5SR - March 26, 2024
Hitha on mifepristone, March Madness, and climateflation
A quick refresher - I’m Hitha Palepu, the founder of #5SmartReads. If you’d like to connect with me elsewhere, I’m most active on Instagram and write a weekly newsletter about smart, random things (check out the most recent issue). Looking forward to connecting there!
Mifepristone access is coming before the US Supreme Court. How safe is this abortion pill? (Associated Press)
Safer than ibuprofen - and you don’t see activists trying to rescind FDA’s authorization of a medication that’s in every home in this country.
And it’s certainly safer than Viagra - and no one’s questioning the safety of that medication.
Mifepristone has been rigorously studied and monitored since it was authorized by the FDA in 2000. Its earlier restrictions on distribution have been relaxed in recent years because of the clinical data, and the journalists who wrote this piece show a deeper understanding of the literature cited in the mifepristone cases (two articles which have been retracted by a journal), as well as more accurate studies and articles.
What terrifies me about this case is the continued attack on our reproductive healthcare and the dangerous precedent this sets for other medications’ FDA authorization to be withdrawn for politics’ sake.
This 5-step method can quickly get a messy house back in order (NPR)
I went on a rage tidying spree in my closet before I left for Texas, and I’m still feeling the seratonin boost whenever I think about my perfectly folded t-shirts and my tightly rolled pajamas nestled in their drawer.
When I’m feeling stressed and anxious, you’ll know it when you walk into my room. There will be little piles of clothes, random clutter from my purses, and books throughout the space. These clutter piles are caused by my emotional state, as is the act of cleaning them.
This article offers a helpful reframe on how to channel my anxious control self energy into a more fruitful - and decluttering - channel, with this easy 5 step tidying method. It’s the advice you’ve likely heard before, but I needed this reminder and this framework. If you’re in a similar boat, I hope this helps you too.
I couldn’t tell you anything about last year’s men’s March Madness tournament. I could - and I would - recount details from LSU, South Carolina, and Iowa’s tremendous runs.
Women’s college basketball (and honestly, the WNBA for me) is more fun to watch right now. And in the case of college basketball, the women’s teams are doing the most with a fraction of the resources of the men’s teams.
And I’m not referring to the training room debacle from a few years back. Let’s talk about the March Madness brand, which the NCAA allowed the women’s tournament to begin using just 2 years ago.
Numbers don’t lie - and The Gist collected all the receipts. And I, for one, am rooting my Hawkeyes and Caitlin Clark to go all the way (my dad graduated from Iowa with his Ph.D and they were my very first sports love).
'When I had cancer, I promised I'd never tell myself I couldn't do something' (Women’s Health)
Leanne Hainsby’s Peloton rides were my saving grace last year, before and after my hysterectomy.
Knowing what she had endured in her breast cancer surgery and treatment and showing up with her on the bike kept me in a much better headspace, and I continue to ride with her and soak up all that good energy.
You don’t need a Peloton to soak in Leanne’s positivity - this interview, in advance of her running the London Marathon, is really inspiring to me. One of my 2024 goals is to get outside more and get back into running, and Hainsby has me looking up some 5K and 10K races in the city.
This is the energy I’m bringing into my own running journey:
'With the running, I'm building it up. I'm not going to be the fastest or the best and that's okay. I'm running my own race. It's a newfound enjoyment and a great challenge mentally and physically.'
The era of "climateflation" is here, study shows (Axios)
I think some level of inflation is here to stay. I’ll give you one guess as to why.
“The study shows that food inflation could increase by as much as 3 percentage points per year in the next decade due to "climateflation," while climate factors cause overall inflation to climb by between 0.3 percentage points per year to about 1.2 percentage points per year…
…and during the summer months, extratropical regions, such as the U.S. and Europe, are vulnerable to more sudden inflation increases from extreme heat events. This was seen in Europe during its record-hot summer of 2022.
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