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Dull and dirty: Your workplace could affect brain function

A new study by a Florida State University researcher shows that both a lack of stimulation in the workplace and a dirty working environment can have a long-term cognitive effect on employees.

“Psychologists say that the brain is a muscle, while industrial hygienists point to chemicals in the work environment that may cause decline,” said Joseph Grzywacz, the Norejane Hendrickson Professor of Family and Child Sciences and lead researcher on the study. “There are real things in the workplace that can shape cognitive function: some that you can see or touch, and others you can’t. We showed that both matter to cognitive health in adulthood.”

In the past, researchers had been divided on whether it was working in an unclean workplace — facing exposure to agents such as mold, lead or loud noises — or working in an unstimulating environment that took the biggest toll on brain health as people aged.

This new study is significant because it showed both can play an important role in long-term cognitive well-being.

Grzywacz’s findings are published in the June issue of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

Grzywacz and his team obtained cognitive function data from working adults participating in the Midlife in the United States study. Their results had two major takeaways: One was that greater occupational complexity — that is the learning of new skills and taking on new challenges — resulted in stronger cognitive performance particularly for women as they aged.

The second result was that men and women who had jobs that exposed them to a dirty working environment saw a cognitive decline.

“Both of these issues are important when we think about the long-term health of men and women,” said Grzywacz, who also serves as the chair of the Department of Family and Child Sciences.

Grzywacz and colleagues analyzed the data to examine individuals’ workplaces and their ability to maintain and later use information they learned. They also looked at their executive functioning skills such as their ability to complete tasks, manage time and pay attention. Additionally, the data included responses from participants asking them about any memory issues they were experiencing.

“The practical issue here is cognitive decline associated with aging and the thought of, ‘if you don’t use it, you lose it,’” Grzywacz said. “Designing jobs to ensure that all workers have some decision making ability may protect cognitive function later in life, but it’s also about cleaning up the workplace.”

The data included 4,963 adults ages 32 to 84 from the 48 contiguous states. The sample was 47 percent male and 53 percent female.

There’s now a smart menstrual device called my.Flow

Meet my.Flow. It’s not a tampon covered with sensors, but rather a special tampon string connected to a wearable sensor. It will monitor your tampon and send you alerts via an app on your phone. Is this really the best solution to the menstruation problem they’re trying to solve?

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This is a ghostly web-footed gecko, they can be found and perfectly camouflage among the powdery reddish sands of the Namib Desert, their primary habitat.These geckos have adapted their webbed feet not only to help them stay atop, but to bury beneath the dunes of the Namib Desert. Strictly nocturnal lizards, they spend the day in self-dug burrows and emerge at night to feed.

Their bloodshot-looking eyes are massively oversized to help them detect prey, which includes crickets, grasshoppers, and small spiders. They move surprisingly quickly across the sand, and adhesive pads on their toes make them excellent climbers.

People sometimes hunt these tiny lizards for food, and human encroachment is destroying some of its habitat. Their estimated lifespan in the wild is about five years.

A selection of reads centered around feminism, written by women of color for women of color.

“Feminism: A Movement to End Sexist Oppression” (from Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center)

Feminism Is For Everybody: Passionate Politics

Feminist Class Struggle

“Feminism and Class Politics”, a specific chapter from the book here.

The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators.

Understanding Patriarchy

Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black

Selling Hot Pussy: Representations of Black Female Sexuality in the Cultural Marketplace.

“Romance: Sweet Love” (from Women’s Voices, Feminist Visions, 4th Ed. By S. Shaw and J. Lee)

Woman, Native, Other: Writing Postcoloniality and Feminism - Trinh T. Minh-Ha

”Lynching, Empire, and Sexuality in Black Feminist Theory“ -Hazel V. Carby

”Transnational Feminist Pedagogy: An Interview with Inderpal Grewal and Caren Kaplan“

”Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses“ by Chandra Talpade Mohanty

”Feminist Problematizations of Rights Language“ by Jasbir Puar and Isabelle Barker

Feminist Genealogies, Colonial Legacies, Democratic Futures by M. Jacqui Alexander & Chandra Talpade Mohanty

”The Subject of Freedom“ by Saba Mahmood

The Spivak Reader

Borderlands/La Frontera by Gloria Anzaldúa

”Colonialism, Nationalism, and Colonialized Women: The Contest in India“ by Partha Chatterjee

”Can the Subaltern Speak?“ Gayatri Spivak

The Politics of the Veil - Joan W. Scott

”Decolonizing Feminism: Challenging Connections between Settler Colonialism and Heteropatriarchy“ by Maile Arvin, Eve Tuck, and Angie Morrill

”Native American Feminism, Sovereignty, and Social Change“ by Andrea Smith

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