Plus more health news  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

Mandy Oaklander | August 22, 2026     It’s a common experience: wanting to care for and help someone who’s struggling with their mental health, but not knowing the right things to say or do. In her weekend essay, Joan M. Cook, a professor in the psychiatry department at the Yale School of Medicine, writes about the best ways to enhance your mental-health literacy. TODAY’S TOPICS Getting smarter about mental health Got a question for us? Why psychedelics feel cosmic         WEEKEND ESSAY How to increase mental-health literacy By Joan M. Cook aleksandarvelasevic—Getty Images Imagine that someone you love starts turning down opportunities to attend social gatherings like going to the movies, picnics, and parties. Then this person stops responding consistently to your texts, avoids eye contact when you do get together, and seems to be losing their energy or spark. They have trouble keeping up with daily routines and talk a lot about physical struggles such as headaches and stomach aches. Something doesn’t feel right to you, but you’re not sure what is happening or what to do. Imagine now if the person all these things are happening to is you. Nearly one in seven people worldwide have a mental-health disorder. With the prevalence of mental disorders so high, odds are we all know and love someone who is struggling. But most of us have limited understanding of mental health, and sometimes misguided or inaccurate knowledge. If we improve our understanding, this could help us better identify when we are in distress and get the help we need. It can also potentially assist us in helping friends, family members, neighbors, and co-workers. As a psychologist, I believe we could all benefit from increased mental-health literacy. Read the full essay here.         SPONSORED Afternoon energy. Minus the afternoon coffee. Pique’s new X·E Fountain energy drink delivers clean, caffeine-free energy without the jitters, crash, or dehydration. Vitamin B Complex, magnesium, and electrolytes help support steady focus, while crisp cucumber-celery-lime makes every sip ridiculously refreshing. Get 15% off for life.         PLEASE ADVISE Ask the health team Have a burning health or wellness question? Wondering how to handle a tricky social situation? Please write to healthmatters@time.com, and we’ll weigh in weekly in the newsletter.         SPONSORED Learn how to code faster with AI in 5 mins a day You're spending 40 hours a week writing code that AI could do in 10. While you're grinding through pull requests, 200k+ engineers at OpenAI, Google & Meta are using AI to ship faster. How? The Code newsletter teaches them exactly which AI tools to use and how to use them. Here's what you get: AI coding techniques used by top engineers at top companies in just 5 mins a day Tools and workflows that cut your coding time in half Tech insights that keep you 6 months ahead Sign up and get access to the Ultimate Claude code guide to ship 5X faster. Join 200K+ engineers         WHAT WE’RE READING Why can psychedelics make people feel “at one” with the universe? Allison Parshall at Scientific American explains the brain-network changes that may temporarily blur the boundary between self and world. Funding cuts and abstinence-only mandates are being used to restrict adolescents’ access to accurate sexual health information, Anna Bernstein argues for the BMJ. When young women see psychiatrist Suzanne Garfinkel-Crowell, they often come with a diagnosis in mind, she writes in a free-to-read Opinion piece for the New York Times.         SPONSORED Support Your Skin on Your Weight Loss Journey GLP-1s have transformed weight loss. But while you’re celebrating your progress, you may also notice changes to your skin, like volume loss and sagging. OneSkin’s OS-01 BODY MOISTURIZER is built to support skin resilience during GLP-1 use—smoothing skin, strengthening the barrier, and boosting resilience with the OS-01 Peptide™. Save 15% with code BODY15 Explore the claims at oneskin.co     EMAIL US: healthmatters@time.com More Newsletters from Click to sign up. THE BRIEF +D.C. BRIEF +FUTURE PROOF +INSIDE TIME +IN THE LOOP +WORTH YOUR TIME + Connect with TIME PRIVACY POLICY   © 2026 TIME USA, LLC. All rights reserved. TIME Customer Service, P.O. Box 37508 Boone, IA 50037-0508, United States Unsubscribe

Americans are (still) drinking less than ever before

Plus: nose harmonicas, COVID’s summer surge, and a robot that draws blood  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

Mandy Oaklander | August 21, 2026     Bottoms down. People are drinking less alcohol than ever before, according to a new Gallup poll that my colleague Dominique Mosbergen wrote about for TIME. It’s a continuation of a downward trend in drinking across all age groups. Why are Americans shying away from alcohol? Multiple factors are at play, but a big one appears to be health, as scientists continue to turn up evidence that no amount of drinking is safe. TODAY’S TOPICS Dream experiments get weird COVID’s summer encore Got a question for us? When robots draw blood         QUICK CHAT Can we shape dreams? When it comes to influencing what you dream about, Karen Konkoly, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge in the U.K., believes in the power of weirdness. For my recent feature on the new science of dreaming, I visited Konkoly and participated in her current experiment. We also chatted about one of her earlier studies. —Veronique Greenwood, Staff Writer This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity. Will Matsuda for TIME When I spoke to other researchers about your work, they told me to ask about nose harmonicas.  Yes! We were thinking of tasks people could do just before sleep that would be interesting and memorable—and could potentially change the way they breathed during dreams. If their breathing changed, we would have a way to tell, in real time, that they were dreaming about the task. We decided participants would learn a harmonica duet with an experimenter using only nasal inhalations. I got very good at it. We told participants they were being graded and evaluated, and they progressed through three different songs to keep the task challenging and engaging. The other task was a bubble-blowing competition against a different experimenter using only nasal exhalations. There was an archery target, and participants had to guide a bubble toward it with at least three distinct sniffs. Each round lasted 45 seconds, and we kept track of their scores on a leaderboard. We also tried to wear weird clothes so people would be more likely to dream about us, because unusual experiences are more likely to be incorporated into dreams. This sounds really complicated! Yeah, everyone kept saying, “Karen, I think you should use computer tasks to make it more regulated.” And I was like, “I don’t want it to be regulated. I want it to be weird.” I wanted it to be a real-world experience, because people dream about experimenters and the settings where they fall asleep. So what did you find? We found that people dreamed a lot about both tasks. When we played musical cues linked to each task while participants slept, those cues also made them more likely to dream about the corresponding task. Could you tell from their breathing—in real time—what they were dreaming about? Honestly, no—we didn’t see clear differences, and it was hard to figure out how to measure subtler variations in breathing. But the sniffing work is continuing. I still think that if we can find a way to make it work, it could be really interesting.         SPONSORED Short on cash? Get up to $750, no credit check. Access up to $750* from your upcoming paycheck within minutes for a small fee, or wait 3 days and get it for free. No credit check. No late fees.  Get Started Now *Not all users will qualify. Advances range from $25–$750; average advance is $170. Express transfer fees may apply.         TODAY I LEARNED We’re in the middle of COVID’s summer surge COVID’s now-familiar summer surge is upon us. “We are seeing an increase in COVID across the country right now, and that’s something people should be aware of,” says Marlene Wolfe, assistant professor at Emory University and co-principal investigator at WastewaterSCAN, which tests wastewater samples from across the U.S. for more than a dozen pathogens. SARS-CoV-2 levels in wastewater are 120% higher so far in August than they were in July, Wolfe says, reflecting the virus’s typical gradual climb over the summer. Concentrations are currently similar to those recorded last summer, though it’s unclear whether they will continue to rise. Summer travel and hot weather—which sends more people indoors—can increase close contact and make it easier for viruses to spread. Protection from fall vaccinations may also wane by summer, leaving people more vulnerable to infection. Wastewater surveillance gives local health departments another way to track COVID and other infectious diseases. It is “one piece of the ecosystem of data on infectious-disease outbreaks that helps us respond appropriately,” Wolfe says. —Alice Park, Senior Correspondent         SPONSORED Claim 25% off OS-01 HAIR There are many products for hair thinning on the market, but they don’t all deliver on their claims. OneSkin’s OS-01 HAIR SCALP SERUM is the only peptide-powered scalp formula scientifically proven to target cellular senescence, a leading driver of age-related thinning, for thicker hair over time. Claim 25% off OS-01 HAIR Explore the claims at oneskin.co         PLEASE ADVISE Ask the health team Have a burning health or wellness question? Wondering how to handle a tricky social situation? Please write to healthmatters@time.com, and we’ll weigh in weekly in the newsletter.         SPONSORED 1,000,000 Men Switched Shampoos. Here's Why. Most shampoos strip the scalp — SLS, salt, parabens quietly work against your hair while cleaning it. Particle Shampoo is SLS-free, salt-free, paraben-free. Science-backed, rebuilds from root to tip. 30-day money-back guarantee. 20% off with code BH20. Try It Risk-Free         WHAT WE’RE READING Would you let a robot draw your blood? Ella Jeffries at Becker’s Hospital Review reports on the first FDA-authorized standalone machine that can find a vein, insert the needle, and collect samples without hands-on help. The new U.S. dietary guidelines, released in January, were drawn up by a “secret panel” that was “rife with conflicts of interest,” the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine alleges in a new lawsuit against HHS and the USDA, Rachael Robertson writes for MedPage Today.  The FDA is conducting onsite inspections at iceberg-lettuce growers in Mexico as it investigates a Cyclospora outbreak that has sickened 10,930 people. The recalled lettuce is no longer on the market, the agency says.     EMAIL US: healthmatters@time.com More Newsletters from Click to sign up. THE BRIEF +D.C. BRIEF +FUTURE PROOF +INSIDE TIME +IN THE LOOP +WORTH YOUR TIME + Connect with TIME PRIVACY POLICY   © 2026 TIME USA, LLC. All rights reserved. TIME Customer Service, P.O. Box 37508 Boone, IA 50037-0508, United States Unsubscribe