5 Things To Know About Passive Suicidal Ideation

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The 10almonds Team

If you’ve ever wanted to go to sleep and never wake up, or have some accident/incident/illness take you with no action on your part, or a loved one has ever expressed such thoughts/feelings to you… Then this video is for you. Dr. Scott Eilers explains:

Tired of living

We’ll not keep them a mystery; here are the five things that Dr. Eilers wants us to know about passive suicidal ideation:

  • What it is: a desire for something to end your life without taking active steps. While it may seem all too common, it’s not necessarily inevitable or unchangeable.
  • What it means in terms of severity: it isn’t a clear indicator of how severe someone’s depression is. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the person’s depression is mild; it can be severe even without active suicidal thoughts, or indeed, suicidality at all.
  • What it threatens: although passive suicidal ideation doesn’t usually involve active planning, it can still be dangerous. Over time, it can evolve into active suicidal ideation or lead to risky behaviors.
  • What it isn’t: passive suicidal ideation is different from intrusive thoughts, which are unwanted, distressing thoughts about death. The former involves a desire for death, while the latter does not.
  • What it doesn’t have to be: passive suicidal ideation is often a symptom of underlying depression or a mood disorder, which can be treated through therapy, medication, or a combination of both. Seeking treatment is crucial and can be life-changing.

For more on all of the above, here’s Dr. Eilers with his own words:

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Want to learn more?

You might also like to read:

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    Debunking the “new science” myth, this book leans on solid neuroplasticity research to offer real guidance from a neuroscience and psychology perspective on achieving happiness.

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  • Age & Aging: What Can (And Can’t) We Do About It?

    The 10almonds Team

    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.

    How old do you want to be?

    We asked you how old you are, and got an interesting spread of answers. This wasn’t too surprising; of course we have a general idea of who our readership is and we write accordingly.

    What’s interesting is the gap for “40s”.

    And, this wasn’t the case of a broken poll button, it’s something that crops up a lot in health-related sociological research. People who are most interested in taking extra care of their body are often:

    • Younger people full of optimism about maintaining this perfectly healthy body forever
    • Older people realizing “if I don’t want to suffer avoidable parts of age-related decline, now is the time to address these things”

    In between, we often have a gap whereby people no longer have the optimism of youth, but do not yet feel the pressure of older age.

    Which is not to say there aren’t 40-somethings who do care! Indeed, we know for a fact we have some subscribers in their 40s (and some in their 90s, too), just, they evidently didn’t vote in this poll.

    Anyway, let’s bust some myths…

    Aging is inevitable: True or False?

    False, probably. That seems like a bold (and fortune-telling) claim, so let’s flip it to deconstruct it more logically:

    Aging is, and always will be, unstoppable: True or False?

    That has to be “False, probably”. To say “true” now sounds like an even bolder claim. Just like “the moon will always be out of reach”.

    • When CPR was first developed, first-aiders were arrested for “interfering with a corpse”.
    • Many diseases used to be death sentences that are now “take one of these in the morning”
      • If you think this is an appeal to distant history, HIV+ status was a death sentence in the 90s. Now it’s “take one of these in the morning”.

    But, this is an appeal to the past, and that’s not always a guarantee of the future. Where does the science stand currently? How is the research and development doing on slowing, halting, reversing aging?

    We can slow aging: True or False?

    True! There’s a difference between chronological age (i.e., how much time has passed while we’ve been alive) and biological age (i.e., what our diverse markers of aging look like).

    Biological age often gets talked about as a simplified number, but it’s more complex than that, as we can age in different ways at different rates, for example:

    • Visual markers of aging (e.g. wrinkles, graying hair)
    • Performative markers of aging (e.g. mobility tests)
    • Internal functional markers of aging (e.g. tests for cognitive decline, eyesight, hearing, etc)
    • Cellular markers or aging (e.g. telomere length)
    • …and more, but we only have so much room here

    There are things we can do to slow most of those, including:

    In the case of cognitive decline particularly, check out our previous article:

    How To Reduce Your Alzheimer’s Risk

    It’s too early to worry about… / It’s too late to do anything about… True or False?

    False and False!

    Many things that affect our health later in life are based on early-life choices and events. So it’s important for young people to take advantage of that. The earlier one adopts a healthy lifestyle, the better, because, and hold onto your hats for the shocker here: aging is cumulative.

    However, that doesn’t mean that taking up healthy practices (or dropping unhealthy ones) is pointless later in life, even in one’s 70s and beyond!

    Read about this and more from the National Institute of Aging:

    What Do We Know About Healthy Aging?

    We can halt aging: True or False?

    False, for now at least. Our bodies are not statues; they are living organisms, constantly rebuilding themselves, constantly changing, every second of every day, for better or for worse. Every healthy or unhealthy choice you make, every beneficial or adverse experience you encounter, affects your body on a cellular level.

    Your body never, ever, stops changing for as long as you live.

    But…

    We can reverse aging: True or False?

    True! Contingently and with limitations, for now at least.

    Remember what we said about your body constantly rebuilding itself? That goes for making itself better as well as making itself worse.

    But those aren’t really being younger, we’ll still die when our time is up: True or False?

    False and True, respectively.

    Those kinds of things are really being younger, biologically. What else do you think being biologically younger is?

    We may indeed die when our time is up, but (unless we suffer fatal accident or incident first) “when our time is up” is something that is decided mostly by the above factors.

    Genetics—the closest thing we have to biological “fate”—accounts for only about 25% of our longevity-related health*.

    Genes predispose, but they don’t predetermine.

    *Read more: Human longevity: Genetics or Lifestyle? It takes two to tango

    (from the Journal of Immunity and Ageing)

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  • Alzheimer’s: The Bad News And The Good

    The 10almonds Team

    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.

    Dr. Devi’s Spectrum of Hope

    This is Dr. Gayatri Devi. She’s a neurologist, board-certified in neurology, pain medicine, psychiatry, brain injury medicine, and behavioral neurology.

    She’s also a Clinical Professor of Neurology, and Director of Long Island Alzheimer’s Disease Center, Fellow of the American Academy of Neurology, and we could continue all day with her qualifications, awards and achievements but then we’d run out of space. Suffice it to say, she knows her stuff.

    Especially when it comes to the optimal treatment of stroke, cognitive loss, and pain.

    In her own words:

    ❝Helping folks live their best lives—by diagnosing and managing complex neurologic disorders—that’s my job. Few things are more fulfilling! For nearly thirty years, my focus has been on brain health, concussions, Alzheimer’s and other dementias, menopause related memory loss, and pain.❞

    ~ Dr. Gayatri Devi

    Alzheimer’s is more common than you might think

    According to Dr. Devi,

    ❝97% of patients with mild Alzheimer’s disease don’t even get diagnosed in their internist offices, and half of patients with moderate Alzheimer’s don’t get diagnosed.

    What that means is that the percentage of people that we think about when we think about Alzheimer’s—the people in the nursing home—that’s a very, very small fraction of the entirety of the people who have the condition❞

    ~ Dr. Gaytatri Devi

    As for what she would consider the real figures, she puts it nearer 1 in 10 adults aged 65 and older.

    Source: Neurologist dispels myths about Alzheimer’s disease

    Her most critical advice? Reallocate your worry.

    A lot of people understandably worry about a genetic predisposition to Alzheimer’s, especially if an older relative died that way.

    See also: Alzheimer’s, Genes, & You

    However, Dr. Devi points out that under 5% of Alzheimer’s cases are from genetics, and the majority of Alzheimer’s cases can be prevented be lifestyle interventions.

    See also: Reduce Your Alzheimer’s Risk

    Lastly, she wants us to skip the stigma

    Outside of her clinical practice and academic work, this is one of the biggest things she works on, reducing the stigma attached to Alzheimer’s both publicly and professionally:

    Alzheimer’s Disease in Physicians: Assessing Professional Competence and Tempering Stigma

    Want more from Dr. Devi?

    You might enjoy this interview:

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    And here’s her book:

    The Spectrum of Hope: An Optimistic and New Approach to Alzheimer’s Disease and Other Dementias – by Dr. Gayatri Devi

    Enjoy!

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  • Oven-Roasted Ratatouille

    The 10almonds Team

    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.

    This is a supremely low-effort, high-yield dish. It’s a nutritional tour-de-force, and very pleasing to the tastebuds too. We use flageolet beans in this recipe; they are small immature kidney beans. If they’re not available, using kidney beans or really any other legume is fine.

    You will need

    • 2 large zucchini, sliced
    • 2 red peppers, sliced
    • 1 large eggplant, sliced and cut into semicircles
    • 1 red onion, thinly sliced
    • 2 cans chopped tomatoes
    • 2 cans flageolet beans, drained and rinsed (or 2 cups same, cooked, drained, and rinsed)
    • ½ bulb garlic, crushed
    • 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
    • 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
    • 1 tbsp black pepper, coarse ground
    • 1 tbsp nutritional yeast
    • 1 tbsp red chili pepper flakes (omit or adjust per your heat preferences)
    • ½ tsp MSG or 1 tsp low-sodium salt
    • Mixed herbs, per your preference. It’s hard to go wrong with this one, but we suggest leaning towards either basil and oregano or rosemary and thyme. We also suggest having some finely chopped to go into the dish, and some held back to go on the dish as a garnish.

    Method

    (we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)

    1) Preheat the oven to 350℉ / 180℃.

    2) Mix all the ingredients (except the tomatoes and herbs) in a big mixing bowl, ensuring even distribution.

    2) Add the tomatoes. The reason we didn’t add these before is because it would interfere with the oil being distributed evenly across the vegetables.

    3) Transfer to a deep-walled oven tray or an ovenproof dish, and roast for 30 minutes.

    4) Stir, add the chopped herbs, stir again, and return to the oven for another 30 minutes.

    5) Serve (hot or cold), adding any herb garnish you wish to use.

    Enjoy!

    Want to learn more?

    For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:

    Take care!

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Related Posts

  • Exercises for Aging-Ankles

  • Sleeping on Your Back after 50; Yay or Nay?

    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 10almonds Team

    Sleeping Differently After 50

    Sleeping is one of those things that, at any age, can be hard to master. Some of our most popular articles have been on getting better sleep, and effective sleep aids, and we’ve had a range of specific sleep-related questions, like whether air purifiers actually improve your sleep.

    But perhaps there’s an underlying truth hidden in our opening sentence…is sleeping consistently difficult because the way we sleep should change according to our age?

    Inspired by Brad and Mike’s video below (which was published to their 5 million+ subscribers!), there are 4 main elements to consider when sleeping on your back after you’ve hit the 50-year mark:

    1. Degenerative Disk Disease: As you age, your spine may start to show signs of wear and tear, which directly affects comfort while lying on your back.
    2.  Sleep Apnea and Snoring: Sleep Apnea and snoring become more of an issue with age, and sleeping on your back can exacerbate these problems; when you sleep on your back, the soft tissues in your throat, as well as your tongue, “fall back” and partly obstruct your the airway.
    3.  Spinal Stenosis: Spinal Stenosis–the often-age-related narrowing of your spinal canal–can put pressure on the nerves that travel through the spine, which equally makes back-sleeping harder.
    4.  GERD: The all-too-familiar gastroesophageal reflux disease can be more problematic when lying flat on your back, as doing so can allow easy access for stomach acid to move upwards.

    Alternatives to Back Sleeping

    Referencing the Mayo Clinic’s Sleep Facility’s director, Dr. Virend Somers, today’s video suggests a simple solution: sleeping on your side. The video goes into a bit more detail but, as you know, here at 10almonds we like to cut to the chase. 

    Modifications for Back Sleeping

    If you’re a lifelong back-sleeping and cannot bear the idea of changing to your side, or your stomach, then there are a few modifications that you can make to ease any pain and discomfort.

    Most solutions revolve around either leg wedges or pillow adjustments. For instance, if you’re suffering from back pain, try propping your knees up. Or if GERD is your worst enemy, a wedge pillow could help keep that acid down.

    As can be expected, the video dives into more detail:

    How was the video? If you’ve discovered any great videos yourself that you’d like to share with fellow 10almonds readers, then please do email them to us!

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    Learn to Age Gracefully

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  • Eating Disorders: More Varied (And Prevalent) Than People Think

    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 10almonds Team

    Disordered Eating Beyond The Stereotypes

    Around 10% of Americans* have (or have had) an eating disorder. That might not seem like a high percentage, but that’s one in ten; do you know 10 people? If so, it might be a topic that’s near to you.

    *Source: Social and economic cost of eating disorders in the United States of Americ

    Our hope is that even if you yourself have never had such a problem in your life, today’s article will help arm you with knowledge. You never know who in your life might need your support.

    Very misunderstood

    Eating disorders are so widely misunderstood in so many ways that we nearly made this a Friday Mythbusting edition—but we preface those with a poll that we hope to be at least somewhat polarizing or provide a spectrum of belief. In this case, meanwhile, there’s a whole cluster of myths that cannot be summed up in one question. So, here we are doing a Psychology Sunday edition instead.

    “Eating disorders aren’t that important”

    Eating disorders are the second most deadly category of mental illness, second only to opioid addiction.

    Anorexia specifically has the highest case mortality rate of any mental illness:

    Source: National Association of Anorexia Nervosa & Associated Disorders: Eating Disorder Statistics

    So please, if someone needs help with an eating disorder (including if it’s you), help them.

    “Eating disorders are for angsty rebellious teens”

    While there’s often an element of “this is the one thing I can control” to some eating disorders (including anorexia and bulimia), eating disorders very often present in early middle-age, very often amongst busy career-driven individuals using it as a coping mechanism to have a feeling of control in their hectic lives.

    13% of women over 50 report current core eating disorder symptoms, and that is probably underreported.

    Source: as above; scroll to near the bottom!

    “Eating disorders are a female thing”

    Nope. Officially, men represent around 25% of people diagnosed with eating disorders, but women are 5x more likely to get diagnosed, so you can do the math there. Women are also 1.5% more likely to receive treatment for it.

    By the time men do get diagnosed, they’ve often done a lot more damage to their bodies because they, as well as other people, have overlooked the possibility of their eating being disordered, due to the stereotype of it being a female thing.

    Source: as above again!

    “Eating disorders are about body image”

    They can be, but that’s far from the only kind!

    Some can be about control of diet, not just for the sake of controlling one’s body, but purely for the sake of controlling the diet itself.

    Still yet others can be not about body image or control, like “Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder”, which in lay terms sometimes gets dismissed as “being a picky eater” or simply “losing one’s appetite”, but can be serious.

    For example, a common presentation of the latter might be a person who is racked with guilt and/or anxiety, and simply stops eating, because either they don’t feel they deserve it, or “how can I eat at a time like this, when…?” but the time is an ongoing thing so their impromptu fast is too.

    Still yet even more others might be about trying to regulate emotions by (in essence) self-medicating with food—not in the healthy “so eat some fruit and veg and nuts etc” sense, but in the “Binge-Eating Disorder” sense.

    And that latter accounts for a lot of adults.

    You can read more about these things here:

    Psychology Today | Types of Eating Disorder ← it’s pop-science, but it’s a good overview

    Take care! And if you have, or think you might have, an eating disorder, know that there are organizations that can and will offer help/support in a non-judgmental fashion. Here’s the ANAD’s eating disorder help resource page, for example.

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  • 10 Ways To Delay Aging

    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 10almonds Team

    This is Dr. Colin Rose; he is a Senior Associate of the Royal Society of Medicine. He’s also a main contributor to EduScience, a programme funded by the E.U. which is designed to enhance the teaching and learning of science in schools in Europe.

    His most recent work has been about aging—and how to delay it. We also reviewed his latest book, here:

    Delay Ageing – by Dr. Colin Rose

    So, what does he want us to know? The key lies in his compilation of ten ways in which we age on a cellular level, and what we can to do slow each one of those:

    Damage to DNA accumulates

    While DNA can get damaged without any external stimulus to cause that, there are a lot of modifiable factors that we can do to reduce DNA damage. The list is easy: if it causes cancer, it causes aging.

    Thus, check out: Stop Cancer 20 Years Ago

    Cells become senescent

    Our cells are replaced all the time; some sooner than others, but all of them at some point. The problem occurs when cells are outliving their usefulness. If a cell becomes completely immortal, that is cancer, but happily most don’t. Nevertheless, having senescent (aging) cells in the body means that those senescent cells are what get copied forwards by mitosis, and our DNA becomes like a photocopy of a tattered old photocopy of a tattered old photocopy. Which, needless to say, is not good for our health. So, the best thing to do is to kill them earlier:

    Yes, really: Fisetin: The Anti-Aging Assassin

    Mitochondria become dysfunctional

    Without properly functional mitochondria, no living human cell can do its job properly.

    Options: 7 Ways To Boost Mitochondrial Health To Fight Disease

    Beneficial genes are switched off, harmful genes are on

    It’s easy to think of our genes as being immutable, but epigenetics means that our environment (amongst other factors) can mean that our gene expression changes.

    Imagine it this way: your genes are a set of instructions for your body. However, your body will act or not on those instructions, depending on other factors. Hormones often play a big part in this; for example sex hormones tell the body which set of genetic instructions to read (and thus what kind of body to build/rebuild), and cortisol or oxytocin can tell the body which set of contingency plans to activate or suppress (respectively). A milder example is gray hair; genes have the program for it, but many other factors inform the body when, if, and how to do it.

    Of more concern when it comes to aging is what goes on with more critical systems, such as the brain, in which the aforementioned DNA damage can cause unhelpful instructions to get interpreted, resulting in epigenetic changes that in turn facilitate age-related degeneration.

    As to what can be done, see : Klotho: Unzipping The Genes Of Aging?

    Stem cells become exhausted

    Stem cells can become different kinds of cells, and thus they’re very useful for maintaining a healthy body. However, they get depleted with age. We can slow down the rate of loss, though; for example, intermittent fasting can help:

    Per Dr. Li’s 5 Ways To Beat Cancer (And Other Diseases)

    And for more detail, see:

    Doctor’s Tip: Regeneration (stem cells) — one of your body’s five defense systems

    (complete with lists of foods to eat or avoid for stem cell health)

    Cells fail to communicate properly

    Cells need to talk to each other constantly, to continue doing their jobs. We are one big organism, after all, and not a haphazard colony of the countless cells that constitute such. However, cell signalling gets worse with age, which in turn precipitates others age-related problems. Fortunately, there are nutrients that can improve cellular communication.

    For example: PS, We Love You ← this is about phosphatidylserine, also called “PS”

    Telomeres become shorter

    These protective caps on our DNA suffer the wear-and-tear so that our DNA doesn’t have to. However, as they get shorter, the DNA can start suffering damage. For this reason, telomere length is considered one of the most “Gold Standard” markers of cellular aging.

    Here’s what can be done for that: The Stress Prescription (Against Aging!)

    The body fails to sense nutritional intake properly

    This is mostly about insulin signalling (though problems can occur in other systems too, but we only have so much room here), so it’s important to take care of that.

    See: Turn Back The Clock On Insulin Resistance

    Proteins accumulate errors

    This is due to DNA damage, of course, but there are specific things that can reduce protein error accumulation; see for example:

    A quick fix – preventing protein errors extends lifespan

    See also: Rapamycin Can Slow Aging By 20% (But Watch Out)

    The microbiome becomes unbalanced

    We at 10almonds often mention that gut health affects pretty much every other kind of health, and it’s true for aging as well. So, take care of that microbiome!

    Here’s a primer: Gut Health 101

    Want to know more about delaying aging beyond the cellular level?

    Check out: Age & Aging: What Can (And Can’t) We Do About It?

    Take care!

    Don’t Forget…

    Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!

    Learn to Age Gracefully

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