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“It’s a big hammer to crack a nut.” This is how one angry parent described the recent crackdown(强制措施)by London police on parents who drop their kids off at school by car. Yes, you read that correctly—the very mode of transportation that many American schools insist—the only safe way to deliver kids to school is now being criminalized in the United Kingdom.

The decision to fine any vehicles seen dropping off or picking up kids with in a particular zone of east London comes from city councillors’(议员) long-term efforts to make the area safer and less crowded. They say they’ve been trying for years “to encourage sensible driving and parking”, but in vain. Neighborhood residents complain frequently about their driveways being blocked by illegally parked cars for 15 minutes or more，often while they’re trying to get to work, and the streets are long overcrowded.

Now the rules have changed. Some parents are angry. Angie Baillieul is a mother who made the “big hammer” comment and says the crackdown is “way over the top.” The nearest drop-off point for her six- year-old is now a five-minute walk from the school. Others are happy with the decision, severe though it may seem. Councillor Jason Frost said ：

“Traffic has significantly reduced，and more children are now walking to school, which is a great outcome. I would rather have complaints that we are slightly inconveniencing parents than hear that a child had been seriously injured because nothing was done.”

I witness daily the chaos created by these in-town drivers，when I walk my own kids to school. There’s a parking lot overflowing with vehicles and a slow-moving train of cars moving in circles，many filling the air with harmful smokes. Meanwhile, the conversations around child over-weight and the importance of daily physical activity continue to stand out in schools.

You know the saying “You’re as young as you feel." Well, there may be some truth to that, according to researchers at Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Ellen Langer, a Harvard psychologist who studies how the mind influences the body, and colleagues reviewed the scientific literature for evidence that a person’s perception of their age might influence their health. They published their results in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science.

In one study that Langer led, 47 women had their hair done. The women who thought their new hairdos made them look younger did look younger to objective observers, who were shown before-and-after pictures. The women who thought they looked younger also showed a drop in blood pressure. Another study involving 4,421 men found that those who became bald at a relatively young age were more likely to get cancer and heart disease than men who did not. Similarly, another study involving 2,017 men found that those who lost their hair early were more likely to develop heart disease. “We believe that the feelings associated with being older than one’s real age account for some of these health outcomes,” the researchers wrote.

The researchers also described studies that found that women who had children later in life were more likely to be healthier and live longer than those who had children early, which they attributed to the fact that these mothers tend to spend more time with younger women. Similarly, people who marry younger partners tend to live longer than those who marry older partners, according to other studies.

Taken together, the research “supports the general mind-body hypothesis (假说) that when a younger mind is prepared, a younger body can accompany it.” While the mechanism(机制) remains unclear, the researchers figured that suggestions associated with aging can “make one unconsciously or consciously aware of old age and set in motion a series of physiological processes that can have real effects on short-term and long-term health."