Himmelfarb’s 36th annual art show is in full swing, bringing an exciting range of photography, acrylics, water colors, knitting, and mixed media to Himmelfarb’s first floor. If you haven’t already, come take a study break and peruse the work of your fellow students, staff, and faculty.
In the meantime, enjoy this sampling of work and the artist’s in their own words.
And if you’d like to drop a few lines about your art or creative process, email them to randy.plym@gwu.edu. Every piece has a story, and we love to hear them.
Frederick Jacobsen's "Giverny Lilies" [Photograph]
As a photographer and clinical researcher into the effects of light on the brain and behavior I am very attuned to the continually shifting perspectives of light and color in my environment. Visiting Monet's Giverny pond and gardens provided me the opportunity to view and feel how this exquisite environment facilitated his remarkable Nymphéas paintings while suffering progressive visual loss (due to bilateral cataracts). "Giverny Lilies" is an homage to Monet’s work and vision through a 21st century lens.
Frederick M. Jacobsen, Faculty, SMHS
Brittany Smith's "VA Mountains" [Watercolor on Paper]
I believe 'VA Mountains' is one of my earliest watercolor paintings. It is inspired by a photo I took many years ago during my time at UVA when some friends and I drove along Blue Ridge Parkway. That day was one of my favorite days when I was an undergraduate student and the painting serves as a reminder of that mini-road trip.
In terms of process, I have a simple painting style since I'm trying to figure out watercolor as a medium. This was painting in a beginner's class and my instructor actually helped with the texture of the stone railing along the road. I haven't painted anything new in a few years, but I want to return to watercolor soon and fill a sketchbook with watercolor experiments to build my confidence as a painter.
Brittany Smith, Staff, Himmelfarb
Rebecca Kyser's "Quackery" [Ink and Colored Pencil on Paper]
I'm a big believer in the power of comics to make scientific and historical topics more accessible to the public. So when I heard about the art show, it seemed the best opportunity to put that belief into practice.
Rebecca Kyser, Staff, Himmelfarb
Mehrshad Fahim Devin's "Post-Op" [Photograph]
Post-op was inspired by the conversation's I've had with patients as a medical student. I've had the opportunity to speak with some patients both before and after a surgical operation. I found that pre-op patients held a lot of uncertainty and fear for the future; but after the surgery, amidst the pain and recovery, their eyes almost always glimmered with relief. The piece is meant to represent this relief.
Mehrshad Fahim Devin, Student, SMHS
Basil Considine's "The Faerie Queene of New Prague: the Court" [Digital Photo Painting and Composite]
You probably haven't heard of New Prague, Minnesota (population: 8,000), but hundreds of schoolchildren in Madagascar can find it on a map. Why? The city – and its mischievous Faerie Queen, who wants everything done properly and turns pirates into frogs – were front and center in a series of storytelling performances that I delivered as a Fulbrighter. Each time I visited their school, the children begged to hear more stories about cold, snowy Minnesota (Brr!) and the beautiful Faerie Queen. And then, one day, a teacher asked me if there was a picture of her...
How can you compete with a child's imagination? That's a challenge for any artist, but I had a good set of raw materials: a photo shoot with the model for the Faerie Queen (Lisa Bark, an actor from New Prague, MN), a flair for theatrical makeup, and a lifetime of adoring complex Renaissance tableaus and Pre-Raphaelite paintings. Throw in a set of original fairy tales that I'd crafted for the children, a set of digital painting brushes in Photoshop, and I started to sketch a set of storybook scenes and fill them with extra details – to reward staring at the picture again and again.
Some people say that digital painting is faster. You don't have to wait for paint to dry, but after more than 400 layers and more than 10,000 brush strokes...not for me!
Today is Earth Day, a day that serves as “a reminder of the importance of environmental conservation and sustainability, encouraging us to come together and take action for a healthier planet and a brighter future” (Earthday.org, 2024). Earth Day is about protecting the environment and improving global environmental health. Environmental health has direct and dramatic impacts on our physical and mental health.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 24% of all estimated global deaths are linked to environmental factors, and the cost of environmental direct damage to health by 2030 is estimated to be between $2 to $4 billion yearly (WHO, 2024). Climate change directly impacts clean air, safe drinking water, a nutritious food supply, safe shelter (WHO, 2024), and environmental emergencies that lead to humanitarian crises such as heatwaves, wildfires, floods, drought, tropical storms, and hurricanes (WHO, 2023).
The links between environmental health and public health are strong. “Environmental quality has a profound effect on health and the burden of disease” (Koehler, et al., 2018). The United States has the highest environmental burden of disease, “an estimate of the proportion of the global burden of disease that could be prevented by changes to the environment,” among high-income countries (Koehler, et al., 2018). Risk factors for many chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of mortality in the US, are directly impacted by environmental factors. For example, exposure to air pollution and “built environmental factors” such as car-centered development that discourages physical activity like walking and biking are risk factors for cardiovascular disease.
Koehler et al. propose a public health approach to addressing environmental health problems, including incorporating health into the built environment. Urban planning development “ranging from increasing opportunities for walking and cycling, to provide access to healthy food, to building recreational facilities”, is one way of incorporating health into the built environment (Koehler et al., 2018). Other methods include providing access to green and blue spaces such as parks and waterfront areas, reducing air pollution emissions by promoting public transportation, walking, and bicycling by making these options safe and convenient, promoting renewable energy, and improving housing options and conditions (Koehler et al., 2018).
While these are great ways to improve environmental health, and thus improve public health as a result, these are also issues that must be dealt with on a societal and large-scale level. But there are things you can do as an individual that positively impact the environment. Here are some practical things you can do that can make a difference:
Reduce, Reuse, Repair, and Recycle
Following the “Four R’s” can have a big impact. A recent Standford Report article explains that “people should try to focus more on reducing and reusing, rather than recycling” (Kubota, 2024). While many people tend to focus on recycling, reducing the amount of products you buy that will eventually end up in the recycling bin will have a larger impact. A practical way to do this is by being mindful of the amount of packaging included in the things that you buy. If there is an option that comes with less packaging, buy that product instead if you can.
For some things, you can’t avoid buying the packaging. Take jelly for example. You can’t buy jelly without a jar. But you can choose to reuse the jar when you are finished with the jelly. Not only will reusing the jar keep the jar out of the recycle bin, or even worse, out of the landfill, but reusing it will help you save money on storage containers.
In today’s society, it’s easy and convenient to replace items when they get worn out or break. But these items end up in the recycle bin, or the landfill when we replace them with a new version. Rather than just replacing items, try to repair or repurpose them! Not only will this help the environment, but it will also save you some money.
Meat production has a much higher carbon footprint than plant food production. Simple things like replacing one red meat-based meal per week with a plant-based protein option, eating smaller portions of meat, and eating more beans and nuts can reduce your diet’s carbon footprint all while improving your cardiovascular health (Kubota, 2024).
Reduce Food Waste
While we’re on the subject of food, reducing the amount of food that ends up in the trash is another way to make a big difference. Roughly 40% of edible food in the US is wasted, accounting for 37% of US greenhouse emissions (Kubota, 2024). When you eat out at restaurants, try bringing your own reusable containers for your leftovers - and don’t forget to eat those leftovers once you have them in your fridge (Kubota, 2024)! Do you get tired of eating leftovers? Try finding recipes to turn leftovers into something completely different for a future meal.
Composting your food scraps is also a great option! But what if you don’t have the space to compost? Apartment living can make it difficult to compost. GW Compost makes it easy to compost! Just drop off your compost at Kogan Plaza during designated drop-off hours.
Interested in learning more about how you can help diminish your environmental impact? Check out Sustainable GW to learn more about campus initiatives and how you can participate!
Koehler, K., Latshaw, M., Matte, T., Kass, D., Frumkin, H., Fox, M., Hobbs, B. F., Wills-Karp, M., & Burke, T. A. (2018). Building healthy community environments: A public health approach. Public health reports, 133(1_suppl), 35S–43S. https://doi.org/10.1177/0033354918798809
For a moment, let’s entertain a hypothetical. Let’s say you have an excellent paper on your hands about the impact of smoke on the lungs. Your team is about to submit it for publication: pretty exciting! When you get your paper back from the publisher, it’s mostly good news: they’re willing to publish your paper with the caveat that you add a diagram of the lungs to your paper as a visual aid of the systems impacted. The problem? You have no idea where you could acquire an image that would suit this task that wouldn’t potentially violate copyright.
With this conundrum, one of your coauthors suggests a solution: why not generate one? They have a subscription to Midjourney, the AI software that can generate images from text. Why not give Midjourney a summary of the diagram you need, have it generate it, and then use that for your paper. After checking the journal’s policies on AI (it’s allowed with disclosure), you do just that, glad to have quickly moved past that stumbling block.
Pretty great, right? It sure sounds like it, until you take a look at the images Midjourney generated. Because on closer inspection, there are some problems.
Below is an image I generated in CoPilot for this blog post. I didn’t ask it to do something as complicated as making a diagram of how smoking impacts the lungs; instead I asked for just a diagram of human lungs. Here is what I got, with my notes attached.
Alright, so this might not be our best image. Thankfully, we have others. Let’s take a look at another image from the same prompt and see if it does a better job.
So what happened here? To explain how this image went terribly wrong, it’s best to start with an explanation of how AI actually works.
When we think of AI, we generally think of movies like The Terminator or The Matrix, where robots can fully think and make decisions, just like a human can. As cool (or terrifying depending on your point of view) as that is, such highly developed forms of artificial intelligence still solely exist in the realm of science fiction. What we call AI now is something known as generative AI. To vastly simplify the process, generative AI works as follows: you take a computer and feed it a large amount of information that resembles what you want it to possibly generate. This is known as “training data.” The AI then attempts to replicate images based on the original training data. (Vox made a video explaining this process much better than I can). So for example, if I feed an AI picture of cats, over time, it identifies aspects of cats across photos: fur, four legs, a tail, a nose,etc. After a period of time, it then generates images based on those qualities. And that’s how we get websites like “These Cats Do Not Exist.”
If you take a look at “These Cats Do Not Exist” you might notice something interesting: the quality of fake cat photos varies widely. Some of the cats it generates look like perfectly normal cats. Others appear slightly off; they might have odd proportions or too many paws. And a whole other contingent appears as what can best be described as eldritch monstrosities.
The reason for the errors in both our above images and our fake cats is due to the fact that the AI doesn’t understand what we are asking it to make. The bot has no concept of lungs as an organ, or cats as a creature; it merely recognizes aspects and characteristics of those concepts. This is why AI art and AI images can look impressive on the surface but fall apart under any scrutiny: the robot can mimic patterns well enough, but the details are much harder to replicate, especially when details vary so much between images. For example, consider these diagrams of human cells I had AI generate for this blog post.
Our AI doesn’t do bad in some regards: it understands the importance of a nucleus, and that a human cell should be round. This is pretty consistent across the images I had it make. But when it comes to showcasing other parts of the cell we run into trouble, given how differently such things are presented in other diagrams. The shape that one artist might decide to use for anaspect of a cell, another artist might draw entirely differently. The AI doesn’t understand the concept of a human cell, it is merely replicating images it’s been fed.
These errors can lead to embarrassing consequences. In March, a paper went viral for all the wrong reasons; the AI images the writers used had many of the flaws listed above, along with a picture of a mouse that was rather absurd. While the writers disclosed the use of AI, the fact these images passed peer review with nonsense text and other flaws, turned into a massive scandal. The paper was later retracted.
Let’s go back to our hypothetical. If you need images for your paper or project, instead of using AI, why not use some of Himmelfarb’s resources? On this Image Resources LibGuide, you will find multiple places to find reputable images, with clear copyright permissions. There are plenty of options from which to work.
As for our AI image generators? If you want to generate photos of cats, go ahead! But leave the scientific charts and images for humans.
Sources:
Ai Art, explained. YouTube. June 1, 2022. Accessed April 19, 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVcsDDABEkM.
Wong C. AI-generated images and video are here: how could they shape research? Nature (London). Published online 2024.
When was the last time you checked your phone? (That was easy.)
Now, when was the last time you read a poem?
Let’s explore some places online to find poems related to health, illness and recovery, and where to find them. We’ll also take a look at some outlets you might consider sending your poems out to, if you are a poet. National Poetry Month was launched by the Academy of American Poets in 1996 to celebrate the integral role of poets and poems in our lives.
With healthcare's proximity to pain, uncertainty, and death – all catalysts for art – it's no surprise that many patients and doctors alike have converted their experiences into poetry. If you're craving poetry about the healthcare experience, the modern options are abundant. The Poetry Foundation's Poems of Sickness, Illness, and Recovery (a contemporary and diverse list) illustrates this wonderfully.
Consider Elaine Equi's "Earth, You Have Returned to Me," where the author compares her pharmaceutical experience to being on different planets with different gravities, and presumably with different flows of time – an analogy that cannot be captured with dosage information or measurement of vitals.
Or Jane Kenyon’s “After an Illness, Walking the Dog,” which records the experience of recovery: both the awareness of life (“every pebble gleams, every leaf”) and our vast limitations.
Poetry websites aren’t the only place to find poems, however. Did you know that poetry can be searched in PubMed as a MeSH heading? Entering the search "Poetry as Topic"[Mesh] will yield results that include poems found in journals, including JAMA, which publish poetry on a regular or occasional basis. This MeSH search will also yield poetry-adjacent studies, including intriguing investigations which are situated at the intersection of poetry and medicine.
If you are engaged in the practice of writing poems, you’re in good company. Renowned poets like William Carlos Williams – a physician and writer – have demonstrated simultaneous excellence in medicine and art. But you certainly don’t need to be William Carlos Williams to write poems. Here are some potential outlets for your work, in addition to the journals mentioned above, and additional sources of healthcare-inspired creative output:
Bellevue Literary Revue (BLR), established in 2000, is a “journal of humanity and human experience,” and is the first literary journal to have been established in a medical setting. It is published twice a year.
Ars Medica is one of Canada’s first health humanities journals.
Mental health is a vital contributor to our overall physical health and well-being. However, the stigma surrounding mental health can prevent us from seeking out resources and reaching out for help during times of mental health struggles. If you or someone you know needs support, help and resources are available. Please know that you matter. You are not alone.
Suicide Prevention Resources:
988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline: The Lifeline provides 24/7 access to free and confidential support for people in distress, prevention and crisis resources, and best practices information for health and mental health professionals.
Student Health Center (SHC): If you are thinking about suicide, call 202-994-5300 (option 2). Counselors are available 24 hours a day. If you believe someone you know is in danger of suicide, call GW Emergency Services at 202-994-6111, 911, or seek help at the nearest Emergency Room.
National Suicide Prevention Resources:
CrisisLink: 800-SUICIDE (784-2433) (24 hours) or (703) 527-4077
GW Listens: This student-run anonymous hotline (202-902-8255) is a place where students can talk to peers about struggles. Hotline hours are from Sunday through Thursday, from 9:00 pm to 1:00 am.
Student Health Center (SHC): If you are thinking about suicide, call 202-994-5300 (option 2). Counselors are available 24 hours a day. If you believe someone you know is in danger of suicide, call GW Emergency Services at 202-994-6111, 911, or seek help at the nearest Emergency Room.
TimelyCare: All GW students have free, 24/7 access to virtual care services with TimelyCare, a virtual health and well-being platform designed for college students.
Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS): Part of the Colonial Health Center, CAPS is GW’s center for mental health treatment. Telehealth and in-person counseling appointments are available.
Resources for Medical Residents and Fellows:
GW Resiliency and Well-Being Center: The GW Resiliency and Well-Being Center takes an evidence-based, whole-person health approach in providing services to the GW School of Medicine and Health Sciences (SMHS), the GW Medical Faculty Associates (MFA), and the GW Hospital. If you need help, request a consultation.
Talkspace: GW’s School of Medicine and Health Sciences and GW Nursing are partnering with Talkspace to provide confidential and secure professional online therapy with a licensed therapist anytime, anywhere.
GW Resiliency and Well-Being Center: The GW Resiliency and Well-Being Center takes an evidence-based, whole-person health approach in providing services to the GW School of Medicine and Health Sciences (SMHS), the GW Medical Faculty Associates (MFA), and the GW Hospital. Request a consultation for you or your team. Resources available include:
Headspace: This mindfulness app is available to benefits-eligible faculty and staff.
Talkspace: Available to GW employees enrolled on a GW PPO or HSP medical plan.
Self-Care Toolbox: Build your own self-care toolbox for improved mental health.
GW Well-Being Programs: Explore the numerous physical, mental, and financial well-being programs available through GWell programs.
GW CARE Network: The CARE Network connects GW Students who need support by connecting appropriate university departments and identifying the main point of contact for a student of concern.
While it’s vital to take care of your mental health, it’s equally important to look out for one another. Check in with your friends, colleagues, and loved ones. Listen without judgment and offer support as you are able. Mental health involves taking care of yourself and those around you.
If someone you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide, reach out for help. Take advantage of the resources listed in this post. Don’t forget that the GW Resilience and Well-Being Center and the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (call or text 988 for help) are always available.
Representatives from GW's OT, PT and Speech Language Hearing programs help make the 2024 White House Easter Egg Roll sensory friendly and accessible to all participants.
Let’s spend some time learning about occupational therapy, sensory friendly spaces, and learning about a recent initiative of GW’s Occupational Therapy program.
Occupational therapy is an allied health profession which helps people develop, recover, or maintain the occupations (or activities) of their everyday lives. Occupational therapists are found in a wide variety of settings, from hospitals to nursing homes, schools to mental health centers. OTs frequently work on an interprofessional basis, collaborating with doctors, psychologists, social workers and special education teachers to help their clients carry out their activities of daily living and increase their participation in activities. (Stein & Reed, 2020)
Occupational therapy as a discipline was officially recognized in the United States with the establishment of the National Society for the Promotion of Occupational Therapy in 1917. That organization is known today as the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA). The field of occupational therapy has transformed considerably since its inception just over a century ago, and its goal of achieving occupational justice has been made more concrete. AOTA included occupational justice in its Occupational Therapy Practice Framework beginning in 2014. “The framework states that occupational justice is a part of the domain of occupational therapy because environmental forces impact participation in occupation, the provision of occupational therapy services, and patient health outcomes.” (Bailliard et al., 2020) At GW, students within the OT program are trained to engage with the principles of occupational justice to support client empowerment.
One area in which GW’s OT program is engaged is the successful adaptation of environments and programs to be more sensory friendly. Program director Dr. Roger Ideishi explains, “‘Sensory friendly’ refers to creating a supportive and welcoming environment for children with disabilities. The term sensory friendly has been historically used for community programs aimed to support children with neurodevelopmental disabilities. Adaptations are made to the environment such as lessening the sound and lights to accommodate children who have sensory sensitivities.”
Sensory friendly adaptations increase opportunities for children with all types of disabilities to encounter a friendly and accepting environment. According to Ideishi, “a welcoming, non-judgmental environment makes a huge difference to children with disabilities and their families who constantly face discrimination and ridicule in public.” Ideishi has been at the forefront of the sensory friendly movement for two decades, and has advised cultural institutions including the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the Smithsonian Institution.
The White House held its first sensory friendly Easter Egg Roll in 2023. In 2023, over 100 GW students and faculty from Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy, and Speech, Language and Hearing supported the White House's efforts. This year again, over 100 OT, PT, and Speech students and faculty supported the accessibility and inclusion initiatives at the White House Easter Egg Roll. GW students and faculty contributed to the event in a number of ways, according to Dr. Ann Henshaw, Assistant Professor in the OT Program. GW affiliates assisted with sensory friendly activities; ensured wheelchairs were accessible to those in need; and, because the White House lawn is sloped, which is challenging for those with mobility deficits, they made recommendations around the location of events. Additionally, GW volunteers provided adaptive devices to allow participants with limited mobility to push the egg down the track. These devices were reachers and long handled sponges that were decorated as Peeps®, or hockey sticks with adaptive grips.
For those interested in learning more about OT at GW, a student-led information session on the entry-level OTD program will be held on April 17.
References
Bailliard, A. L., Dallman, A. R., Carroll, A., Lee, B. D., & Szendrey, S. (2020). Doing Occupational Justice: A Central Dimension of Everyday Occupational Therapy Practice. Canadian journal of occupational therapy. Revue canadienne d'ergothérapie, 87(2), 144–152. https://doi.org/10.1177/0008417419898930
The GW Research Showcase is just around the corner! The School of Medicine and Health Sciences (SMHS) Research Showcase is at the University Student Center on April 25, 2024. This year’s Keynote Speaker, Omaida C. Velazquez, MD. will present “Gene-Modified MSCs and Direct Gene Therapy as Novel Strategies for Vascular Regeneration and Wound Healing.” The medical student poster session will be held from 1:30 pm to 3:30 pm.
While the deadline for submitting abstracts has passed, you may still be working on putting your poster together. Himmelfarb Library can help! Our GW Research Day Resources Guide has helpful resources and tips that can help make your poster stand out. The Creating Effective Posters page has poster templates, official GW logos, and the official GW Color palette to help you stay consistent with GW’s brand. If you are creating your poster using PowerPoint, the video below on Designing an Effective Poster Using PowerPoint has useful tips on size, color selection, font choices, and including graphs, charts, and photographs in your poster.
The Poster Design and Layout page also has great tips on selecting the right font, resizing images, and getting posters printed. When choosing fonts, it’s best to keep things simple and use familiar fonts like Times New Roman or Arial. Images should be 300 dpi JPEG files or full-size PDF files. If you need to resize an image, make sure that you keep the proper proportions so the image doesn’t appear distorted and “squishy” looking on your poster.
Once your poster is ready, it’s time to start thinking about how you’ll impress the judges. Here are some great videos that can help you prepare for giving your poster presentation:
The GW School of Public Health (GWSPH) Research Day was yesterday, April 9, 2024. If you participated in the GWSPH Research Day, don’t forget to submit your poster to Himmelfarb’s institutional repository, the Health Sciences Research Commons (HSRC). Archiving your poster in the HSRC is a great way to ensure that your poster is available to the global community of scholars! Archiving your work in the HSRC has several advantages:
Your poster will have a unique URL that you can include in your CV and use to promote your research. This unique URL will remain active even after you graduate from GW.
The HSRC is indexed in Google Scholar, which allows other researchers to find your work through Google Scholar searches.
Submitting your poster to the Health Sciences Research Commons is easy! Simply email hsrc@gwu.edu to submit your poster directly or to ask for more information.
April is Stress Awareness Month. Himmelfarb Library’s Oculus Virtual Reality (VR) headsets now include healthy living apps that can help you manage your stress! These new apps help users meditate, alleviate anxiety, and generally relax. Take a few minutes to unwind and get recentered in virtual reality so you’ll feel refreshed and rejuvenated in actual reality!
Our Oculus headsets can be checked out from the circulation desk on Himmelfarb’s first floor for four hours at a time. You’ll need some unobstructed space to use the headset since the apps allow you to move around within a virtual space. Our VR Headset Overview page includes recommended spaces within Himmelfarb to use the headsets that can accommodate the space needed to use these apps comfortably.
Guided Meditation VR
The Guided Meditation VR app helps users detach and relax with guided or unguided meditation sessions with calming music and ambient noises from more than 40 digitally-generated environments. This app has over 30 hours of meditations geared toward alleviating anxiety, finding resilience, improving sleep, and even maternity meditations. If you’re unsure about VR but want to experience some of the sessions, you can try them out for free online! This app is available on both of Himmelfarb’s Oculus headsets.
Nature Treks VR
The Nature Treks VR app lets users choose between nine different natural environments and lets them explore and play. You can choose to explore forests, beaches, or even outer space! You even get to choose your preferred weather and time of day and can summon animals. These individually designed spaces can be used as places to meditate or perform breathing exercises. This app is available on Himmelfarb’s “Walter” headset so that you can ask for it by name at the Circulation Desk.
National Geographic Explore VR
The National Geographic Explore VR app lets users choose between two different ecosystems to explore: Machu Picchu and Antarctica! In Antarctica, you’ll get to navigate around icebergs in a kayak, climb a massive ice shelf, and survive a raging snowstorm while searching for a lost emperor penguin colony. Or you can visit Machu Picchu, Peru, and explore digital reconstructions of the ancient Inca citadel, raise a cup of sacred chicha, and encounter alpacas while you match Hiram Bingham’s photographs from when he rediscovered the Inca citadel. Not only can you experience the landscape, but you’ll get to take photographs as well. This app is a bit more physically strenuous and can need some additional room to navigate. This app is available on Himmelfarb’s “Paul” headset.
While the noises generated by all three of these apps are gentle and soothing, they are audible outside of the Oculus headset, so it’s best to use these apps in a quiet space away from others who may be studying or trying to concentrate. Himmelfarb study rooms are a great option for using this app and can be reserved in advance!
Other Stress Relief Resources at Himmelfarb
If Virtual Reality isn’t of interest to you, Himmelfarb’s healthy living collection has other stress relief resources that may suit your style. Take a look at our Healthy Living @ Himmelfarb Guide for a full list of resources. Check out the Wellness Apps page of this guide to find useful meditation and stress relief apps. Our healthy living collection also includes books on stress reduction including Stress, Cognition, and Health by Tony Cassidy, The Psychology of Meditation by Peter Sedlmeier, and Managing Stress by Brian Luke Seaward. As always, feel free to stop by the healthy living collection on Himmelfarb’s first floor to make use of our exercise equipment if you’d prefer to manage your stress with some physical activity and use our exercise balls, hand weights, hula hoops, or yoga mats. We also have plenty of games including chess, Sorry, Scrabble, Blokus, and Pandemic. As always, a jigsaw puzzle is in progress on our puzzle table, and we are waiting for your contributions!
Want more resources to help you manage your stress? Check out the GW Resiliency and Well-Being Center’s Stress Management page for resources related to mindfulness practice, well-being, physical activity, healthy lifestyle tips, and student resources related to stress management.
With Humanities Highlights, Himmelfarb staff aims to spotlight useful books from our Humanities collection. This week, we’re showcasing “Rigor Mortis: How Sloppy Science Creates Worthless Cures, Crushes Hope, and Wastes Billions,” by NPR science-journalist Richard Harris.
About the Book:
Applying his decades of journalistic experience to the “reproducibility crisis” - a term coined to describe the difficulty in replicating large amounts of published science - Richard Harris interviews many key figures attempting to improve the standards of science. Chapter by chapter, he analyzes factors of the crisis such as human error (reporting only what works, not doing double blind experiments, refusal to comply with fact checkers), sample sizes determined by budget, experiments that use only one cell line, test animal problems, a culture that incentives publication speed over accuracy, debunked facts circulating like ghost ships, and more.
Part compendium of errors, part call to action, “Rigor Mortis” is an eye-opening account of the last couple decades of scientific rigor.
Reasons to Read:
If you’re looking for a balanced, outsider’s take on the subject, Harris does an excellent job presenting arguments and counter-arguments. For example, he discusses both Brian Nosek’s Reproducibility Project: Cancer Biology, which attempted to replicate 50 published attention-gathering papers, and the criticism of the project from Robert Weinberg, one of the lead scientists of the chosen studies (Harris, 2017, pg. 159).
Despite the aggressive (and somewhat hyperbolic) title, Harris writes with a sense of concern that never feels disparaging. If you’re looking for a broader look at the issue, the extensive interview range presents a fuller picture than many of the articles out there.
Reasons to Avoid:
If you’re already familiar with the issue, “Rigor Mortis” could prove depressing.
Although science self-corrects, and although Harris presents improvements across the board (and emphasizes how many of them would be cost effective), the road ahead seems long, and the weight of culture change seems daunting.
With the arrival of Spring and the flurry of holidays during this season, making healthy eating choices can be a challenge. However, with foresight and planning, we can elevate our eating experiences to promote healthy and nutritious food choices. While I was researching this topic I came across the Eating Well website and discovered some tasty-looking options.
Indulge in the irresistible goodness of this simple, high-protein snack that reminds you of a Reese’s peanut butter cup. Peanut Butter Yogurt Cup with the Magic Shell Topping is easy and versatile, you can use any nut or seed butter to make this four-ingredient recipe.
Enjoy these wholesome bars Carrot Cake Oatmeal Bars as a snack on the go or with morning coffee. Created from a blend of shredded carrots, oats, and brown sugar carrot cake oatmeal bars make for a quick and easy recipe. These healthy Banana-Peanut Granola Bars will put you in the mind of a peanut butter sandwich with a crunch. These bars pack a punch with a blend of ground ginger, brown rice cereal, macadamia nuts, and more. Both of these recipes would be good for a quick breakfast on your way out the door.
Who doesn’t love a good avocado toast? Salsa-topped avocado sounds delicious. Using fresh salsa really wakes up the taste buds. Making homemade salsa allows you to add your favorite ingredients and customize the salsa to your taste. However, to save time using store-bought salsa can be a convenient option.
These are just a few ideas for healthy snacks. Now get out there and enjoy this Spring weather!
