While we tend to split humans into two distinct groups, extroverts and introverts, the reality is a bit more complex. While some people find socializing 100% energizing and others find it 100% draining, most of us exist somewhere on the spectrum in between. For people who do identify as introverts, however, a certain amount of social masking feels necessary to maintain social expectations and common courtesy. If someone invites you to a big party, you act excited about the invitation despite having zero desire to go. And if you do go to that big party, you stand near the wall and bob your head to the music, while secretly calculating the minutes until you can leave without appearing rude. It's not that you don't like people. You probably have close friends and loved ones and enjoy hanging out with in small numbers. But invites from people you're only semi-friends with or to gatherings that involve lots of people? That's when the mask goes on.Creator Brok Bresser demonstrated how introverts would respond if they didn't wear that mask and it's hilariously accurate. His "pov: if introverts were honest" video has 1.2 million likes on Instagram, with hordes of introverts feeling seen in the comments. Watch: See on Instagram That simple "I don't want to" in response to "Why?" was felt in every true introvert's heart. "'I don't want to' is REAL ??""Sorry I couldn’t answer your call. I didn’t want to.?""'I wasn’t looking forward to it' too real?""What do you mean 'HANG OUT LATER'? I’m using all my energy to be around you right now ?""Canceled plans are the best plans ?"But some also pointed out a rather ironic truth:"Buuuuttttt hear me out… we STILL WANT TO BE INVITED. ???""??? I want to be invited, but I don't want to go...???""????? We just want to be invited and that’s it!"There was even some unexpected support from an extrovert in the comments, who encouraged introverts to be honest when they don't have the battery life to socialize. "As a hardcore extrovert I LOVE my introvert folks and love when they tell the truth. Makes the time we DO hang so much better. Tell me 'no' 17 times but when that one yes hits and we hang for 36 minutes before your social battery depletes, I get to truly enjoy you. ?"Hear that, introverts? It's okay to say no. (Probably don't have to add the "wasn't looking forward to it" part, though. A little masking isn't a bad thing and nobody wants to be on the receiving end of that "oop.")

A common belief in American culture is that people who wake up early have all the advantages. As the sayings go, “Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise,” and “Early bird catches the worm.” It makes sense. Early risers are seen as better disciplined and their schedules are more aligned with modern-day work culture. However, a new study by researchers at Imperial College London has found the opposite: Night owls do better on cognitive tests that measure their brain function than those who get up at the crack of dawn. The researchers embarked on the study to help people suffering from age-related cognitive decline. “Our interest in this topic stemmed from a broader curiosity about how lifestyle factors, particularly sleep, influence brain health. Given the aging population and the rising prevalence of cognitive decline, understanding the relationship between sleep patterns and cognitive function could help develop better interventions and health guidelines to maintain cognitive health in older adults,” study authors Raha West and Daqquing Ma said, according to Psypost. To determine whether early risers' or night owls' brains work best, the researchers asked just under 27,000 participants the number of hours they sleep at night and what time they go to bed. They also tested them on reasoning, memory, verbal and mathematical intelligence, reaction time and prospective memory. After crunching the numbers, they found that night owls did much better on the cognitive tests than those who got up early. “Our study found that adults who are naturally more active in the evening (what we called 'eveningness') tended to perform better on cognitive tests than those who are 'morning people,'" West said, according to New Atlas. The researchers studied 2 different groups of people. The night owls in Group 1 scored 13.5% better on their brain function tests than early risers, and the night owls in Group 2 did 6.5% better. Further, the folks in the middle (neither night owls nor early risers) performed better than the early risers (10.6% and 6.3%). “In my expert opinion, the main takeaway should be that the cultural belief that early risers are more productive than ‘night owls’ does not hold up to scientific scrutiny,” Dr. Jessica Chelekis, Senior Lecturer in Sustainability Global Value Chains and a sleep expert from Brunel University London, told Science Media Centre. “While everyone should aim to get good-quality sleep each night, we should also try to be aware of what time of day we are at our (cognitive) best and work in ways that suit us. Night owls, in particular, should not be shamed into fitting a stereotype that favors an ‘early to bed, early to rise’ practice.” The study provides good ammunition for night owls, often stereotyped as lazy party animals, to push back against those who like to get up when the rooster crows. The question remains: Why do early risers have so much brain fog? A night owl may presume they are still sleepy from waking up so early. West says that the study shouldn’t be used to judge early risers and that those who’d like to change their sleep habits should do so. “It's important to note that this doesn't mean all morning people have worse cognitive performance," West said. "The findings reflect an overall trend where the majority might lean towards better cognition in the evening types. While it’s possible to shift your natural sleep habits by gradually adjusting your bedtime, increasing evening light exposure, and keeping a consistent sleep schedule, completely changing from a morning to an evening person is complex.”

Since actors Vanessa Kirby and Pedro Pascal began promoting Marvel’s new “Fantastic Four” reboot (playing Sue Storm and Reed Richards, respectively), fans have speculated over their offscreen chemistry. Countless clips of their red carpet interviews have circulated social media, with comments noting how they “couldn’t stop staring at each other” following, suggesting romance was in the air. Most of the theories fell pretty heavily on Kirby’s side, with people joking about her “flirting” with Pascal, even being full blown “in love” with him. So when the duo were seen holding hands while on stage for a Comic Con panel, you can bet more rumors spread. But the truth behind that hand hold is actually much more heartwarming. Pascal has frequently been open about his struggles with anxiety, especially in high profile situations. In an interview with The Guardian (according to Wio News) he shared that it “is something that I’ve lived with since I was a child, so it’s a part of my chemistry. I don’t know what kind of person I’d be without it. It’s something that I manage, but it’s also part of what makes me, me.”You can see Pascal “managing” this stress in real time in a video posted to Instagram about a year ago, when he performed his new signature red carpet pose of placing his hand on his upper abdomen, and telling his “Last of Us” costar Bella Ramsey that “my anxiety is right there."We see a bit more of that in the now-viral clip of Pascal and Kirby. Starting to get overwhelmed, Pascal reaches out for her, and after he briefly touches her upper arm, Kirby gracefully reaches behind to grab his hand, and holds it for the remainder of the interview, never missing a beat. See on Instagram It’s such a simple gesture, but having someone hold your hand really does work wonders for regulating those overwhelming emotions and grounding us into the present moment. And people applauded Kirby for “understanding the assignment.” “You can tell he needed support and she was there to help him,” one viewer wrote. Others commended Pascal for dropping the masculine bravado and just being vulnerable. As one person put it, “I think he's doing something wonderful for men everywhere by not masking and letting people see his anxiety. We should normalize giving comfort and support, especially in public places. She's fantastic for so freely offering that lil bit of support too.”Another said “To all the young bucks in need of male role models... look at Pedro instead of the Andrew Tates of the world. It takes a lot of vulnerability to speak about dealing with anxiety let alone show it in such a public venue. Pedro is the epitome of what masculinity should be. Be strong, but gentle.”So did we get a sneak peek into showmance? Who knows, and frankly…who cares? What we definitely saw was a tender moment of compassion between two humans, and a brilliant example of the importance of support and companionship for those managing anxiety or other mental health challenges. That’s the real thing worth talking about.

An undercover journalist for the O’Keefe Media Group (OMG) caught the Democratic National Committee’s compliance manager, Joyce DeCerce, saying the quiet part out loud. An anonymous female undercover journalist matched with DeCerce on Bumble, a dating app, and set up a few dates with him. She recorded their conversations, which contained revealing information about Kamala Harris and the DNC. As the compliance manager for the DNC, DeCerce, in his words, is responsible for “reporting to the government how much the DNC raised and where it spends its money.” He also works for the Harris presidential campaign and formerly worked for Biden’s. In the footage, DeCerce admitted, “I like Kamala Harris, but I don’t think she’ll win this year.” When asked why, he called Harris “weirdly unpopular” and told the undercover journalist, “She doesn’t have any accomplishments to speak of because she’s vice president.” During the recorded conversations, DeCerce also revealed the DNC’s deceptive campaign tactics. When asked if donors were holding back donations because they didn’t think the campaign was going well, DeCerce answered innocently enough with a confirming “Mhm” and a nod. Then he began to describe how he swindled “rich people” into donating tens of thousands of dollars to the party. The undercover journalist asked him if “our [DNC] strategy has always been just like, take their money and tell them what they want to hear?” DeCerce replied, “Yeah, that’s politics.” When further pressed about whether the DNC takes the money from the donors, but not their donor’s opinions about the campaign strategies, he responded “100 percent.” “We’re just feeding into their fantasy,” DeCerce claimed. “Judith Butler calls it phantasm.” In short, he implied that the DNC tells donors what they want to hear instead of the truth to receive donations and then use that money however they please. The DNC did not respond to The American Spectator’s request for comment.   In what seemed to be an effort to silence the journalist and prevent the footage from being published, however, the journalist received several threatening phone calls in the middle of the night. She was also sent a postcard on July 15 stating, “Maybe stop with the fake profiles.”  The postcard also seemed to have racist undertones. “Idiot” was written in Chinese at the bottom of the card, though it is unclear why the sender included it.   READ MORE from Katelyn Livorse: ‘By Hook or By Crook:’ The Venezuelan Election Secret Service Director Resigns The post Democrat: ‘I Don’t Think She’ll [Kamala Harris] Win this Year’ appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

We aren’t supposed to talk about what happens after we die.  In fact, our society trains us not to even think about it.  But the clock is ticking.  Your body is wearing out and your time is limited.  Of course the truth is that your number could be up at any time.  If you died tonight, where would you go?  The good news is that “the other side” is not a mystery.  Countless numbers of people have been to “the other side” and have come back to tell us about it.  According to a study that was conducted in 2019, approximately 10 percent of the entire population has had a near death experience.  In this article, I am going to share 5 examples of people that actually met Jesus during their near death experiences. #1 A 6-year-old girl named Zola Tomic was in the hospital to have her tonsils removed, but after the surgery she “began to bleed and hemorrhage for nearly ten days” due to a very rare genetic disorder.  She lost a tremendous amount of blood and it was during this time that she met Jesus.  After she recovered, she asked a question that absolutely floored her mother… Zola asked her mom, “When can I go see God again?” “It’s something even to this day that I still can’t even comprehend,” Brittani said. “I was getting her ready and, it wasn’t even like we were talking about anything God-related beforehand, we were just getting ready to go to gymnastics. And she just asked, ‘When can I see God again?'” Her mom was confused and taken back by her question, so she asked Zola, “When did you see God?” Zola replied with the most stunning statement, “The night I died.” During the time she was out of her body, Zola experienced many things.  At one point, Jesus actually “thanked her for loving him and being his friend”… Over time, Zola began to talk more and more about being with Jesus. She told her mother that she remembers God giving her a big hug. Zola said everything looked like a rainbow and Jesus had thanked her for loving him and being his friend. I can’t even imagine how wonderful that must have been, and I am very thankful that Zola is sharing her story with the world. #2 A Georgia man named Mike McKinsey says that his appendix ruptured just before his son’s wedding.  He went to the hospital for surgery, and during that surgery he died and found himself standing directly in front of Jesus… After becoming sick in the days before his son’s wedding, he learned his appendix had ruptured. Surgery began — and then, he said, there was Jesus Christ, the Son and very incarnation of God himself, right beside him. With dark skin and blueish-green eyes, Jesus did not look like the man often depicted in the U.S., McKinsey said. Still, McKinsey said he knew exactly who he was looking at. When Jesus started to speak to him, McKinsey quickly realized that he must be dead… McKinsey said this was no dream or ghostly affair: Jesus was a physical, embodied presence, he said, adding that the Son of God held out his hand and said, “I want to answer your prayer.” McKinsey said he felt confused. “And I thought, ‘Oh shoot, I was at the wedding — wait, I think I was having surgery by now, right?’ — and trying to put it all together. And then I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, I think I’m dead.’ The doctors were ultimately able to bring him back, but this is an experience that McKinsey will remember for the rest of his life. #3 When author Randy Kay died, he also had an encounter with Jesus, and he says that he was absolutely overwhelmed by the love that he felt… Kay recalled feeling compelled to call out Jesus’ name at one point during the experience. After doing so, he said he was immediately next to a figure whom he knew was Christ. “I was so overwhelmed with emotion, and my first thought was, ‘So, this is love?’ And I just caved,” he said. “And I started shouting every superlative I could think of — ‘Praise you, Lord God!’ And then He reached down, and He wrapped His arms around me.” Kay described feeling an unimaginable love in those moments — something he called the “most incredible experience,” with Jesus imploring Kay to trust Him. Ultimately, Kay said God told him he needed to return home, a reality that left him deeply saddened, considering the paradise he was experiencing. Love that is so powerful that it is beyond words is a common theme in near death experiences. Without a doubt, virtually all of us would like to personally experience that sort of love. #4 Meeting Jesus is most certainly not just a western phenomenon.  For example, the son of a Muslim sheik in Rwanda had a truly remarkable encounter with Jesus when he died… Swidiq, the son of a Muslim sheik, grew up in Rwanda during the genocide. When he died and had an NDE, he found himself in a hellish place. Into this darkness came a man of light, bright like the sun. “He lifted his hands slightly, with palms up, revealing holes in each hand…He spoke, clear and firm, ‘I died for mankind. And you are among those I died for. Do not deny it again. You must tell others,’” Swidiq said. #5 All over the world, people are coming face to face with the Son of God.  All her life, a 16-year-old Jewish girl named Heidi was told that there is no God and that Jesus is a hoax, but then she personally met Jesus during her near death experience… Heidi’s family was Jewish, but her atheist father chanted a mantra to her daily, “There is no God. When you die, you cease to exist. Jesus Christ was the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on mankind.” Despite this, Heidi prayed to God every night and felt God near her, comforting her through the abuses of her childhood. At 16, when Heidi’s horse reared back and landed on her, she found herself up in the air looking down on the accident. A brilliant light shone from behind her. “I turned to look, and I saw a man floating there with me…I recognized Him immediately. How could I not? This was the man, God, who had been at my bedside every single night…There was no doubt in my mind, not one. This man was, without question, Jesus, or Yeshua,” she recalled. “His was the name I’d never been allowed to utter in my home…What a joyous occasion! He grinned at me, every bit as happy as I was, happier, because He is all joy, and He is all happiness.” It is very important to note that all near death experiences are not positive. In fact, some are absolutely terrifying. When journalist Sebastian Junger died, a giant black pit opened up underneath him and he felt like he was being pulled directly into it… The doctor was busy trying to put a large-gauge needle into my jugular vein through my neck. They numb you with lidocaine, so actually I didn’t feel much except the pressure. But at any rate, they were working on that and it seemed to take a long time and suddenly this black pit opened up underneath me and it felt as though I was getting pulled into it. You can think of me as extremely drunk. I’m like, “Whoa, what’s that?” It didn’t occur to me that a black pit suddenly appearing makes no sense. I was just like, “Oh, there’s the pit. “Why am I getting pulled into it?” I didn’t know I was dying, but I sort of had this animal sense that you don’t want to go into the infinitely black pit that just opened up underneath you, that’s just a bad idea. And if you get sucked in there, you’re probably not coming back. That was the feeling I had about it. Everyone is going somewhere. Which side will you choose? Please choose wisely, and please share these testimonies with as many people as you can because the clock is ticking for all of us. Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com. About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com. He has also written seven other books that are available on Amazon.com including “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s  books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today. The post Life After Death Is Real! Here Are 5 Examples Of People That Met Jesus During Near Death Experiences appeared first on End Of The American Dream.

by Michael Snyder, End Of The American Dream: What in the world has happened to our military?  When I was growing up, I was proud that my father was an officer in the U.S. Navy.  At that time we possessed the most powerful military in the entire world by a wide margin, and as a […]