I always get a kick out of the fridge in my local 7-11. It’s loaded with drinks that make all kinds of promises.

Energy is the most common one, of course, but others promise everything from “focus” to “calm” to “concentration.”

It’s a laugh, because no matter what promise they make, most of these drinks have the same basic ingredients: sugar, water, and artificial flavors combined with small amounts of vitamins or large amounts of caffeine.

In some cases, those vitamins can deliver on the promise made by the label — just not in the tiny amounts you’ll find in the drink. You’re always better off just taking it as a supplement.

And in at least one case, you don’t need to swallow a thing — drink or supplement — to get the benefits.

Rosemary, the fragrant herb often used in soups and meat dishes, is so good at helping you to focus that just the scent alone will do the trick.

Twenty people were given a whiff of rosemary followed by a series of cognitive tests and mood assessments. The stronger the smell, the better they did on both — although the impact on mood was nothing compared to what it did for cognition.

Believe it or not, that’s not even the surprise here. Other studies have also shown that the very smell of rosemary can give your mind an extra gear.

No, the real surprise is that blood tests revealed the presence of 1,8-cineole in the blood. That’s the essential oil found in rosemary, somehow turning up in blood after inhaling the mere odor of this stuff.

The researchers say that means the aroma alone acts as a “therapeutic drug” and are already talking of how they might one day make meds out of fragrant herbs such as rosemary, peppermint, and lavender.

But why wait for meds and their inevitable side effects when you can go straight to the source?

Rosemary is available right now, for cheap, and if I was in college I’d be practically stuffing it up my nose at test time.

Might sound crazy, but a better grade is a better grade.

Since my test-taking years ended long ago, I plan to use rosemary differently — like next time I need help finishing a Sudoku puzzle or locating missing socks.

Everyone should make sure they get moving during the day — but no one needs to turn into a treadmill-racing workout fiend to get the benefits of exercise.

In fact, too much exercise can be as bad for you as too little — bad for you knees, bad for your heart and maybe even bad for your mood.

One new study finds that women who exercise moderately — in other words, get the steady regular movements they need without overdoing it — are actually much happier than women who exhaust themselves during intensive gym sessions.

Turkish researchers randomly assigned 255 women between the ages of 40 and 60 years old to one of two two-week workout regimens: Either 30 minutes a day on a treadmill at a moderate pace, or a run-till-you-drop session where they were told to go as fast as they could on that treadmill for as long as they could take it.

Sound like fun? Of course it doesn’t — and the results speak for themselves: The moderate exercisers had a better mood, lower levels of anxiety, higher levels of psychological wellbeing and more energy than those assigned to the torture-like workout sessions.

Women who got the intense workouts, on the other hand, were less likely to report the confidence to keep going with their exercise program. Overweight women in particular were stressed out by the more vigorous workouts and reported lower levels of calmness afterwards.

Who wouldn’t?

Whether you’re a man or a woman — and whether you’re badly overweight or slim and trim — you don’t have to drive yourself to the brink of physical exhaustion to get the benefits of a light workout.

Just pick something you like — and like the women in this study, you can enjoy some mood-boosting benefits along with your great fitness: At least one study has shown that a little sweat-inducing activity can be as powerful as antidepressant drugs… with none of the side effects.

Good examples of moderate workouts include traditional ones like tennis or a brisk walk/jog through the park, to a few things you might not think of as “exercise” — like gardening or even some home improvement projects.

In fact, keeping fit can actually be — dare I say it? — fun.

I’ve become more than a little embarrassed by my profession as patient after patient has shown up at my office with terrible and persistent pain that was ignored by other physicians.

August 2008 PDF Feeling sluggish? Time for an adrenal recharge You drag through your days, feeling depleted of every ounce of your normal energy level, and now you’re scraping the bottom of your reserves. Even your sleep fails to bring you relief from this persistent tiredness. At some point, this will lead you to your [...]