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This janitor in Vermont amassed an $8M fortune without anyone around him knowing. Here are the 3 simple techniques that made Ronald Read rich — and can do the same for you

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This janitor in Vermont amassed an $8M fortune without anyone around him knowing. Here are the 3 simple techniques that made Ronald Read rich — and can do the same for you

Warren Buffett is reported to have once said, “You don’t need to have extraordinary effort to achieve extraordinary results. You just need to do the ordinary, everyday things exceptionally well.”

It might sound too simplistic to be true, but if you doubt the Oracle of Omaha’s wisdom, you should hear the story of Ronald Read.

Read, a retired gas station attendant and janitor in Vermont, passed away in 2015. Nothing about his life or death was extraordinary, except for the fact that his estate was revealed to be worth $8 million after he passed away.

This was a surprise to much of Read’s local community. “He was a hard worker, but I don’t think anybody had an idea that he was a multimillionaire,” his stepson told the local press after his death.

Read didn’t have the type of career path you’d typically associate with a multimillionaire. So how did he pull it off? Here’s a closer look at the three simple techniques that made him so wealthy.

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Frugality

Ronald Read seems to have had a reputation for being extremely frugal. In fact, he likely could have given Buffett — who is famously frugal — a run for his money.

Read’s friends remember him driving a second-hand car and using safety pins to hold his worn-out coat together. He even continued to cut his own firewood well after his 90th birthday.

It’s a painfully straightforward approach: Spending less than you earn leaves you more to invest and generate wealth over time through investments.

“I’m sure if he earned $50 in a week, he probably invested $40 of it,” said Read’s friend and neighbor, Mark Richard, according to CNBC.

Investments

After he died, the Wall Street Journal analyzed Read’s personal portfolio. They discovered that many of his positions were held for several years — if not decades — and had delivered immense returns over that period.

In 2015, Read’s portfolio included heavyweights like Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC), Procter & Gamble (NYSE:PG) and Colgate-Palmolive (NYSE:CL).

Read more: Here’s the average salary each generation says they need to feel ‘financially healthy.’ Gen Z requires a whopping $171K/year — but how do your own expectations compare?

Again, here’s another parallel between Read and Buffett. If those names sound familiar it’s probably because you’ve seen some of them on Buffett’s portfolio too. In fact, Berkshire Hathaway had a sizable position in Wells Fargo for several years and Procter and Gamble is still part of the portfolio.

Both investors prioritized holding long-term positions in undervalued and overlooked companies. That’s what helped Read create his multimillion-dollar fortune. However, for both investors, the key ingredient was time — and patience.

Longevity

Ronald Read lived to 92 and Buffett is 92 years old now. Both investors have benefitted immensely from living and working longer than average. In fact, 90% of Buffett’s fortune was generated after his 60th birthday. If he’d retired early in his 50s, most people would have never heard of Warren Buffett.

The power of compounding is magnified over longer time horizons. In other words, investing for longer is more likely to deliver better returns. Buffett’s compounded annual growth rate of 9.17% would have turned $1,000 into $9,000 in 25 years and $13,900 in 30 years.

To be fair, none of us can control how long we live. Instead, starting early and staying in the market for as long as possible is probably the best strategy. It’s also advisable to let your winners ride for longer. Taking profits too early or trading your positions too frequently adds costs and diminishes the power of compounding.

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This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.

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Health

The bizarre techniques that could help YOU lose weight

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Eating your greens, scrapping takeaways and hitting the gym are the obvious go-to options in the quest to lose weight.

But for anyone struggling to ditch a dress size, experts claim that there’s a plethora of quirky hacks that could be of assistance.

Two of the slightly more unusual ways to shed the pounds include eating off of red plates and sleeping in the dark.

NHS GP Zak Waqar-Uddin, based in Lancashire, said there’s no such thing as ‘a quick fix’ when it comes to weight loss — but agrees some of the more bizarre techniques could help. 

He told MailOnline: ‘Although some techniques may be seen as quirky, their benefit is established and proven.’

Here, MailOnline guides you through some of the weirdest weight hacks.

WHAT SHOULD A BALANCED DIET LOOK LIKE? 

Meals should be based on potatoes, bread, rice, pasta or other starchy carbohydrates, ideally wholegrain, according to the NHS

• Eat at least 5 portions of a variety of fruit and vegetables every day. All fresh, frozen, dried and canned fruit and vegetables count

• Base meals on potatoes, bread, rice, pasta or other starchy carbohydrates, ideally wholegrain

• 30 grams of fibre a day: This is the same as eating all of the following: 5 portions of fruit and vegetables, 2 whole-wheat cereal biscuits, 2 thick slices of wholemeal bread and large baked potato with the skin on

• Have some dairy or dairy alternatives (such as soya drinks) choosing lower fat and lower sugar options

• Eat some beans, pulses, fish, eggs, meat and other proteins (including 2 portions of fish every week, one of which should be oily)

• Choose unsaturated oils and spreads and consuming in small amounts

• Drink 6-8 cups/glasses of water a day

• Adults should have less than 6g of salt and 20g of saturated fat for women or 30g for men a day

Source: NHS Eatwell Guide  

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Cold showers

Swapping a hot shower for a freezing cold one may not sound the most pleasant — but it could help if you’re struggling to beat the bulge.

Exposure to icy temperatures has the potential to boost metabolism by activating so-called ‘brown fat’ in your body.

According to Kim Pearson, a Harley Street nutritionist who specialises in weight loss, the brown type is actually ‘good’ for you — unlike its white counterpart, which is seen in abundance around midriffs, bottoms and chins.

When exposed to temperature below 16C (61F), brown fat — which is found around the shoulder blades, spine and kidneys — attempts to keep the body warm.

It does so by burning excess calories stored in the body, usually in the form of white fat.

Scientists believe so-called cold therapy may, therefore, offer one way of tackling soaring rates of obesity and type 2 diabetes. 

Miss Pearson added: ‘Decreasing your body temperature can increase your metabolism because your body uses more energy trying to bring itself back up to a good heat.’

A Czech study published in 1996, in the European Journal of Applied Physiology and Occupational Physiology, found ‘athletic young men’ immersed in cold water at 14C (57F) for an hour three times a week for six weeks experienced a boost in their metabolic rate — the number of calories the body burns when resting.

However, if showering in cold water for a whole hour sounds excessive, you might be pleased to hear that just a few minutes could also make a difference.

An article published more recently, in a 2009 edition of the British Journal of Sports Medicine, found braving the cold water for less than five minutes has similar potent effects.

David Wiener, training and nutrition specialist at fitness app Freeletics, even said that the same logic applies to drinking cold water, instead of room temperature water.

However, the science is not yet quite as clear cut, with some estimating the body will burn just an extra four calories per glass of cold water.

Sitting at the table to eat 

Experts say being undistracted while you eat, like when sat at the dinner table, can subtly help you recognise when you are full

Purposefully sitting down to eat could help you lose weight, so long as it is at a table and not your desk.

Experts say being undistracted while you eat, like when sat at the dinner table, can subtly help you recognise when you are full. 

This is, they claim, because you stay more focused on your food, as opposed to watching the TV or a book.  

Miss Pearson said: ‘Taking time to eat more slowly and mindfully, rather than when we are on the go or distracted by devices, helps us recognise when we are getting full and prevent overeating.’

Research published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition broadly categorised eating patterns as ‘attentive,’ such as sitting quietly and recording what was eaten during a meal, or the exact opposite — ‘distracted.’

People who eat while distracted do not pay close attention to food and are not as aware of how much they have eaten, consuming 10 per cent more than those who are tuned-in at meal times, the study found.

Distracted eaters also ate 25 per cent more at their next meal, results showed.

Miss Pearson added: ‘Slow down your eating by getting into the habit of chewing your food thoroughly.’

Thirty chews per mouthful will ensure your food is fully soft before you swallow, in theory.

She said: ‘Eventually it will become natural to chew until your food is a soft pulp rather than full of solid chunks.’

Manually keeping track of what you eat could be the best way to kick bad habits, experts say

Keep a diary

Manually keeping track of what you eat could be the best way to kick bad habits, experts say.

North London personal trainer and online fitness coach, Chelsea Labadini, recommends using food tracking apps to count calories.

She said: ‘Use food trackers to see how many calories you are actually drinking and eating.

‘You will be shocked at how your calories can add up throughout the day and realise where your calories are coming from.

‘Whatever they add up to in a day have 500 calories less per day for the next week. Then you will lose 1lb in one week.’ 

Miss Pearson also suggests writing everything you eat down.

She said: ‘Keeping a food diary for a week can help keep attention to those mindless habits and make people aware of the things they are doing that are not helping them.’

However, experts and charities warn that tracking calories can lead people into an eating disorder.

While they can help with individual goals and motivation, adding them up can ‘trigger, maintain or worsen disordered eating symptoms’, they said. 

Therefore, counting calories can cause ‘more harm than good’, with food tracking apps in particular intensifying ‘the rigidity associated with calorie counting’, medics warn.

Sleep with a mask 

It is not only important to get plenty of sleep, but also to make sure your bedroom is dark, experts say

Getting your beauty sleep matters when it comes to losing weight.

Snoozing for the recommended seven to nine hours a night can stop you from reaching for the snacks in the day. 

As well as keeping your energy levels high to stay active the next day, it also helps curb cravings and regulate leptin and ghrelin — hormones which control hunger and appetite.

Miss Pearson said: ‘You can’t underestimate the amount of people who end up eating because they are tired.’

Nutrition specialist Mr Wiener advises people to stick to a sleep pattern, especially as daylight hours fade away in the autumn and winter months.

He said: ‘Your body clock should naturally adapt to the shorter autumn days but try to keep it in check by eating meals at a similar time each day and go to bed and wake-up at the same time.

‘When inevitably you do have a late night, try to get back in check the next day by sticking to regular mealtimes, rather than snacking, keep the body hydrated and get back to a normal sleep pattern.’

It is not only important to get plenty of sleep, but also to make sure your bedroom is dark.

Scientists say we should be turning off our phone, TV and lights before going to bed and even sleep wearing a mask.

A team at Northwestern University in Illinois found that those exposed to too much light through the night were more than 50 per cent at risk of being obese.

The study, published in the journal Sleep, monitored the light exposure of 550 volunteers in their sixties to eighties, for one week.

Some 41 per cent of participants who had fewer than five consecutive hours in the dark overnight were obese and one in five had diabetes. 

Meanwhile, the obesity rate was just 27 per cent among those who slept in the dark, while just one in 10 were diabetic.

The study, purely observational, did not prove being that bright flashes while your eyes are shut make you fat. But proof that light at night fuels weight gain is rapidly piling up.

Experts believe falling asleep with the light on may confuse the body clock. This could disrupt hormone levels, which can make people reach for more food.  

Eating food on a red plate has been found to prevent over-eating

Change the colour of your plates

On top of where you have your meals, the size and colour of the plate you use could also affect how much food you eat.

Eating food on a red plate has been found to prevent over-eating.

Professor Charles Spence, an experimental psychologist at Oxford University, set out in his 2018 book called Gastrophysics: The New Science of Eating, that the colour of the plate tricks the brain into having smaller meals.

He said: ‘Snack foods — unhealthy stuff on a red plate — you end up eating a little bit less because it’s that red colour on a plate where it seems to trigger some sort of danger or avoidance signal.

‘Red is a primitive danger signal, but it also gives the food less contrast which makes is less desirable, so you will eat less of it.’ 

Meanwhile, Belgian philosopher Franz Delboeuf found that smaller plates could help you eat less, according to his studies dating back to the 1860s. 

The Delboeuf illusion is one type of visual trick where a dot with a large circle around appears smaller than the same-sized dot surrounded by a small circle. 

The diagram forces the brain to perceive the dot in the context of the outer ring.

In theory, having a smaller plate may similarly trick people into thinking they have more food. 

However, a 2018 psychology study by researchers at University of the Negev in Israel, called this into question. They found that hungry people can identify portion sizes accurately, even if it is on a small plate. 

NHS GP Dr Zak recommends other ways of portioning your food.

He said: ‘Although picking smaller plates may seem like common sense, we tend to select portions that will fill that plate, irrespective of its diameter.

‘A good rule of thumb is to divide your plate into three, a third for meat or protein, a third for carbohydrates and the remainder for vegetables.

‘Each portion should not be larger than the size of your closed fist.’

Experts warn the sweeteners used in diet drinks can change the way your body responds to different foods

Ditch the diet drinks

In efforts to slim down many people switch from sugary drinks to diet fizzy drinks in order to cut out up to 100 calories a time. 

However, experts warn the sweeteners used in diet drinks may change the way your body responds to different foods.

Researchers at the University of Southern California found that the sugar alternative fails to trigger cells in the gut that inform the brain sugar and calories have been consumed — leaving the body still craving sugar.

Nutritionist Miss Pearson said we should still be classing diet fizzy drinks as a ‘treat’ even if they are better than the sugary alternative.

She said: ‘Your gut microbiome impacts how your body responds to different foods.’

A study published in 2019, shows gut microbiome affects metabolism through its production of short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs). These fatty acids increase fat burning and decrease fat storage.

Mr Wiener recommends drinking ginger tea instead of diet versions of Coca Cola, Pepsi and the like. 

He said: ‘Ginger tea is full of antioxidants and anti-inflammatory properties, which help you feel fuller for longer, decreasing the feeling of hunger.

‘It’s also full of potent diuretic and thermogenic properties, these properties help with boosting metabolism as well as encourages the body to use up more energy so, therefore you are burning more fat.’

HOW MUCH EXERCISE SHOULD I DO? 

Adults aged 19 to 64 are advised to exercise daily.

Health chiefs say people should do at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity activity a week, or 75 minutes of vigorous intensity a week. 

The advice is the same for disabled adults, pregnant women and new mothers.

But exercising just one or twice a week can reduce the risk of heart disease or stroke.

Moderate activity includes brisk walking, water aerobics, riding a bike, dancing, doubles tennis, pushing a lawn mower, hiking and rollerblading.

Vigorous exercise includes running, swimming, riding a bike fast or on hills, walking up stairs, as well as sports such as football, rugby, netball and hockey.

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Science

DeepMind AI tackles one of chemistry’s most valuable techniques

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The AI predicts the distribution of electrons within a molecule (illustration) and uses it to calculate physical properties.Credit: DeepMind

A team led by scientists at the London-based artificial-intelligence company DeepMind has developed a machine-learning model that suggests a molecule’s characteristics by predicting the distribution of electrons within it. The approach, described in the 10 December issue of Science1, can calculate the properties of some molecules more accurately than existing techniques.

“To make it as accurate as they have done is a feat,” says Anatole von Lilienfeld, a materials scientist at the University of Vienna.

The paper is “a solid piece of work”, says Katarzyna Pernal, a computational chemist at Lodz University of Technology in Poland. But she adds that the machine-learning model has a long way to go before it can be useful for computational chemists.

Predicting properties

In principle, the structure of materials and molecules is entirely determined by quantum mechanics, and specifically by the Schrödinger equation, which governs the behaviour of electron wavefunctions. These are the mathematical gadgets that describe the probability of finding a particular electron at a particular position in space. But because all the electrons interact with one another, calculating the structure or molecular orbitals from such first principles is a computational nightmare, and can be done only for the simplest molecules, such as benzene, says James Kirkpatrick, a physicist at DeepMind.

To get around this problem, researchers — from pharmacologists to battery engineers — whose work relies on discovering or developing new molecules have for decades relied on a set of techniques called density functional theory (DFT) to predict molecules’ physical properties. The theory does not attempt to model individual electrons, but instead aims to calculate the overall distribution of the electrons’ negative electric charge across the molecule. “DFT looks at the average charge density, so it doesn’t know what individual electrons are,” says Kirkpatrick. Most properties of matter can then be easily calculated from that density.

Since its beginnings in the 1960s, DFT has become one of the most widely used techniques in the physical sciences: an investigation by Nature’s news team in 2014 found that, of the top 100 most-cited papers, 12 were about DFT. Modern databases of materials’ properties, such as the Materials Project, consist to a large extent of DFT calculations.

But the approach has limitations, and is known to give the wrong results for certain types of molecule, even some as simple as sodium chloride. And although DFT calculations are vastly more efficient than those that start from basic quantum theory, they are still cumbersome and often require supercomputers. So, in the past decade, theoretical chemists have increasingly started to experiment with machine learning, in particular to study properties such as materials’ chemical reactivity or their ability to conduct heat.

Ideal problem

The DeepMind team has made probably the most ambitious attempt yet to deploy AI to calculate electron density, the end result of DFT calculations. “It’s sort of the ideal problem for machine learning: you know the answer, but not the formula you want to apply,” says Aron Cohen, a theoretical chemist who has long worked on DFT and who is now at DeepMind.

The team trained an artificial neural network on data from 1,161 accurate solutions derived from the Schrödinger equations. To improve accuracy, they also hard-wired some of the known laws of physics into the network. They then tested the trained system on a set of molecules that are often used as a benchmark for DFT, and the results were impressive, says von Lilienfeld. “This is the best the community has managed to come up with, and they beat it by a margin,” he says.

One advantage of machine learning, von Lilienfeld adds, is that although it takes a massive amount of computing power to train the models, that process needs to be done only once. Individual predictions can then be done on a regular laptop, vastly reducing their cost and carbon footprint, compared with having to perform the calculations from scratch every time.

Kirkpatrick and Cohen say that DeepMind is releasing their trained system for anyone to use. For now, the model applies mostly to molecules and not to the crystal structures of materials, but future versions could work for materials, too, the authors say.

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Health

Mindful eating: Techniques and tips to get started

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These behaviors and mindsets contrast with mindful eating, which means using all your physical and emotional senses to experience and enjoy the food choices you make without judgment, said Lilian Cheung, a lecturer and director of health promotion and communication in the nutrition department at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, via email.

It “stems from the broader philosophy of mindfulness, a widespread, centuries-old practice used in many religions,” Cheung said. “Mindfulness is an intentional focus on one’s thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations in the present moment.”

Mindful eating and intuitive eating philosophies overlap, but they differ in some key ways. While mindful eating is about being present to experience your food as you eat it, intuitive eating focuses more on improving one’s relationship with food and body image by rejecting external rigid diet messaging.

Mindful eating fits with all types of counseling and strategies for eating, weight and health. “It’s more user-friendly for a larger audience because it’s a tool that can be incorporated into a lot of different methods,” Young said.

These experts cautioned that mindful eating isn’t a panacea for food- or health-related issues, but small studies have suggested some benefits of the practice, largely based on its meditative aspects and abilities to help people distinguish physical hunger cues from emotional hunger. Some people have experienced weight loss or stability, anxiety and stress reduction, normalized eating habits, and relief from irritable bowel syndrome and gastrointestinal symptoms, Young said.

If you want to try mindful eating, here’s what else you should know about getting started and potential hurdles.

Practicing mindful eating

The goal of mindful eating is to become more in tune with all your senses — sight, smell, hearing, taste and feeling — and thoughts during your eating experiences without distraction, said Teresa T. Fung, a professor and director of the Didactic Program in Dietetics at Simmons University in Boston, and adjunct professor of nutrition at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

“When I’m going to eat breakfast, I’m not going to be holding my iPad and reading today’s news. I’m not checking my email on that. I’ll just sit in a quiet place — it could be a couch. I don’t have to sit at the dining room table,” Fung explained.

Fung walked CNN through her morning coffee experience: She would pay attention to the sound of her coffee brewing, then the scent. She would notice the color of her drink, its balance between cream and coffee. Then she can focus on whether the coffee itself feels as warm in her mouth as the mug does in her hands, or the liquid’s texture. As she sips, she could mentally note the flavors.

Gratitude is both an aspect and potential outcome of mindful eating. Heightening your awareness beyond yourself while eating, you could also think of “where the food came from, expressing gratitude for the environmental elements and individuals involved in the food’s journey to the plate,” said Cheung, the editorial director of The Nutrition Source, the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health nutrition department’s online resource for science-based guidance for healthy living.

You might be used to using your phone, watching television or reading while eating, but you can break the habit by gradually cutting out mealtime distractions. “If you eat dinner while watching TV most nights of the week, can you start by reserving Sunday night to eat mindfully? Then Monday, and so on?” Cheung said.

The same goes for those who have a busy schedule that complicates being able to solely focus on eating. Just try to practice mindful eating as much as you can — whether that’s for five minutes during lunchtime or during each meal and snack, doing what you can is better than nothing at all, these experts said.

If you feel impatient or the urge to grab your phone while eating, that’s OK, Cheung said. Just notice those feelings, take a few deep breaths, and return your attention to your meal. Take small bites and chew thoroughly, too. If you eat slowly, you’re more likely to recognize when you’re satisfied — rather than stuffed — and can stop eating.

“Sharing a meal or eating alongside others is certainly encouraged,” Cheung said, and mindful eating “doesn’t have to mean consuming your food in silence. Rather, aim to set aside a few minutes at the start of the meal: Smile to your peers, express your gratitude for the food and the company of others, and try the first few bites without talking to focus on the eating experience.”

Once you have been mindfully eating for a while, the mindset can apply to other areas of your life. “It can apply to mindful living and doing one thing at a time,” Fung said. “I’m going to check my emails now; I’m going to watch TV later. So often, we’re doing so many things at the same time that we’re multitasking, and we’re not paying attention to anything.”

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Science

In a First, Scientists Track 1 Million Neurons Near-Simultaneously in a Mouse Brain

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Researchers have managed to keep tabs on 1 million different neurons in the brains of mice at one time – taking scientists an impressive step closer towards one day being able to track the very-complex activity of human brains.

 

The key is an innovation that’s being called ‘light beads microscopy’. It improves on current two-photon microscopy, using lasers to trigger introduced fluorescence in living cells. As the cells are lit up, scientists can see how they’re moving and interacting.

With light beads microscopy, scientists can get the speed, scale, and resolution required to map a mouse brain in detail as its neural activity changes. The near-simultaneous tracking can last for as long as the light beads are able to stay illuminated.

“Understanding the nature of the brain’s densely interconnected network requires developing novel imaging techniques that can capture the activity of neurons across vastly separated brain regions at high speed and single-cell resolution,” says neuroscientist Alipasha Vaziri, from the Rockefeller University in New York.

“We need to capture many neurons at distant parts of the brain at the same time at high resolution. These parameters are almost mutually exclusive.”

In other words, current microscopy techniques have to choose between zooming in to get enough detail and missing out on everything that’s going on, or zooming out to see the whole picture and losing some of the finer details.

 

Light beads microscopy is able to overcome these limitations by removing the dead time between laser pulses – using a cavity of mirrors it splits each single strong pulse into 30 smaller sub pulses of different strengths, which are then all able to reach different depths while keeping the same level of fluorescence.

This means multiple depths can be visualized in the same pulse, giving scientists a deeper, faster look at what’s happening. The scientists have now demonstrated the technique to track 1 million neurons at once in a mouse brain.

“There’s no good reason why we didn’t do this five years ago,” says Vaziri. “It would have been possible – the microscope and laser technology existed. No one thought of it.”

Through light beads microscopy, the scientists are hoping to be able to track the interactions between the sensory, motor, and visual regions of the brain – not just in mice but in other animals too.

Interpreting and understanding the neural activity that’s being recorded will require another step forward, but the new study pushes forward the idea of what’s possible with this kind of microscopic analysis.

The better we can see inside the brain, the better we can work out how it operates – whether that’s the interplay between individual nerve cells or finding out which parts of the brain correspond to which feelings and emotions.

“Light beads microscopy will allow us to investigate biological questions in a way that had not been possible before,” says Vaziri.

The research has been published in Nature Methods.

 

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Health

Harsh parenting techniques ‘could impact a child’s brain development’

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) — Experts evaluated the anxiety levels in children who had been exposed to harsh parenting techniques.

Children who are regularly shouted at, hit or shaken could develop smaller brains in adolescence.

Harsh parenting techniques have been put under the microscope in a new study to determine if there is a link between this type of behavior and a child’s development. In many places around the world, harsh parenting is acceptable, but experts believe it may have a serious impact on young people.

“The implications go beyond changes in the brain,” said lead study author Sabrina Suffren, Ph.D., at Université de Montréal and the CHU Sainte-Justine Research Centre. “I think what’s important is for parents and society to understand that the frequent use of harsh parenting practices can harm a child’s development.

“We’re talking about their social and emotional development, as well as their brain development.”

Previous studies have shown that sexual and emotional abuse, as well as neglect, have been linked to depression and anxiety in later life. Child victims of these types of abuse were shown to have a smaller prefrontal cortex and amygdala, both of which play an important role in the regulation of emotions and anxiety and depression.

This new research has also concluded that these areas of the brain were smaller in adolescents who had been subjected to harsh parenting practices in their childhood.

We’re talking about their social and emotional development, as well as their brain development.

–Sabrina Suffren, Ph.D., at Université de Montréal and the CHU Sainte-Justine Research Centre

“These findings are both significant and new. It’s the first time that harsh parenting practices that fall short of serious abuse have been linked to decreased brain structure size, similar to what we see in victims of serious acts of abuse,” Suffren added.

The study annually evaluated the anxiety levels of children between the ages of 2 and 9, and the children were then divided into groups based on how exposed they had been to harsh parenting. Anxiety levels were analyzed again when the children were between the ages of 12 and 16, and anatomical MRIs were also performed.

The research was conducted in partnership with researchers from Stanford University and was published in the Development and Psychology journal.

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