Life Style

I’m sure you’ve heard it everywhere: Check with a doctor before beginning any exercise program. This is the standard disclaimer on fitness advice of any sort, which most of us probably ignore. But should you? Not necessarily, it turns out.Why are you supposed to check with a doctor before exercising?The concern underlying this oft-repeated statement is that there are rare cases where a person can die suddenly during exercise. When this happens, it’s usually in a person who (a) had some kind of underlying medical issue; (b) was not used to exercising; and (c) did very intense exercise that they were unprepared for. For a long time, there was a sense among many medical and fitness professionals that the best way to handle the issue was to focus on the first part: the people who had an underl...

We may earn a commission from links on this page. If you’ve been doing any kind of work around any kind of house for a while, you probably have a few trusty old-school C-Clamps on hand. The C-Clamp has been in use for thousands of years. It’s one of those dead-simple tools that just works. It’s also one of those tools you tend to collect multiple examples of, in different sizes.Typically, you use a C-Clamp to, uh, clamp stuff together, like two pieces of wood, or to clamp something into place while you work on it (I use them a lot to cut lumber so I can have both hands on the saw, as I am allergic to emergency rooms.) But the C-Clamp is actually a very versatile tool that can be deployed in a number of creative—but useful!—ways. Here are some of my favorite ways to re...

Rewarding yourself can backfire. If you tell yourself, “I’ll only listen to my favorite podcast while I’m at the gym,” it takes just one moment of weakness to realize you can cheat and listen to it any time you want. Instead, try this: Reward yourself with something that has no enjoyment value whatsoever. Like a checkmark on your calendar. I first heard this tip from writer Tim Clare’s podcast. If you want to stay motivated, he says, the reward has to be so crappy that you’re not actually working for the reward. He said that he puts a checkmark on his calendar every day he writes, and at the end of the week enough checkmarks earn a gold star. The same approach has worked for me and for others. I have to admit: Buying myself a pack of stickers is embarrassingly motivating. Why stickers work...

We may earn a commission from links on this page. A healthy dose of cardio is an important part of your exercise routine, and for a lot of us, "zone 2" cardio is going to make up a big chunk of that. Low-intensity cardio—sometimes called LISS or “zone 2”—used to be an underrated form of exercise. It's super trendy now, after spending years on the sidelines while HIIT and lifting-only routines ran the field. But what is zone 2 cardio, exactly? How can you make sure you're doing it right? And is it really so bad if your heart rate drifts into zone 3? What is zone 2 training?Zone 2 training is cardio done at a steady, low intensity. It has benefits for aerobic training (so you can run faster), anaerobic training (helping you to recover faster between reps and sets, or be...

We may earn a commission from links on this page. For many of us, New Year's Eve represents not just the climax of a long holiday season, but also a time to simultaneously reflect, and to look forward to what's ahead—sometimes with optimism, sometimes with sheer dread. (Lately, mostly dread.)Movies have frequently recognized the simultaneously hopeful and perilous nature of the time. It can be a period of reassessment, or renewal, or massive change. This selection of choice New Year's Eve movies reflects that range of possibilities, including everything from romance and murder, to comedy and tragedy, to wild sex and heartbreaking loneliness. When Harry Met Sally (1989) Taking on an added poignance following the death of director Rob Reiner, his classic collaboration...

To manage your inbox, you need dedication. You need a plan. You need acronyms. One such acronym is RAFT, which will literally keep you afloat in the sea of emails you receive every day. You can combine it with others, like LIFO and 4D to maximize its benefits, but first you need to know what to do with it on its own.What is RAFT email management?RAFT stands for the following: Easy! With this management system, you take the time to read an email first, then act on it however you need to—if you need to, that is—before either filing it away somewhere or deleting it. That’s basically all there is to it, but it works because it requires you to focus on each individual email and make an assessment right away, so you don’t miss anything. Like the one- and two-touch rules, this one does require yo...

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. At $749, the unlocked 128GB Google Pixel 10 Pro has slipped into its most affordable price yet on Amazon, down from its original $999 launch price, according to online price trackers. Stack the promo code PIXEL10, and you shave off another $100, which reframes the phone entirely. At full price, it felt like a confident but pricey Android flagship. At this discount, it becomes a far easier recommendation for people who value polish over raw benchmark wins. This is still very much a Pixel. The design is clean and familiar, with a flat display, matte glass back, and a solid in-hand feel that avoids the slippery problem of earlier gener...

Because it’s Christmas time, I’ve been digging into myths and misconceptions we have about the holiday: Yuletide misinformation is rampant, and I’m setting the record straight. Last week I dug into who Santa Claus really is, with side quests about St. Nicholas bringing children back from the dead and the religious war between Santa and Kris Kringle. One thing I didn't talk about? His elves. Christmas elves feel like they’ve been around forever, and people have strangely consistent ideas of what they’re all about—they’re small, they wear green, they make toys out of some innate magical compulsion, they love shelves— but that variety of elf is a recent invention; “real” elves were often anything but jolly little pieceworkers. The elves' thousand-year transition from supernatural nightmare cr...

For many students and workers, Windows is just the default way to use a computer. It's where all your apps work as intended, where all your Microsoft Office documents sync easily, and where you play all your games. But if you peel back its layers, Windows can be a lot more than that. Power users can take advantage of hidden features, and utilities from Microsoft and third-parties to not only speed up their workflow, but to improve productivity and fix some of the most annoying quality-of-life issues that plague Windows PCs. Control everything using the Command Palette Credit: Khamosh Pathak For decades, Mac users have boasted about Spotlight Sea...

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. The Pixel 10 came out in August this year, and at a $799 starting price, it was worth considering. Fast forward a couple of months, and now you can get one for almost half off, at $449. Amazon is discounting the flagship Pixel 10 (128GB) to $549, and there’s a promo code (PIXEL10) that drops it down a further $100. At under $500, this might be the best Android smartphone deal of the year. Usually I recommend the Pixel 9a as the best budget buy. The lowest it’s been was $349 for Cyber Monday, and it’s sitting at $399 right now. The Pixel 10 at $449 is a much better deal.The Pixel 10 has the latest Tensor G5 chip with new on-device AI ...