Theres a reason 81% of Americans have been paying attention to the price of eggs at their local grocery store: Even as U.S. inflation overall appears to be slowing down, eggs just keep getting more and more expensive, and some people are shopping at cheaper supermarkets. In some cases, theyre even heading over to another country.

A carton of a dozen eggs in the U.S. cost on average $4.25 in December, a 137% increase over the year prior. And the price of eggs increased 11.1% in December compared to the month before. When prices rise like that, shoppers tend to look for alternatives. So its no surprise that  the number of eggs intercepted at the U.S.-Mexico border has soared in recent months.

We are seeing an increase in people attempting to cross eggs from Juarez to El Paso because they are significantly less expensive in Mexico than the U.S., Roger Maier, a public affairs official with the Customs and Border Protection office, told Fortune, adding that other points of entry in the Southwest are seeing similar increases in undeclared poultry-related crossings.

Over the past few months, the U.S. has finally had some good news on inflation. Shipping costs have declined, prices for some food products including beef are falling, and stores offered discounts and deals during the holiday season. But through it all, egg prices have remained stubbornly high while a domestic supply shortage means that shoppers in many parts of the country cant even find them on their grocery store shelves. 

For an increasing number of shoppers, the solution lies right across the border.

Egg encounters on the rise

There were 2,002 border seizures involving eggs between Nov. 1 and Jan. 17, according to CBP data, a 336% increase over the same period a year prior. 

For health reasons, the CBP prohibits undeclared arrivals of poultry products including eggs, and released a statement Friday urging travelers not to carry raw eggs and poultry products across the border. Smugglers who fail to declare the prohibited eggs and poultry items are liable to a $10,000 fine, Jennifer De La O, Director of Field Operations for the CBP in San Diego, wrote in a tweet last week.

Such a large fine usually means the prohibited items are being brought into the U.S. to be resold, according to CBP regulations. The CBP levies fines of up to $1,000 if undeclared prohibited items enter the U.S. for non-commercial use, but if officials are able to confirm otherwise, fines can be imposed at a much higher rate.

Maier said most of the intercepted eggs have been confiscated during primary inspections, during which people can abandon the items without penalty. These instances are not necessarily smuggling, he said, but he added that in the past week there have been a very small number of cases where eggs went undeclared but were then discovered, leaving perpetrators liable to a large fine.

Resale margins in the U.S. for eggs bought in Mexico are significant. A kilogramslightly more than a dozen large eggscost between $1.70 and $2.20 last week in Guadalajara, Mexicos second-largest city, according to Mexicos government data. In the U.S., a dozen large eggs on average cost slightly more than $4 last month. Shoppers in San Ysidro, a district of San Diego bordering Mexico, have reportedly turned their noses up at high egg prices and went to buy eggs in Mexico instead, store owners told the BBC last week.

The CBP restricts undeclared arrivals of eggs and other poultry products to the U.S. as a guardrail against diseases, specifically avian influenza or bird flu, an outbreak of which has been sweeping the U.S. for the past year and may be primarily responsible for the egg shortage and high prices driving people to hop over to Mexico to do their shopping in the first place.

The flu outbreak is directly responsible for the domestic short supply of eggs in the U.S. and the high prices. 

The disease has led to the culling of 44 million egg-laying hens in the U.S., according to the Department of Agriculture, which said last week the domestic egg supply has been falling by 7.5% each month since February. The USDA said in a report Friday that price pressures are easing somewhat from a December high, but because of ongoing supply constraints, costs remain at unappetizing levels.

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Is Atlanta a good place to live? Recent rankings certainly say so. In September 2022, Money magazine rated Atlanta the best place to live in the U.S., based on its strong labor market and job growth. The National Association of Realtors calls it the top housing market to watch in 2023, noting that Atlantas housing prices are lower than those in comparable cities and that it has a rapidly growing population.

But this is only part of the story. My new book, Red Hot City: Housing, Race, and Exclusion in Twenty-First Century Atlanta, takes a deep dive into the last three decades of housing, race and development in metropolitan Atlanta. As it shows, planning and policy decisions here have promoted a heavily racialized version of gentrification that has excluded lower-income, predominantly Black residents from sharing in the citys growth.

One key driver of this division is the Atlanta BeltLine, a 22-mile (35-kilometer) loop of multiuse trails with nearby apartments, restaurants and retail stores, built on a former railway corridor around Atlantas core. Although the BeltLine was designed to connect Atlantans and improve their quality of life, it has driven up housing costs on nearby land and pushed low-income households out to suburbs with fewer services than downtown neighborhoods.

The BeltLine has become a prime example of what urban scholars call green gentrification a process in which restoring degraded urban areas by adding green features drives up housing prices and pushes out working-class residents. If cities fail to prepare for these effects, gentrification and displacement can transform lower-income neighborhoods into areas of concentrated affluence rather than thriving, diverse communities.

The U.S. currently faces a nationwide housing affordabilty crisis. Many factors have contributed to it, but as an urban studies scholar, I believe it is important to learn from Atlantas experience.

No more Black majority

U.S. cities generally are diverse places, and many of them are becoming more so. But the city of Atlanta is going in the opposite direction: Its becoming wealthier and more white.

In 1990, 67% of the citys residents were Black; by 2019, that share had fallen to 48%. At the same time, the share of adults with a college degree rose from 27% to more than 56%. Median income in the city increased from 60% of the median income of the much larger Atlanta metropolitan area to 110%. Median family income in the city in 2021 dollars nearly doubled, rising from approximately $50,000 to $96,000.

The most rapid gentrification occurred from 2011 onward, after the 2008-2010 foreclosure crisis. Globally, urban scholars call this period one of fifth-wave gentrification, in which a large increase in rental demand triggered speculation in rental real estate that drove up housing costs.

In Atlanta, this was when the BeltLine really hit its stride after being proposed in the early 2000s and formally adopted as a tax increment financing district, or TIF, in 2005. In these districts, anticipated increases in property tax revenues are used to front-fund development projects. No urban development project in metro Atlanta and perhaps in the entire country has been more transformative.

Driving gentrification and displacement

Even before the BeltLine TIF district was adopted, boosters, developers, consultants and many city officials began touting the benefits of a proposed public-private partnership that could remake large parts of the city. Shortly after the special taxing district for the project was formally adopted, the city of Atlanta created an affiliated nonprofit, Atlanta BeltLine, Inc., to implement and manage the BeltLine.

In 2004, Yale architect Alexander Garvin published a report called The BeltLine Emerald Necklace: Atlantas New Public Realm. The BeltLines future users are an attractive market, Garvin wrote. Early word of the project has already accelerated real estate values. In 2005, one developer called the BeltLine the most exciting real estate project since Sherman burned Atlanta.

Many neighborhoods that the BeltLine runs through, especially on the south and west sides of the city, had experienced decades of disinvestment and were predominantly Black and lower-income. But boosters werent worried about investors and speculators buying up land near the BeltLine, and didnt prepare for displacement and exclusion. Garvins report did not mention the terms affordable, gentrification, lower-income or low-income.

In a 2007 study for the community group Georgia Stand-Up, I found that property values were increasing much faster near the BeltLine than in areas farther from it. This meant that property taxes rose for many lower-income homeowners, and landlords of rental properties were likely to raise rents in response. This process directly displaced lower-income families and made many areas around the BeltLine unaffordable for them.

The BeltLine TIF ordinance included some provisions for funding affordable housing, but as I show in my book, they were fundamentally insufficient and flawed. The BeltLine was the work of a coalition, including core members of Atlantas traditional urban regime elected officials and the downtown business elite. Their vision produced a wealthier, whiter city population.

Noninclusive growth

Rather than focusing on securing land for affordable housing when values were low, Atlanta BeltLine, Inc. prioritized building trails and parks. These features helped boost property values, accelerating gentrification and displacement.

After the subprime mortgage crisis in 2007-2010, foreclosures put pressure on housing markets. Atlanta lost about 7,000 low-cost rental units from 2010 to 2019. Meanwhile, construction of new, pricier apartments boomed: Permits were issued for more than 37,000 units over roughly the same period.

By my calculation, Atlantas job market exploded from 330,000 jobs in 2011 to over 437,000 jobs by 2019. Companies like Google, Honeywell and Microsoft moved in, often with city and state subsidies. Many new jobs paid over $100,000 per year and went to young, highly skilled workers, driving up housing demand.

In 2017 the Atlanta Journal-Constitution ran a high-profile investigative series documenting that the BeltLine had produced just 600 units of affordable housing in 11 years far off the pace required to meet its target of 5,600 by 2030. Some of these units had been resold to high-income households. Soon afterward, the CEO of Atlanta BeltLine, Inc. resigned.

That year, a student and I redid my 2007 study on home values around the BeltLine. Once again, we found that during the years we examined this time, from 2011 to 2015 home prices near the BeltLine rose much faster than in areas farther from it. The BeltLine was certainly not the only cause of gentrification and racial exclusion in Atlanta, but it was a key contributor.

Atlanta BeltLine, Inc. has increased its affordable housing activity in recent years, and in late 2020, it initiated a program to pay the increased property taxes of legacy residents. However, by this point in the BeltLines existence, displacement prevention efforts may be too little, too late. By May 2021, only 128 homeowners had applied for the program. Just 21 had received assistance.

Putting affordability first

What can other cities learn from Atlantas experience? In my view, the most important takeaway is the importance of front-loading affordable housing efforts in connection with major redevelopment projects.

This means assembling and banking nearby land as early as possible to be used later for affordable housing. Cities also should limit property tax increases for low-income homeowners and for property owners who agree to keep a substantial portion of their rental units affordable. They might offer low-cost, long-term financing to existing lower-cost rental properties again, in exchange for keeping rent affordable.

Some large-scale urban redevelopment projects, such as the 11th Street Bridge Park in Washington, seem to be making serious efforts to anticipate and mitigate gentrification and displacement. I hope that more cities will follow this lead before undertaking transformative projects.

Dan Immergluck is a professor of Urban Studies, Georgia State University

More than 3 million new members joined the marketplace, also known as Obamacare, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

The government worked with nonprofit groups and invested in program specialists who helped to sign people up in low-income, immigrant, Black and Latino communities to enroll more people, said Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

We made unprecedented investments to expand our enrollment organization footprint into nearly every county in the country and targeted the hardest to reach communities, she said.

The boost in enrollment comes as the number of uninsured people is at an all-time low  just 8% of those in the United States remain without coverage.

President Joe Biden and a Democratic-led Congress have committed millions of dollars over the past two years into unlocking low-cost insurance plans for more people and prohibiting states from kicking people off Medicaid during the COVID-19 pandemic. The marketplace itself has also evolved in recent years, with more insurers joining, giving an overwhelming majority of Americans at least three plans to consider during enrollment.

Those breaks on coverages were extended through 2025 under a major climate and health care bill championed by Democrats last year.

The low-cost plans, which offer zero dollar-premiums for some entering the marketplace, have reversed what was a flat market for the Obama-era health law, said Massey Whorley, a principal at health consulting firm Avalere.

To have this level of continued increase is really interesting, Whorley said. We were in a position several years ago where overall exchange enrollment was flat and declining so many people thought the exchanges were this stable but dwindling environment.

The significant progress on lowering the uninsured rate across the country, however, is threatened this year. Millions of people expected to lose their Medicaid coverage starting this spring when states will begin the process of removing people who are no longer eligible, in many cases because their income is now too high to qualify.

A portion of those people are expected to transition from Medicaid to the marketplace, and the administration said it is spending $12 million to keep information specialists on the job in the coming months to help people enroll in the health laws marketplace if they lose Medicaid coverage.

Some who have had Medicaid coverage over the past few years will decide they can spare a few dollars every month to keep coverage through the health laws marketplace, Whorley said. Others might decide they cannot afford coverage that often has higher co-payments, deductibles and monthly premiums than Medicaid.

They will have to make real choices, Whorley said. If youre already struggling to make rent and pay your utilities, put gas in your car, put food on the table, you may just not be in a position.

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Out with old, in with new. After a decade of U.S. tech stocks leading the dance for investors, it could be emerging markets time to shine.

Jitania Kandhari, deputy chief investment officer and head of macroeconomic research for emerging markets at Morgan Stanley Investment Management (IM), is pulling money out of U.S. stocks and refocusing on emerging markets like India and Vietnam.

Every decade, there is a new leader in the market. In the 2010s, it was U.S. stocks and mega-cap tech. Leaders of this decade can clearly be emerging-market and international stocks, Kandhari, who helps manage $1.3 trillion in assets at Morgan Stanley IM, told Bloomberg Tuesday.

The veteran strategist said that gross domestic product (GDP) growth is the key factor that will allow emerging markets to outperform over the coming decade, arguing that the growth differential between EM nations and the U.S. is widening. To her point, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) expects emerging economies to grow twice as fast as developed economies this year, and by 2050 six of the seven largest economies in the world could be countries that are now considered emerging markets, a PWC study found. 

Kandahari also noted that as supply chains continue to shift out of China post-pandemic, emerging markets like India, Vietnam, and Mexico should benefit from increased business with the West.

Everything that is not working for China is working for India, she said, arguing China is at the eye of a de-globalization storm. 

Mark Haefele, chief investment officer at UBS Global Wealth Management, said in a Tuesday note that he also believes emerging markets will outperformat least in the near term

The U.S. stock market is trading at one of its most expensive levels in 15 years, he wrote. As a result, we advise U.S. investors with a strategic over-exposure to their home market to diversify. 

The U.S. dollars fading strength and the end of Chinas strict COVID restrictions should boost emerging market stocks this year, according to Haefele. 

He also noted that emerging market stocks present good value for investors. The iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Index that tracks emerging market equities currently trades at a 40% discount to the MSCI World Index that tracks similar developed market equities, Haefele said, claiming that this is a level that is historically consistent with positive performance for emerging markets.

While the MSCI EM Index is up over 10% year-to-date, and the MSCI World Index is up just 5% over the same period, not every wealth manager is so bullish on emerging markets. John Lynch, chief investment officer at Comerica Wealth Management, believes expectations for a strong year could be reflecting hope over reality.

Given the many challenges facing the global economy, we believe the recent gains in international equities are more reflective of a bear market rally than an indication of markets pricing in the next recovery, Lynch wrote in a Tuesday note. We believe its simply too soon, given the enormous steps still to be undertaken by developed market central banks and the traction necessary to achieve recovery in the emerging space.

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Ever since PayPal, Apple Pay, and Cash App lured hundreds of millions of users to their digital wallets, big banks have grasped for ways to pull them back into services they control.

The latest example is a push by seven banks, including Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase, to build a wallet of their own to compete with the payment goliaths, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The banks Early Warning Services consortium, which manages the money-transfer service Zelle, announced on Tuesday that it will operate the as-of-yet unnamed wallet. The plan is to provide debit or credit card customers with an easy and secure way to pay while shopping online, a spokesperson for Early Warning Services said in a statement to Fortune. 

An explicit goal of the new wallet is to make inroads against the likes of PayPal and Apple Pay, according to the Journal. Analysts that closely track payment services companies are skeptical, however, that the forthcoming bank wallet will take a significant bite out of these companies market share.

TBD Whether Its Going to Work

Its TBD whether or not its going to work or not, Sanjay Sakhrani, a PayPal analyst at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, told Fortune.

Harshita Rawat, an analyst at AllianceBernstein who specializes in fintech companies, was similarly dubious. Success is not guaranteed, she said in an interview with Fortune. Its very, very hard to gain traction in online payments.

And according to Trevor Williams, a fintech analyst at Jefferies, the wallet is unlikely to pose any competitive threat to PayPal or other established online payment services. The banks are going to have a hard time getting any kind of broad consumer adoption of whatever wallet they come up with together, he said.

The reason for the skepticism lies in a history of the big banks repeatedly trying, but ultimately, failing to challenge the dominance of the likes of Apple when it comes to online payments.

In 2016, JP Morgan Chase launched its own digital wallet, Chase Pay. However, less than five years later it scuttled the service. And, in 2020, Visa scrapped its online checkout service. (It later teamed up with Discover, Mastercard, and American Express to collectively launch a one-click checkout button to rival PayPal.)

Yet, compared to fintech analysts less-than-rosy assessments of the banks new unnamed wallet, Gerard Cassidy, a big banks analyst at RBC Capital Markets, was more optimistic.

The banks are fast followers when it comes to some of these technologies, he told Fortune. And because of their established position in the financial system, they seem to be able to gain momentum once theyre committed to the product.

Wallet Wars

The competitive landscape of digital wallets is already vast, which is partly why fintech analysts remain unconvinced by the banks latest attempt to gain market share. 

In its last annual SEC filing, PayPal said that it had 426 million active accounts. And investment analysts estimated that there were approximately 507 million users of Apple Pay in 2020. Add in Cash App, Google Pay, and a new wallet from Robinhood, and the competition for users is already at a fevered pitch.

Perhaps thats why companies like PayPal and Robinhood have tried to attract new customers through new crypto offerings. PayPal has launched numerous initiatives to allow users to buy crypto, including its recent integration with MetaMasks Web3 wallet. And Robinhood launched a digital wallet for cryptocurrencies last year.

Early Warning Services, the company that will operate the banks new wallet, did not comment on whether the wallet will have any crypto functionality. And any likelihood that it will is a question for years down the line. 

Crypto is kryptonite for the banks, said Cassidy, the analyst at RBC. And until the regulators can get their arms around it to make sure that were not going to have some significant problems with cryptocurrencies, I would say that its not something that is a focus.

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The main focus of their ire is that, starting Feb. 13, 2023, it will cost twice as many of the programs reward points, called stars, to earn a free cup of hot coffee.

When companies pare rewards programs back, there is often significant customer pushback. A recent example in the coffee market was seen in the fall of 2022 when Dunkin made it harder to get free items with its rewards program, also leading to customer backlash.

We are business school professors who study frequent flyer and other rewards programs. While we dont drink very much Starbucks coffee, we are fascinated by the reaction of Starbucks customers and what they seemed to miss.

Building loyalty

Reward and frequent flyer programs are designed to build loyalty, as they provide a form of rebate to regulars. They also are seen by consumers as a good way to save money, particularly when inflation is high.

They are also meant to lock customers into a particular company or airline. In the case of Starbucks, the rewards program reduces the likelihood that its customers will buy coffee from competitors like Dunkin, Costa Coffee, Tim Hortons or Peets Coffee.

Even though airline rewards programs have been around for years, rewards programs among large restaurant chains are relatively new. Sandwich chain Subway, for example, didnt start one until 2018. Fast-food company McDonalds only launched its loyalty program in 2021.

And now, even small businesses are finding it valuable and easier to start loyalty programs, thanks to the acceleration of digital technology in restaurants during the pandemic. About 57% of restaurant chains now have a loyalty program.

Rewards math

Starbucks, however, is an old-timer, having started its rewards program all the way back in 2008.

The program, which had been regarded by some as one of the most rewarding, gained members steadily during its first two decades but exploded in growth during the pandemic. At the end of 2022, about 29 million people were enrolled, up from a little over 16 million in early 2019.

The rewards programs rules are quite complex: The legal language runs about five times longer than this article.

Briefly, customers earn credits by spending money. Each dollar spent on food or drinks earns one star. However, preloading money onto a Starbucks gift card or mobile app earns two times the stars.

Stars can then be spent on drinks, food or merchandise. Under the current program, the simplest and cheapest reward, for 25 stars, is adding a free shot, dairy substitute or flavoring to a drink. The highest cost items, for 400 stars, are merchandise, like a branded cup or a bag of ground coffee.

Consumer friendly?

Starbucks announced changes to the terms and conditions of its rewards program in December, adjusting the price for some of its items.

The change that received the most attention was that the cost of a cup of plain hot coffee or tea would double from 50 stars to 100.

At first glance, Starbucks modification to its rewards program might be perceived as bad for consumers. But there is more to this change than meets the eye. What went less noticed is that the company is also lowering the price to get a free iced coffee or tea from 150 points to 100.

To an unsuspecting consumer, the points reduction for iced coffee may not mean as much against the points increase for hot coffee. The coffee business, however, has radically changed over the last few years. The change is best summarized by a recent New York Times headline, Does anyone drink hot coffee anymore? Iced or cold-brewed coffee is now the rage  even in winter and growing quickly. Cold beverages have accounted for at least 60% of Starbucks total sales every quarter since early 2021, thanks in part to the popularity of iced drinks among Gen Z customers.

This means that for a large share of Starbucks customers, one part of the rewards program is actually getting more generous.

So why the uproar, if one of the more popular items on Starbucks menu is getting cheaper?

Loss aversion, a key concept in behavioral economics, provides a simple explanation. Loss aversion means people perceive something they lose as a bigger deal than something equivalent they gain. People who need to spend 50 more stars from now on to get a hot coffee feel more pain than customers who will spend 50 fewer stars to earn a free iced coffee. This extra pain leads to more complaints from those hurt and little praise from those benefiting.

Rewarding customers

Starbucks, for its part, explained the new rewards system this way:

This change allows us to improve the health of our program while making member favorites like iced coffee easier to earn.

While its critics may disagree about the reason for the decision, ongoing research by one of us conducted into a tea chain suggests retailers have a profit incentive to make their rewards programs more generous. The reason is simple: When rewards are easier to earn, customers become more motivated to collect points, especially as they approach a reward they can redeem. This is why airlines see some customers doing mileage runs at the end of the year, just to earn better status.

From the companys perspective, the benefits from customers shopping more frequently can surpass the costs incurred by providing more rewards. And so for companies and consumers, rewards programs can benefit everyone.

H. Sami Karaca is a professor of Business Analytics at Boston University

Jay L. Zagorsky is a clinical associate professor at Boston University

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How often has someone told you they craved a jog to clear their head after a long day? I certainly run to combat stress, and theres a reason many of us tie up our sneakers, blast music, and work up a sweat as our heart rate soars.

When running, the body releases endorphins which reduce stress and can lead to that runners high, or joyful post-exercise state that improves mood. Over time, running can also bolster focus and memory, and studies trumpet exercise as a protection against physical and mental illness and the development of Alzheimers and dementia. 

But a new study published Wednesday in the Frontiers in Psychology explores how using running to get lost and suppress negative emotions can lead to exercise dependence and a diminished sense of overall well-being.

Escapism, defined in the study as a habitual diversion of the mindas an escape of reality or routine, can improve our ability to manage emotions. Most people use some escapism every day, whether streaming a show, playing a game, listening to a song, or exercising. It can be explorative and serve as a way to gain a deeper, more nuanced perspective on a problem. It can also enhance motivation. 

However, its twofold. Dr. Frode Stenseng, an author of the study and psychology professor from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, says to watch out for escapisms darker side: using activity to suppress negative emotions and thoughts, (in this case literally and figuratively running away from reality). 

You do something that is good for your physical health, but it actually destroys your mental health, he tells Fortune. Youre numbing your emotions.

Self-suppression vs. self-expansion

Using running as an escape is not inherently fraught, but the mindset of your escapism is more important than the activity itself, Stenseng says. You have to be aware of the kind of emotion regulation strategies you bring into your activity, and whether you are engaging in escapism for self-suppression or for self-expansion. 

When running, if youre aware of your surroundings and open to feeling however you may, youre more likely geared to self-expansion. Youre more likely in self-suppression mode when running and using all your brain energy to avoid thoughts about negative emotions. 

In the study of nearly 230 runners of all levels, participants filled out questionnaires related to their motives behind running, their exercise dependence, and their overall well-being. 

The participants were asked if they felt running led them to learn new things about themselves or feel more open to new experiences and perspectives, which determined their level of self-expansion. When participants felt they were more closely correlated with statements like, when I run I try to forget the difficult things in my life or when I run, I want to escape from reality, Stenseng says its a sign of self-suppression.   

The study found that running to suppress was most heavily associated with exercise dependence, and was associated with a diminished subjective well-being. Self-expansion, instead, was not as tightly correlated with exercise dependence and instead led to a positive sense of well-being. Suppression exacerbates negative feelings, leading to a harmful spiral where continuing to run only buries those feelings further. Moreso, a decrease in well-being may be both a cause and an outcome of exercise dependence. 

Its no shock that if you want to avoid dealing with your emotions, engaging in the activity that makes you escape can become addicting. This dependence can lead someone to engage in an activity to cover up larger problems, which in the case of running, can lead to physical injury and mental health problems. 

When you try to suppress your negative emotions, research shows that you also kind of restrain your positive emotions, Stenseng says. Its not possible to suppress your negative emotions, and let kind of the positive emotions flourish.

Stenseng found that the more someone ran to be more mindful and present, the more their well-being improved. 

How to balance exercise and escapism? 

The bottom line: running or jogging is good for us, but a few miles isnt going to solve our problems like we may have hoped. Being more mindful of the reasons behind engaging in different forms of escapism can help people be more intentional, Stenseng says.  

We need all these activities where we can explore the more narrow parts of ourselves, or just let our thoughts kind of wander,  he says. But when you are engaging in this activity, and you use so much energy, to just try to keep all your negative emotions and thoughts away, you actually should stop running and deal with your problems we have to ask ourselves, why is this? Why are these activities and these kinds of cultural habits so important to us?

In future studies, Stenseng hopes to find out more concretely how much exercise dependence affects well-being, and how to change mindsets when looking to escape to promote learning and expansion over avoidance.

So next time you head outside on that jog, practice being more mindful of anything that may bubble up.  

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