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YSK that fasting, when done right, isn’t just a wellness trend, but a science-backed way to improve your health, boost focus, and support long-term well-being.
Why YSK: Fasting, when practiced smartly, can actually be very good for your body and brain, and it’s backed by science more than people usually think. Even if you're not into it yourself, just knowing how it works might change the way you look at eating and health. Fasting is basically going without food for a certain amount of time, just giving your body some time to reset. During fasting, the body switches from burning sugar (glucose) to using stored fat for energy. At the same time, it kicks off something called autophagy, which is like a natural clean-up process where your body removes old or damaged cells. This is linked to living longer, better brain function, and even lower cancer risk.
Here's the link for the explanation:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3106288/
One of the most common styles is intermittent fasting, a type of fasting where people eat only during specific hours or days. It’s shown to help your body respond better to insulin (which helps with blood sugar), may reduce inflammation, and can even boost a brain chemical called BDNF that supports memory and mental sharpness.
You can read more about those benefits here:
https://www.nature.com/articles/nrn3462
Some methods include the 16:8 approach (fast for 16 hours, eat in an 8-hour window), the 5:2 method (eat normally for 5 days, restrict for 2), or alternate-day fasting.
Here’s a solid breakdown from Johns Hopkins Medicine on how those work:
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/intermittent-fasting-what-is-it-and-how-does-it-work
But of course, fasting isn’t for everyone, and that’s important to know too. Some people can feel lightheaded, tired, or even develop unhealthy eating habits if they’re not careful. Also, people with diabetes, low blood pressure, eating disorders, or pregnant women should definitely talk to a doctor first before trying any fasting routine.
Here’s a helpful Mayo Clinic FAQ that explains when it’s not safe and what side effects to look out for:
https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/expert-answers/intermittent-fasting/faq-20441303
As with any lifestyle change, the key is listening to your body, staying informed, and approaching fasting not as a quick fix, but as a mindful, sustainable habit.
https://redd.it/1m4lb5u
@r_youshouldknow
If you feel lonely because you don’t have friends
And you want to do certain things like party with people
Go book a bed in a partyhostel, say that you are from another city and have fun with a new group of people 😎
https://redd.it/1m4l6mv
@r_youshouldknow
LPT: When you're overwhelmed by a decision or emotion, write a letter to yourself — but date it 6 months in the future.
Feeling stuck, stressed, or unsure what to do? Open a blank page and write:
"Dear me, it's January 2026. Here's what I wish you had done back in July 2025..."
By stepping into your future mindset, you're tapping into long-term thinking — which helps override panic, short-term fear, and impulsive choices.
This trick rewires your brain to think with perspective, and often, the "future you" knows exactly what needs to happen.
✅ Great for major life decisions, breakups, burnout, career stress, or identity crises.
🧠 Bonus: It feels like getting advice from your wiser self — and it usually works.
https://redd.it/1m4h33p
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TIL (from Injustice) that SHAZAM in DC is apparently an acronym. wisdom of Solomon, strength of Hercules, stamina of Atlas, power of Zeus, courage of Achilles, and speed of Mercury.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shazam_(DC_Comics)
https://redd.it/1m4f2ik
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TIL that Bob Anderson, the legendary swordmaster who trained Viggo Mortensen for his role as Aragorn, also stepped into the Darth Vader suit to perform the lightsaber duels in "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi".
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2012/jan/02/star-wars-swordsman-bob-anderson-dies
https://redd.it/1m4bo11
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LPT: When buying prepackaged produce or meats take time to weigh it at one of the scales available in the produce department, it will save you from being shortchanged.
I frequently find what is the weight marked on produce and meats is incorrect. I weighed a chuck steak and found it was almost 8oz less than stated. At $8.97/pound that is almost $4.00 difference. Peppers I weighed were 0.73 pounds not the specified 1 pound. I would have paid $0.72 for missing product. These are just a couple examples. Weigh your purchases and if you find discrepancies speak with management. That’s the only way things will change so that you fully get what you’re paying for.
https://redd.it/1m4brdz
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TIL about the Mexican Lapdog, an extinct dog breed that measured only 18 cm (7.1 in) from the snout to the base of the tail as an adult.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_lapdog
https://redd.it/1m46jlq
@r_youshouldknow
Sharing a few low-pressure storage habits
I’ve realized the issue isn’t whether I *have* space. It’s whether each item has a “home.”
I’m not a minimalist, but I follow two rules that keep me sane:
1. Each category of item has *one* place it lives (like all candidate resumes go in one folder, never floating on my desktop).
2. Try to keep horizontal surfaces clear. Especially the part of my desk that shows on camera.
I even made a Notion page called “Storage wins,” where I drop quick photos of small changes that worked. Do you have a weirdly specific storage habit that works for you?
https://redd.it/1m46r8e
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TIL MAD Magazine’s Alfred E. Neuman has mysterious origins; his face has been used in advertisements since at least the 1890s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_E._Neuman
https://redd.it/1m3vw99
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TIL $157K worth of stolen Magic: the Gathering and Dungeon & Dragons gaming cards were recovered after they were turned in by the party who bought them from the thieves for $4K. The cards had been stolen at Gen Con 2023 when 2 men simply walked out with a pallet that had 115 boxes of the cards on it
https://www.indystar.com/story/news/crime/2023/09/05/gen-con-heist-charges-filed-against-men-theft-gaming-cards-magic-the-gathering-dungeons-and-dragons/70771245007/
https://redd.it/1m3xlou
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TIL in 2022 a chess-playing robot broke the finger of its 7-year-old opponent after the boy didn't give it enough time to respond & attempted to move again. The robot held his finger in place for 15 seconds before bystanders were able to pry it free. The boy then played with his finger in a cast.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/chess-robot-breaks-boys-finger-during-match-moscow-tournament-rcna39784
https://redd.it/1m3xlbz
@r_youshouldknow
LPT: Feeling stuck? Try writing a kind letter to your past self, then respond as your future self.
Sounds weird, but it works. Whenever I feel overwhelmed or can't figure out what I need, I open my notes app and write a short letter to my past self like, "Hey, I know things were rough back then. Here's what I wish you'd known."
Then I flip it and write back from my future self, like I'm offering advice or reassurance from a place where I’ve figured things out. It's honestly helped me get out of some mental ruts and see things with more clarity.
Small trick. Surprisingly powerful.
https://redd.it/1m3r8la
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LPT: Threaten to cancel
Probably already been stated but it’s a good idea, especially if you’ve been a long time customer, to periodically try to cancel your subscription to a service (any app service). In my experience 90 percent of the time you’ll immediately get a counter offer to at least get a few months or more at a reduced price or get shown better options made available since you signed up.
https://redd.it/1m3rqtw
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TIL that Pope Celestine V resigned just 5 months into his papacy in 1294 because he never wanted the job and wanted to go back to his cave, he was chosen after a 2-year deadlock, felt overwhelmed by Vatican politics, issued a decree allowing popes to quit, and then used it to step down.
https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Celestine_V?
https://redd.it/1m3pu0f
@r_youshouldknow
TIL during/after the Korean War, South Korea state-sponsored prostitution for US troops, framing it as women's 'patriotic duty.' Camp towns from the DMZ to Seoul were called 'GI Heaven. The sex workers endured severe abuses to facilitate "sexual hygiene" such as forced medication and imprisonment.
https://www.koreanquarterly.org/tag/military-prostitution/
https://redd.it/1m3iesf
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TIL The game Cities Skyline II needed to remove simulated landlords because it mirrored real life too much, leading to citizens no longer being able to afford housing, collapsing the local economy
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/06/the-rent-is-too-dang-high-in-cities-skylines-2-so-the-devs-nuked-the-landlords/
https://redd.it/1m4lrwr
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TIL In 1985, a South Korean economist named Oh Kil-Nam defected to North Korea with his wife and two daughters. Less than one year later, he defected again, receiving asylum in Denmark. He left his family behind in North Korea, where (according to latest reports) they remain imprisoned today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oh_Kil-nam
https://redd.it/1m4i8hk
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TIL the CIA spent $20 million trying to turn a cat into a spy. It got hit by a taxi 5 seconds into its first mission.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustic_Kitty
https://redd.it/1m4h6bo
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[TIL] There's an episode of Fresh Prince of Bel Air in which Carlton deliberately goes off-script, breaks the fourth wall, and runs screaming into the audience and through another set.
http://digitalspy.com/tv/ustv/a830150/fresh-prince-of-bel-air-carlton-runs-around-set/
https://redd.it/1m4eovv
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YSK: you are probably using the terms “positive/negative reinforcement” incorrectly
Why YSK:
As a psych professional, I often overhear people incorrectly using the term positive reinforcement to describe rewarding specific behaviors with “good” things and negative reinforcement as punishment with “bad” things. Even more frustrating, everyone understands that positive is better than negative reinforcement when it comes to the actual likelihood of change. As a result, many people frequently misattribute this point in the application of the concept otherwise known as operant conditioning. leading people to believe that things like squirting your cat with water is negative reinforcement, when by definition, it’s actually positive reinforcement (and can very well be as effective as rewarding your cat’s good behaviors with treats). Because it would be weird to make the unprompted effort to interrupt my coworkers or patients misusing these terms at work, I will instead interrupt your feed and try to spread the truth. And also, to demonstrate that this is a very serious and big issue that you should know about for when you are conducting psychiatric research or want to have something that is most likely unnecessarily semantic to argue about (could be funny…)
Positive reinforcement: introducing a stimuli (good OR bad) to induce a desired behavior. This could be rewarding with something to induce a behavioral change, but could also be “rewarding” behaviors with uncomfortable stimuli. For instance, playing a loud siren whenever a dog jumps on the couch to stop them from jumping on the couch.
If operating by the true criteria of positive reinforcement, hitting someone to make them change a behavior is positive reinforcement (and scientifically it would be accurate).
Negative reinforcement: REMOVING stimuli from the environment to induce a desired behavior. This could be like removing the aforementioned loud siren to keep the dog off the couch, but it could also be taking away something “good”, too. For example, revoking your kids phone privileges as punishment. So That first example of negative reinforcement may seem odd. “Why remove an uncomfortably loud siren whenever your dog jumps on the couch?” Well, that’s the point of why everyone says positive reinforcement is better than negative reinforcement. Positive reinforcement simply has more applicability across scenarios in inducing behavioral change. If you removed the blaring siren whenever the dog got on the couch, the dog would get on the couch as fast as they could (if they aren’t deaf) to make it stop. However, removing a stimuli from the environment can work, but not as effectively or consistently as introducing a new one in many scenarios. Don’t know why this is the case for the human brain, but that’s just the way it works for most people with regards to our naturally developed pattern recognition over thousands of generations of adapting to our environments.
Tl;dr
people misattribute “positive” to mean “good” and “negative” to mean “bad” while positive (+) actually means to introduce any new stimuli (“good” or “bad”) and negative (-) means to remove any new stimuli. Both negative and positive reinforcement are to induce a change in what someone or something does.
Edit: I forgot about the punishment vs reinforcement part y’all. This distinguishes the intended usage of a stimuli and the conditioned behavior (whether to reduce e or increase the likelihood that this behavior will be used instead of the original)
https://redd.it/1m4c94m
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TIL Narender Yadav an Indian went to Everest where he claimed to have summitted the mountain but discrepancies were noticed which indicated he had faked the summit. He got a ban from the mountain for six years. He returned the day after his ban expired and reached the summit with ample proof.
https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Narender_Singh_Yadav
https://redd.it/1m47erq
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YSK: Putting down the club that you beat yourself up with is not achieved by analyzing the hell out of it.
Why YSK: Reflecting on your mistakes is only helpful up to a point. Once you've identified what you did wrong, continuing to dwell on it is just an excuse to wallow in negativity. Reminding yourself that it's ok to stop thinking about it is sometimes the most productive thing you can do for yourself.
https://redd.it/1m48bdv
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YSK that if your PC's internal speaker has super low sound, you can boost the sound using FxSound
Why YSK: some Windows latptop internal speakers have very low sound. Thankfully, there is a free open-source software called FxSound that boosts sound quality, volume, and bass. It includes an equalizer, effects, and presets for customized audio.
https://redd.it/1m468sq
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TIL that in 1994, Pearl Jam canceled their summer tour after discovering Ticketmaster was adding unfair service charges. In protest, they began building their own venues in rural areas and sold tickets directly to fans to keep prices low and avoid corporate influence.
https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/pearl-jam-war-with-ticketmaster/
https://redd.it/1m42ovs
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TIL that pet cats form attachments with their human owners that are similar to the bonds formed by children and dogs with their caretakers. It's the first time that researchers have empirically demonstrated that cats display the same main attachment styles as babies and dogs
https://agsci.oregonstate.edu/home/article/cats-children-and-dogs-develop-attachments-their-caregivers-study-shows
https://redd.it/1m3z6eq
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LPT: if you're looking for a job, mention it to everybody that you come in contact with. You never know whose sister's neighbor's uncle is hiring.
I was trying to make a career change in my mid-20s and was having problems getting my foot in the door. I visited a loan officer at my credit union in the middle of my job hunt and mentioned it to her. her eyes lit up and said that the person that she had just had a meeting with worked in HR at this kind of company that I was looking to get into. She said that she could pass on my information if that was okay with me. She did and within 24 hours this person contacted me and I had an interview at his company and was hired the next week. If I had never mentioned it to this loan officer, I wouldn't have gotten my foot in the door when I did.
https://redd.it/1m3waw5
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LPT: My friend advised me to put the website's name as the middle name while signing up any platforms. This way you could know who leaked your data when you receive a spam or advert mail.
I find this really interesting idea but I don't know what to do after I know who did it.
https://redd.it/1m2yj5t
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LPT: Pay premiums annually if there is a surcharge for paying quarterly or monthly. You will literally save hundreds of dollars per year.
Just found out after 15 years that we have been paying $196 per year extra for the "privilege" of paying life insurance premiums quarterly instead of annually. The company made it hard to find out how much extra we were paying, and difficult to switch to annual payments once we found out. Always sign up for annual, unless you get in writing that it's free to pay in smaller installments.
https://redd.it/1m3ngb7
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TIL that during the American Revolutionary War, African-Americans served in the British army over 2-to-1 versus in the American army because they viewed a British victory as a way to achieve freedom from slavery
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Americans_in_the_Revolutionary_War
https://redd.it/1m3j8wz
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TIL Sweden is capable of domestically building submarines, frigates, jet fighters and satellites, despite having a population of just over 10 million people. Per capita it is one of the largest arms exporters on the planet.
https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2024/7/1/sweden-brings-defense-industrial-might-to-nato
https://redd.it/1m3iw6p
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