Specials | Pacific Wave - Back To School (Fall 2019)

THE DAILY PRESENTS

BACK TO SCHOOL

FALL 2019

We’re happily crafting your favorites at Starbucks® locations across campus. new Espresso Truck

Suzzallo Library Husky Union Building

My favorite view: The Music Library

06 Is studying to music helpful?

14 First-hand and second-hand vapor

20 Bujis: Korean comfort food

28 Sales Manager Isaac Jundt admanager@dailyuw.com Advertising Inquiries 206.543.2336 ads@dailyuw.com Publisher Diana Kramer dianakramer@dailyuw.com

The importance of sound in long-distance relationships

Portage Bay: The on-campus escape from campus

A crow never forgets a grudge

Which natural deodorants actually work?

An olfactory tour of the U-District farmers market

Breaking the cycle of mess and stress with aromatherapy

HOTSPOT HIGHLIGHT

Not a diet: Intuitive eating

Fatima’s: Food as a vessel for connection

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21 Byrek and Baguette: Best new sandwiches on the Ave

The millennial sex recession

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THE DAILY

Editor-in-Chief Mira Petrillo editor@dailyuw.com Copy Chiefs Sam Steele Trevor Hunt copy@dailyuw.com

Design Editors Jenna Shanker Dylan McKone design@dailyuw.com

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Special Sections Editors Charlotte Houston Sophie Aanerud specials@dailyuw.com Photo Editor Lydia Ely photo@dailyuw.com

Illustration Editor Abigail Dahl illustrations@dailyuw.com

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Relieving stress with floation therapy

32 Cover Art Samuel Judge · Milo Nguyen Abigail Dahl

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The Daily - Back to School

Editors’ Note As we step back into the school year from the warm cocoon of summer, we find ourselves needing to reorient. Faced with a different schedule, different responsibilities, and different people all at once, it’s easy to become overwhelmed.

A new year means a chance to start new habits, drop some old ones, and experience our collective home in a new way. Sometimes, to accomplish this, we must take a step back and reflect. At other times, we must plunge forward and examine our relationship with the world, one sense at a time.

This year’s edition of our Back to School magazine emphasizes experience without overload. Tired phrases that have been drilled into our heads since orientation — overzealous lines about how college only

happens once and you must make the most of it — may start to feel like orders if we forget to take them at face value. You’ll find the articles in this magazine broken up by sense — including reflections on the sights of UW, how important sound can be in your long-distance relationships, and how aromatherapy might make your life feel a bit more manageable.

Whether it’s your last year on campus or one of those awkward hump years, we hope this magazine helps facilitate your reorientation into the new school year through the discovery of new sights, sounds, feelings, smells, and tastes. After all, this is a period of life that only occurs once: experience it all the way.

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SIGHT

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My favorite view: Music Library A portal to the liberal arts

By Jorn Peterson The Daily The first thing you’ll notice is the panel of windows on the west wall. The windows stretch from knee-height to ceiling, one on top of the other. They protrude out from the building, forming a small nook perfect for curling up with a book. A large tree rests just outside, covering the windows from direct exposure while still not impeding the view.

By the window is a little seat and a table.

From the seat you can see tour guides lead groups of excited high schoolers shuffling a step away from their parents every time they meet eyes with a passing student — the subtle beginnings of their reach for independence. Tardy students cut across the grass, scampering into Miller while finishing their last swig of coffee.

Visual arts students with large flat portfolios under their arms cross the path

just beneath the window, headed for a quick lunch at the HUB before returning back to the studio. The faint sound of piano fills the hallway outside; nobody acknowledges it, for it’s just an accompaniment to the music already going on in their mind. The head of the library comes in, greeting everyone with a smile before continuing into her corner office.

This is the Music Library, the only library on campus where you might not receive a visual scolding for obliviously tapping along to your music as you study. At a school that focuses its attention and funding on STEM majors — creating a minor inferiority complex in those studying the “softer” sciences — this library stands.

A cornerstone of the liberal arts quadrangle, it helps us humanities students feel a part of the school. What we do is important, too. We’re not here for nothing.

We may not have the newest buildings or the newest technology, honor-system cafeterias, exclusive study spaces, fancy internships, or even career certainty, but we do have a table and a seat by the window. And that’s all we need.

Reach writer Jorn Peterson pacificwave@dailyuw.com.

Twitter: @PetersonJorn

Abigail Dahl The Daily

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My favorite view: Portage Bay

By Manisha Jha The Daily Portage Bay, the piece of Lake Washington that comes up to the edge behind the UW Medical Center on San Juan Road, has been my secret place to escape for two years now.

Broad skies, a bright sun (or endless clouds), and calm waves peppered with pristine white boats make a great environment for thinking, rethinking, and overthinking without the deafening silence of a library — where I find each shuffle of footsteps or slurp of Chipotle distracting — or the chaos of a crowded coffee shop.

Both libraries and coffee shops are great places to work. But when you’re done working for the day and ready to plan your next big move in life, the benches behind the South Campus Center that look out on Portage Bay are the place to do so.

I stumbled upon my favorite place to think in the summertime before my sophomore year. I was taking a weeklong seminar that September on health care in humanitarian crises. My classmates and I would come out under the willow trees to eat lunch and talk. Many of them were doctors (the fun of being in the School of Public Health is that many graduate-level classes are open

on the other side of the bay, and just like the boats sped through the water in their slow-but-resolute path, I went forward with what my gut was telling me. Thoughtful but determined, I’ve made it this far.

But you don’t have to come here only to make impossible decisions. Sometimes it’s a nice, quiet reprieve from busy campus life when you don’t have the time to properly get away.

Things are quieter here. The sky feels a bit bigger above the water.

to undergraduates, too, though not many seem to make use of this), and I remember sitting on a log with an emergency medicine resident as she gave me some life advice: Number one, “marry a gynecologist,” and number two, “marry a beta-male.” We sat on the log with her gynecologist husband, who (characteristically) agreed.

I’d come back in the following years to ponder many things. For me, it hasn’t been a place of epiphanies, but in reality, few places are. Rather, it’s the place I let my mind wander and begin to ask risky questions.

“What happens if I withdraw from this class I f---ing hate? What happens if I submit a major withdrawal tomorrow? What if, the day after, I apply to the major I’ve been thinking about for a year?”

My mind would wander into worst-casescenarios and out of them — whether they were about majors, whether or not I should break up with my boyfriend, or whatever else has plagued my thoughts these last three years — as the waves of Portage Bay gently splashed against the oceanography dock.

None of those worst-case-scenarios have happened yet.

I listened to myself and the boats as they went by, from the SR-520 bridge to I-5

HEY DAWGS!

Reach Investigations Editor Manisha Jha at pacificwave@dailyuw.com.

Twitter: @manishajha_

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Bird brains Crows’ hidden hit lists

By McKenzie Murray The Daily No, birds don’t work for the bourgeoisie. But that doesn’t mean they’re not keeping tabs on you.

Research from the UW’s Avian Conservation Laboratory, directed

by Dr. John Marzluff, has revealed that crows can remember hostile faces and even communicate this information to peers and younger generations.

Scientists from the lab wore various masks while performing adverse activities, from capturing and banding crows to standing menacingly in the open while holding a dead crow (producing some pretty creepy visuals). Later, in keeping with their hypothesis, researchers wearing these masks outside would be dive-bombed and “told off” by crows. Sometimes these crows were the individuals affected by banding, but other times they were unrelated adult crows or juvenile offspring who had apparently been warned about the danger of the masked researchers.

If you’ve ever felt personally targeted by the crows on campus, now you know they aren’t just upset by your personal aesthetic.

“Did you ever do something to them during the breeding season? (pick up a baby, pick up a dead crow, harass a crow, etc.),” Dr. Kaeli Swift, a behavioral ecologist in the UW’s Avian Conservation Lab, said in a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” to a questioner concerned about crow attacks. “Do you walk closer to their nest or to the babies than other people? If the answer to both of these is ‘no’ then you might look like someone who did. Bad luck, friend.”

These attacks aren’t vindictive — they show crows using their considerable intelligence to ensure the safety of an entire flock. If they know who to look out for, they can keep themselves and their offspring away from them. Crows also aren’t discriminating against people based on appearance, as evidenced by the fact that they were not threatened by a researcher in a Dick Cheney mask who didn’t harass the crows.

Fortunately, making an enemy out of a crow doesn’t have to mean that you’re stuck on the avian hit list forever. I asked Loma Pendergraft, another researcher in the Avian Conservation Lab, about getting out of a crow’s bad books, and he responded via email. As with so many problems in life, the best solution to a crow vendetta is food.

“If you have the misfortune of ending up on a crow’s bad side … you can try to change that crow’s association of you by feeding it regularly,” Pendergraft said. “I prefer unsalted peanuts in shell — you can carry a few of them in your pocket and toss one or two on the ground whenever you see the offended crow. After a while, the crow will ‘forget’ the thing you did to upset it, although the amount of time required will vary depending on how badly and how long ago you upset it.”

Pendergraft also explained that this visual recall ability helps crows maximize their foraging potential since they can learn to follow around people who do feed them.

Allies to the crow community, if you will. This is good news for students returning to campus this fall: Play your cards right, and you could end up a Snow White–style leader of a

legion of faithful crows.

However, if you’re pretty neutral about crows (and have never been attacked by them), you probably have no reason to worry that they’re familiar with your face. Like humans, crows tend to

“

If you’ve ever felt personally targeted by the crows on the UW campus, now you know they aren’t just upset by your personal aesthetic.

”

remember only those faces that stand out, Pendergraft assured me. As an analogy: I often walk in Capitol Hill. One time, I saw a mime giddily skipping at full speed (vastly outstripping my walking pace) toward Broadway. To this day, I remember that mime, but I don’t remember any other face I’ve seen on those sidewalks.

If you’ve never distinguished yourself as a threat to crow babies, a potential source of food for crows, or an over-caffeinated mime, then you can likely keep flying under the radar in the cozy anonymity of the UW campus.

Whatever your relationship to these birds is, though, the study is a fascinating reminder that we live in pretty intimate connection with the wildlife among us — something that’s easy to forget in the bustle of the city.

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Lydia Ely The Daily “Don’t be dismissive of wildlife; they often pay more attention to us than we do to them,” Pendergraft said. “The crows that live in your neighborhood probably know what day the trash truck arrives, which houses have dogs/cats, and which neighbors like and don’t like them.”

Underneath their swagger, crows and other familiar urban birds seem to be hosting much more intelligence than people might assume. They can hold funerals (of a sort), they can recognize each other and communicate complexly, and they can play for play’s sake.

“I [once] saw a young crow grab a pigeon by the tail, and once the pigeon was airborne trying to get away, the crow turned in circles with it like it was a lasso,” Swift recalled in her Reddit AMA. “The circles were slow, the pigeon was just fine after it [let] go.”

Researchers hope that studies like this will encourage the general public to get curious about the animals around them and appreciate their potential for deep intelligence and emotion — in addition to mischief-making with pigeons.

“Scientists used to think that birds were incapable of higher-order cognitive thought, but the more we study them, the more we realize just how wrong we were,” Pendergraft said. “There’s a lot of evidence that many corvids have some degree of theory of mind, meaning they have a rudimentary understand[ing] that other creatures experience the world differently than they do.”

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Reach Wellness Editor McKenzie Murray at pacificwave@dailyuw.com.

Twitter: @merqto No Experience Necessary.

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SOUND

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Hearing “I love you” is more than enough The importance of maintaining long-distance relationships in college Luckily, hearing my mom or my dad’s voice over the phone can have a similar effect. Research has shown that when children hears their mother’s voice, even over the phone, they experience a similar biochemical response to receiving a hug.

Oxytocin levels, a hormone typically released when in close contact with another person, were measured before and after girls talked with their mothers over the phone after a stressful activity. Girls who had talked to their moms had significantly higher levels of oxytocin and as a result, lower stress hormones were measured in their saliva compared to those who didn’t.

By Rachel Morgan The Daily When I moved from California to Seattle to attend the UW, I knew the academic challenges that lay ahead. While I was prepared for the household chores, I was still surprised when I was faced with having to make my own meals, clean my bathroom, and vacuum my carpet. As time went on, I grew into these responsibilities — they were all things I could do for myself.

What I couldn’t do alone, however, was patiently comfort myself as I cried about a bad grade, pat myself on the back when I did well on a test, and I certainly couldn’t hug myself when I needed it most.

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It took me moving 600 miles from home to realize that while I am independent enough to live on my own, I still depend on my family for emotional support. Luckily, the internet has made it significantly easier to fabricate this face-to-face connection.

“You have to find different ways to maintain a relationship, which are different from what we normally expect or what we were used to,” Valerie Manusov, a communications professor who studies interpersonal and nonverbal communication, said. “So it kind of violates social norms, and therefore we know that in order to do it, we have to do it differently.”

But different doesn’t mean bad. Without

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close relationships “increases risk for cardiovascular problems, causes chronic activation of the body’s threat-response system, impairs immune functioning, causes depression and other mental health problems, impairs executive functioning and accelerates cognitive decline in the elderly.”

the possibility of physical touch, there is a much higher emphasis on other facets of relationships that we may not think of as important when in the same room as someone we love.

“You can still see them, you can still hear them … but those senses that you do get become more concentrated and focused,” Manusov said.

According to Manusov, a phone or video call can be more focused than in-person contact because there is an emphasis on talking, whereas face-to-face interaction may come with more distractions. When you can only listen to a person’s voice to maintain a connection, conversation tends to be more intentional.

As soothing as the voices in these relationships may be, maintaining longdistance relationships with family, friends, or a significant other is undeniably hard and stressful. Understanding that the social norms have changed and the connections haven’t is critical to the relationship and to your health.

According to the UW Center for the Science of Social Connection, a lack of

Abigail Dahl The Daily

originated in my thumbs. If I did receive a call, I instantly worried that there was a serious issue or that someone was in trouble.

It took me a long time to train myself to be a good communicator over the phone.

Listening to someone’s voice may be soothing and can allow you to be more focused, but this isn’t without effort.

Calling someone may require searching deep within the boring parts of your day for things to tell the person on the other end of the line, or asking a lot of questions that you might not normally think of. Conversations also don’t have to last forever. Five good minutes are better than 15 distracted ones.

I will never stop wanting hugs from my family, but hearing words of encouragement over the phone will suffice until I am able to make the trip back home.

Reach Opinion Editor Rachel Morgan at specials@dailyuw.com.

Twitter: @rclmorgan

Regardless, it’s kind of a struggle to become a ‘“phone person.” My millennial soul rarely called anyone in high school; my communication with my friends always

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Chords for concentration The impact of music on cognitive ability

By Sophie Aanerud The Daily During my junior year of high school, caught in the throws of AP U.S. History and the hundreds of “key terms” I was required to define nightly for the class, I was forced to make a radical change in my study habits.

The silence, which had for years served as an adequate background for studying, throbbed in my ears and prompted my brain to wander far from 18th century colonial American history. Something had to be done.

So, as some ode to nostalgia, I pulled out the dusty portable radio (complete with a CD and cassette player), tuned it to the local Top-40 station, and ground my pencils to stubs rewording lines of text onto three-byfive notecards.

While pop hits no longer provide me with the perfect aural study climate, I still find at least some degree of music quintessential for long periods of mental productivity.

The influence music has on cognitive ability is no secret and many studies have extolled the virtues of the mellifluous upon intellect.

A 2007 Stanford study found, for example, that music, or specifically the pauses within and between musical numbers, prompt the brain to focus in a phenomenon referred to as “event segmentation.”

Event segmentation stops the brain from wandering and causes it to refocus its attention on the current; the presence of music in daily situations may cause the brain to engage in event segmentation more often, allowing for increased focus.

Memory can also be influenced by music as any millennial with a soft spot for early 2000s dance-pop can tell you. A 2009 study conducted at the University of California, Davis, revealed that the medial prefrontal cortex, which is a hub for memory storage, also “tracks tonal progressions,” revealing

that music is intrinsically linked to memory.

The findings of the UC Davis study also hint at the rationale behind melodic and rhythmic-mnemonics. Mnemonics, or memory tricks, use all sorts of patterns and associations to aid in recalling information (think “soh-cah-toa” from trigonometry).

Anyone who’s ever used the alphabet song or has seen an episode of “Schoolhouse Rock!” can attest to the success of mnemonics based on rhythmic and melodic patterns.

“Music engages the memory more than talking or words just on a piece of paper,” Dianna Rose, Lesley University masters candidate and music therapist, explained.

“You can remember words to a song that you learned while you were 10, but you can’t remember something that you did last week.”

While there is significant evidence that the brain responds well to the intentional use of music for mnemonic purposes, studies on the influence of background music, in

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impacted based on variables such as IQ and personality traits.

Rose hypothesizes that background music may help the brain focus by occupying that part most inclined to “wander” and thus can be especially useful for those more prone to hyperactivity.

“The classic medicine that they give people that are hyperactive is Ritalin, which is actually a stimulant, which Abigail Dahl The Daily sounds counter-intuitive. [Therefore, my inference] would be that people with particular, produce murkier results.

ADHD would do better studying if they had A 1997 study in which 30 undergraduates more energetic music in the background completed cognitive tests in silence and because that part of their brain that needs then in the presence of background music to be constantly engaged would then latch recorded that “more questions were onto the music so the rest of their brain can completed and more answers were correct” be focused on studying and memorizing what when background music was played, they need.” suggesting that background music does Senior Rebecca Fogel agrees that influence cognitive performance. background music engages just enough of her This conclusion has been supported by brain to prompt better focus. later studies, but there is far less clarity “It blocks out background noise, and I regarding why, neurologically speaking, don’t get distracted by my own thoughts if background music helps and which other there’s music,” Fogel said. factors are involved in the results. Studies Rose emphasizes that the quest for the have explored not only the way different most productive background music for genres and rhythms influence cognitive you will likely take experimentation and ability, but how different people are exploration beyond typical genre preference.

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“What you may listen to for entertainment may not be what you want to listen to for studying because it can be distracting,” Rose said.

Ultimately, as much as ChilledCow’s lofi-loops would like you to think, there is no ultimate answer to stimulant-level focus and one person’s ideal productive playlist may send another into absentminded oblivion.

“The thing with EDM and even classical is that if it’s got a strong beat, for some that kind of beat can keep your brain engaged and keep going … for others something like spa music and space music that has no predictable melody or rhythm [would be better],” Rose said.

Finding the proper music to prompt easy focus can take time. So grab your cat, plop yourself down before a desk which is hopefully adjacent to a window framing a charming city scene, spread out your homework, and slip into some ridiculously large headphones: you’ve got some auditory experimenting to do.

Reach Pacific Wave Co-Editor Sophie Aanerud at pacificwave@dailyuw.com.

Twitter: @thesraanerud

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SMELL

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This article stinks A review of natural deodorants

All Art by Milo Nguyen The Daily

By Claudia Yaw The Daily Ah, summertime in Seattle. The crushing anxiety of forest fire smoke, the bustle of Amazon interns flocking to the city, and the smell of BO wafting through the grocery aisle of Trader Joe’s. Sure, the solstice is a reliable marker for the start of summer, but so is the sight of me on the bus rocking double pit stains and reapplying deodorant with NO SHAME. Why did I switch from Old Spice’s Bearglove deodorant, “for the commanding man,” to natural deodorants? Maybe it was the gross hypermasculinity in Old Spice’s marketing, or maybe it was the shame Seattle projected onto me every time I applied unnatural, aluminum-filled deo in a public place. Hey — nobody told me aluminum was literally blocking my sweat glands (or that it was linked to breast cancer) until I moved to this city, OK? Natural deodorants can be hard to navigate. Some are scratchy and pull out your beautifully groomed armpit hair.

Others just pile on the essential oils. And some have you reapplying seven times a day, stretching out your cute shirt in the process!

But don’t you worry your sweaty little head, because I’ve got the review you need to navigate this stinky world.

Let’s break it down: Tom’s, Schmidt’s, and CRYSTAL. The three nat deos that are

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What’s more? You were bought out by Colgate! I thought your eco-friendly, sustainable, all-natural products were a competitor to Colgate’s multinational conglomerate. But turns out, you’re just a puppet controlled by a mega-corporation that doesn’t care nearly as much about sustainability, or the well-being of my pits, for that matter, as you let on. I should’ve listened to my editor when he said ethical consumption is impossible under monopoly capitalism.

CRYSTAL

probably most accessible to you. Find them at Trader Joe’s, CVS, and Vegan Haven which is rad. (They have a cat; check it out).

After weeks of sweating, applying, analyzing, and stinking up public places, the results are in.

Here’s what we’re judging these natural babies on: Stank: Is this nat deo taking care of my stank? Or am I sitting in a coffee shop, overanalyzing everyone’s facial expressions, paranoid that my body odor is offending them?

Texture: Now, I’m not here to kink-shame — hair-pulling can be fun! But I don’t want my nat deo to rip my cute pit pubes right out of their follicles. I also don’t want white deo chunks hanging out all day.

Cuteness: Packaging is my weakness, SUE ME! Ethics: This deo may be nice to ME, but how about the test bunnies and lab rats? Are they ethical and sustainable, or do they just use neutral-colored packaging and hope nobody questions them?

Schmidt’s

Schmidt’s “award-winning natural formula” looks promising. It has no aluminum, no artificial fragrance, and no propylene glycol (whatever the heck that is). Schmidt’s “charcoal + magnesium” deodorant makes me smell like a new car, which is cool, I guess. They’re also cruelty-free, vegan, and their containers are recyclable.

Applying this nat deo is a process, though. Users are instructed to hold it to their skin for a second to warm it up and melt it. And that’s no joke — using a stick of cold Schmidt’s is like scraping a pumice stone across your delicate little pits. Not fun.

That being said, Schmidt’s lasts five-ever. It’s proven itself to be hiking-proof, sprint-to-catch-the-bus proof, and panic-attack-in-theSafeway-alley proof. I’m impressed.

Tom’s

Ahh, Tom. I’ve had a crush on you ever since I started working at Trader Joe’s. Your simple white packaging seemed so down-to-earth. I swooned at your natural, cruelty-free, recyclable products. You talked about “sustainable practices,” and I thought I was in love.

But then things got weird. Deodorant “for men?” “For women?”

Your “men’s” products are decked out in rugged mountains, but you slap a pink leaf on your women’s products? I really felt a connection when your nat deo lasted through an entire summer lake day, but then you had to go and reinforce gender stereotypes.

CRYSTAL claims all of its ingredients are safe and naturally derived. While that might be true, it’s also true that I can’t pronounce the majority of them. Propanediol?

Polyglyceryl-10 Caprylate? Never heard of her.

CRYSTAL’s packaging is adorable. And it glides onto my hairy pits with such ease. It’s cruelty-free, which is cool. But none of that helps me when I’m at a “Stranger Things” watch party re-applying my nat deo for the FIFTH TIME THAT DAY. What I’m saying is that if demogorgons give you the nervous sweats, CRYSTAL’s is going to leave you high and dry. Well … high and damp. Very damp. And smelly.

There you have it, kids. Spread the good word, slather your pits, and gear up for the rest of the sweaty season.

Reach News Editor Claudia Yaw at pacificwave@dailyuw.com.

Twitter: @yawclaudia

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Breathing deep, breathing fresh, breathing local An olfactory tour of your local farmers market Caean Couto The Daily

By Sophie Aanerud The Daily A farmers market activates one’s senses like nothing else. It’s difficult to not be in awe upon entering one of these charming convergences of local foods and crafts, to not admire the stacks of vegetables filling gradients of green, yellow, and red which blend with the leaping notes of fiddle and bass floating from that local bluegrass group.

One’s tongue curls upon mention of the crisp and tangy Yakima apples — you can almost feel the resounding crunch between your teeth.

In this rush of sensory stimulation, however, we often forget the importance of smell. This sense associated with the humble nose is often underrated; how often, in recounting important experiences, do you bring up its olfactory virtues?

With this in mind, I plunged into the stimulant-rich University District Farmers Market to test my nose and dive into a more fragrant world.

Approaching the busy intersection of University Way and Northeast 52nd Street, I was first welcomed by a soft and warm scent. The pleasing sweetness of caramelized onions tangoed with the rich, gentle cumin wafting from a stand selling fresh empanadas.

Within a few steps, though, the soaring scent which I perhaps above all associate with farmers markets graced my nose:

basil. At once peppery and sweet, the green leaves launch a fleeting aromatic glimpse of Mediterranean freshness upon the market.

The smell evokes the vibrant energy of spring while reminding one of the smiling heat of summer: never oppressive, always nurturing.

Both saccharine and bitter, the bouquet of fresh tomatoes wafts directly below the basil.

It playfully tinges the air, evoking narrow community garden paths fringed by damp leaves; small fingers brush velvet stems, tap the firm smooth flesh of ripe fruit.

I bent below dew-speckled memories of childhood tomato gardens to admire a spread of vivid peppers. A sharp spice escapes the waxy skins of shishito, habanero, and cayenne, tingling the nostrils with sneezeinducing memories of the pulsing heat within those delicate twisting fruits.

While many Seattle area farmers markets sport a whole host of goods, the U-District market focuses almost entirely on the edible.

Inhaling air heavy with waves of enveloping cinnamon sugar and puff pastry, muted hints of flower and umami baguette crusts, tangy seasoned and smoked fish, you find yourself beneath the one section of tents dedicated to products not meant for eating. The flower bouquets emit a scent more delicate than those of the food products — their lilting perfume twists and buds between currents of rich grilled meat and tangy curry.

Beyond the flowers is Growing Things

Farm — a prime example of why we must not discount those farmers market stands which stretch beyond the digestible, in seeking sensory satisfaction. The stand boasts several trays of goat milk soaps.

Each chalky pastel chunk oozes aromas familiar and foreign. The eucalyptus soap is pungent and oily, the orange-clove tangy and temperate, the fir soap spicy and intimate.

Multiple studies have noted the strong correlation between scent and memory.

Scents are first processed by the olfactory bulb which is directly connected to the amygdala and hippocampus, two parts of the brain which are heavily involved in both memory and emotion. Thus, an experience as mundane as a stroll through your local farmers market can trigger a whole host of memories upon contact with the environment’s wealth of aromas.

As I emerged from the U-District Farmers Market — piney and pungent chanterelles fresh in my lungs — sensations from childhood p-patches, neighborhood groceries, danced through my brain. The next time you find yourself near a friendly farmers market, inhale deeply; who knows what pleasures you will relive.

Reach Pacific Wave Co-Editor Sophie Aanerud at pacificwave@dailyuw.com.

Twitter: @thesraanerud

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19

Aromatherapy: Is it a placebo? Do we care?

Breaking the cycle of mess and stress One hallmark of self-care: aromatherapy.

Aromatherapy is exactly what it sounds like: Essential oils, like lavender, lemon, You’ve just moved into your new apartment or jasmine, are inhaled from diffusers or or dorm. Your desk is spotless, you’ve got applied to the skin through massage, lotion, your fresh school supplies, your bed is made or bath salts to, allegedly, eliminate toxins with clean sheets and blankets, you’re even and reduce stress. And best of all, the smells careful to pick up the two or three scraps of are not nearly as headache-inducing as the garbage that fell on the floor while you were mystery liquid inside a Glade Plug-In. unpacking boxes in your new place. You’re But what is a toxin, ready for school. and why would I want to A few months pass by. It’s the reduce it? I don’t know. middle of February and the surfaces Aromatherapy But I do know that from in your apartment are sticky. You is effective in massage therapy offices haven’t got a clue where to acquire or maintaining sleep to hospitals, essential oils store a vacuum. There’s rotting food in the fridge. Your trashcan has an despite a stressful are used everywhere to reduce stress. According overpowering odor that you deal with situation to Vogue, an essential oil simply by holding your breath when diffuser is necessary for you walk by it. The mostly-empty the ultimate self-careStarbucks cups accumulating on your ready desk. And the latest oil diffusers are nightstand are growing cultures. cute. They’re a staple to an adult-looking It smells … bad. Very, very bad. apartment and, in my experience, motivate So your boyfriend gets you a Hawaiian me to keep the rest of my place looking and Breeze Glade Plug-In, and you don’t know smelling cleaner. how to use it, so you just plug it in and it It works like this: The oils are extracted smells nice. Satisfied, you leave for class, from part of a plant and distilled. The oils, spend a few hours at the library, stop at when inhaled, make their way to a series Cafe on the Ave (or if you’re me, Sizzle and of receptor sites in the brain, including the Crunch) for dinner, and then head home. part that controls the limbic system, or the You fling open the door, not prepared for “emotional brain.” Beware though, there what comes next. On the inhale, you feel is a lot of misinformation on the internet like a tennis ball launcher that someone regarding alternative medicines, so be filled with tangerines has begun an assault sure to read up on common mistakes on your sinuses. The plug-in was turned up when using aromatherapy and too high; over the course of a single day, it possible risks. has formed a cloud in your home, ready to While at first glance it may swallow you and cover up the smell of your seem like aromatherapy wouldn’t death with the pungence of something no have a more profound impact on breeze in Hawaii has ever smelled like. the body and relaxation You unplug the Glade Plug-In, throw it away, and, a few months later, break up with as, say, a candle might, your idiot boyfriend.

I haven’t yet figured out if it’s the stress of school that leads to my apartment getting dirtier, or if it’s my apartment getting dirtier that makes me more stressed. Whatever comes first, the chicken or the egg, mess and stress go hand-in-hand in my experience.

Breaking this cycle is really complicated, but the small things you can do for yourself before you become so stressed can help. This is called self care. Figuring out what calms, centers, and grounds you is essential to your survival as a college student.

By Manisha Jha The Daily

“

”

studies have shown that aromatherapy’s potential for soothing the limbic system may really deliver some level of relief from depression, anxiety, blood pressure, and heart rate. Plus, you usually can’t even have candles in some houses and dorms.

One study found that intensive care patients in Korea benefited from aromatherapy by showing levels of decreased anxiety and better sleep.

Patients entering the ICU who did not receive the intervention had far worsened sleep, but patients who did receive aromatherapy experienced little change in their sleep patterns upon entering the ICU, leading researchers to “conclude that aromatherapy is effective in maintaining sleep despite a stressful situation.”

That should speak to the souls of college students.

Aromatherapy is not going to get you the same results as taking 14 credits instead of 18, seeing a therapist when you need to, or hitting the IMA regularly (even during midterm season), but when it comes to improving your sleep or lowering your stress levels, but it’s a start.

Reach Investigations Editor Manisha Jha at pacificwave@dailyuw.com.

Twitter: @manishajha_

Tammy Hu The Daily

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How dangerous is vaping, really?

Those fruity clouds might be affecting your health

By Natalie Rand The Daily You’re walking down the Ave and suddenly catch a whiff of strawberry. You turn your head and sure enough, somebody’s vaping and you’ve just walked through their cloud.

It smells all right — at least not as potent as tobacco smoke — so it can’t be that bad for you, right?

The number of college students who vape has been exponentially increasing in recent years. Electronic cigarette company Juul Labs, Inc. is expected to make $3.4 billion in sales this year — almost triple its revenue from last year.

Unfortunately, relatively little is known about vaping’s health implications because the pace of research hasn’t been able to keep up with vaping’s skyrocketing popularity.

This being said, there’s still plenty of information currently available to help you make more informed choices as an e-cigarette consumer (or non-consumer).

It’s been well established that vaping does indeed expose users to fewer chemicals than tobacco smoke, meaning it’s most likely safer for your health than traditional smoking.

According to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) in their 2018 report “Public Health Consequences of E-Cigarettes,” there is “conclusive” evidence that e-cigarettes expose users to fewer toxicants and carcinogens than combustible tobacco products.

A study from the Massachusetts General Hospital’s Tobacco and Research Center also found that people who use e-cigarettes are more likely to quit traditional smoking, meaning that e-cigarettes can be helpful for cigarette smokers who are trying to quit.

However, many e-cigarettes are now being picked up by people who have never touched cigarettes before.

Most of the liquid used in an e-cigarette, including all Juul pods, contains nicotine.

Nicotine is well known for being an

extremely addictive substance, and many people use nicotine for its dual relaxing and stimulating effect on the body and mind. It increases focus, like coffee, but with different actions in the brain.

A common misconception is that nicotine is harmless other than being addictive. In reality, nicotine causes long-term damage as well. Research published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services indicates that it harms brain development, making it risky for people who have yet to enter their mid-20s. It alters the prefrontal cortex, the brain region responsible for cognitive function and one of the last brain areas to mature.

The consequence is that even though nicotine might help you to focus in the short term, it can actually impair that ability in the long term. Nicotine exposure to the developing brain additionally increases the risk of addiction to other substances.

It’s also important to note that nicotine being “just” addictive still isn’t a fun experience: Nicotine addiction can cause withdrawals that are physically and mentally unpleasant. Symptoms include headaches, fatigue, irritability, and even depression.

Though many vape products are advertised as being nicotine-free, that may not even be true. A study published in the American Academy of Pediatrics’ journal indicated that 40% of vape users aged 12 to 21 who claim to use “nicotine-free” vapes are actually mistaken; urine samples indicate that they’re still unknowingly ingesting it.

Experts believe this is due to deceptive marketing and product-labeling by vape companies. A 2015 study found that 99% of e-cigarette products sold at convenience stores and supermarkets contain nicotine. In other words, if you’re trying to avoid nicotine, be careful. If you’re unsure if what you’re buying contains it, the answer is almost always yes.

Lydia Ely The Daily

But what about the liquid that really is nicotine-free? Despite the common misconception that nicotine-free liquid is “just flavorings and water,” it turns out that it might be more dangerous than that.

The liquid usually contains propylene glycol, a chemical that releases formaldehyde gas — a human carcinogen — when heated.

A 2018 study by the Desert Research Institute and the University of Nevada, Reno, indicated that significant amounts of aldehydes, including formaldehyde, are absorbed by the respiratory tract during a typical vaping session. Although more research needs to be done, these results mean that vaping might increase your risk of getting cancer.

So how risky is vaping?

The bottom line is that while vaping might be fun to try, its effects are more complicated than they may seem. If there’s one thing many health organizations know for sure about vaping, it’s that there’s still a lot they don’t know and need to do more studies on.

Before trying vaping, you should be careful to find the best information you can about how what you’re using might affect your health. The health risks of traditional smoking weren’t common knowledge in the United States until the 1950s and by then, many cigarette users were already addicted.

Although the knowledge currently available about e-cigarettes is limited, the increasing body of evidence makes it reasonable to assume that history may be repeating itself.

Regardless of your takeaways, secondhand vapor has been proven to increase the likelihood of asthma attacks in people with asthma. If you’re going to vape, at least don’t do it indoors, and be considerate of people nearby.

Reach writer Natalie Rand at pacificwave@dailyuw.com.

Twitter: @n_rand_

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Not another new diet: Intuitive eating The radical practice of eating when and what you want GRAND OPENING STUDENT/FACULTY DISCOUNTS

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By Charlotte Houston The Daily I used to be in a long distance relationship and whenever my partner would leave for the next month or so, my appetite would suddenly become insatiable. Every meal was like an event on my calendar that I would cross the preceding days off until.

Missing someone you’re in a relationship with and knowing that your future is just a cycle of reuniting and missing and missing and reuniting is like how I imagine being inside a human-sized clothes dryer would feel — warm and comforting, but emotionally bruising.

It was through trying new things at Trader Joes, trading recipes with my older sister, and improvising meals with the four things that were about to go bad and having it somehow turn out good that I realized: food made me happy.

I think the cravings that I would get during these love-withdrawal periods were definitely my body’s way of finding something that lit up the pleasure centers of my brain in the same way as the touch, care, and presence of my boyfriend. A bite of soft brie atop one of those crisp rosemary rustic crackers with a dried mission fig on top — crisp and creamy and umami and sweet — that basically was the equivalent of holding hands. I have memories of distinct joy, dancing in my kitchen, after the

perfect bite.

This, however, wasn’t a period of my life that was devoid of food-shame. As I wandered into the kitchen for a third chocolate chip cookie (because the best time to eat a cookie is when they’re fresh out of the oven and they’ll never taste that good again, so it’s essential that you take advantage of that window), I would wonder if these cravings had gotten out of hand, if I was eating for the right reasons, and if it would make me gain weight. All of these things I’ve been taught to be watchful and afraid of.

My long-distance relationship ended, but my paradoxical relationship to food has not. I look forward to both cooking and dining out, but I can’t escape the toxic messaging all around me: my keto coworker’s lunch of ground turkey compared to my pesto cheese tortellini, my friend’s humblebrag that she skipped dinner, and influencers who appear on my Instagram explore page even though I cleaned them out from my following list a long time ago.

So, when I heard of intuitive eating, it was the first time I had a descriptor for the way I aspire to consume food: nonjudgmentally.

“Intuitive eating is really about listening to your body’s hunger cues and trying to be open to eating whatever food sounds most appealing to you at a time. And eating when you’re hungry and stopping

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when you’re full,” Katherine Manbeck, a psychology graduate student said. “It can be challenging for somebody who’s perhaps never eaten intuitively to recognize those cues. So a lot of times it’ll start with a kind of body awareness.”

Intuitive eating is a microcosm of mindfulness culture; it emphasizes paying attention to when your body is hungry and when it is full, and rejecting any judgment of “good” or “bad” food. In this way, it’s a complete departure from the culture we live in, which is always sending us a different news ping about which food should now be considered shameful and dangerous.

Another tenet of intuitive eating includes respecting your fullness –– paying attention to the signals your body is sending you to know when you’re no longer hungry. It also involves finding the “satisfaction factor,” which is the pleasure that occurs when you’re eating what you really want in an environment conducive to that.

Manbeck has worked at Opal Food+Body Wisdom for the past two years, an organization which treats eating disorders and practices the philosophy of intuitive eating.

“Throughout our entire culture, there’s

23

“

Intuitive eating is really about listening to your body’s hunger cues and trying to be open to eating whatever food sounds most appealing to you at a time.

”

like a really strong diet mentality, and so it’s not uncommon for people to have views of foods as judgments, valenced in some ways — either good or bad,” Manbeck said.

“Intuitive eating says there is no such thing as good or bad food. The important thing is to listen to your body and if you’re hungry and you want to eat a candy bar, then that’s great and you should eat a candy bar. Whatever your body is telling you is an important thing

for you to listen to. This is really different than how we’re traditionally taught to view food, which is in a much more putative kind of way.”

When we’re children, we’re told we can’t leave the table until our plates are clean, or we are punished for eating too much “junk food.” Slowly, we get taught to ignore our body’s natural cues in favor of an approach that’s much more attuned to eating what’s socially acceptable and much less about eating what feels good to our body.

But anyone who’s ever attempted a diet knows that the more “off-limits” a food is, the more you want it. For many people, this results in binging on that very food. The cycle of restriction and binging is an unsustainable and useless way to eat in a “healthy” fashion.

Studies have shown that the intuitive eating approach can be more effective than traditional weight loss programs, which often lead participants to regain the weight they lost once they stop the program. This often constitutes a cycle of weight gain and loss that can end up being more unhealthy than never losing weight. It should also be noted that constantly weighing yourself and restricting your food intake, as diet culture encourages,

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is damaging and consuming mentally.

For people recovering from eating disorders, intuitive eating can be an especially radical, but ultimately productive, change in one’s perception of food. Eating disorders like anorexia are considered to be a “disorder of overcontrol,” which means that, like obsessive-compulsive disorder, these conditions are characterized by engagement in excessive self-control. Radically Open Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), also practiced at Manbeck’s clinic, was designed to combat this frame of mind.

“There are some eating disorder treatments focused on more of a sustained meal plan as the goal.

I would say that that runs a little contrary to the principles in Radically Open DBT, because that’s just another form of being quite controlled about food and eating,” Manbeck said.

“Even if you’re somebody who’s getting the right number of calories for their body to be sustained, it can still be a bit overcontrolled to be rigidly adhering to that number of calories or that number of proteins or whatever. And so with intuitive eating, it’s about challenging that over controlled habit, and

“

Those meals taught me that food isn’t just a task to be completed, but a ritual in its own right.

”

trying to increase flexibility in the approach to food.”

However, practicing intuitive eating isn’t easy, whether you’re suffering from a diagnosed eating disorder or not. Manbeck said that many of her clients described their struggle with sticking with the practice after leaving treatment, due to our culture’s

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25

obsession with weight.

“The [most difficult thing for clients] is just how pervasive the messaging is,” Manbeck said. “Our clients describe leaving treatment and just being inundated by messages that are different than [ours] from everybody — friends, pop culture, and social media. I think especially because there’s such a strong interest in our society in making people and especially women feel badly about themselves and about their bodies, those messages tend to be put forth in a way that can be very convincing.”

To clarify, I don’t think all the eating I would do when I was missing my boyfriend was necessarily intuitive eating — it was often just emotional eating. Eating when you aren’t hungry, just to feel something, isn’t intuitive eating, and one of the ten principles of intuitive eating is to “honor your feelings without using food.” But those meals, in my low periods, picked me up.

They taught me that food isn’t just a task

to be completed, but a ritual in its own right.

I’m still trying to strike a balance between finding joy in eating, while also making sure it isn’t just an easy place I go in order to find joy. And doing all this while not entering a place of self-judgement isn’t easy.

“I just want to acknowledge that if people are trying to get to a place of a more of an intuitive eating approach, it’s a hard thing to do,” Manbeck said at the end of our conversation. “[Societal pressure to not intuitively eat] can be internalized and can lead to a lot of self judgment for intuitive eating or for not intuitive eating. I think it’s really important as much as possible to try to be gentle and non-judgemental, regardless of where you are in your relationship with food.”

Intuitive eating, like mindfulness in general, is not a summit we can crest and be done with. It’s an active battle to rebuild trust with your body and a fight against a culture that tells us that some shapes are inherently healthier than others, that

we should feel bad for indulging in tastes that make us feel good, and that practicing self-control is more important than feeling satisfied and healthy. Now, I’m going to go eat a cinnamon roll.

Reach Pacific Wave Co-Editor Charlotte Houston at pacificwave@dailyuw.com.

Twitter: @choustoo Anorexia has the highest mortality rate out of all the psychological disorders. If you are concerned about yourself or a friend’s relationship with food, please seek counseling or encourage them to seek help.

UW Counseling Center: (206) 543.1240

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Building community with Fatima’s,

one bowl at a time

By Estey Chen The Daily A consequence of our society’s fixation on productivity and efficiency is the treatment of cooking and eating as an obstacle to accomplishing the next task. We forget to eat or consciously skip meals. We work through lunch breaks, opting instead to absentmindedly prod at our food while hunched over laptops and textbooks.

Nuha Elkugia, a 2012 graduate from the College of Arts and Sciences and 2014 graduate from the School of Public Health, believes that eating is more than a means to deliver the necessary nutrients to stave off death. Elkugia believes in food as a vehicle for cross-cultural understanding, a belief that encouraged her to start her own food business — Fatima’s — in February 2019.

Fatima’s, which Elkugia named after her mother, specializes in North African cuisine; Libyan in particular. They produce North African soup kits like spicy tomato and chickpea orzo soup and spiced red lentil soup and have made several appearances at the South Lake Union Saturday Market.

There they served dishes like shakshuka sandwiches, Morrocan-style chickpea tacos, and baklava ice cream.

The dishes heavily lean on key Libyan spices and simple ingredients like olive oil, tomato paste, chickpeas, and, as a result of Italy’s colonization of Libya, pasta. The cuisine commonly features lamb and other meats, but they also serve vegetarian options.

“The [cooking] processes are complex but the ingredients can be simple,” Elkugia said.

“They make something really delicious from what little they have. Not a lot of food comes from the outside in Libya so you use what you have there.”

This explains why she finds it relatively

easy to replicate traditional Libyan dishes in the United States. However, the farmto-table ethos and attention to ingredient quality in Libyan cuisine also means that some things simply will not taste the same.

It doesn’t seem to affect the popularity of Elkugia’s cooking, though. Before starting Fatima’s, she loved overfeeding dinner guests. She would send them home with recipes for her signature dishes, but they often reported back that the food didn’t taste as delicious as they’d remembered.

Thus, the idea to pre-measure and individually package the necessary ingredients to replicate her soups emerged.

The first soup mixes used fresh ingredients but transitioned to dry ingredients to ensure shelf stability.

News of the soups spread by word of mouth and soon, people were purchasing the soups off their website.

Elkugia runs the food business with the help of her husband while raising a young daughter and working full-time in the public health field. While food has only recently taken a more prominent role in Elkugia’s life, it has always been a driving force.

At the age of 8, Elkugia immigrated with her family to Seattle from Libya and quickly realized the community-building power of food. She loved watching the Food Channel, but her deep appreciation for food came from observing her mother cook and share Libyan food.

Elkugia’s mother often invited guests to their house to share meals which familiarized peers with the otherwise underrepresented Libyan cuisine and culture. Though surrounded by peers who did not share her background, they could all bond over the delicious food. “[Food is] how we built community, how we got to know our neighbors, how we got to

make friends,” Elkugia said. “Growing up as an immigrant is a very lonely experience … but [my parents] were able to bridge that by having dinner parties.”

This especially resonated with Elkugia in January 2017 when her family heard news of Trump’s Muslim ban. She felt heartbroken to see Libya on the list of targeted countries, especially because she knew friends who were personally affected.

But it reminded her of how she could use food to build cultural understanding.

“I leaned on food to be that vehicle of sharing ourselves and our culture so that people would get to know it’s a bunch of BS to ban an entire country’s people from visiting the U.S.,” Elkugia said.

Breaking down barriers is built directly into the process of sharing a meal at the same table but is especially true for Libyan food. Inviting friends and extended family is practically a prerequisite and the style of eating also reflects a more intimate level of engagement.

“It’s very communal … usually people share from a big plate of rice or pasta and everyone kind of eats from the same plate.”

Dishes like asida, a breakfast and holiday dish of butter and flour dough surrounded by date syrup or honey and butter, and bazin, a barley dough dipped in a meat sauce surrounded by potatoes and meat, are eaten with one’s right hand rather than utensils.

To Elkugia, this interdependent approach to eating and community differs dramatically from the individualism practiced in the United States, though both have their merits.

“I do prefer some of my independence here as far as a woman growing up in the U.S. versus being in a community where you might have more responsibilities,” Elkugia

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Cassidy Pearson The Daily

said. “But at the same time, you miss that support of having that community. When it comes to food, I wish we had a more communal way of eating [in the U.S.]; we get to know each other better when we’re eating.”

Elkugia’s attitude toward cooking and eating, which she shares with many in the food community, has played a role in the increased acceptance of certain cultures. While Elkugia appreciates the increased curiosity and acceptance of outside cultures that follows the normalization of unfamiliar dishes, she recognizes the need for conversations about cultural

“

We need to highlight the chefs and people and grandmothers and mothers who make this food … You have to give credit where credit is due.

”

appropriation.

“We need to highlight the chefs and people and grandmothers and mothers who make this food,” she said. “You

have to give credit where credit is due.”

Elkugia sees the normalization of ingredients like harissa as a sign of progress, but we still have a long way to go.

She laughed as she described the way grocery stores concentrate all their conventionally ethnic foods into one aisle as a place “where you go through the whole world in one aisle.” Elkugia also struggles with whether to forgo the traditional names for Libyan dishes to make them more palatable to American audiences.

Still, Elkugia is optimistic.

After all, she has observed food uniting and healing communities all her life.

“If you just sit down with people, have a good plate of food, and open up and share, you’d understand what ... troubles they might be going through, what joys they have in their lives, and [find] shared values,” Elkugia said.

To try Fatima’s soups, order online from their website or visit the International Food Bazaar in Bellevue.

To try Fatima’s soups, order online from their website or visit International Food Bazaar in Bellevue.

Reach writer Estey Chen at pacificwave@dailyuw.com.

Twitter: @esteychen

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Restaurants that moved in on The Ave while we were away Bugis: Korean comfort food and aesthetically pleasing to boot

By Hailey Robinson The Daily I feel like many of the new restaurants I’ve seen pop up in the past few years around the UW have been Korean, but my favorite new place is Bugis, serving Korean fusion comfort food. Bugis took the place of Rancho Bravo (may she rest in peace) late last year. It has an Instagram-friendly aesthetic (which may not be important to you but is definitely important to me) and, more importantly, really great food.

Bugis serves a lot of bowls with meat, veggies, and egg set on top of rice, along with some Korean staples like ttok-bokki. The bowls, especially the spicy chicken, are my personal favorite, partially because they force me to remember vegetables exist, which is

something I definitely wiped from my brain when I started college. They also have their own spin on chicken and waffles — a bubble waffle with Korean-style fried chicken.

Speaking of bubble waffles, Bugis has beautiful bubble waffle ice cream creations for dessert. They make me want to make a food Instagram and forget I’m lactose intolerant as does their red bean latte.

Beyond that, they have an extensive drink menu with seven different types of lemonade including a color-changing galaxy lemonade.

Bugis is also brightly lit and has outlets, two things I’m always looking for in new places on the Ave. It’s almost never crowded when I walk past or go in (which I honestly think should change, because it’s way too good for that) so it isn’t hard to find a seat to

park yourself and study for a bit.

Bugis is open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Monday through Saturday.

Reach Engagement Editor Hailey Robinson at specials@dailyuw.com.

Twitter: @haileyarobin

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Byrek and Baguette: The best new sandwich spot on the Ave

By Josh Kirshenbaum The Daily Just walking into Byrek and Baguette can be an interesting experience. Going through the front door takes you past tables, comfortable chairs, and a lounge-ish room, walking toward a wall full of plants. The variety of seating possibilities matches the variety of food and drink options at one of the most versatile coffee shops on the Ave. Byrek and Baguette has the drink options, seating, and outlets of a go-to study spot, but customers can also come in for a full meal and receive a healthy, good deal.

The byreks — flaky pastries filled with everything from beef and onions to apples and caramel — are decent, but I recommend visiting Byrek and Baguette for the second half of its name. The sandwiches could make a case for the best on the Ave. The Mediterranean Avocado sandwich is a go-to healthy option, complete with pesto, olives, and feta. For heartier fare, go with the slow-cooked pork with sauteed onions and pepperocinis.

Byrek and Baguette’s sandwiches are already a good size for their $8.95 price, but for just a few extra bucks, make it a combo plate that’ll be overflowing with salad or fries.

I’ve gone to Byrek and Baguette in a variety of moods with a variety of goals, and I pretty sure I always leave feeling better.

If I’m unhappy about how healthy my food intake has been on a given day, I can go for dinner, eat approximately half my body weight in veggies and amazing bread for

$10.95 and feel good about myself for the next few days. If I need to kill time or study on a gloomy day, I can walk into a brightly lit room and spend the next couple of hours with a breakfast sandwich and an espresso drink in a lawn chair surrounded by plants.

Byrek and Baguette is open from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day.

Reach Managing Editor Josh Kirshenbaum at pacificwave@dailyuw.com.

Twitter: @J_Kirshenbaum

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Did you have a hot girl summer?

If not, thank the Millennial Sex Recession

By Billie Featherston The Daily Have y’all ever talked to your parents, or maybe your grandparents, about how much sex they had when they were your age? If not, you might not have any idea that, on average, the amount of sex that millennials are having is actually lower than the amount that previous generations had.

In The Atlantic’s article, “The Sex

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Claims such as the ones made by The Atlantic exhibit our emerging patterns of “hookup culture” where we often settle for quickies on dates and at parties as opposed to putting more effort into forming a relationship, and hence, regular sex.

The article also mentioned surging digital porn and dating apps as other examples of obstacles ultimately standing in the way of

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Recession,” one of the opening paragraphs mentioned a survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Youth Risk Behavior which found from 1991 to 2017 the percentage of high school students who’d had intercourse dropped from 54 to 40%.

According to this and other research, the pattern is trickling into the youth of Generation Z which includes the majority of current undergrads.

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Jack Johnston The Daily real-life, consistent sex.

In fact, Pornhub Insights, a page created

by Pornhub to release statistics about website use each year, mentioned that in 2018, the number of videos watched that year reached 109,012,068,000 which is the equivalent of over 14 videos watched by every person on the planet.

I also talked with Nicole McNichols, professor of the notorious PSYCH 210 class, and she acknowledges the potential harm of porn in the declining rates of sex. However, she seemed to have a more optimistic outlook on the rise of porn.

“More and more of my students are reporting using pornography, and it’s interesting because there’s no type of research to suggest that pornography viewing is, by itself, bad,” McNichols said.

“I tell my students it’s something that can bring up fantasy, spark creativity, and if you’re watching it in the context of your relationship, there is research that shows this can enhance your sex as a couple.”

The second area of concern has more to do with the consequences of less sex on mental health and happiness. Just one of the countless examples of research done on the correlation between intimacy with partners and contentment is discussed in “More Than Just Sex: Affection Mediated The Association Between Sexual Activity And Well Being.”

It states that affection and sex, as positive interpersonal interactions, are associated with greater well-being.

McNichols also had a more than a few examples of how sex can provide benefits in different areas for one or both partners. “It varies anywhere from cardiovascular health, emotional health, mental health, it’s a great way to relieve stress and feel closer to your partner, and there’s even research to suggest that having sex can lead to better academic performance,” she said.

So when we view this pattern from these standpoints, the sex recession seems like an obvious issue, even seemingly for our grades according to the research McNichols came across. But in light of the seemingly urgent recognition of this phenomenon, many counter points have been drawn.

Cosmopolitan’s article, “The Millennial Sex Recession is Bullsh*t,” was largely in response to that of The Atlantic’s and other stories they felt dramatized the dilemma.

In it, they claimed that much of the media had been viewing these numbers in the completely wrong light.

Julie Vadnal, the article’s author, said, “According to top experts, Cosmo’s exclusive data, and, um, actual millennials, we’re the most experimental, enlightened, and sexually fulfilled generation yet.”

A survey by Indiana University found that more than 40 different combinations of sexual activity were described by participants when asked about their last sexual encounter.

Vadnal argued that we shouldn’t be focusing on how we’re experiencing less sex per se, but instead, consider the fact that we seem to be having overall smarter and better sex.

In listing a few of the more positive alternatives for our declining sex rates, Vadnal talked about our use of toys and other alternatives to make sure we’re climaxing and fully enjoying the experience.

She also touched on our commitments to higher standards and better partners, our defiance of labels, and our evolving definition of the term “sex.”

In a study done by the Kinsey Institute, survey results found that participants had varying ideas on the meaning of “sex” depending on their age, sex, and other unknown factors. While most respondants answered that penile-vaginal penetration

constituted sex, other senarios were not so easily interpreted. When factors such as ejaculation, oral-only contact, length of intercourse, and anal-penile intercourse were mentioned, reactions swayed vastly. The study ultimately concluded that the clause “having sex” is not clear enough without more specific context, and will ultimately be interpreted many ways.

McNichols even mentioned that a broad and evolving definition of sex is something she’s been focusing on in her teachings.

“Sex is about connecting in ways that bring us pleasure both physically and emotionally and we should be defining that in ways that make sense to us and not according to some arbitrary, outdated definition.”

However, on this particular issue, I can’t quite side with The Atlantic and say that these numbers mean we are all heading towards an age of isolation and despair.

And I can’t exactly agree with Cosmopolitan either on the fact that we are better than ever, because it seems to be just too subjective of a topic.

On one hand, these declining statistics have served as a starting point to a deeper introspective journey, however, with that being said, we need to first question what measures we want to use to identify health before we judge ourselves for every dissimilarity from our past generations.

Chances are, “the amount of sex being had” is just simply not evolved enough or a good enough basis for forming conclusions about our well-being.

And further, we should be diving below the surface of simple statistics. At the end of the day, our sex lives are a personal choice, and the only person who gets to decide if they’re troubling or not is us. We should encourage ourselves to introspect — and whether we find ourselves getting acquainted with the bare chest of a lover at night or the “stimulation-level” controls on our dear, intimate device — we should ask ourselves why, and if we’re content with that.

Perhaps, we will come face-to-face with the horrifying reality that we are, in fact, having “less sex” because we are becoming introverted nerds with less game than our grandparents, or maybe… we will find that we are just self-reliant and happy with the way things are.

Reach writer Billie Featherston at pacificwave@dailyuw.com.

Twitter: @BillieFeathers1

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Sensory deprivation tanks and how weightlessness can lift that weight off your shoulders

By Mira Petrillo The Daily

Dabin Han The Daily

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The first time I went into a sensory deprivation tank, I got the super-saturated salt water in my eyes and had to get out before the 60 minutes were up. A couple of years later, I went with a friend who crawled out of the tank and immediately quit her high-paying pharmaceutical-industry job.

The third time I floated was last spring during finals week. I came into the session hopeless about three essays due within the next 72 hours and left the tank feeling relatively ready to take them on.

The concept of the flotation tank has science-fiction-esque associations (See Star Wars’ Bacta Tank) and has also been argued to be pseudo-scientific extension of the wellness industry; however, from my experience with floating, there might be something to it.

Floatation therapy typically consists of between 45 and 90 minutes of laying naked in a dark, soundproof vessel filled with about a foot of water and enough epsom salt (magnesium sulfate) –– more than 1000 pounds –– to allow your body to float comfortably on the surface. The water is regulated to the temperature of the body and there is enough room around the sides of the tank to allow the body to be suspended in the water, touching nothing else.

In 1954, John Lilly and Jay Shurley created the first rendition of the sensory deprivation tank to investigate the location of consciousness in the brain. In these early experiments, subjects’ bodies would be suspended vertically in a tank of water regulated at 94.5 degrees fahrenheit, wearing only a black-out mask to block any input coming into the ears or eyes and to allow for breathing.

With all sensory input cut off from the mind, Lilly and Shurley predicted that the subject would lose consciousness or fall asleep. Instead, they found that by cutting off all sensory input from the body, the mind reached a relaxed yet fully aware state of consciousness.

“I made so many discoveries that I didn’t dare tell the psychiatric group about it at all because they would’ve said I was psychotic,” Lilly’s website reads. “I found the isolation tank was a hole in the universe. I gradually began to see through to another reality. It scared me.”

In the 1970s, Glenn Perry, with the help of Lilly, invented a horizontal version of the tank that didn’t require a helmet. The new tank allowed for an easier sensory deprivation experience and began a niche

33

commercial trend and became a luxury item installed in the homes of celebrities including John Lennon and Robin Williams.

Over the last decade, flotation therapy centers have become easy to find across the United States and Europe. But what is actually happening when you go naked into a pod filled with extra salty water?

I sat down with co-owner of Float Seattle, Andrew Loppnow, to hear what drew him to floating.

“It’s one of those things that if you start listing all the benefits, you start to think nothing can be that good,” Loppnow said.

“Some of the umbrella categories that we like to talk about are stress relief, and that’s probably the most common, pain relief and physical recovery, meditation, and the fourth one is maybe the least common, but I think is the most interesting to me, creativity and brainstorming. You can get into a state that is very dreamlike.”

During the day, the brain oscillates between alpha and beta waves, alpha being the aroused state — fight or flight — and beta being the relaxed yet fully awake state of the brain. During sleep, the brain moves between delta waves — sleep stages one through three — and theta waves, present during REM sleep. REM sleep is also the time that you are able to dream.

According to psycho-nutritionist and author of The Cortisol Connection Dr. Shawn Talbot, the average modern-day brain spends most of its time in delta/beta cycles, in which one goes from high-stress stimulation during the day to deep sleep at night.

Talbot attributes this to the high-stress environments of modern day life.

Theta waves, to which the modern-day brain are potentially unfamiliar, is the space of creativity, insight, dreams, and deep meditation.

According to Loppnow, floating puts the brain in beta and theta-wave states for an hour at a time, which might be one reason for its potential benefits in creativity and stress-relief.

“Your nervous system is downregulating,” Loppnow said. “We’re constantly kind of forced into fight or flight mode, stress hormones are being produced, basically everything in modern life seems like it’s designed to keep us there –– phones, traffic, school. If you down regulate the nervous system, the parasympathetic nervous system activates, which is your rest and digest.”

There is also research that suggests floating might help with reducing anxiety,

depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

One study conducted in 2018 from The Laureate Institute for Brain Research in Tulsa, Oklahoma, tested 50 patients with reported anxiety disorders, including some veterans with PTSD. Each participant floated for an hour while the research team monitored blood pressure and heart rate, among other stress indicators.

Contrary to the lab’s hypothesis that only some participants would benefit while others wouldn’t, which is common with most psychiatric studies, all participants experienced “significantly less anxiety afterward, with the positive effects lasting several days.”

The potential for chronic pain relief can be attributed to the properties of epsom salt and the weightlessness one experiences during a float. The magnesium and sulfate from the water can serve as an anti-inflammatory and helps reduce swelling and stiff joints.

According to many advocates of floating including Loppnow, every float’s effect depends on the person and the state of mind in which one enters the float. As with any sort of wellness or healing practice, floating just once isn’t going to get you to the same potential depth that is more likely when floating consistently.

“One float is going to be very relaxing, if you’re stressed out, it’s going to give you some relief, if you’re in pain, it’s going to give you some relief,” Loppnow said. “But for lasting benefits, it takes some consistency.

To think that one float is going to drastically change your life I think is a little far fetched to begin with anyway. There’s no silver bullet.”

Floating can’t solve all mental health problems, but Loppnow sees the greatest potential for floating is for it to be coupled with other healing practices such as psychotherapy or physical therapy, depending on what one is struggling with.

For students, Loppnow sees that floating can be beneficial in different circumstances.

While a passive approach to floating can aid in stress relief and anxiety from school, a more active and intentional floating session can be helpful when working on creative projects and academic research.

Reach Editor-in-Chief Mira Petrillo at pacificwave@dailyuw.com.

Twitter: @Mira-Petrillo

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