Wednesday, July 01, 2026

 Feeling physically and mentally well is our own individual obligation. Andrew Huberman

 

It’s the birthday of French novelist George Sand, born Lucile Aurore Dupin in Paris (1804). She was raised by her grandmother at the family’s estate in rural Berry in central France, and was sent to an English convent in Paris to be educated. Although she started out as a troublemaker, Aurore underwent a spiritual conversion and decided to become a nun. She was an enthusiastic convert, and the other girls called her “Saint Aurore.” When her grandmother discovered her granddaughter’s intentions, she promptly removed her from the convent and brought her home.

Back in Berry, she abandoned her dreams of the convent and did whatever she pleased. She loved to ride horseback, and her tutor at the time encouraged her to wear men’s clothing since it was more comfortable, so she rode all over the countryside in pants and a loose shirt. She smoked tobacco, learned to shoot, and flirted outrageously with all the local men. When her grandmother died, she inherited her money and estate.

She briefly went to Paris to live with her mother, then got married and had two children. But her marriage soon deteriorated — her husband drank too much and was unfaithful. She fell in love with other men, including the novelist Jules Sandeau. Her relationship with Sandeau was short-lived, but while they were together, they co-wrote a novel, Rose et Blanche (1831). It was published under Sandeau’s pseudonym, J. Sand. When the publisher asked for another book, she had one written entirely by her, but Sandeau did not want it under his pen name. As a compromise, she published her new novel, Indiana (1832), under the name George Sand. It was a big success.

She was a prolific writer; she wrote more than 90 novels, 35 plays, and a multivolume autobiography.

Sand was one of the most famous women of her time, not just for her writing but for her scandalous behavior — everything from her men’s clothing and cigars to her sexual exploits were in the public eye. She had a long string of lovers, including Frédéric Chopin, and her many friends included Honoré de Balzac, Émile Zola, Eugène Delacroix, Ivan Turgenev, and Gustave Flaubert. Sand and Flaubert were especially close, although the two novelists disagreed on just about everything from politics to the role of women to the purpose of art. They spent long hours together, smoking and discussing literature and humanity; they exchanged frequent letters, and read each other’s unpublished work. Sand was 17 years older than Flaubert; he addressed his letters to her “dear master,” while she addressed hers “friend of my heart.”

She said: “The world will know and understand me someday. But if that day does not arrive, it does not greatly matter. I shall have opened the way for other women.”

Writing is hard work. It is gathering ten times as much material as can ever be used. This information has to be gleaned to get the best possible use from it. The reader has to be convinced that the writer knows what he is writing about.

JOHN STEINBECK

 Between my junior and senior year in college, I worked at No. 9 Park. I’d applied for a dishwasher prep-cook job, and they were short-staffed in their pastry department, so I was the pastry plater. People were passing me food to taste, the foie gras and the prune gnocchi. That experience really caused me to think, “I could do this.” Chef Marc Sheehan

I like eating at places that feel kind of classic, that feel like home. I lived in Quincy for a long time, and I loved going to Denly Gardens in Weymouth. It’s a pizza place that’s been there since 1933. You order your pizza, you might wait 45 minutes to an hour, and it’s cash-only. The bar doesn’t have any seats; it has a rail that you lean on. It’s this thin, Roman-style pizza. They import all their products from Italy. You can just order a plate of anchovies that come with Scali bread and pats of butter that are still wrapped in little gold foil. Chef Marc Sheehan

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/07/01/lifestyle/marc-sheehan-northern-spy-revolutionary-era/ 

Asian Slaw and Thai Turkey

 https://www.feastingathome.com/thai-turkey-burgers/

She moved from Paris to Vermont and found her ‘dream job’ opening a bakery

Shelley MacDonald opened Burlington’s Belleville Bakery, and it’s become one of the city’s gems.

The all-butter croissants at Belleville Bakery & Catering in Burlington, Vt.Sheryl Julian

BURLINGTON, Vt. — Shelley MacDonald and her husband, both Canadian citizens, had been living in Paris for over a decade when the pandemic hit. She’d been selling baked goods and hosting a dinner club called Paris Bread in their apartment. She wanted to open a business in the United States, where she could operate in English. It was time to leave, except that, at the moment, only American passport holders could fly into the United States.

With ingenuity and grit, the couple discovered a visa for foreign entrepreneurs and secured one from the American Embassy the day it reopened after lockdown. Once their passports were stamped, they had 30 days to fly out and move everything they owned to this picturesque college town.

Since 2022, MacDonald has run Belleville Bakery & Catering near City Hall in Burlington, Vt., down the street from the University of Vermont. She’s training staff, including students, and offering confections you might see in a Parisian patisserie, most not as fancy. She has different varieties of all-butter croissants, cinnamon snails and feta-garlic snails made with croissant trimmings, tempting lunch items such as bacon cheddar quiche and tuna sandwiches with smoked Gouda on homemade onions buns, and dinners such as lasagna, rigatoni, and chicken pot pie to take home.

Shelley MacDonald, a Canadian citizen, lived in Paris before moving to Burlington.Sheryl Julian

“I think the town is adorable with kind people who help you when you don’t need to be helped,” says MacDonald, sitting in the bright bakery. “There’s something very special about Vermont.”

She and her husband — the hyperrealist painter André Beaulieu — picked Burlington because they had visited often when they lived in his hometown, Montreal. “The real reason is so that I could open a business in English,” she told her 48,000 Instagram followers, “so that I could function in my native language, for all of the reading and writing and dealing with lawyers and accountants and plumbers that you need to do when you own a business.”

MacDonald describes their new situation as “the best of both possible worlds, where I get to live in English in a really cute space, and he gets to live with me in English in a really cute space and he’s really close to home.” She describes her business as her “dream job.”

The 100-year-old building whose storefront she renovated is large and airy, with bakers in the kitchen in full view making croissant and brioche doughs, prepping cookie batters and galette pastry.

Quiches at Belleville Bakery.Sheryl Julian

MacDonald moves quickly, laughs easily, and greets customers warmly. “People come into a bakery looking for a treat and some kind of care,” she says. When you’ve finished eating, you don’t have to take your plates and cups to various bins for recycle and trash. That system horrifies her. “No bussing,” she says. “We take care of you.”

Her clientele skews older, she has noticed, and they’re looking for somewhere to go. “The demand is enormous,” she says. She describes her personality as “Shelley takes care of people.” Remembering her days running an underground restaurant, MacDonald now offers twice-monthly Sunday brunches and dinners, both served at a long table farmhouse-style so everyone talks to their neighbors.

MacDonald, who is willing to throw everything at the wall and see what sticks, also has a successful mail-order arm to send cookies across the country. They’re thick and perfectly round in flavors such as orange gingersnap, pistachio chocolate, and lemon pistachio shortbread.

She also gives classes in the bakery and writes a weekly newsletter, which she snail-mails for free. “People are lonely,” she says. They want to receive real mail.

Feta-garlic snails at Belleville Bakery.Sheryl Julian

Born and raised in Halifax, Nova Scotia, MacDonald, 59, also lived in Vancouver. She met Beaulieu in Montreal. His large, striking artworks hang in the bakery.

In order to get a US E-2 Investor Visa, they had to invest $15,000 in a new US company (some applicants invest considerably more) and have secured premises in the destination city. Sight-unseen, they rented a painting studio in The Soda Plant in Burlington for Beaulieu, which qualified them.

The bakery’s name is the English version of Beaulieu’s surname. Beaulieu means “beautiful place,” she says. Belleville, which means “beautiful city,” is easier for Americans to spell.

Burlington Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak, who happened to be there when I was — she said she stops by often since her office is so close — describes the bakery as “loveliness in this corner. [MacDonald] draws people into this community.”

Cinnamon snails at Belleville Bakery.Sheryl Julian

The bakery has become known for its I am Proud of Me Banana Cake. It’s really banana bread, but when MacDonald made it in France, customers wondered why it was called bread.

When you buy one, MacDonald asks you what you’re proud of. She’s heard many comments, mostly emotional. One woman in her 20s was going to drive on the highway for the first time, someone else was excited to have completed exams. Then a man came in to say he was proud of his wife for finishing chemo.

“She’d been planning this cake during her treatment,” MacDonald told a local TV reporter who did a segment on her. Donations started coming in so other cancer patients at the local hospital could get a banana cake; MacDonald also sends cakes to a palliative care center and a teen drop-in center.

Those efforts came to the attention of a program director at the University of Vermont, who called MacDonald in the middle of Vermont’s dark, cold February winter. The administrator was running a mental health day for freshmen. She bought 100 banana cakes from MacDonald and asked her to come and hand them out.

The line was an hour long. Students waited patiently, not just to get an I am Proud of Me Banana Cake, but also for a moment to tell MacDonald what was on their mind.

Belleville Bakery & Catering, 217 College St., Burlington, Vt., www.bellevillevt.com


Sheryl Julian can be reached at sheryl.julian@globe.com.

Tuesday, June 30, 2026

“The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.” ― Nir Eyal, Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life

Breathwork

 https://health.clevelandclinic.org/breathwork

Breathwork for Beginners: What To Know and How To Get Started

Breathing techniques may help move your body into a more relaxed and stress-free state

As ’80s film icon Ferris Bueller once said, “Life comes at you fast.” But when things seem to be moving a bit too quickly for you to handle, breathing techniques can help melt your stress away.

Functional and integrative medicine specialist Melissa Young, MD, explains the science of breathing and how embracing the art of breathwork can bring you the peace and calm you crave, even in the most hectic of moments.

What is breathwork?

Breathwork refers to breathing techniques that intentionally channel and focus on the breath. For thousands of years, Eastern medicine practices, including Ayurveda and traditional Chinese medicine, have employed breathing techniques to calm the body and the mind.

“Our minds tend to be very active, often thinking about the past and worrying about the future instead of residing in the present moment,” Dr. Young explains. “This can lead to the activation of stress hormones for extended periods of time, which can have adverse effects on the body. Chronic stress increases the risk of a number of diseases and disease processes in the body.”

It’s no secret that mental and emotional stress can manifest in physical ways, playing a role in issues like:

But stress management techniques — including breathwork — are one way to help you step back from the chaos and keep your mind and body healthy.

Breathwork benefits

Breathwork helps calm you down and move your body and mind out of fight-or-flight mode. To understand how, though, you need to know about your autonomic nervous system, which consists of two parts:

  • Your sympathetic nervous system is responsible for your body’s “fight-or-flight” response. This system’s activity increases when you’re stressed or in danger.
  • Your parasympathetic nervous system is the “rest-and-digest” part of your brain, responsible for relaxing your body after periods of stress or danger.

Fight-or-flight mode is helpful when you’re being chased by a bear or fleeing a burning building. But these days, many of us are in a mental fight-or-flight mode even when our bodies aren’t under physical duress — think major work deadlines, upsetting news headlines, financial woes, arguments with your spouse and more.

“We need our sympathetic nervous system to be aware of danger in our environment, but in today’s society, we’re too often in fight-or-flight mode when we’re not actually in danger,” Dr. Young explains. “We need to be able to tap into our parasympathetic nervous system to be able to calm sensations of stress.

Breathwork, then, is a way to activate your body’s parasympathetic nervous system and help you de-escalate and de-stress. That can also lead to all kinds of positive feelings.

“Breathwork helps us with focus and energy, which can lead to a better quality of life where there’s space for joy and fun,” Dr. Young adds. “If we’re constantly in a state of stress and tension, it’s very hard to find those important qualities in life.”

Joy and fun? Yes, please! Plus, breathwork is one of the most accessible wellness practices out there. Anyone can do it, regardless of age or other medical conditions, so long as you find the breathing techniques that work best for you.

Types and techniques

There are a variety of breathwork techniques you can try, all of them with a similar goal — to help you destress. “It’s all about finding the technique that resonates with you,” Dr. Young notes. “There are so many that it can be exciting to try different ones to see what works for you.”

You can also tap into different techniques at different times, depending on your goal and your circumstances. Box breathing, for example, can be done on the go from just about anywhere (OK, not while you’re driving), while 4-7-8 breathing, which is a bit more complex, is great for helping you fall into a deep sleep.

Here’s a look at various types of breathwork practices, what they can do for you and when you might want to try them.

Diaphragmatic breathing

When you do diaphragmatic breathing, you engage your diaphragm, a powerful muscle at the base of your lungs. Also known as abdominal breathing or belly breathing, this technique has been shown to help lower blood pressure and heart rate, and it’s especially beneficial for people with lung conditions.

But anyone can do it — and Dr. Young says it’s a good starting point for breathwork newbies.

“This is a perfect place to start, especially if you’re new to breathwork because you can do it either sitting or lying down, just focusing on your belly gently rising with your breath in and falling with your breath out,” Dr. Young encourages. “It’s a great way to relax and relieve stress.”

When to try it: Honestly … any time! “If you’re in a stressful situation, no one even needs to know you’re practicing a little bit of slow breathing,” she says. And practicing for just a few minutes a day will allow you to better tap into it in times of stress.

Box breathing

Box breathing is one of the simplest and most common forms of yogic deep breathing.

Like a box, which has four sides, this technique has four steps: Four counts of breathing in, four counts of holding your breath, four counts of exhaling and four more counts of holding after your exhale.

“As you’re breathing, you’re also silently counting, which is a kind of mantra meditation that can calm the nervous system and anchor you into the present moment,” Dr. Young notes. “It helps bring us back into our bodies and away from the distractions of the world.”

When to try it: As one of the most accessible forms of breathwork, box breathing is another great anytime practice. Do it when you need a quick midday pick-me-up from your desk or when you’re trying to chill out after somebody cuts you in line at the coffee shop.

4-7-8 breathing

The 4-7-8 breathing technique can be done while sitting comfortably or lying down before bedtime.

The numbers refer to how long you inhale (four counts), hold (seven counts) and exhale (eight counts.) “This kind of breathing can help us focus our mind and our body away from worries and repetitive thoughts,” Dr. Young says.

When to try it: Who needs sheep? 4-7-8 breathing has been shown to help you get a good night’s sleep by calming the mind, reducing anxiety and decreasing heart rate and blood pressure.

Alternate nostril breathing

Sometimes called channel-clearing breath, alternate nostril breathing, known in Sanskrit as Nadī Shodhana, has historically been said to clear energy blockages and bring about inner balance (though, there’s no scientific evidence of those claims). Studies do show that it may help sharpen your focus and energy, making you feel not just calm, but also invigorated.

“To do it, you isolate each nostril, breathing in through only one of them at a time and then exhaling through the other,” Dr. Young explains. It takes some practice to get it right, but once you get the hang of it, it can be a powerful relaxation tool.

When to try it: Give this one a go in the middle of a stressful workday or before a big presentation to get yourself feeling clear-headed and ready to conquer the world.

Pursed lip breathing

Pursed lip breathing is a way to slow down your breathing and reduce your stress levels. To “purse” your lips, you pinch them inward, sort of like you would do to blow a kiss, then you slowly inhale through your nose and gently exhale through pursed lips.

It’s been shown to benefit people with lung conditions, like asthma and pulmonary fibrosis, who experience breathing troubles. But again, anyone can do it.

When to try it: Pursed lip breathing can help make physical exertion a little bit easier, so you may want to use it for activities like lifting and climbing stairs. But it’s best to practice it while you’re at rest, first, so you can really get the hang of it. It can also help you in prolonging your exhale, for example in the 4-7-8 breath exercise.

Lion’s breath

There’s very little research on the science of this one in particular, but lion’s breath, also known as simha pranayamais thought to help relieve anxiety and bring about a sense of calm. Hakuna matata!

“When you do lion’s breath, you stick your tongue out as you exhale and make a big, whooshing ‘haaaa,’ sound,” Dr. Young explains. “It’s not a roar, exactly, but it’s a sort of yogic interpretation of one.”

When to try it: If social anxiety has you feeling on edge before (or even during) a get-together or large gathering, sneak off by yourself to do a couple rounds of this king-of-the-jungle-style breathing technique.

Five-finger breathing

Five-finger breathing is a simple, powerful breathing technique that’s been shown to induce deep relaxation.

“Unlike other types of breathwork, this one is a multisensory practice,” Dr. Young states, “In addition to your breathing, also focus on the movement and sensation of one of your fingers slowly and intentionally tracing the other hand.”

When to try it: Some healthcare providers recommend that their patients do five-finger breathing before heading into surgery, as it’s thought to help your brain enter a state of deep relaxation and release endorphins — your body’s natural painkillers.

Holotropic breathwork

Holotropic breathing uses rapid, controlled breathing patterns to help you enter what’s often referred to as an “altered state of consciousness,” a dream-like experience that can help you cope with mental health conditions like depression, anxiety and chronic stress.

When to try it: This technique is a behavioral health therapy employed to help people cope with trauma, so it’s one you shouldn’t try without a trained facilitator. If you’re new to breathwork, try one of the other options on this list instead, and bring your questions about holotropic breathwork to your mental health provider.

Breathwork meditation

Breathwork and meditation don’t always have to go together — but they can. If you hear the term “breathwork meditation” or “meditative breathwork,” they’re referring to combining elements of both practices.

“There are many different techniques for helping to calm the body and the mind,” Dr. Young says. “Both breathwork and meditation can serve as an interface between the body and the mind, and we can either separate them out or combine them.”

Body scan meditation, for example, harnesses deep breathing and mindfulness to help you feel grounded, aware and connected to your body.

When to try it: Do a body scan meditation during a stressful day or after a difficult workout to become more in tune with your body and how you’re feeling.

Tips for starting a breathwork practice

Dr. Young shares tips for getting started with breathing techniques.

  • Find someplace quiet. You can do breathwork just about anywhere, but when you’re starting out, it’s best to carve out a peaceful time and space for it. “At least to start, sit in a quiet place, if you can,” Dr. Young advises.
  • Don’t pressure yourself to empty your mind. Once you start paying close attention to your thoughts, you’ll likely begin to realize how active they are. This can be disheartening to people who think the point of breathwork or meditation is to rid themselves of all thoughts — but that’s just not realistic. “The mind is active, so you can’t actually make it stop thinking,” Dr. Young reassures. “Part of learning these techniques is to become aware of when your mind is wandering.”
  • Focus on a word or mantra. So, what should you think? It can help to choose a phrase or a singular word to think about as you breathe. “It’s the act of coming back to those anchors, as we call them, that helps to retrain the nervous system and the grooves in our brain and nervous system to create new patterns,” she explains.
  • Practice five to 10 minutes a day. Practice doesn’t make perfect, but it sure does help. “When you do breathwork on a regular basis, you retrain your nervous system so that it can go into that relaxation response much more easily in the future,” Dr. Young adds.

To hear more on this topic, listen to the Health Essentials Podcast episode, “Breathwork for Beginners.” New episodes of the Health Essentials Podcast publish every Wednesday.

Gene Simmons Urges Seniors to Fight Stillness at 76 — One Morning Command Turns Aging Into Action

Posted June 28, 2026

Gene Simmons is not interested in treating aging like a quiet exit, and his message lands with the kind of no-nonsense force fans expect from the KISS icon. At 76, Simmons has turned one simple morning command into a personal philosophy: get up, get moving, and keep that heart working.

For Simmons, the real danger is not the number on a birthday cake. It is the moment someone decides they are finished chasing energy, pleasure, connection, or a reason to wake up with purpose. His outlook is blunt, physical, and almost defiant against the idea that later life should automatically become smaller.

“Get up every day and pump that heart” is not exactly a soft-focus wellness slogan. It is Simmons at full volume, treating each morning like a challenge rather than a routine, and refusing to let stillness become a permanent state of mind. In his view, the body and spirit can both start fading when people stop participating in their own lives.

The rock veteran’s advice goes beyond exercise, even though movement is clearly at the center of it. He speaks about sleeping well, eating well, enjoying affection, and finding moments that make life feel worth living. The message is not about chasing youth or pretending time does not move; it is about refusing to surrender to time before it has truly taken anything away.

Simmons has built a career around spectacle, stamina, and the ability to turn up the volume when everyone else expects the show to be over. That same instinct now appears in the way he talks about aging. He does not frame later years as a sentimental retreat filled with polite acceptance; he frames them as a daily decision to stay engaged.

There is something strikingly human beneath the larger-than-life rock-star delivery. Simmons is not promising that every day will feel easy, glamorous, or fearless. Instead, he is insisting that waking up with intention matters, especially when staying in bed or withdrawing from the world might seem more comfortable.

His challenge is aimed at anyone who has started treating life like a waiting room. Stop moving, stop seeking joy, stop reaching for connection, and the world can begin to feel finished long before it actually is. Simmons’ answer is simple: move first, then let the rest follow.

That urgency gives his words more weight than a standard celebrity fitness speech. He is not selling perfection, and he is not demanding that anyone become a rock star in platform boots. He is arguing for momentum — for the radical act of getting up, caring for yourself, enjoying the people around you, and giving your heart another reason to keep beating strong.

At 76, Gene Simmons is still refusing to whisper. His morning order is loud, direct, and impossible to misunderstand: life is not over because it gets harder. Get up, pump that heart, and make the day prove it.

A Century of Laughter

 

Legendary comedian and filmmaker Mel Brooks reached his 100th birthday. The EGOT-winning creator of classics like Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein joins a very short, historic list of comedy legends to achieve the century mark. [1, 2]
The few comedians and entertainers who have reached 100 years of age feature a mix of living icons and late legends: [1, 2]
  • Mel Brooks (Born June 28, 1926): The iconic writer, director, and "2000 Year Old Man" recently celebrated his 100th birthday. He remains actively involved in the industry, including executive producing and reprising his role as Yogurt in Spaceballs: The New One. [1, 2, 3]
  • George Burns (1896–1996): The beloved vaudeville, radio, and TV legend lived to be exactly 100 years and 49 days old. He notoriously claimed he would "never die" and continued booking stand-up and film appearances well into his 90s. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
  • Bob Hope (1903–2003): The celebrated entertainer, stand-up comedian, and actor lived to the age of 100. He is famous for his decades of USO tours and his relentless wit. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

 

Carol Burnett Is Still Going Strong and Living in the Now

The Queen of Comedy discusses sorrow, laughter and her childhood

 

What cabin fever?

My heart goes out to people who are ill or lost their job — it's just mind-boggling. So I can't complain. I'm safe. I've got my husband, a home and food on the table. We do crossword puzzles and play Scrabble and watch old movies. But I miss seeing my kids, my grandchildren and my friends, and when all this is over, I just want to throw a great big hugging party.

Define ‘tough'

Some people say I had a tough childhood. It wasn't that tough. We were poor, but I was never hungry. My mama and dad were alcoholics, and they were divorced. But I had my grandmother, and she raised me. We had one room; I slept on the couch until I was 21; Nanny was on the Murphy bed. She was funny! She used to look under the bed every night. I'd say, “What are you looking for, Nanny?” She'd say, “Randolph Scott.”

Here I come! Eventually …

Growing up in Los Angeles, we'd fly kites and roller-skate and play Jungle Girl. I taught myself the Tarzan yell when I was about 9. I was also editor of my high school paper. My intent was to go to UCLA and major in journalism, but we didn't have the money. Tuition was $43. One morning I got a letter. Inside was a $50 bill. I don't know, to this day, who sent that.

Patience, patience!

When I went to New York, I was auditioning for something and I thought I had it. But another girl got it. Instead of being discouraged, I thought, It's her turn. It's not my turn. My turn will come. It saved me from being disappointed.

Paying forward

If someone had told me 52 years ago that our little show [The Carol Burnett Show] would be viable today, I would have said, “You're crazy!” But it has held up because we were never that topical — we just went for the laugh.

Choose happiness

My daughter Carrie got into drugs. In that situation, don't be their best friend. When we got her into a third rehab, oh, she hated my guts! You have to love them enough to let them hate you. She got sober before her 18th birthday, and we had a good 20 years — we were joined at the hip for a while there. Carrie died of cancer at 38. But in the hospital she said, “Every day I wake up and decide, today I'm going to love my life.” And that was her mantra.

Divine inspiration

Before the pandemic, I did shows where the audience asked questions. About 10 years ago, in Texas, a lady said, “If you could be a member of the opposite sex for 24 hours, who would you be and what would you do?” And I said a little prayer: OK, God. Whatever comes out of my mouth is going to be your fault. And out tumbled, “I'd be Osama bin Laden, and I'd kill myself.” The audience went nuts.

Don't forget to laugh

I've lost a lot of people — Tim Conway and Lyle Waggoner and Ken Berry in just the past couple of years. You learn to cope and also to live in the now. And you have to laugh. —As told to Alanna Nash

Carol Burnett, 87, appears next in the Netflix drama All Together Now. The Carol Burnett Show can be streamed on Shout! Factory TV.