“Who do you love more; mom or dad?” is perhaps the biggest trick question kids get asked from the time they utter their first word. Although most kids give a vague answer or say that they love both parents, some accept that they love one parent more than the other. Sometimes, it could be heartbreaking for a parent, but in most cases, the look of complete confusion on a child’s face is nothing short of funny. In a video posted by @charlie_and_aj on Instagram, AJ, who probably speaks only a few words, was asked a similar question. His response was super innocent and extremely adorable. We just hope that his dad, Austin Miles Geter, actually keeps his secret so the little boy doesn’t get into trouble.
Image Source: Instagram | @austingeter
In a cute dad-son conversation, Geter calls for his son AJ, to which he responds, “Yea.” He then asks his son if he loves his dad, to which the kid again replies yes with a hint of excitement. Next, his dad asks him if he loves his mom as well. The baby goes silent for a while and looks at the camera with bewildered eyes, as if he’s giving a lot of thought to what he’s going to say next. As the child doesn’t for a good few seconds, the dad repeats his question, to which the child responds, “Yea.” But this time the yes was smaller and a little bit more unsure.
Geter then sneaks in the question, hoping the child will give his usual answer. “Is it safe to say that you maybe just love your dad dad a little more than your mom?” the dad asks. The child again seems to be in deep thought until his dad nudges him a little to confirm it. As expected, the child again utters a “yea,” which brings a proud and happy smile to his dad’s face. The dad chuckles a little and promises that he won’t tell mom that the child said it. He also expressed that he loves his son a lot too. He then goes ahead and asks if he would tell his mom that he loves her. The child keeps up with his usual response, leaving his dad in splits. Now we can’t say if the baby actually loves his dad more or is just used to giving an affirmative response to everything.
@yunisworld commented that they would like the mom’s version with Geter’s daughter Charlie. They wrote, “We need Ariella’s version of this with Charlie! Since you want to go to the jugular.” @viviangreen_ wrote, “We’re in the ‘Yeah’ phase now. The response to everything will be ‘yeah.’” @mskerribaby22 expressed their love for the creator’s content and his kids and wrote, “I can’t possibly love AJ and Charlie more than I already do. Hey, Auntie’s babies! Happy Saturday.” Other people also commented on the child’s confused expressions and his cute, repeated response. They also loved the interaction between the father and the son and how the baby was gradually becoming more and more responsive. It was really cute, but Mom might not be very happy if she saw it!
Photo credit: LPETTET/E+/Getty Images –
End-of-life decisions can be complicated, and ethics consultants may help families and care teams navigate them.
A surgeon prepares to amputate a patient’s foot to save his life, but the patient refuses the procedure. His decline in thinking and memory raises doubts about his ability to consent, and he has no family or friends to help with the decision.
A 17-year-old declines a liver transplant, while her mother insists on going forward with the lifesaving surgery.
Siblings stand divided at the bedside of their 85-year-old mother with dementia, one rejecting a feeding tube, the other calling it a basic human necessity.
I am a hospital ethics consultant, and these are the kinds of situations my colleagues and I regularly encounter. Yet many people are unaware that hospital ethics consultants even exist – or that they can ask for one.
Who are hospital ethics consultants?
Healthcare ethics consultants are trained to help patients, families and clinicians navigate difficult medical decisions.
They could be called in situations where healthcare staff struggles with providing procedures such as cardiac resuscitation that are unlikely to benefit the patient and might even cause more pain and suffering. They could also be called when it is unclear who has authority to consent for a patient’s care, or when end-of-life decisions are complicated and resources are limited – such as ICU beds and ventilators during COVID-19.
Ethics consultants come from a range of disciplines: physicians, nurses, social workers, chaplains, lawyers and philosophers who have specialized training and experience in clinical ethics. Since 2018, ethics consultants are increasingly pursuing formal certification through the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities.
What is their origin?
The modern field of bioethics emerged from the 1947 Nuremberg Doctors’ Trial, where Nazi physicians were prosecuted for conducting brutal medical experiments on imprisoned people.
This led to the 1947 framework outlining ethically acceptable human research called the Nuremberg Code, written by a panel of American judges. The 1979 Ethical Principles and Guidelines for Protections of Human Subjects of Research, called the Belmont Report, followed the Nuremberg Code. The Belmont Report turned the ethical ideals of respect for persons, beneficence – to do good – and justice into a regulatory framework to protect vulnerable and marginalized medical research participants in the U.S.
In the 1980s, many of these ethics protections moved from the research lab to the patient bedside. During this time, lifesaving technologies such as the ventilator, dialysis machine and organ transplantation created new, difficult ethical questions: When should life support end? Who decides? And what happens when there aren’t enough resources?
A series of court cases and laws expanded patients’ rights, with the Patient Self-Determination Act, a 1990 law which upheld patient rights to refuse or accept medical treatment, marking the key turning point.
Lifesaving technologies have revolutionized medicine, but they also raise ethical questions about who receives care when resources are scarce. Jackyenjoyphotography/Moment via Getty Images
High-profile court cases exposed the ethical dilemmas around end-of-life care and patient self-determination. The 1976 case, In re Quinlan, involved Karen Ann Quinlan, a young woman in a persistent vegetative state whose family sought permission from the court to withdraw her ventilator.
Following In re Quinlan was the 1990 case, Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health, which affirmed that adults have the right to refuse life-sustaining treatment.
Both cases became touchstones for how ethics consultants and care teams navigate the life‑and‑death decisions that have become routine in an era of life‑sustaining technology.
A member of the healthcare team usually requests an ethics consult when they face conflict or uncertainty about the care of a patient. Patients and families can also request an ethics consultation, but in reality, few know this option exists or feel empowered to use it.
The ethics consultant’s first task is to gather as much information as possible from everyone involved to understand the full context of the case. Importantly, ethics consultants do not make treatment decisions; they assist the people who do.
Imagine a loved one with advanced dementia who is in the intensive care unit with respiratory failure and is on a ventilator. The physician believes further treatment will prolong suffering; the family is not willing to let him go.
An ethics consultant would be called by the family or healthcare team to slow things down, provide space to reflect, and help navigate the situation. The ethics consultant will often meet with everyone involved to ensure that all voices are heard and that the patient’s wishes remain central to the discussion.
As part of the ethics review, the ethics consultant would draw on their knowledge of policies, laws and ethical precedent about withdrawing life-sustaining treatment to provide some guardrails for the situation. In this case, a legal guardrail might be that the physician cannot remove the ventilator without the family’s consent.
Rather than making a decision, the ethics consultant would then outline the ethical options available from which the patient, family, and healthcare team can choose.
Why are ethics consultants a valuable resource?
Ethics consultants are trained to help people work through not just the medical facts, but the deeply human questions beneath them: What counts as an acceptable quality of life? How do we weigh hope against suffering? How can we know what a patient would want if they cannot speak for themselves?
In these moments, decisions can feel urgent and heavy, and communication can easily break down. Ethics consultants don’t take decisions away from patients or families, and they don’t replace the role of clinicians. Instead, they help ensure that everyone understands the situation, that different perspectives are heard and that the conversation stays grounded in the values and goals of the patient.
They also bring something that families often don’t realize they need until tensions rise: a calm, measured presence. By clarifying misunderstandings, naming sources of conflict and guiding difficult conversations, they help families and care teams find a way forward together.
The choices may still be painful – and there may be no perfect answer – but with the right support, those decisions can feel more thoughtful, more shared and more aligned with what matters most.
As the economy is in flux, the price of everything is increasing, including dating. According to some reports, an average night out has risen to nearly $200. For this reason and others, a new trend is forming for Millennials and Gen Z that’s been dubbed “solo-maxxing.” While these solo-maxxers are doing activities without a partner, they’re not lonely. In fact, they’re thriving.
Solo-maxxing is one of several “maxxing trends” that have become popular points of discussion on social media. In short, “maxxing” is slang for maximizing and optimizing a specific part of life to its fullest potential. For example, “looksmaxxing” is trying to enhance a person’s physical appearance through beauty routines, exercise, and the like. A person who takes melatonin, puts on a white noise machine, has full blackout curtains in their bedroom, etc. could be “sleepmaxxing.”
In this case, solo-maxxing is a similar maxxing self-care trend that has people reframing singlehood. While the higher price tags for dates and dating apps are a motivator, these solo-maxxers’ main motivation is to achieve contentment through independence without a partner. It’s making living the single life one that is desirable and by choice. Whether it’s burnout from dating or the expense, a survey of 14,380 adults aged 18 to 34 found that life was “more peaceful” when not in a relationship.
The appeal of solo-maxxing is multi-faceted. There is a sense of stability and independence in that you’re on your own. While a person still has to worry about their own finances, goals, happiness, etc., there is no pressure or distraction to shift focus onto another person’s situation as well. Eyes on their own paper. Many of these solo-maxxers are using their non-dating time to learn a new skill, try a new hobby, and/or pursue a passion. They are dedicating their time and resources to make themselves a complete person without needing another half.
Solo-maxxing vs. loneliness
While this is all well and good, it can be easy to just adopt the term solo-maxxing to hide a loneliness issue. The high cost of dating also contributes to the high loneliness epidemic among Gen Z. Other reasons for this loneliness include less physical third-spaces, overall expenses, and social media.
This loneliness shouldn’t be confused with solo-maxxing. After all, maximizing yourself as an unattached person doesn’t mean you’re physically by yourself, you’re just self-focused. Solo-maxxing can look like going to cooking classes so you don’t have to rely on anyone for delicious meals. It can mean signing up at a dojo to learn a martial art. If what you are doing is helping build confidence and isn’t just avoiding people, it is likely a positive solo-maxxing activity.
It is important to fully analyze and be honest with yourself when participating in this trend. If you’re masking loneliness and depression with a solo-maxxing label, you may want to reconsider and seek help. However, solo-maxxing is an option if you are burnt out by the dating scene, don’t want to waste money on potential dates that go nowhere, and have goals that a relationship might hinder.
Who knows? Maybe during a solo-maxxing activity you meet a fellow solo-maxxer and later decide to become duo-maxxers. Even if not, you can still feel confident and complete in life just on your own.
Meditation has been a practice for thousands of years, as early as 5,000 to 3,500 BCE. While typically a spiritual practice, meditation has since become a method to enhance mental and physical wellness. Many use meditation to lower stress and anxiety to feel more calm and grounded. Some practitioners meditate for hours at a time to achieve this, but, according to recent scientific research, they may only need seven minutes.
My brain 🧠 after meditating!! 🧘♀️ did you know that just as little as 5 minutes of meditation can help to boost your mood, destress you and calm your nervous system! 😲 how do you meditate? #meditation#meditate#calm#peaceful
A study conducted by the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences in Bengaluru, India found that while meditation can alter and change the brain over multiple sessions, it only takes around seven minutes for that mental change to peak per session.
“Meditation research has traditionally compared broad states such as ‘rest’ versus ‘meditation,’ but we still know surprisingly little about when changes in the brain actually emerge after meditation begins,” said researcher Malipeddi Saketh to PsyPost. “Many people assume meditation effects require long sessions, yet little work has examined the moment-to-moment temporal dynamics of brain activity during meditation.”
Studying the brain while it’s meditating
For the study, Saketh and his colleagues separated 103 participants into three groups. The groups were separated by their meditation experience, from novices to regular practitioners. In a sound-proof room, they had the participants individually engage in a 15-minute breath-watching meditation. During these sessions, the researchers analyzed their brain activity at a rate of 1,000 measurements per second. They did this using a specialized net of 128 electrodes placed across the scalp.
The researchers also looked at a transitional band called theta-alpha, which ranges from 6 to 10 hertz. This band is said to reflect a calm, focused state when both alertness and relaxation overlap. This is in contrast to 8 to 12 hertz alpha waves, a state of relaxation in which a person is wide awake with their eyes closed.
To track changes in brain activity over time, the researchers compared the data collected during successive one-minute segments against the baseline, which was the first 30 seconds of the meditation session. They also ran a separate analysis comparing a period of eyes-closed rest to the participant’s meditative state.
The results were promising, especially for newbies to meditation. The researchers found that brain changes during meditation were found within the first two to three minutes. They also found that regardless of experience, these brain changes peaked in intensity within the first seven to ten minutes. This means someone could get the benefits of meditation in less time than it takes to watch a YouTube video.
Effective meditation requires less time than previously thought
“From a mental well-being perspective, this is encouraging because many people feel they lack sufficient time to meditate or believe they need to practice for very long durations to experience benefits,” Saketh noted. “Our findings suggest that even brief periods of intentional mental training may begin engaging brain processes related to attention and internal awareness.”
This study means that even if you have little time in your schedule, you can benefit from meditation. According to the Mayo Clinic, meditation can help a person manage symptoms of a wide assortment of ailments. This can range from IBS to high blood pressure. In general, meditation is seen as a good practice for stress management.
While there are several videos online and various venues for professional meditation sessions, beginners don’t necessarily need those at the start. They may not even need them at all.
Meditation tips for newbies
Experts have a few tips to get begin meditating regularly. Set some time aside for meditation, either in the morning to get your day off to a good start or later in the evening to let go of the day’s tension. Meditate in a relaxing, distraction-free spot while seated in a comfortable, upright position. Then, with your eyes closed, focus on the words “breathe in” and “breathe out” as you do so. While you might peak at seven minutes like in the study, you might want to have a full 20-minute meditation session.
If your mind wanders during your session, just acknowledge that it wandered and continue focused breathing. You may want to initially practice mindfulness as you begin your session. Notice what you are feeling, smelling, and what your other senses are engaged with.
This practice can take time to master. Some professionals highlight best practices to help you find what’s most effective for you. It should also be noted that meditation is not a replacement for medical treatment. It’s best to consult your doctor and/or psychiatrist to see if meditation can help you with specific needs.
Meditation may or may not work for you. However, based on this study, it wouldn’t hurt to give it a try for at least seven minutes.
