Cardboard boxes are present at nearly every step of a goods journey through the supply chain, which makes the paper industry a key indicator of how consumer demand is faring. The US corrugated products industry is reporting slumping sales, with shipments of empty boxes in March down 11% from a year earlier.

Integrity Fiber Supply, an Indiana-based paper products maker and recycler, is seeing the shift first-hand, according to one of its commodity traders. Kyle Risinger said at last weeks Commodity Trading Week Americas event in Chicago that manufacturing is down because inflation is curbing consumer spending, hurting demand.

When things are good and everything is running solidly, the mills are running at about 90% to 92%, making paper and packaging, Risinger said Thursday in a panel discussion. Right now, since the beginning of the year, theyre about 70% capacity.

The packaging world, according to Risinger, is the front door to observing the direction of the economy and he sees the signs pointing to a consumer slowdown.

As recently reported in NPR, antidopamine parenting may hold the answer to all of your parenting conundrums, or at least those associated with screens and sweets. The strategy, as described by Michaeleen Doucleff, Ph.D., a correspondent for NPRs Science Desk, is designed to counteract the negative impact of dopamine, which can influence our behaviors.

What is dopamine?

Dopamine, also known as the feel-good hormone, is a neurotransmitter that acts as part of your brains reward system. Whereas dopamine was previously thought to provide us with pleasure, research has found that the chemical itself doesnt make you happy, but rather it generates another strong emotion: desire.

Simply put, dopamine makes you want things, University of Montreal neuroscientist Anne-Noël Samaha told NPR, adding that dopamine tells your brain to pay close attention to whatever triggered the surge in neurotransmitters. Moreover, it doesnt matter whether you (or your child) actually find the activity thats contributing to the increase in dopamine pleasurable or not.

If you talk to people who spend a lot of time shopping online or, going through social media, they dont necessarily feel good after doing it, Samaha said. In fact, theres a lot of evidence that its quite the opposite, that you end up feeling worse after than before.

How to implement antidopamine parenting

For starters, experts encourage parents to remember theyre combating chemicals, not their children.

As screen time consultant Emily Cherkin told NPR, So I tell parents, Its not you versus your child, but rather its you versus a hijacked neural pathway. Its the dopamine youre fighting. And thats not a fair fight.

To help reduce conflict in your household, experts recommend the following strategies:

1. Reset before moving on. Much like it takes time for your car to go from zero to 60 mph, itll take your childs brain a little while to come down from the dopamine high. Sure, they may be unhappy at the outset, but after two to five minutes their mood will stabilize. The key, experts say, is to put the device or sweet out of sight so that your child isnt triggered again.

2. Find activities that make your child actually feel good. Searching for an outlet that will give your child an appropriate boost of dopamine will take some trial and error, but its worth it. To do that, youll want to pay close attention to the activities that make your child feel better after doing them and aim to incorporate more of those into your daily routine.

3. Regulate device usage (and location). Out of sight, out of mind can work for managing screen time as well. Dr. Anna Lembke, a psychiatrist at Stanford University and author of Dopamine Nation, recommends microenvironments, or one room in the house where children can use devices. A digital detox, wherein everyone in the family takes time away from phones and tablets, can also be helpful.

4. Substitute toxic habits with healthier habits. It may not be possible for your child to do away with technology altogether, but perhaps you can find more purposeful activities for them to do, such as swapping violent video games with more educational ones or replacing watching cartoons with a more hands-on hobby, such as puzzling or going for a walk.

Residents across the country, from urban centers to seemingly quiet suburbs, were interviewed about their daily noise exposure in a project published by The New York Times. Along with scientists and medical experts, the team analyzed how everyday sound affects the brain and body after controlling for other influential factors. 

Those who lived in areas with high levels of transportation noise were more likely to have highly activated amygdalas, arterial inflammation andwithin five yearsmajor cardiac events, The NYT reports, citing a study from Massachusetts General Hospital. Further, hearing loud noises can create the onset of cardiac events like a heart attack. 

Unpleasant sounds like a jarring alarm or speedy train car trigger the amygdala, or the emotional processing center of the brain, activating the bodys stress response.

Beyond an initial stress reaction, the sympathetic nervous system also responds to levels of high noise, which can increase heart rate and cause blood pressure to rise, according to the NYT research. Constant exposure to unsafe noise levels can put the body at risk for hypertension and inflammation leading to heart disease. 

And more, high noise levels contribute to the quantity and quality of sleep people get, affecting everything from mood and productivity to physical health and chronic disease risk. The NYT cites research showing communities of color and schools where more students are on free or reduced lunch are more likely to be exposed to noise deemed unsafe.

Aside from health outcomes, hearing loss has implications for the workplace. Those who have hearing loss are more likely to be less productive at work and underemployed or unemployed, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). 

The general recommendation for sound is an average of 70 decibels (dB) over 24 hours. Noise levels should not go above 85 dB during a one-hour duration. But 3 million people in the U.S. may live in areas where the average noise levels rise above 70 dB, according to the Department of Transportation. 

To address noises harmful effects on the brain and body in the communities most affected, state and federal policies have to institute measures to mitigate sound. The NYT reports that Switzerland has quiet hours, mainly overnight, while Paris has noise cameras testing how loud vehicles are on the streets. 

In the meantime, people can control what they can.

Yes, turn your music down 

Lower volumes of sounds can be tolerated for longer than higher volumes. Consider monitoring the volume of your morning beats or podcasts.

Previous research published late last year found too many of us are bumping the music in our headphones a little too loudlyespecially as we work from home more often and listen to sounds throughout the day. Over one billion young people are at risk for hearing loss due to their listening devices, as well as from attending loud music venues. 

This overexposure that a lot of people clearly are engaging in can have detrimental effects on their health, Dr. Lauren Dillard, author of a previous study on the health effects of unsafe listening practices, tells Fortune, adding it can be hard to mitigate unsafe listening practices because there are seldom immediate consequences. 

The limit for healthy listening by the WHO is 75 dB for 127 hours over seven days, 80 dB for 40 hours over seven days, or 110 dB for two minutes over seven days. Music in headphones can rise to over 100 dB, so your volume should not reach its peak, especially for long periods. 

The iPhones health app can also alert you when youre listening to music thats too loud. 

I would just really encourage people to think a little bit more long term about their health and their hearing health because we really do want to avoid the impact of hearing loss, Dillard previously told Fortune. 

Mitigate environmental noise 

While the noise where you livefrom the streets to the train tracksis not something you can control, there are smaller daily habits you can focus on to protect yourself. The AARP recommends seeking out quiet bars and restaurants when you go out, and closing car windows to stamp out some of the environmental noise when driving. 

Take breaks from loud sounds 

The longer the exposure to unsafe sound levels, the more damaging the effects. Therefore, experts recommend taking breaks in loud venues, walk further away from the source, and limit the duration of exposure to loud noise. 

Protect your ears

The CDC recommends using devices to protect your ears when necessarylike when around loud construction or when attending a music venue. 

High-fidelity earplugs maintain audio quality better than other hearing protectors because they lower the sound intensity more evenly across different pitches, according to Its a Noisy Planet. Protect Their Hearing, an education campaign from the National Institute of Health. 

But it wasnt for patients who experienced the bizarre symptomsand many still are. The majorityaround 60%of the tens of millions of Americans who were infected with COVID in 2021 lost their sense of taste and/or smell at least partially. About a quarter still hadnt fully recovered their senses as of the end of that year, according to an article published this month in the journal The Laryngoscope.

The study examined data from nearly 30,000 U.S. adults who were surveyed about their COVID symptoms in 2021. After participants recovered from their acute infection, nearly three-quarters reported recovering their sense of smell. But nearly 24% didnt fully recover it, and more than 3% didnt recover any of it, researchers found. The numbers looked similar when it came to recovery of taste (or lack thereof).

Based on these figures, researchers estimate that nearly two-thirds of Americans infected with COVID since the beginning of the pandemic partially or completely lost their sense of smell and/or taste. While the majority fully recovered, nearly 28 million Americans may still be coping with the symptoms, the authors estimate.

Many people never fully recovered those senses, Dr. Neil Bhattacharyya, a professor of otolaryngology at the Harvard University-affiliated Mass Eye Ear and an author on the study, said in a news release about it.

Researchers also noted that the more severe a patients COVID symptoms, the more likely they were to lose their sense of taste and/or smelland the less likely they were to recover it.

Loss of taste and smell impacts daily life

Losing your sense of smell or taste isnt as benign as you may think, Bhattacharyya said. It can lead to decreased eating for pleasure and, in more extreme cases, it can lead to depression and weight loss.

Those who suffer such sensory dysfunction cant fully enjoy food, resulting in a reduced quality of life, and may not be able to detect smells emanating from smoke, rotten food, and other potential dangers. For those involved in the culinary industry, like chefs and sommeliers, the disability even interferes with work.

One of Bhattacharyyas patients lost 50 pounds due to his COVID-induced loss of smell.

The patient wasnt eating and became very sick and very depressed, he said.

How to protect your senses from COVID

The study bolsters the case for getting the COVID vaccine and taking antiviral Paxlovid if your provider recommends it, as both have the potential to reduce the severity of COVID symptoms, the authors write.

Right now, there isnt a standard treatment for those with dampened or absent senses of smell and/or taste, Bhattacharyya says, referring to affected patients as a group of people who have been a bit neglected.

The good news for those who havent yet been affected: As the virus has evolved, so have the symptoms. Loss of taste and smell are no longer common among COVID patients, the Harvard and Stanford universities-backed Zoe Health Study reported late last year.