This is probably nothing, and just one of those overblown new scientific studies, but I just read this
opinion piece in the NYT written by a researcher.
Quote:
My research team and I conducted a longitudinal field experiment on the effects of learning skills for cultivating warmer interpersonal connections in daily life. Half the participants, chosen at random, attended a six-week workshop on an ancient mind-training practice known as metta, or “lovingkindness,” that teaches participants to develop more warmth and tenderness toward themselves and others.
We discovered that the meditators not only felt more upbeat and socially connected; but they also altered a key part of their cardiovascular system called vagal tone. Scientists used to think vagal tone was largely stable, like your height in adulthood. Our data show that this part of you is plastic, too, and altered by your social habits.
To appreciate why this matters, here’s a quick anatomy lesson. Your brain is tied to your heart by your vagus nerve. Subtle variations in your heart rate reveal the strength of this brain-heart connection, and as such, heart-rate variability provides an index of your vagal tone.
By and large, the higher your vagal tone the better. It means your body is better able to regulate the internal systems that keep you healthy, like your cardiovascular, glucose and immune responses.
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She's arguing that spending more time on your devices, and less time connecting face to face with real people, reduces your vagal tone, which increases your glucose level and hurts you in other ways.
My face to face time with real people has dramatically dropped over the last 5 years or so since we moved into this new building at work. Some days, I don't interact with anyone at work face to face. I wonder if that has anything to do with it. Nothing else has changed, except general aging, but my glucose has gone up.