Confession time: Even though I eat a (mostly) healthy diet at home, I often find myself mindlessly drifting from M&M to Cheeto and back during a stressful day at work.

Snacks have become such a common office perk that one recent survey from Jobvite found millennial workers were more likely to get free food at work than they were to receive health care or retirement plans.

In our office, we have bagel Wednesdays, guacamole Thursdays and occasional pizza Fridays on top of the day-to-day snacks that fill our multiple snack drawers.

Just having those snacks available — and visible — could be the problem. Add in stress, multitasking, boredom and procrastination, and you have a perfect storm of office snackery.

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At first glance, small talk is sort of unquestionably terrible. Even if you can’t wait to meet new people, who wants to talk about the weather?

But linguists and social scientists say small talk is no small thing: It’s not what you’re saying that matters, but the social function it serves.

​And it doesn’t just make parties way less awkward — it could actually make you happier. Dr. Gillian Sandstrom, a psychologist at the University of Essex, noticed that “just saying hi to the lady at the hot dog stand” gave her a bounce in her step. She asked people to count their social interactions for six days and found that those who had more daily interaction with acquaintances were happier.

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President Donald Trump has blasted out controversial executive orders so quickly, it’s been difficult for many to keep up. And some experts say that may be the point.

All presidents work quickly to launch their agendas as they take office. But rarely has one made so many scattershot pronouncements all at once.

“This is definitely bizarre, rapid-fire presidential policy making,” says presidential historian Douglas Brinkley, a professor of history at Rice University. “It really is a ‘shock and awe’ strategy that every day there’s a new, radical initiative, and it doesn’t give journalists or the public a chance to get a grip on what just happened.”

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If you ever sat at the edge of the cafeteria longing to sit with the cool kids, take heart: You may wind up happier than they are.

A new study looked at “cool” behaviors adopted by middle-schoolers and found that although they made kids more popular in the short run, that effect wore off quickly and eventually backfired. By early adulthood, the cool kids were more likely to have criminal records, abuse alcohol and drugs and have troubled relationships.

In other words, the world may be one big “Revenge of the Nerds.”

​TODAY.com: Revenge of the nerds? ‘Cool kids’ may become unhappy adults

Justin Vernon, front man of Bon Iver, steps up to the microphone with a song in his heart and, more often than not, honey-ginger-lemon “tea” in his belly. Clichés about subsisting on sex and drugs aside, many performers seem more like athletes when it comes to the way they eat. They talk of small meals, balancing protein with carbs, preferring whole grains and sustainable food, and avoiding anything heavy before taking the stage.

​Gourmet: Concert tours get a health kick

WASHINGTON (AP) – Randi Martin will never forget her first inaugural ball. There were the sequins, the president, the champagne — the riot. 

Martin was at a ball for President Clinton’s second inauguration when Clinton arrived, danced with Hillary, played the saxophone and left – followed by a majority of those gathered to see him.

Thousands of people converged on the coat check from three balls at the Omni Shoreham hotel. Fur flew, and not always to the rightful owners. Judges, politicians, and assorted bigwigs rushed the coatroom and banged on the door.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Barack Obama had just one disclaimer when he announced former pro-basketball player Arne Duncan as his education secretary: “I did not select Arne because he’s one of the best basketball players I know.”

Still, he conceded, “I will say that I think we are putting together the best basketball-playing Cabinet in American history.”

Not that they’d have much competition from the likes of John Foster Dulles, Henry Kissinger or Janet Reno.

"Over the presidencies of the 20th century there were Golf Cabinets, there were Poker Cabinets, and even I suppose Tennis Cabinets," said John Sayle Watterson, author of "The Games Presidents Play: Sports and the Presidency."

But basketball, he said, is a first. "I think this is sort of an updating of that."
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