Today's Wisdom - Athletes, Affection and Vitamin B

Welcome back to A Little Wiser. Big thanks to Professor Farrer from Idaho for suggesting today's lesson on Vitamin B. We enjoy researching your ideas and hearing about your own work or interests. If you have a recommendation or a guest you want us to feature, let us know! Today’s wisdom explores:

Grab your coffee and let’s dive in.

For most of the 20th century, universities generated billions from football and basketball, while the athletes themselves were legally defined as amateurs who couldn’t earn a dollar from their own fame. That world officially ended on July 1, 2025, with the landmark House v. NCAA settlement. For the first time, major colleges can pay their players directly from their multi-billion dollar TV deals. In the 2025–26 season, top-tier basketball rosters now cost an average of $9.7 million in direct pay alone, while football programs are seeing their total talent acquisition budgets, including both school salaries and booster-funded NIL (name and likeness) deals, skyrocket toward $30 million annually. These are 17-23 year olds!

The financial stakes have reached a breaking point in 2026, leading to the first high-profile breach of contract lawsuits between schools and their own students. In January 2026, Duke University sued its star quarterback, Darian Mensah, after he attempted to break an $8 million multi-year NIL agreement to enter the transfer portal allowing him to play and study at another university. Duke argued that they owned his exclusive licensing rights, leading to a temporary restraining order that briefly blocked his move before a $10 million settlement cleared his path to transfer to play American Football at Miami. The leverage has shifted so drastically that even players who haven't yet earned a starting spot are entering negotiations with agents and professional-style demands. One frustrated college coach recently went viral for detailing the "standard" list of requirements for a mid-tier recruit: “He wanted a $50,000 signing bonus, $5,000 a month in cash, and a luxury rental car just to show up for spring practice. He hasn't even played a down of college ball yet.”

For decades, the system operated on under-the-table handshakes like the "Fab Five" era where boosters funneled cash to students in McDonald’s bags to avoid NCAA bans. Today, that shadow economy has been replaced by structured NIL Collectives, where a star player might sign a $500k deal for a single social media campaign. Proponents argue this is a long-overdue correction for schools like Ohio State that built $50 billion valuations on the backs of players who were often one injury away from losing everything. However, critics point to a dark side: as schools rush to hit the $20.5 million revenue-sharing cap for football, they are gutting sports like track and wrestling to balance the books. As the 2026 season unfolds, we are left wondering if the "student-athlete" ever really existed, or if we’ve simply finally admitted that the stadium is just another boardroom.

For millennia, human parenting followed evolutionary patterns shaped by survival: infants remained in constant physical contact with caregivers for warmth, protection, and on-demand nursing. This changed dramatically in the late 19th century when male medical experts claimed authority over the domestic sphere, dismissing traditional maternal knowledge as superstition. Dr. L. Emmett Holt's 1894 manual ‘The Care and Feeding of Children’ introduced rigid, clock-based feeding schedules, warning that responding to cries would spoil infants! The philosophy reached its extreme in 1928 with psychologist John B. Watson, the 17th most cited psychologist of the 20th century, who instructed parents: "Never hug and kiss them, never let them sit in your lap... Shake hands with them in the morning." To justify the distress this caused, experts promoted the "Lung Expansion Myth" claiming vigorous crying strengthened babies' lungs. Historically, this even led to the invention of the "Baby Cage" in the 1930s, wire containers suspended outside tenement windows so city babies could get fresh air without bothering their busy mothers.

Watson’s Behaviorism became the gold standard of 19th-century parenting because it promised efficient children, appealing to a society obsessed with industrial order. However, this popularity came at a devastating biological cost. Modern science confirms that affection is a physiological requirement; physical touch triggers the release of oxytocin and regulates the HPA axis, which manages stress. Without it, the developing brain is flooded with toxic levels of cortisol that can permanently alter emotional regulation. The failure of this cold methodology was starkly illustrated by Watson's own family: his children, Billy, James, and Polly, all battled chronic depression and suicidal ideation, with Billy eventually tragically taking his own life. By suppressing the natural instinct to soothe, Watson's wildly popular teachings essentially institutionalized developmental neglect.

Modern neuroscience has systematically dismantled these dogmas. Researcher Wendy Middlemiss found that during "cry it out" sleep training, infant cortisol levels remain dangerously elevated even after crying stops, the silence reassures parents, but the baby's body remains in physiological distress. Edward Tronick's Still Face Experiment showed that just minutes of parental unresponsiveness causes infants rapid heart rate increases and intense distress. Perhaps most striking, Michael Meaney's research with rat pups revealed that maternal care literally alters gene expression: nurturing mothers produced offspring with greater stress resilience as adults, while less affectionate care resulted in permanently elevated anxiety levels. The "scientific" parenting methods of the early 20th century were a failed experiment in severing the human connection that builds healthy brains. The real science now confirms what grandmothers knew all along: babies need responsive, affectionate caregiving.

Below - an interesting read exploring nature vs nuture in parenting.

Food is useless unless your body can turn it into motion, heat, and thought and that invisible transformation is largely powered by the B vitamins. Often grouped together, the B-complex vitamins enable the chemical reactions that keep cells alive. Unlike fats or carbohydrates, they don’t provide energy themselves. Instead, they unlock it. Among them, B1, B2, and B12 form a metabolic relay team that connects what you eat to how clearly you think, how steadily your heart beats, and how resilient your nervous system remains over time.

Vitamin B1, also known as thiamine, is the gatekeeper of energy metabolism. It plays a critical role in converting glucose into ATP, the basic energy currency of cells. Without enough B1, your body struggles to extract usable power from food, even if you’re eating plenty. This is why thiamine deficiency historically devastated populations reliant on polished white rice, leading to beriberi, a disease marked by muscle weakness, nerve damage, and heart failure. In the modern body, B1 quietly supports nerve signaling, muscle contraction, and cardiac rhythm. The brain, which consumes roughly 20% of your daily energy, is especially dependent on it. When thiamine levels drop, the earliest symptoms are often mental: brain fog, irritability, and fatigue, long before more severe damage appears. Vitamin B2, or riboflavin, operates deeper in the engine room. It is a core component of two essential coenzymes, FAD and FMN, that drive the electron transport chain, the final step where cells squeeze maximum energy from nutrients. In practical terms, B2 helps turn fats, proteins, and carbohydrates into steady power rather than metabolic waste. It also plays a protective role, supporting antioxidant systems that limit cellular damage from normal metabolism. Riboflavin is especially important for tissues with high turnover, like skin, eyes, and the lining of the gut, which is why deficiency often shows up as cracked lips, sore throats, or light sensitivity.

Vitamin B12 is the heavyweight of the group, working at the intersection of energy, blood, and the nervous system. It is essential for DNA synthesis and the formation of red blood cells, which carry oxygen to every tissue in the body. Just as critically, B12 maintains the myelin sheath, the insulating layer around nerves that allows electrical signals to travel quickly and accurately. When B12 runs low, the consequences can be severe and sometimes irreversible: anemia, numbness, memory loss, and cognitive decline. Unlike other B vitamins, B12 is stored in the liver, and deficiencies can take years to surface, often masquerading as aging or stress. It is found almost exclusively in animal products, which is why vegetarians, vegans, and older adults with reduced absorption are at higher risk. Together, B1, B2, and B12 form a biological supply chain that keeps energy flowing from food to cell to thought. They don’t promise instant vitality or dramatic boosts but without them, the entire system slows, frays, and eventually fails.

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Until next time... A Little Wiser Team