7 Positive Effects of Your Horrible Lifestyle

Is it hard for you to imagine a world without coffee? Once, when I was staying in a bed & breakfast, I heard a woman refuse to come out of her room until her husband went to the breakfast area and brought her back a cup of coffee. It was embarrassing for everyone.

The effects of java addiction can be ugly, with jittery jonesing, immediate high highs, and miserable low crashes. Withdrawal symptoms include headaches, intestinal frustration, moodiness, and irritability.

Life Pro Tip: Never go camping with a coffee drinker. It's just not the same.



Why Coffee Will Keep You Alive

You don't have to quit cold turkey. Everything in moderation.

After all, Starbucks doesn't seem to be going anywhere any time soon, and K-Cups come in something like 3,000 flavors that you can make at home.

Anyway, researchers at Harvard say compared to those who skip caffeine, coffee drinkers have fewer instances of stroke and some cancers, and they are less likely to develop dementia, Parkinson's disease, and type 2 diabetes.

A 2005 study at the University of Scranton concluded that coffee is America's #1 source of antioxidants, which protect your body from disease. So drink up. Just make sure you have enough on hand for tomorrow morning.

Remember the time you had Hanukkah dinner at your cousin's house, and everything was going fine until her upstairs neighbor started talking about the situation in Egypt? It's hard to chime into a conversation like this if you don't even know how to pronounce Tahrir (you can do this). Worse, over time, acquaintances (like your cousin's neighbor) will start to recognize the deer-in-the-headlights expression you make every time someone says the word "debates." If you don't consume the nightly news, they'll have you believe that you're part of the problem, just one of the millions of uninformed masses who heads out to screw up the elections every few years by voting in people that are as dumb as they are.



Why You Really Don't Have to Watch the News:

A November 2011 poll of 600 New Jerseyans proved that sometimes, watching the news can actually make you dumber.

Results showed that people who regularly watched Fox News - the #1 cable news channel in the country (I know, I know)- were less informed about current events than those who said they don't watch any news at all.

You're probably reading this article on a computer (or smartphone) with half a dozen other tabs already open to the front pages of many too-frequently-updated "information"-based sources. And you've got the gist and unless it's your job, these aren't things that will always necessarily make you smarter. Watching the news (or even reading it) doesn't equal being informed. Sometimes being overinformed can be a bit of a social drawback and other it can help. So seek out what you care about and just leave it at that. You'll half ass the rest anyway. You're an adult, you can do this.

At the very least, you've seen a few top headlines. I bet you even know who is running for the Republican nomination - and who is most likely to win. In a time when it's no longer "cool" to be ignorant of what's happening in the world, the media you absorb every day is designed does a pretty good job of keeping you informed about the things that are really important to you. So use that instead, because you'll be less likely to hear sensationalist headlines and if you care about something you'll naturally become more well-informed about it.

It's science.