No, you dont have to go to that holiday party

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Why it's OK to decline a party invitation By Jamie Ducharme Health Correspondent As someone with a powerful guilty conscience, I have a bad habit of doing things just because I think I “should.” So I felt immediate relief after reading a new study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, which found that invitees consistently overestimate the consequences of declining social plans. When people turn down an invitation, they tend to think they’ll upset the person who asked them and damage the relationship moving forward. But in a series of experiments, the researchers found that hosts were consistently less bothered by a “no” RSVP than their friends assumed they’d be. The takeaway isn’t that you should say no to every invitation you get; strong social relationships are key to health and happiness, after all. But when you truly don’t want to go, you should decline the invitation without guilt, the researchers concluded. Just the advice I needed going into the holiday season. READ MORE Share This Story

What Else to Read What Happens When People Stop Taking the Weight Loss Drug Zepbound By Alice Park Not all the benefits disappear. Read More » The Supreme Court Rejects an Appeal Over Bans on Conversion Therapy for LGBTQ+ Children By Associated Press The court's decision to avoid the case comes as efforts to limit the rights of LGBTQ kids have spread across the country. Read More » Whistleblower Doctor Who Exposed China’s Rural AIDS Epidemic Dies at 95 By Simina Mistreanu / AP The renowned Yaojie exposed the AIDS virus epidemic in rural China in the 1990s. Read More » The Mysteries and Underdiagnosis of SIBO By Meaghan Beatley Small intestinal bacterial overgrowth can cause symptoms such as bloating and stomach pain. Read More » Alcohol Might Improve Heart Health by Reducing Your Stress By Haley Weiss A study finds that light-to-moderate drinking has lasting effects on the brain's stress system. Read More »

ONE LAST READ The forgotten man behind mRNA vaccines Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman won the Nobel Prize in medicine for their work developing the mRNA vaccine that helped prevent millions of COVID-19 deaths. But their work couldn't have become a lifesaving drug without another scientist, Jason Shrum, who has received little recognition. As Gregory Zuckerman reports in the Wall Street Journal, Shrum's story is a reminder that great discoveries are often the work of many people, and not all share in the credit. Read More »

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