In this cutthroat professional landscape, every second counts in successfully climbing the corporate ladder. Depending on what industry you're in, you might be forced to show up early every day, and stay extra late in order to keep up with the overwhelming workload. Then, you go home, and prepare to start the whole thing over again. For a lot of people, that scenario is a very tangible reality, and although we've all got our allocated holiday time, sometimes that's just not enough. Sometimes, you've got to call in sick, even if there's nary a hint of a sniffle in your sinuses. Yes, sometimes you've just got to embrace truancy, even if you feel completely awful for it afterward. Playing hooky is something we've ingrained in ourselves as an inherently bad thing, but one neuroscientist says that not only is it nothing to be ashamed of, it's actually pretty helpful for you in the long run. Dr Tara Swart, a neuroscientist who is also the author of An Attitude for Acting: How to Survive (and Thrive) As an Actor, says that those extra couple days every now and then can only be good for your overworked grey matter. In order to be at your best in the workplace, you need to keep blood flowing to all areas of your brain. Sometimes, that isn't always possible; when you've got a high workload, your boss is riding you or you feel like you're being treated unfairly by your coworkers, then your brain goes into survival mode, moving supply away from the areas of higher function. Pretty useful for when you want to run away from a sabre tooth tiger, but not so great for when you need to finish that report by the end of the day. In this survival mode, you can go through the motions, doing just enough to stay out of the HR office, but your work won't be as great, and you'll approach your coworkers with the enthusiasm of an angry cat being forced to have a bath. Not exactly helpful for workplace camaraderie. To extend the corporate metaphor, Dr Swart likes to think of the human brain as being the "CEO" of your body. "If you knew how your CEO thinks, what their values are, or how they like to work, you’d be able to give them the best piece of work that you can. It’s exactly like that with your brain. The more you know about how it works, the more you can get out of it." So next time you're flagging on a Wednesday afternoon and begging for the sweet release of death, consider calling in sick the next day and doing something nice for yourself. After all, a well-rested employee is going to be a creative, productive and friendly employee, and which business isn't going to like that? Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to book a trip to the movies... and tell my boss about this cold I've got coming on.

How many browser tabs do you have open right now? I bet it’s more than two. How about your phone, when was the last time you checked it? If it was more than seven minutes ago then you're already beating the average. With all of the distractions of modern life, we’re undeniably a "do more in less time" generation; but before you sit there feeling smug at your impressive ability to spin all of the proverbial plates, it’s time to take a step back and consider what really happens to your brain, and by extension your body, every time you multi-task. Get ready for a reality check. 

 1. It slows your brain down

Well first things first, it’s time to burst your productivity bubble. Research by the American Psychological Association has shown that rather than making your more productive, multi-tasking merely makes you think you are. Instead, by jumping constantly between priorities it can take you up to 40 per cent longer to complete an individual task, largely because your brain has to get back in the zone every time you swap. And sorry to break it to you, but even when you think you’re the exception to the rule, you’re not - only two per cent of humans are actually good at multi-tasking, the rest of us are just jumping around from screen to screen. 

2. Your stress levels increase

Sometimes, we just don’t have a choice but to multi-task because with kids, work, partners and pets all demanding our attention and dragging us in different directions, there’s just too much going on not to. But while you may think of multi-tasking as just “getting stuff done”, it is in actual fact all the while increasing the cortisol levels in your bloodstream - otherwise known as “the stress hormone”. Stress, as you probably know, not only leaves us feeling more wired but contributes to a whole host of health problems including high blood pressure, obesity and heart disease. If you ever needed an excuse to delegate the washing up and ignore the ironing pile, this is it.

3. You get distracted by irrelevant information

The thing about multi-tasking is that it’s a bit of a cyclical beast: Once you start, it reduces your ability to focus on one thing when completing other tasks. Eyal Ophir, a researcher at Stanford University, ran a study into concentration and cognitive ability looking at two groups of people - those who regularly multi-task with electrical devices and those who don't. The results were clear: "[The high multitaskers] couldn’t help thinking about the task they weren’t doing,” Ophir said. “The high multitaskers are always drawing from all the information in front of them. They can’t keep things separate in their minds.” Unfortunately, you can’t blame anyone else for this one either - we self-interrupt every three and a half minutes.

4.  Your IQ drops

A study of 1,100 British office workers undertaken by the University of London found that people multi-tasking while using electronic media, for example texting while watching TV, actually exhibited a decline in IQ that was similar to someone having smoked marijuana or experiencing the effects of a lack of sleep. In some of the male participants, the effect of this was so substantial that they dropped a full 15 IQ points, leaving them with a score equivalent to that of an eight-year-old. Would you trust an eight-year-old to write your emails for you? Didn’t think so.

5.  Your EQ drops too

Bad news for those of you losing IQ points, because every time you multi-task your emotional intelligence drops a little too. Those who multi-task in social situations, whether that’s checking your phone while out for dinner with a friend or staring at the TV while having a conversation with your partner, exhibit lower levels of self and social awareness. But even if you don’t care about your dropping EQ levels, then forget about the fact that multi-tasking is bad for you and remember one thing - no one likes the person who's checking their phone instead of focusing on pizza and chat. No one. 

 6.  It may literally rot your brain

We all know that alcohol is bad for our brains, but it turns out that multi-tasking may be too. In 2014, researchers at the University of Surrey compared the amount of time people spent multi-tasking on electrical devices with MRI scans of their brains - with surprising results. They found that those who spent the highest amount of time using multiple devises simultaneously had lower brain density in the anterior cingulate cortex, which is responsible for emotional and cognitive control. This research is still in the early stages and more work needs to be done to confirm its findings on a larger scale but Kep Kee Loh, one of the neuroscientists who led the study, is optimistic: “Although it is conceivable that individuals with small ACC are more susceptible to multitasking situations due to weaker ability in cognitive control or socio-emotional regulation, it is equally plausible that higher levels of exposure to multitasking situations leads to structural changes in the ACC.” It's clear then that no matter how productive we like to think we're being when we multi-task, the likelihood is that we are actually doing quite the opposite. Earl Miller, a professor of neuroscience at The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT, argues that for most people effective multi-tasking is merely an illusion: “As humans, we have a very limited capacity for simultaneous thought — we can only hold a little bit of information in the mind at any single moment.” At work especially, the ability to multi-task is almost seen as a prerequisite to success. Can’t juggle three phone calls, eight reports and an excel spreadsheet, all while maintaining the grace of a gazelle? Better not expect that promotion anytime soon. Yet it seems that if you really do want to get ahead then it's just better to be in the moment - so put your phone away, turn your email notifications off, close this tab and instead just focus on whatever you need to achieve right now. (And if you made it all the way through this article without getting distracted at least once then maybe, just maybe, you’re in the magical two per cent.)

Over the years, we've made some progress in humankind's pursuit of absolute gender equality. The #MeToo campaign toward the tail end of 2017 saw serial sexual harassers such as Harvey Weinstein and Louis CK get their comeuppance, while the Women's Marches that arose toward the beginning of last year indicate that we're up for the fight of ensuring that gender doesn't unfairly play a role in the eventual success or failure of our lives. That being said, there's still a long ways to go. One of the most egregious examples of gender inequality often comes at work, and a recent study shows that for all of our progress in the subject, there is still some disagreement as to what is responsible for workplace lack of equality among everything else. To explore this further, a study by the Pew Research Center took a closer look at America's views on gender differences, asking as many as 4,573 men and women about the different gender perceptions in modern society, and why they thought these differences exist. Keep in mind that women and men are somewhat different on a biological level; when asked about personal hobbies, how we express emotions or even our various parenting styles, the majority of American men and women were in agreement that there were some genuine gender differences. In the office, those differences were more of a topic of debate, as the study shows. A majority of the people surveyed (around 63 percent) said that men and women were good at similar things in the workplace, the ones who were in disagreement were also in disagreement as to why. Of the 35 percent of women who said that men and women were good at different things, 65 percent said this was down to "societal expectations" rather than anything else. For the 38 percent of men who thought that gender accounted for differing workplace performance, 61 percent believed that women were good at different things thanks to "biological differences". A separate question by the guys at the Pew Research Center shines a light on the perceived gender differences in the workplace. For women, the most desirable societal traits were physical attractiveness (35 percent) or nurturing/empathy (30 percent), but men were desired for their "honesty and morality" or their "professional and financial success", while leadership, strength and work ethic weren't far behind. “Far fewer cite these as examples of what society values most in women,” the report says. The Pew Research Center wasn't the only publication to ask a similar question of men and women in the workplace; the University of Delaware found that women are given less credit in the workplace for giving similar ideas and speaking out at a similar frequency to men, while a study from Harvard Business Review said it rather simply: “Gender inequality is due to bias, not differences in behavior.” There you have it, folks. On the whole, we're doing a lot better with gender equality than we were, say, 50 or 60 years ago, but these studies still show there's still a weird (and kind of arbitrary) discrimination when it comes to the men and women working alongside us. Let's hope that moving forward, women get to show exactly what they can do on a similar footing to men.  

No matter who you are or where you're from, pretty much all of us will have one relationship that we value more than others in our lifetime. This could be a childhood friend, a sibling, a parent, or - as we get older - most likely a romantic partner that we choose to settle down and build a life with.

But, according to one survey conducted by the spa and healthcare company, Champneys, our idea about soulmates might be a little off, as it transpires that most women actually prefer their best friends to their husbands.

In fact, out of the 1,517 women questioned, a little over 50 per cent claimed that their gal pals ranked higher than their spouses when it came to who they were closer to - and there were a number of reasons why.

The most-agreed-on reason why women preferred their platonic pal to their husband was that they felt they could "talk about everything" with another woman. This was followed closely by the fact that those surveyed felt that their female friends "listen more" than their spouses, and that they "can tell her things [they] could not tell [their] partner."

A lot of the responses seemed to suggest that women simply have a better time with their girlfriends, too, with 39 per cent saying they preferred their pals because, "we laugh until we cry", 29 per cent saying, "I can truly be myself", and a quarter admitting that, "we have much more in common".

What's more, over forty per cent also said that their gal pals were better company because "we enjoy the same things", and 28 per cent said that it was because "she offers better advice".

Amusingly, more than one in four women said their husband didn't get the top spot because their female friends were "less irritating", and almost a fifth of those surveyed said their pals simply had "a better sense of humor".

A spokesperson for Champneys said:

"These research findings back up our own sales stats which show that all female group bookings for our spa days and weekend offerings have nearly doubled over the past 12 months.

In fact, our Girly Getaway and ‘Girls Night In’ packages for groups of six or more are amongst the most in demand packages at Champneys Spa resorts."

Of course, this could just be because spa days are usually marketed towards women more than men, but the fact that these ladies are bringing their friends instead of their partners is pretty telling. Plus, as other studies have shown that women - on average - have told their besties two secrets that their husband doesn't know, and it's unlikely that the lack of a shared interest in clay masks and foot massages is to blame.

So, to any married men reading this, if you want to win favour with your wife: make sure you listen more, make an effort to take an interest in her hobbies, and do your best to be a bit less irritating. Of course, you could always just take her on a spa day - I'm sure that would get you a fair amount of kudos!

Everybody slacks off at work once in a while, catching a quick cat-nap at your desk, watching stupid videos on YouTube or ditching the office to do something fun. For example, one time one of my co-workers got a drone as a Christmas present, so we followed him down to the lounge on the third story rooftop to watch its inaugural flight. He immediately flew the plane over the railing, lost control of it, and it crashed somewhere out of sight. Sure, this was only about thirty seconds of slacking off at work, but it felt so good. And the drone probably didn't hit anyone's car. Probably. Well, imagine how great it would be if slacking off was your job. It sounds too good to be true, or like the title of an Onion article, but this news is real: TUI, one of the world's largest travel agencies, is hiring four "professional slackers," aka "Fakecation Specialists." According to their website, "the ideal applicant takes great pride in doing as little as possible at any cost." (Hey, you got my attention!) If your resume is a blank sheet of paper, that's cool, but "previous experience of sleeping at your workplace is highly appreciated." Key qualifications include "not at all able to think outside the box," "like to sit or lie down" and "feel extremely uncomfortable hearing words like “productivity” and “deadlines." And of course, the primary responsibilities are "none." Sounds pretty sweet, right? The salary is not disclosed, but TUI says it is "guaranteed to be way too high in relation to performance." The daily shifts run from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 1 p.m. to 7 p.m., which is not ideal for slackers. Slackers get up at noon at the earliest, if they decide to get up at all. But remember, they're basically getting to paid to do nothing, so they could just spend that time sleeping. Really, the slackers can do whatever they want. The website suggests they read a book, meditate and "sit in a beach chair wearing a summer outfit." Just don't do any work - you might get fired. If you're interested in becoming a Fakeation Specialist, you can apply on TUI's website. Don't worry - they don't want a resume, cover letter or references. You just have to write a couple lines about yourself and send a photo or video. But there are two important details that might be a buzzkill: This job only runs from January 22 to February 4, and it's based in Stockholm, Sweden. So, if you don't want to spend a couple weeks in IKEA-Land during the winter, you might want to stay at your current job that is slowly crushing your soul. I should write a couple more paragraphs, but all this talk about slacking off at work really makes me want to slack off at work. I'm going to buy a drone, take it down to the lounge on the third story rooftop, and see how she flies. Watch out, motorists! It won't stay in the air for long!