Three Wifes Tales

Three Wives, One Husband review: it’s pretty much one long OMG WTF

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But this means less oxygen available for your arms and legs, which require an increased amount during exercise whether you're swimming, running, or cycling. Depriving your muscles of vital oxygen can lead to cramps, conceivably increasing your risk of drowning. The real danger lies with those who eat huge meals before vigorous, triathlon-level exercise. Such cases can indeed lead to cramps and even vomiting. But even then, the medical consensus has long been that it's unlikely to result in drowning; that is, unless the swimmer all-out panics and forgets how to float.

How can you accurately predict if it's going to rain? Just check a cow pasture. If all the cows are lying down, a rainstorm is coming or so this old wives' tale claims. Believers have schemed up several different explanations for why our bovine friends would hit the ground in anticipation of a storm, and many of them sound equally plausible. The simplest is that cows can sense increasing air moisture and will plop down to preserve a dry patch of grass. Another theory states that cows lie down to ease their stomachs, which are supposedly sensitive to changes in atmospheric pressure brought on by rainfall.

The most complicated explanation suggests that cow legs are micro-porous structures that rapidly absorb moisture. As the relative humidity builds from an oncoming downpour, the cow's legs will absorb more and more moisture from the air, softening until they can no longer support the weight of the cow. But is there any weight behind this tale? Not likely cows lie down for many reasons, and there's no scientific evidence that rain is one of them.

As the Farmer's Almanac says, Cows lying down in a field more often means they're chewing their cud, rather than preparing for raindrops. If weather predictions were made based on the actions of cows, the forecast would always be grim. Maybe you couldn't find a nearby trashcan, or perhaps you were enjoying the taste just a little too much. Whatever the case, you did what most of us have done at one point or another: You swallowed your chewing gum.

And if one old wives' tale is true, that gum will be with you, in your digestive system, for the next seven years, wreaking who knows what kind of havoc. Thankfully the legend is false. Your body is able to break down some of the gum's components, such as sweeteners and oil derivatives, but the gum's rubber or latex base gets churned out in a matter of days. However, this doesn't mean you should start swallowing your chewing gum regularly in several reported cases, doctors had to remove taffylike wads of gum from children's bowels. Swallowing a lot of chewing gum in a relatively short amount of time, it seems, can cause the pieces to accumulate and stuff up the digestive tract, causing constipation.

Cats always seem to get a bad rap. Perhaps one of the most commonly held beliefs about cats right behind the one that says that black cats are bad luck is that cats will suck the breath from infants, ultimately killing them. There are two prevailing ideas to explain why your cat would want to suffocate your new bundle of joy: Cats love milk and are drawn to the smell of a baby's milky breath, and cats supposedly get extremely jealous when babies usurp your attention away from them. While a cat could accidentally suffocate a sleeping baby by cozying up too close to its face, experts agree it's highly unlikely a cat would smother an infant on purpose.

Reports of cat-caused infant deaths are scarce, so how did this tale become so common? One case from years ago may have given this tale all the oomph it needed to reach its current scare level. In the Annual Register, a publication that records the year's interesting events, there is an entry for Jan. A child of eighteen months old was found dead near Plymouth; and it appeared, on the coroner's inquest, that the child died in consequence of a cat sucking its breath, thereby occasioning a strangulation.

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Adding to this report is the fact that cats have long been thought of as the familiars of witches, so if parents or even coroners found an infant dead with a cat nearby, the cat was automatically blamed for the incident. Nowadays, however, we know that otherwise healthy babies can die without any known causes, an occurrence known as sudden infant death syndrome. For decades, doctors thought eating a lot of spicy food caused stomach ulcers, or painful sores on the lining of the esophagus, stomach or upper area of the small intestine.

It certainly made sense, as patients would often complain of burning stomach pains after eating spicy food. But in the s, scientists put this old wives' tale to rest at least in the medical community a lot of people still believe this one.

10 Freaky “Old Wives’ Tales”

Studies showed that spicy food doesn't cause ulcers, though it can irritate existing ulcers, which explains the misunderstanding. The real culprit behind the majority of ulcers, researchers found, was the bacterium Helicobacter pylori. Ulcers then develop as the bacteria colonize the stomach. Today's ulcer treatments usually involve antibiotics to kill the infection, but recent research has shown that cranberry juice may be effective, too.

Interestingly, cranberry juice has long been a part of another popular and possibly true tale asserting that the tart drink effectively fights bladder infections. The mechanism behind both treatments is thought to be the same: Compounds in cranberry juice prevent bacteria from adhering to the cells lining the urinary tract and prevent H.

As strange as this tale sounds, there is a lot of anecdotal evidence to back it up. Many people posting to online health forums swear by this home remedy, claiming that unwrapped soap bars cured them of their nightly leg cramps. The soapy cure has gained such a following that it was even brought up on the daytime talk show, "The Doctors," where Dr. Jim Sears conducted a Twitter poll and 42 percent of his responders said they've successfully used soap to relieve nighttime leg cramps.

However, there is no scientific research that supports this treatment, as Dr.

Sears himself found when he reviewed the scientific literature. Similar anecdotal evidence exists for preventing restless leg syndrome RLS with soap, but on a smaller scale. On another popular medical talk show, "The Dr.

Mehmet Oz recommended placing a bar of lavender soap beneath the bed sheets to alleviate RLS, hypothesizing that the smell of lavender is relaxing in itself and may be beneficial for the condition. However, there are no peer-reviewed studies that suggest lavender or lavender soap can successfully treat RLS.

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A woman in Tennessee claims to have had a similar chilling occurrence. Emily Miller moved into a new house, and was awakened by the noise of her doorbell ringing at three in the morning.

She got up, groggy, only to see that no one was at the door. No logical reason could be discovered, although she installed a motion sensor camera and called the local police multiple times. No person was ever there. Weeks turned into months and then years, until Emily ultimately had enough. Her son ripped the doorbell out of the mounting and thew it away. That night the missing doorbell rang once again.

Numerous people believe that having plants on your bedroom is an awful idea. It was believed that the plants would suck up all the oxygen in your room, eventually suffocating you.

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This story is most likely where the urban legend about waking sleepwalkers originated. Sleeping under the direct moonlight was believed to lead to blindness or even madness. Sleeping with a mirror facing you was as well considered a bad idea. Negative energies were alleged to be caught in the mirror and reflected back to the dormant person throughout the night. Since there were high infant mortality rates in ancient times, countless superstitions have come up concerning the months after childbirth.

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