Fortune Well

"There’s a big difference between loving to work and loving the work." To be truly happy in life, Apple CEO Tim Cook recommends finding a paid job that aligns with your sense of purpose. In a fireside chat with the students at the University of Glasgow, Cook said, "You have to find the intersection of doing something you’re passionate about and at the same time something that is in the service of other people. I would argue that, if you don’t find that intersection, you’re not going to be very happy in life.” Here's how to find your purpose: bit.ly/48IPQKr

Bright light therapy can help non-seasonal depression as well as SAD, finds a new study published in JAMA Psychiatry. “Major depressive disorder (MDD) is currently the leading cause of functional disability and one of the most critical mental health issues,” write the authors, a group of doctors and medical students in Brazil and Argentina, in the study’s introduction. But the estimated response rate to initial treatment works only about half of the time, they note, eventually requiring alternatives. “Given this,” they explain, “bright light therapy (BLT) has been studied as a potential adjunctive treatment for MDD, as light exposure is well understood to affect human mood and cognitive function.” Read more: bit.ly/3Y7hQ8B

Condoms are no longer a fact of life for young Americans. Fewer young people are having sex, but the teens and young adults who are sexually active aren’t using condoms as regularly, if at all. And people ages 15 to 24 made up half of new chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis cases in 2022. The downward trend in condom usage is due to a few things: medical advancements like long-term birth control options and drugs that prevent sexually transmitted infections; a fading fear of contracting HIV; and widely varying degrees of sex education in high schools. Is this the end of condoms? Not exactly. But it does have some public health experts thinking about how to help younger generations have safe sex, be aware of their options—condoms included—and get tested for STIs regularly. Read more: bit.ly/3ZM3mMJ

“Everybody does a better job when they’re able to balance." In a 2012 Inforum interview, Mary Barra, now General Motors' CEO and the No. 1 woman on Fortune Most Powerful Women list emphasized the importance of work-life balance for success. Read more about Mary Barra and her EV transformation at GM in the latest #FortuneMPW issue of Fortune Magazine. bit.ly/4gP9oC3

Just five weeks remain until the election of the 47th U.S. president. And more than half of Americans say protecting Medicare and reducing healthcare costs are among the most important issues influencing their choices at the ballot box, a new survey finds. Two-thirds of respondents think health care isn’t receiving enough attention in the 2024 campaign. Survey participants reported candidates’ positions on the following health care issues were the “single most important” or “among the most important” factor(s) in determining their vote for president on Nov. 5: ➡️ Protecting Medicare/Social Security: 63% ➡️ Reducing the cost of health care: 57% ➡️ Lowering drug costs: 47% ➡️ Policies related to mental health care access: 43% Read more: bit.ly/4dBqa4N

Here's the latest wisdom on doing breast self-exams. 👇🏽 Research shows that BSE doesn’t offer the early detection and survival benefits of other screening tests, such as mammograms. According to a meta-analysis of large controlled trials comparing women who did routine breast self-exams to those who didn’t, there was no difference in breast cancer survival. Further, women who did BSE had more false-positive results, prompting nearly twice as many breast biopsies with no cancer found. Dr. Larry Norton, an oncologist with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center says, "These sources are not saying that it shouldn’t be done. They are saying that they can’t find randomized, prospective evidence [the gold standard for effective research] that it helps, and that’s a very different statement.” Read more: bit.ly/4dqs9ZX

Two-thirds of respondents think health care isn’t receiving enough attention in the 2024 campaign. With just five weeks remaining until the election of the 47th U.S. president, more than half of Americans say protecting Medicare and reducing health care costs are among the most important issues influencing their choices at the ballot box, a new survey finds. Read more: https://lnkd.in/dy5FYRg2

For people with Medicare, if ever there was a year to take its Open Enrollment (Oct. 15 to Dec. 7) seriously and choose coverage carefully, this is it. “It’s going to be challenging,” says Philip Moeller, author of the newly revised and updated “Get What’s Yours for Medicare: Maximize Your Coverage, Minimize Your Costs,” coming out Oct. 8. And, Moeller tells Fortune, don’t assume that your Medicare plans in 2024 will necessarily offer the same coverage and costs in 2025. “I think such assumptions are dangerous,” he notes. Read more: bit.ly/3ZP64RI

About 47% of U.S. adults aged 50 and older said they were very or somewhat unlikely to get the new 2024–25 COVID-19 vaccine. Even if you’re otherwise healthy, your immune system naturally slows and weakens as you age. “We know that this virus is most likely to cause severe illness in the oldest people, with people over age 75 accounting for nearly half of all COVID-19 hospitalizations since last fall, and at least 44,000 deaths of people over age 65 directly due to COVID-19 last year,” Dr. Preeti Malani, a senior advisor to the poll and an infectious disease physician at Michigan Medicine said in a news release. “The vaccine offers protection against illness, including severe illness, in people of all ages, especially those who have underlying health issues.” Read more: bit.ly/3XRLHR9

Aging is not a steady, linear process. In fact, aging, particularly metabolism slowing and skin wrinkling, may happen in what Stanford researchers describe as “age-related waves.” The findings, published in the Nature Aging journal, found that the body’s molecules and the microbes experience rapid change at two key intervals: ages 44 and 60.   Here's how you can offset the effects of aging: