quick nap, you can actually maximize your brains alertness. So I hate this idea already because I love both coffee and napping and I wouldn't want to mix those experiences. I mean, to me, it's like when Costanza on Seinfeld tried to add sandwiches to and TV to his love making and

it screwed everything up. But my kid cousin actually mentioned this to me, and uh that all his friends are actually doing in college. So I wonder why is this work all? Right? So, the way caffeine works is by clogging up receptors in your brain that are typically filled by a molecule called a denazine. The basically, brain activity produces a denazine and when enough of it builds up, it fills the gaps in the receptors and it creates

this feeling of tiredness or fatigue. So the caffeine takes the place of the adnazine, which leaves your feeling wired rather than tired. Right, But it doesn't muscle out the adnazine or anything like that. Instead, what happens is the caffeine competes for the empty spots in these receptors. Keffne claims some of the spots and a denazine gets the others, and that why no amount of caffeine can stave off sleepiness completely. And eventually the adnazine filled receptors they will

take their toll at some point. That's interesting it's almost like filling seats on a roller coaster or something. But why are coffee naps the way around that problem? Well, so sleep is the body's way of clearing out a denazine, and generally it takes about twenty minutes for caffeine to work its way through the bloodstream to the brain. So if you down some coffee and then immediately take a twenty minute nap, by the time the caffeine hits your brain,

it'll have less a denazine to compete with. Then when you wake up, you'll feel way more alert than if you just had some coffee or just taken a nap. That's pretty ingenious. So I'll have to fight off my knee jerk reaction and try this sometime soon. So we've established that coffee naps can help you get through the day. But what else have you got? Well, no matter what kind of job you have, there's a good chance you wish it paid a little bit more than it does.

And we can't help you na have a big rays or anything like that. But I do have a tip for how to save some of the money you've already made. It's a pretty simple one. Don't shop on your smartphone but it's always with you and that's part of the problem. So, according to some research from Dr Yean Zoo of the University of British Columbia, people take a different approach to shopping on a touch screen device than they do on a laptop or a desktop. She breaks down the distinction

this way. She says, the touch screen has an easy to use interface that puts you into an experiential thinking style. When you're in an experiential thinking mode, you crave excitement, a different kind of experience. When you're on the desktop with all the work emails, that interface puts you in a rational thinking style. While you're in a rational thinking style, when you assess a product, you know you look for

something with functionality and specific uses. So we're more likely to make frivlesus impulse buys on a smartphone and practical purchases on the PC pretty much. And and Zoo conducted an experiment where students were offered the same collection of products on an iPod touch and then on a desktop PC, and in both cases, students went for the more indulgent items on the iPod and more practical items on the PC.

Isn't that wild? That's crazy? But apparently there's just something fun about the touch screen interface that encourages us to opt for more hedonistic purchases like movie tickets or pizza delivery. So if you're trying to save some cash, delete that Amazon app and step away from your smartphone. That's so funny, because like, we don't use things like seamless on our desktop, but we do use them on our phone. And I've had at ours and so we probably order more from it.

But I would say, like, if the mere thought of, you know, separating yourself from your iPhone gives you separation anxiety, actually have one last money saving life act that I want to share as an alternative, And it's really good because if you do it right, you can turn one first class airplane ticket into an entire year's worth of free meals, one ticket into an entire year's worth of free meals, or this black magic of which you see mango.

It's super simple and one I admire for its ingenuity, but also think it's a little shameful and we'll never use because I'd be way too embarrassed about it. Right, So what is it here? You goes, So, first, buy yourself a fully refundable first class ticket on your favorite airline and the destination doesn't matter at all because you're

not actually going anywhere. Then, once you have your ticket, proceed directly to the swankiest v I p airport lounge you can find and stuff yourself with free food to your heart's content, and then prior to your departure you can probably guess what's coming. You exchange your ticket for a later day and come back and do the whole

thing over and over. That is downright diabolical. And also there's no way this could ever work, so it already has some genius in China used this exact ploy a few years ago and he was able to pull it off without a hitch over three hundred times that year. No way three That is crazy. And the airline never got suspicious of the same dude changing his itinerary hundreds of times without ever taking a flight. Well, obviously, like

that's eventually why he stopped. But uh, you want to know the best part, Like, since he was just exploiting a loophole and not actually breaking any rules, they couldn't do anything but ask and pull it to stop. Wow, And so so did he stop? Yeah? I mean he recognized that the jig was finally up, but he still had one less hand to play. He returned his ticket for a full refund. Oh my gosh, well played by this dude. And I know it's gonna be tough to top that one, but I still have a few life

hacks I'm itching to try. Well, now's your chance, because it's time to celebrate the new year with the very first fact off of two. What luck. So you know, when a light bulb goes out, you can shake it and hear a little rattle and you know it's dead. I didn't realize there's a similar test for batteries. Like if you drop a battery on the floor and it bounces, it means it isn't fresh. Older dead batteries bounced, while newer ones just thud. Oh that's weird. That's pretty cool,

all right. Well, if you're in a storm and the electricity goes out, do you know what works as a tiny candle? Crayola crayons. Now, your your kids may not love this, but you can actually burn them one by one to give yourself some light. And according to life hacker, they'll last you fifteen to thirty minutes each. So this is such a stupid life hack, but I love it because I hate getting my hand sticky or like frosting

on my face. But if you have to eat a cupcake, take a knife and cut the bottom off and then press it to the top to turn it into a little cupcake sandwich. You're a great nickname for somebody. We need to decide who to call little cupcake Sandwich. Alright, Well, if you hate crying while cutting onions, you can try this trick. You just freeze them for fifteen minutes before

you start slicing. Oh that's awesome. So I've actually tried so many tricks for cutting onions, from like wearing onion goggles to wedging some bread in front of your like top lip, and none of it works. So I can't wait to try this. But if you're drilling something into a wall, holding an open envelope under, the screw actually catches all the wall particles, so you don't have to

sweep up after all. Right, Well, if you want to boil a lot of hard boiled eggs but you don't have a hot that's large enough, you just put them in the oven in a muffin tin. You bake them for thirty minutes at three and fifty degrees. You can actually do twenty four of these at a time and not have to worry about water boiling over. Oh I like that. So I know you've got a lot of

sensitive documents on hand. And if you ever need a shredder but don't have access to a shredder, writer Lisa kada Yama suggests stuffing them into a stalking and then running them in a washing machine. And no one should be able to read your embarrassing love letters after Wow, you've really got to want to get rid of some letters to be willing to do that. That's good though, Well, you know we both love dumb life hacks, and not not that you're washing machine one was that was a

very reasonable one. But I've got one that may be the dumbest. Then it comes from Gizmoto. So if you're tired of fighting for a handrail to hold onto in the subway, or you just don't want to deal with all those germs, as you know, I don't really like dealing with them, just bring a toilet plunger on the subway with you. All you have to do is you plunge it up to the ceiling of the train and you hold onto the handle. You don't have to fight anyone for space. It's such a brilliant idea, and I

have no idea why I haven't thought of this. I love the idea of people commuting with their plungers just because they're like scared of germs instead of I don't know, like carrying hand sanitizer, no plunger. But I do think you win today's edition. I thought so. I knew that one was gonna take the crown. Well that's it for today's episode. Now, I know there are so many life facts that we didn't mention today, so we'd love to hear those from you guys. Feel free to email us

part Time Genius at how stuff Works dot com. You can always call us on our seven fact hotline one eight four four pt Genius, or hit us up on Facebook or Twitter. Thanks so much for listening. Thanks again for listening. Part Time Genius is a production of How Stuff Works and wouldn't be possible without several brilliant people who do the important things we couldn't even begin to understand. Tristan McNeil does the editing thing. Noel Brown made the

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