Stewin' in it

Good morning Staker! Here’s what’s cookin’ today. How we think about time can determine the outcome; let’s make a boozy smoothy; and study suggests spending time in nature improves eating habits.

Let’s get into it!

Just the name of this beverage says all you need to know about what you’ve been missing out on during crisp fall evenings.

An apple cider base provides the sweet and tarty notes one expects of an autumn-themed drink, and of course the maple syrup, cinnamon, apple slices, and vanilla extract help with that as well.

Freezing the cider into cubes and then placing them in a high-powered blender helps distribute the flavor and adds some fun to this enormous concoction.

The bourbon gives off warmth and spice at the end, though likely isn’t as detectable as one would normally expect of a bourbon drink. Proceed assuming you’re drinking more of the hard stuff than you realize.

You can also make it without bourbon and just add a bit more apple cider and a little less maple syrup; or you can choose to add rye instead of bourbon, with Crown Royal’s Apple or Northern Harvest blends making excellent alternatives.

Here’s the full official recipe:

• 2 1/2 cups unfiltered apple cider

• 1/4 cup heavy cream

• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

• 2 1/2 tablespoons pure maple syrup, divided

• 6 tablespoons (3 ounces) bourbon

• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

• Apple slices

• Cinnamon sticks
  
  

The way we interpret time isn’t just about perspective, but also how we internalize things outside the confines of the task at hand.

For example, according to an article published by the University of British Columbia, being told you only have three months to achieve your annual goal sounds like you’re under the gun; on the other hand, being told you have two months and 17 days to accomplish a task may sound like you’ve got plenty of time.

According to ten studies analyzed by Dr. Deepak Sirwani, an assistant professor at the UBC Sauder School of Business, people indeed tend to perceive duration as longer when it’s expressed using larger numbers, even if the described duration is less than a longer period of time expressed in smaller integers.

How one should frame the amount of time they have depends on what they’re trying to accomplish, according to Dr. Sirwani. He said one study found those who were told to exercise for one hour and 55 minutes three days a week ended up exercising less, because they focused on the 55 minutes, which made the task seem larger.

On the other hand, those who were told to exercise for two hours did so with ease, perceiving two hours as much more manageable, even though it’s clearly longer than 115 minutes.

Carnival Cruises announced it’s joining the many other travel and hospitality companies that already leverage dynamic pricing models to adjust consumer prices based on seasonality and demand.

Hotels, airlines, and more recently live music ticket distributors, all use dynamic pricing models to sell tickets, raising and lowering prices based on demand levels at any given moment.

The practice has grown increasingly unpopular among consumers, who more often than not report price increases rather than decreases, when asked to describe their experience.

Businesses that use the strategy have said the practice adjusts prices fairly and offers consumers the best bang for their buck, a line of thinking seemingly adopted by Carnival Cruises.

According to the cruise line’s president Christine Duffy, the company will begin using dynamic pricing for certain travel packages starting on Dec. 1. She said it will save guests between 35% and 55%, compared to purchasing certain items within the package on an a la carte basis once aboard their vessel.

Contact with nature can improve people’s moods, as reported in Stake last week. However, a new study is the first of its kind to suggest immersing oneself in nature can also improve one’s eating habits.

The study was conducted by researchers at Anglia Ruskin University and published in Body Image.

The researchers recruited 500 adults from the U.K., and assessed their levels of contact with nature, and how much their eating was influenced by it—specifically, how much they were driven to intuitive eating, which describes eating based on the body’s internal signals, rather than dieting rules.

“One pathway involves nature contact influencing intuitive eating habits through higher levels of body appreciation,” the researchers wrote. “It is thought that nature contact helps people feel more comfortable in their body, which in turn leads to higher levels of intuitive eating.”

“A second pathway involves self-compassion. Greater nature contact promotes self-compassion and the researchers believe this provides a buffer against impulsive eating. Instead, it may encourage people to follow their body’s signals and choose foods that better meet their physiological needs.”

Here’s what you said

Workin’ hard…or hardly workin’?

You remember what it was like, don’t you? That first job…the one where you made your own money for the first time! In the spirit of those days, we present today’s trivia — an ode to songs about jobs!