10 Ways To Self-Soothe That Don’t Involve Food Or Drink

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If one is accustomed to comfort-eating or drowning one’s sorrows, what are the alternatives that can actually work? Holistic nutritionist Selin Bilgin has a list:

Self-Care That’s Not Self-Sabotage

You might want to make a note of these 10 things, so they can be a sort of “menu” for you when you need them:

  • Give your introversion or extroversion what it needs (e.g. alone time to decompress, or social activities)
  • Treat your senses: often we don’t actually need food/drink so much as culinary entertainment. So, we can sate this sensory mood in other ways, for example pleasant candles, flowers, and so forth.
  • Bathe/shower nicely: it’s cliché but some personal pampering can go a long way
  • Beautify yourself: it’s also cliché, but a makeover evening has its place
  • Move! Go for a walk, do some yoga, whatever suits you, but move your body.
  • Make movie nights luxurious: instead of making it about food/drink, focus on creating an enjoyable atmosphere
  • Physically release tension: at 10almonds we recommend progressive relaxation for this!
  • Create something: whether it’s art, craft, baking, or something else, creativity feels good
  • Tackle things you’ve been procrastinating: this one doesn’t seem like self-soothing from the front end, but from the back end (i.e., having done it), it makes a big difference!
  • Journal: expressing your thoughts and feelings can help a lot—really.

For more on each of these, enjoy:

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  • Parent Effectiveness Training – by Dr. Thomas Gordon

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Do you want your home (or workplace, for that matter) to be a place of peace? This book literally got the author nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. Can’t really get much higher praise than that.

    The title is “Parent Effectiveness Training”, but in reality, the advice in the book is applicable to all manner of relationships, including:

    • romantic relationships
    • friends
    • colleagues
    • …and really any human interaction.

    It covers some of the same topics we did today (and more) in much more detail than we ever could in a newsletter. It lays out formulae to use, gives plenty of examples, and/but is free from undue padding.

    • Pros: this isn’t one of those “should have been an article” books. It has so much valuable content.
    • Cons: It is from the 1970s* so examples may feel “dated” now.

    In addition to going into much more detail on some of the topics covered in today’s issue of 10almonds, Dr. Gordon also talks in-depth about the concept of “problem-ownership”.

    In a nutshell, that means: whose problem is a given thing? Who “has” what problem? Everyone needs to be on the same page about everyone else’s problems in the situation… as well as their own, which is not always a given!

    Dr. Gordon presents, in short, tools not just to resolve conflict, but also to pre-empt it entirely. With these techniques, we can identify and deal with problems (together!) well before they arise.

    Everybody wins.

    Get your copy of “Parent Effectiveness Training” from Amazon today!

    *Note: There is an updated edition on the market, and that’s what you’ll find upon following the above link. This reviewer (hi!) has a battered old paperback from the 1970s and cannot speak for what was changed in the new edition. However: if the 70s one is worth more than its weight in gold (and it is), the new edition is surely just as good, if not better!

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  • Carrot vs Sweet Potato – Which is Healthier?

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    Our Verdict

    When comparing carrot to sweet potato, we picked the sweet potato.

    Why?

    Both are great! But there’s a winner in the end:

    Looking at the macros first, sweet potato has more protein carbs, and fiber, and is thus the “more food per food” item. If they are both cooked the same, then the glycemic index is comparable, despite the carrot’s carbs having more sucrose and the sweet potato’s carbs having more starch. We’ll call this category a tie.

    In terms of vitamins, carrots have more of vitamins B9 and K, while sweet potatoes have more of vitamins B1, B2, B3, B5, B6. B7, C, E, and choline. Both are equally high in vitamin A. Thus, the vitamins category is an overwhelming win for sweet potato.

    When it comes to minerals, carrots are not higher in any minerals (unless we count that they are slightly higher in sodium, but that is not generally considered a plus for most people in most places most of the time), while sweet potato is higher in calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc. Another easy win for sweet potato.

    Adding up the sections makes for a clear win for the sweet potato as the more nutritionally dense option, but as ever, enjoy either or both!

    Want to learn more?

    You might like to read:

    What’s Your Plant Diversity Score?

    Take care!

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  • A cartoon of a woman nurse working at a desk with health insurance rejections.

    Woman Petitions Health Insurer After Company Approves — Then Rejects — Her Infusions

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    When KFF Health News published an article in August about the “prior authorization hell” Sally Nix said she went through to secure approval from her insurance company for the expensive monthly infusions she needs, we thought her story had a happy ending.

    That’s because, after KFF Health News sent questions to Nix’s insurance company, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois, it retroactively approved $36,000 worth of treatments she thought she owed. Even better, she also learned she would qualify for the infusions moving forward.

    Good news all around — except it didn’t last for long. After all, this is the U.S. health care system, where even patients with good insurance aren’t guaranteed affordable care.

    To recap: For more than a decade, Nix, of Statesville, North Carolina, has suffered from autoimmune diseases, chronic pain, and fatigue, as well as a condition called trigeminal neuralgia, which is marked by bouts of electric shock-like pain that’s so intense it’s commonly known as the “suicide disease.”

    “It is a pain that sends me to my knees,” Nix said in October. “My entire family’s life is controlled by the betrayal of my body. We haven’t lived normally in 10 years.”

    Late in 2022, Nix started receiving intravenous immunoglobulin infusions to treat her diseases. She started walking two miles a day with her service dog. She could picture herself celebrating, free from pain, at her daughter’s summer 2024 wedding.

    “I was so hopeful,” she said.

    But a few months after starting those infusions, she found out that her insurance company wouldn’t cover their cost anymore. That’s when she started “raising Cain about it” on Instagram and Facebook.

    You probably know someone like Sally Nix — someone with a chronic or life-threatening illness whose doctor says they need a drug, procedure, or scan, and whose insurance company has replied: No.

    Prior authorization was conceived decades ago to rein in health care costs by eliminating duplicative and ineffective treatment. Not only does overtreatment waste billions of dollars every year, but doctors acknowledge it also potentially harms patients.

    However, critics worry that prior authorization has now become a way for health insurance companies to save money, sometimes at the expense of patients’ lives. KFF Health News has heard from hundreds of people in the past year relating their prior authorization horror stories.

    When we first met Nix, she was battling her insurance company to regain authorization for her infusions. She’d been forced to pause her treatments, unable to afford $13,000 out-of-pocket for each infusion.

    Finally, it seemed like months of her hard work had paid off. In July, Nix was told by staff at both her doctor’s office and her hospital that Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois would allow her to restart treatment. Her balance was marked “paid” and disappeared from the insurer’s online portal.

    But the day after the KFF Health News story was published, Nix said, she learned the message had changed. After restarting treatment, she received a letter from the insurer saying her diagnoses didn’t actually qualify her for the infusions. It felt like health insurance whiplash.

    “They’re robbing me of my life,” she said. “They’re robbing me of so much, all because of profit.”

    Dave Van de Walle, a spokesperson for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois, said the company would not discuss individual patients’ cases.

    “Prior authorization is often a requirement for certain treatments,” Van de Walle said in a written statement, “and BCBSIL administers benefits according to medical policy and the employer’s benefit.”

    But Nix is a Southern woman of the “Steel Magnolia” variety. In other words, she’s not going down without a fight.

    In September, she called out her insurance company’s tactics in a http://change.org/ campaign that has garnered more than 21,000 signatures. She has also filed complaints against her insurance company with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Department of Labor, Illinois Department of Insurance, and Illinois attorney general.

    Even so, Nix said, she feels defeated.

    Not only is she still waiting for prior authorization to restart her immunoglobulin infusions, but her insurance company recently required Nix to secure preapproval for another treatment — routine numbing injections she has received for nearly 10 years to treat the nerve pain caused by trigeminal neuralgia.

    “It is reprehensible what they’re doing. But they’re not only doing it to me,” said Nix, who is now reluctantly taking prescription opioids to ease her pain. “They’re doing it to other patients. And it’s got to stop.”

    Do you have an experience with prior authorization you’d like to share? Click here to tell your story.

    KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

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  • The Neuroscience of You – by Dr. Chantel Prat

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    The insides of people are rarely so standardized as one finds in a medical textbook, and that’s just as true of the brain as it is of any other organ—and often more so.

    Our brains all look quite different from each other’s. Of course there are similarities; a wobbly mass of white and grey matter with tiny blood vessels running through. The constituent parts are (usually!) all present and correct. But… what is “correct”?

    Dr. Chantel Prat takes us on a tour of the anatomical features that we may have grown or shrunken over the course of our life, according to how we’ve used them, or not. She also looks at what’s going on when it comes to the smaller scale—from the neuronal to the neurochemical.

    We learn the truth (and myth) when it comes to left- and right-brainedness, and we learn how whether we saw that dress as black and blue or white and gold, depends on our circadian rhythm (and thus whether we have wired ourselves for perceiving colors more or less often under daylight or artificial light). And lots more.

    The style throughout is very accessible, for a book that goes beyond most “how the brain works” books.

    Bottom line: if you’re interested in the workings of your brain (as opposed to: a standardized Platonic ideal of what a brain might be), then this book will set you on the right track.

    Click here to check out The Neuroscience of You, and learn more about what makes you you!

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  • The Princess of Wales wants to stay cancer-free. What does this mean?

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Catherine, Princess of Wales, has announced she has now completed a course of preventive chemotherapy.

    The news comes nine months after the princess first revealed she was being treated for an unspecified form of cancer.

    In the new video message released by Kensington Palace, Princess Catherine says she’s focused on doing what she can to stay “cancer-free”. She acknowledges her cancer journey is not over and the “path to recovery and healing is long”.

    While we don’t know the details of the princess’s cancer or treatment, it raises some questions about how we declare someone fully clear of the disease. So what does being – and staying – “cancer-free” mean?

    Pete Hancock/Shutterstock

    What’s the difference between being cancer-free and in remission?

    Medically, “cancer-free” means two things. First, it means no cancer cells are able to be detected in a patient’s body using the available testing methods. Second, there is no cancer left in the patient.

    These might sound basically the same. But this second aspect of “cancer-free” can be complicated, as it’s essentially impossible to be sure no cancer cells have survived a treatment.

    Two nurses look at two computer screens as a patient enters a CT scan machine.
    Testing can’t completely rule out the chance some cancer cells have survived treatment. Andrewshots/Shutterstock

    It only takes a few surviving cells for the cancer to grow back. But these cells may not be detectable via testing, and can lie dormant for some time. The possibility of some cells still surviving means it is more accurate to say a patient is “in remission”, rather than “cancer-free”.

    Remission means there is no detectable cancer left. Once a patient has been in remission for a certain period of time, they are often considered to be fully “cancer-free”.

    Princess Catherine was not necessarily speaking in the strict medical sense. Nonetheless, she is clearly signalling a promising step in her recovery.

    What happens during remission?

    During remission, patients will usually undergo surveillance testing to make sure their cancer hasn’t returned. Detection tests can vary greatly depending on both the patient and their cancer type.

    Many tests involve simply looking at different organs to see if there are cancer cells present, but at varying levels of complexity.

    Some cancers can be detected with the naked eye, such as skin cancers. In other cases, technology is needed: colonoscopies for colorectal cancers, X-ray mammograms for breast cancers, or CT scans for lung cancers. There are also molecular tests, which test for the presence of cancer cells using protein or DNA from blood or tissue samples.

    For most patients, testing will continue for years at regular intervals. Surveillance testing ensures any returning cancer is caught early, giving patients the best chance of successful treatment.

    Remaining in remission for five years can be a huge milestone in a patient’s cancer journey. For most types of cancer, the chances of cancer returning drop significantly after five years of remission. After this point, surveillance testing may be performed less frequently, as the patients might be deemed to be at a lower risk of their cancer returning.

    A dermatologist peers through a magnifying lens at a mole on a man's back.
    Skin cancer may be detected by the naked eye, but many other cancers require technology for detection and monitoring. wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock

    Measuring survival rates

    Because it is very difficult to tell when a cancer is “cured”, clinicians may instead refer to a “five-year survival rate”. This measures how likely a cancer patient is to be alive five years after their diagnosis.

    For example, data shows the five-year survival rate for bowel cancer among Australian women (of all ages) is around 70%. That means if you had 100 patients with bowel cancer, after five years you would expect 70 to still be alive and 30 to have succumbed to the disease.

    These statistics can’t tell us much about individual cases. But comparing five-year survival rates between large groups of patients after different cancer treatments can help clinicians make the often complex decisions about how best to treat their patients.

    The likelihood of cancer coming back, or recurring, is influenced by many factors which can vary over time. For instance, approximately 30% of people with lung cancer develop a recurrent disease, even after treatment. On the other hand, breast cancer recurrence within two years of the initial diagnosis is approximately 15%. Within five years it drops to 10%. After ten, it falls below 2%.

    These are generalisations though – recurrence rates can vary greatly depending on things such as what kind of cancer the patient has, how advanced it is, and whether it has spread.

    Staying cancer-free

    Princess Catherine says her focus now is to “stay cancer-free”. What might this involve?

    How a cancer develops and whether it recurs can be influenced by things we can’t control, such as age, ethnicity, gender, genetics and hormones.

    However, there are sometimes environmental factors we can control. That includes things like exposure to UV radiation from the sun, or inhaling carcinogens like tobacco.

    Lifestyle factors also play a role. Poor diet and nutrition, a lack of exercise and excessive alcohol consumption can all contribute to cancer development.

    Research estimates more than half of all cancers could potentially be prevented through regular screening and maintaining a healthy lifestyle (not to mention preventing other chronic conditions such as heart disease and diabetes).

    Recommendations to reduce cancer risk are the same for everyone, not just those who’ve had treatment like Princess Catherine. They include not smoking, eating a nutritious and balanced diet, exercising regularly, cutting down on alcohol and staying sun smart.

    Amali Cooray, PhD Candidate in Genetic Engineering and Cancer, WEHI (Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research) ; John (Eddie) La Marca, Senior Research Officer, Blood Cells and Blood Cancer, WEHI (Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research) , and Sarah Diepstraten, Senior Research Officer, Blood Cells and Blood Cancer Division, WEHI (Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research)

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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  • The Sugary Food That Lowers Blood Sugars

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!

    Have a question or a request? We love to hear from you!

    In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!

    As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!

    So, no question/request too big or small

    ❝Loved the article on goji berries! I read they are good for blood sugars, is that true despite the sugar content?❞

    Most berries are! Fruits that are high in polyphenols (even if they’re high in sugar), like berries, have a considerable net positive impact on glycemic health:

    And more specifically:

    Dietary berries, insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes: an overview of human feeding trials

    Read more: Which Sugars Are Healthier, And Which Are Just The Same?

    As for goji berries specifically, they’re very high indeed in polyphenols, and also have a hypoglycemic effect, i.e., they lower blood sugar levels (and as a bonus, increases HDL (“good” cholesterol) levels too, but that’s not the topic here):

    ❝The results of our study indicated a remarkable protective effect of LBP in patients with type 2 diabetes. Serum glucose was found to be significantly decreased and insulinogenic index increased during OMTT after 3 months administration of LBP. LBP also increased HDL levels in patients with type 2 diabetes. It showed more obvious hypoglycemic efficacy for those people who did not take any hypoglycemic medicine compared to patients taking hypoglycemic medicines. This study showed LBP to be a good potential treatment aided-agent for type 2 diabetes.❞

    • LBP = Lycium barbarum polysaccharide, i.e. polysaccharide in/from goji berries
    • OMTT = Oral metabolic tolerance test, a test of how well the blood sugars avoid spiking after a meal

    Read: Practical Application of Antidiabetic Efficacy of Lycium barbarum Polysaccharide in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes

    For more about goji berries (and also where to get them), for reference our previous article is at:

    Goji Berries: Which Benefits Do They Really Have?

    Take care!

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