10,000 Steps, 30 Days, 4 Changes
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Ariel wasn’t the most active person, and took on a “30 day challenge” to do the commonly-prescribed 10,000 steps per day—without adjusting her diet or doing any other exercise. How much of a difference does it make, really?
Stepping onwards
The 4 main things that she found changed for her weren’t all what she expected:
- Weight loss yes, but only marginally: she lost 3 lbs in a month, which did nevertheless make a visible difference. We might hypothesize that part of the reason for the small weight loss and yet visible difference is that she gained a little muscle, and the weight loss was specifically shifting away from a cortisol-based fat distribution, to a more healthy fat distribution.
- Different eating habits: she felt less hungry and craved less sugar. This likely has less to do with calorie consumption, and more to do with better insulin signalling.
- Increased energy and improved mood: these are going together in one item, because she said “4 things”, but really they are two related things. So, consider one of them a bonus item! In any case, she felt more energized and productive, and less reliant on caffeine.
- Improved sleep: or rather, at first, disrupted sleep, and then slept better and stayed better. A good reminder that changes for the better don’t always feel better in the first instance!
To hear about it in her own words, and see the before and after pictures, enjoy:
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Can apps and digital resources support your child with autism or ADHD?
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Neurodevelopmental conditions such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism affect about one in ten children. These conditions impact development, behaviour and wellbeing.
But children with these conditions and their caregivers often can’t get the support they need. Families report difficulties accessing health-care providers and experience long wait lists to receive care.
Digital tools, such as apps and websites, are often viewed as a solution to these gaps. With a single click or a download, families might be able to access information to support their child.
There are lots of digital tools available, but it’s hard to know what is and isn’t useful. Our new study evaluated freely available digital resources for child neurodevelopment and mental health to understand their quality and evidence base.
We found many resources were functional and engaging. However, resources often lacked evidence for the information provided and the claimed positive impact on children and families.
This is a common problem in the digital resource field, where the high expectations and claims of impact from digital tools to change health care have not yet been realised.
Fabio Principe/Shutterstock What type of resources?
Our study identified 3,435 separate resources, of which 112 (43 apps and 69 websites) met our criteria for review. These resources all claimed to provide information or supports for child neurodevelopment, mental health or wellbeing.
Resources had to be freely available, in English and have actionable information for children and families.
The most common focus was on autism, representing 17% of all resources. Resources suggested they provided strategies to promote speech, language and social development, and to support challenging behaviours.
Other common areas included language and communication (14%), and ADHD (10%).
Resources had various purposes, including journalling and providing advice, scheduling support, and delivering activities and strategies for parents. Resources delivered information interactively, with some apps organising content into structured modules.
Resources also provided options for alternative and assistive communication for people with language or communication challenges.
Most apps were functional and accessible
Our first question was about how engaging and accessible the information was. Resources that are hard to use aren’t used frequently, regardless of the information quality.
We evaluated aesthetics, including whether digital tools were easy to use and navigate, stylistically consistent, with clean and appealing graphics for users.
Most resources were rated as highly engaging, with strong accessibility and functionality.
Most apps and websites we evaluated were engaging. jamesteohart/Shutterstock But many lacked quality information
We ranked resources on various features from 1 (inadequate) to 5 (excellent), with a ranking of 3 considered acceptable. These ratings looked at how credible the resource was and whether there was evidence supporting it.
Despite their functionality, 37% of reviewed apps did not meet the minimum acceptable standards for information quality. This means many apps could not be recommended. Most websites fared better than apps.
There also wasn’t a lot of scientific evidence to suggest using either apps or digital resources actually helped families. Studies show long-term engagement with digital tools is rare, and downloads don’t correspond to frequent usage or benefits.
Digital tools are often viewed as a panacea to health-care gaps, but the evidence is yet to show they fill such gaps. Digital health is a fast-moving field and resources are often made available before they have been properly evaluated.
What should you look for in digital resources?
We found the highest quality resources were developed in collaboration with institutions, such as health, university or government groups.
One highly rated resource was the Raising Children’s Network and the associated app, Raising Healthy Minds. These are co-developed with a university and hospital, and by people with appropriate qualifications.
This resource provides information to support children’s overall health, development and wellbeing, with dedicated sections addressing neurodevelopmental needs and concerns.
The Raising Children Network provides resources for child health, including neurodevelopmental needs. Raising Children Network screenshot Our research shows parents can assess whether digital resources are high quality by checking they are:
- factually correct. Look for where the app or resource is getting its information. Does the author have the qualifications and training to provide the information? Are they a registered health expert who is accountable to a regulatory body (such as AHPRA, the Australian Health Practitioners Regulation Agency) for providing information that does not cause harm?
- consistent across multiple credible sources, such as health institutions.
- linked to supporting information. Look for reliable links to reputable institutions. Links to peer-reviewed scientific journals are often helpful as those articles will also usually describe the limitations of the research presented.
- up-to-date. Apps should be frequently updated. For websites, dates of update are usually found on the homepage or at the bottom of individual pages.
Check when information was last updated. fizkes/Shutterstock Beware of red flags
Some things to watch out for are:
- testimonials and anecdotes without evidence and scientific links to back the anecdotes up. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
- no information provided about conflicts of interest. Organisations gain when you click on their links or take their advice (financial, reputation and brand development). Think about what they gain when you use their information to help keep a balanced perspective.
Remember, the app’s star rating doesn’t mean it will contain factual information from a reliable source or be helpful for you and your child.
The role of digital tools
Digital tools won’t usually replace a health professional, but they can support care in many different ways. They may be used to help to educate and prepare for meetings, and to collaborate with health providers.
They may also be used to collect information about daily needs. Studies show reporting on sleep in children can be notoriously difficult, for example. But tracking sleep behaviour with actigraphy, where movement and activity patterns are measured using a wearable device, can provide information to support clinical care. With the promise of artificial intelligence, there will also be new opportunities to support daily living.
Our findings reflect a broader problem for digital health, however. Much investment is often made in developing products to drive use, with spurious claims of health benefits.
What’s needed is a system that prioritises the funding, implementation and evaluation of tools to demonstrate benefits for families. Only then may we realise the potential of digital tools to benefit those who use them.
Kelsie Boulton, Senior Research Fellow in Child Neurodevelopment, Brain and Mind Centre, University of Sydney and Adam Guastella, Professor and Clinical Psychologist, Michael Crouch Chair in Child and Youth Mental Health, University of Sydney
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Holding Back The Clock on Aging
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Holding Back The Clock on Aging
This is Dr. Eric Verdin, President and CEO of the Buck Institute of Research on Aging. He’s also held faculty positions at the University of Brussels, the NIH, and the Picower Institute for Medical Research. Dr. Verdin is also a professor of medicine at University of California, San Francisco.
Dr. Verdin’s laboratory focuses on the role of epigenetic regulators (especially the behaviors of certain enzymes) in the aging process. He studies how metabolism, diet, and chemical factors regulate the aging process and its associated diseases, including Alzheimer’s.
He has published more than 210 scientific papers and holds more than 15 patents. He is a highly cited scientist and has been recognized for his research with a Glenn Award for Research in Biological Mechanisms of Aging.
And that’s just what we could fit here! Basically, he knows his stuff.
What we can do
Dr. Verdin’s position is bold, but rooted in evidence:
❝Lifestyle is responsible for about 93% of our longevity—only about 7% is genetics. Based on the data, if implementing health lifestyle choices, most people could live to 95 in good health. So there’s 15 to 17 extra years of healthy life that is up for grabs❞
~ Dr. Eric Verdin
See for example:
- From discoveries in aging research to therapeutics for healthy aging
- Optimism, lifestyle, and longevity in a racially diverse cohort of women
- Well-being, food habits, and lifestyle for longevity—evidence from supercentenarians
How we can do it
Well, we all know “the big five”:
- Good diet (Mediterranean Diet as usual is recommended)
- Good exercise (more on this in a moment)
- Good sleep (more on this in a moment)
- Avoid alcohol (not controversial)
- Don’t smoke (need we say more)
When it comes to exercise, generally recognized as good is at least 150 minutes per week of moderate intensity exercise (for example, a brisk walk, or doing the gardening), and at least three small sessions a week of high intensity exercise, unless contraindicated by some medical condition.
As for Dr. Verdin’s take on this…
What Dr. Verdin recommends is:
- make it personalized
- make it pre-emptive
- make it better
The perfect exercise plan is only perfect if you actually do it. And if you actually can do it, for that matter.
Prevention is so much better (and easier) than cure for a whole array of maladies. So while there may be merit in thinking “what needs fixing”, Dr. Verdin encourages us to take extra care to not neglect factors of our health that seem “good enough”. Because, give them time and neglect, and they won’t be!
Wherever we’re at in life and health, there’s always at least some little way we could make it a bit better. Dr. Verdin advises us to seek out those little improvements, even if it’s just a nudge better here, a nudge better there, all those nudges add up!
About sleep…
It’s perhaps the easiest one to neglect (writer’s note: as a writer, I certainly feel that way!), but his biggest take-away tip for this is:
Worry less about what time you set an alarm for in the morning. Instead, set an alarm for the evening—to remind you when to go to bed.
Want to hear directly from the man himself?
Here he is speaking on progress we can expect for the next decade in the field of aging research, as part of the 100 Minutes of Longevity session at The Longevity Forum, a few months ago:
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Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum’s Heart Book – by Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum
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The book is divided into three parts:
- What you should know
- What you should do
- All about you
This is a very useful format, since it lays out all the foundational knowledge, before offering practical advice and “how to” explanations, before finally wrapping up with personalizing things.
The latter is important, because while our basic risk factors can be assembled in a few lines of data (age, sex, race, genes, diet, exercise habits, etc) there’s a lot more to us than that, and oftentimes the data that doesn’t make the cut, makes the difference. Hormones on high on this list; we can say that a person is a 65-year-old woman and make a guess, but that’s all it is: a guess. Very few of us are the “average person” that statistical models represent accurately. And nor are social and psychological factors irrelevant; in fact often they are deciding factors!
So, it’s important to be able to look at ourselves as the whole persons we are, or else we’ll get a heart-healthy protocol that works on paper but actually falls flat in application, because the mathematical model didn’t take into account that lately we have been very stressed about such-and-such a thing, and deeply anxious about so-and-so, and a hopefully short-term respiratory infection has reduced blood oxygen levels, and all these kinds of things need to be taken into account too, for an overall plan to work.
The greatest strength of this book is that it attends to that.
The style of the book is a little like a long sales pitch (when all that’s being sold, by the way, is the ideas the book is offering; she wants you to take her advice with enthusiasm), but there’s plenty of very good information all the way through, making it quite worth the read.
Bottom line: if you’re a woman and/or love at least one woman, then you can benefit from this important book for understanding heart health that’s not the default.
Click here to check out Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum’s Heart Book, and enjoy a heart-healthy life!
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Collard Greens vs Kale – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing collard greens to kale, we picked the collard greens.
Why?
Once again we have Brassica oleracea vs Brassica oleracea, (the same species that is also broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, various kinds of cabbage, and more) and once again there are nutritional differences between the two cultivars:
In terms of macros, collard greens have more protein, equal carbs, and 2x the fiber. So that’s a win for collard greens.
In the category of vitamins, collard greens have more of vitamins B2, B3, B5, B9, E, and choline, while kale has more of vitamins A, B1, B6, C, and K. Nominally a 6:5 win for collard greens, though it’s worth noting that while most of the margins of difference are about the same, collard greens have more than 10x the choline, too.
When it comes to minerals, collard greens have more calcium, iron, magnesium, manganese, and phosphorus, while kale has more copper, potassium, selenium, and zinc. A genuinely marginal 5:4 win for collard greens this time.
All in all, a clear win for collard greens over the (otherwise rightly) established superfood kale. Collard greens just don’t get enough appreciation in comparison!
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
What’s Your Plant Diversity Score? ← another reason it’s good to mix things up rather than just using the same ingredients out of habit!
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Languishing – by Prof. Corey Keyes
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We’ve written before about depression and “flourishing” but what about when one isn’t exactly flourishing, but is not necessarily in the depths of depression either? That’s what this book is about.
Prof. Keyes offers, from his extensive research, hope for those who do not check enough of the boxes to be considered depressed, but who are also definitely more in the lane of “surviving” than “thriving”.
Specifically, he outlines five key ways to make the step from languishing to flourishing, based not on motivational rhetoric, but actual data-based science:
- Learn (creating your personal story of self-growth)
- Connect (building relationships, on the individual level and especially on the community level)
- Transcend (developing psychological resilience to the unexpected)
- Help (others! This is about finding your purpose, and then actively living it)
- Play (this is a necessary “recharge” element that many people miss, especially as we get older)
With regard to finding one’s purpose being given the one-word summary of “help”, this is a callback to our tribal origins, and how we thrive and flourish best and feel happiest when we have a role to fulfil and provide value to those around us)
Bottom line: if you’re not at the point of struggling to get out of bed each day, but you’re also not exactly leaping out of bed with a smile, this book can help get you from one place to the other.
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How To Reduce Chronic Stress
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Sunday Stress-Buster
First, an important distinction:
- Acute stress (for example, when stepping out of your comfort zone, engaging in competition, or otherwise focusing on something that requires your full attention for best performance) is generally a good thing. It helps you do you your best. It’s sometimes been called “eustress”, “good stress”.
- Chronic stress (for example, when snowed under at work and you do not love it, when dealing with a serious illness, and/or faced with financial problems) is unequivocally a bad thing. Our body is simply not made to handle that much cortisol (the stress hormone) all the time.
Know the dangers of too much cortisol
We covered this as a main feature last month: Lower Your Cortisol! (Here’s Why & How)
…but it bears mentioning again and for those who’ve joined us since then:
A little spike of cortisol now and again can be helpful. Having it spiking all the time, or even a perpetual background low-to-moderate level, can be ruinous to the health in so many ways.
The good news is, the physiological impact of stress on the body (which ranges from face-and-stomach fat deposits, to rapid aging), can be reversed—even the biological aging!
Read: Biological age is increased by stress and restored upon recovery ← this study is so hot-of-the-press that it was published literally two days ago
Focus on what you can control
A lot of things that cause you stress may be outside of your control. Focus on what is within your control. Oftentimes, we are so preoccupied with the stress, that we employ coping strategies that don’t actually deal with the problem.
That’s a maladaptive response to an evolutionary quirk—our bodies haven’t caught up with modern life, and on an evolutionary scale, are still priming us to deal with sabre-toothed tigers, not financial disputes, for example.
But, how to deal with the body’s “wrong” response?
First, deal with the tiger. There isn’t one, but your body doesn’t know that. Do some vigorous exercise, or if that’s not your thing, tense up your muscles strongly for a few seconds and then relax them, doing each part of your body. This is called progressive relaxation, and how it works is basically tricking your body into thinking you successfully fled the tiger, or fought the tiger and won.
Next, examine what the actual problem is, that’s causing you stress. You’re probably heavily emotionally attached to the problem, or else it wouldn’t be stressing you. So, imagine what advice you would give to help a friend deal with the same problem, and then do that.
Better yet: enlist an actual friend (or partner, family member, etc) to help you. We are evolved to live in a community, engaged in mutual support. That’s how we do well; that’s how we thrive best.
By dealing with the problem—or sometimes even just having support and/or something like a plan—your stress will evaporate soon enough.
The power of “…and then what?”
Sometimes, things are entirely out of your control. Sometimes, bad things are entirely possible; perhaps even probable. Sometimes, they’re so bad, that it’s difficult to avoid stressing about the possible outcomes.
If something seems entirely out of your control and/or inevitable, ask yourself:
“…and then what?”
Writer’s storytime: when I was a teenager, sometimes I would go out without a coat, and my mother would ask, pointedly, “But what will you do if it rains?!”
I’d reply “I’ll get wet, of course”
This attitude can go just the same for much more serious outcomes, up to and including death.
So when you find yourself stressing about some possible bad outcome, ask yourself, “…and then what?”.
- What if this is cancer? Well, it might be. And then what? You might seek cancer treatment.
- What if I can’t get treatment, or it doesn’t work? Well, you might die. And then what?
In Dialectic Behavior Therapy (DBT), this is called “radical acceptance” and acknowledges bad possible/probable/known outcomes, allows one to explore the feelings, and come up with a plan for managing the situation, or even just coming to terms with the fact that sometimes, suffering is inevitable and is part of the human condition.
It’ll still be bad—but you won’t have added extra suffering in the form of stress.
Breathe.
Don’t underestimate the power of relaxed deep breathing to calm the rest of your body, including your brain.
Also: we’ve shared this before, a few months ago, but this 8 minute soundscape was developed by sound technicians working with a team of psychologists and neurologists. It’s been clinically tested, and found to have a much more relaxing effect(in objective measures of lowering heart rate and lowering cortisol levels, as well as in subjective self-reports) than merely “relaxing music”.
Try it and see for yourself:
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