6 Signs Of Stroke (One Month In Advance)
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.
Most people can recognise the signs of a stroke when it’s just happened, but knowing the signs that appear a month beforehand would be very useful. That’s what this video’s about!
The Warning Signs
- Persistently elevated blood pressure: one more reason to have an at-home testing kit and use it regularly! Or a smartwatch or similar that’ll do it for you. The reason this is relevant is because high blood pressure can lead to damaging blood vessels, causing a stroke.
- Excessive fatigue: of course, this one can have many possible causes, but one of them is a “transient ischemic attack” (TIA), which is essentially a micro-stroke, and can be a precursor to a more severe stroke. So, we’re not doing the Google MD thing here of saying “if this, then that”, but we are saying: paying attention to the overall patterns can be very useful. Rather than fretting unduly about a symptom in isolation, see how it fits into the big picture.
- Vision problems: especially if sudden-onset with no obvious alternative cause can be a sign of neural damage, and may indicate a stroke on the way.
- Speech problems: if there’s not an obvious alternative explanation (e.g. you’ve just finished your third martini, or was this the fourth?), then speech problems (e.g. slurred speech, trouble forming sentences, etc) are a very worrying indicator and should be treated as a medical emergency.
- Neurological problems: a bit of a catch-all category, but memory issues, loss of balance, nausea without an obvious alternative cause, are all things that should get checked out immediately just in case.
- Numbness or weakness in the extremities: especially if on one side of the body only, is often caused by the TIA we mentioned earlier. If it’s both sides, then peripheral neuropathy may be the culprit, but having a neurologist take a look at it is a good idea either way.
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
Two Things You Can Do To Improve Stroke Survival Chances
Take care!
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Recommended
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
Peaches vs Plums – Which is Healthier?
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.
Our Verdict
When comparing peaches to plums, we picked the peaches.
Why?
Both are great! But there is a clear winner out of these two botanically-similar fruits:
In terms of macronutrients they are very similar. Peaches have slightly more protein and plums have slightly more carbs, but the numbers are close enough to make no meaningful difference; they’re both mostly water.
They’re also not too far from each other in the category of vitamins; peaches have more of vitamins B2, B3, B5, E, and choline, while plums have more of vitamins B1, B6, B9, C, and K. They’re equal on vitamin A, by the way, and the vitamins they do differ in, differ by around the same margins, so this category is a clear tie.
When it comes to minerals, however, peaches win easily with more copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc. The two fruits are equal on calcium, and plum is not higher in any minerals.
While they already won easily because of the mineral situation, it should be noted that peaches also have the lower glycemic index. But honestly, plums are fine too; peaches are just even lower.
So: enjoy both, but if you’re going to pick one, peaches boast the most!
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
- Top 8 Fruits That Prevent & Kill Cancer
- Apricots vs Peaches – Which is Healthier?
- Dried Apricots vs Dried Prunes – Which is Healthier? (prunes are dried plums, usually partially rehydrated)
Take care!
Share This Post
Kale vs Watercress – Which is Healthier?
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.
Our Verdict
When comparing kale to watercress, we picked the kale.
Why?
It was very close! If ever we’ve been tempted to call something a tie, this has been the closest so far.
Their macros are close; watercress has a tiny amount more protein and slightly lower carbs, but these numbers are tiny, so it’s not really a factor. Nevertheless, on macros alone we’d call this a slight nominal win for watercress.
In terms of vitamins, they’re even. Watercress has higher vitamin E and choline (sometimes considered a vitamin), as well as being higher in some B vitamins. Kale has higher vitamins A and K, as well as being higher in some other B vitamins.
In the category of minerals, watercress has higher calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, and potassium, while kale has higher copper, iron, manganese, and zinc. The margins are slightly wider for kale’s more plentiful minerals though, so we’ll call this section a marginal win for kale.
When it comes to polyphenols, kale takes and maintains the lead here, with around 2x the quercetin and 27x the kaempferol. Watercress does have some lignans that kale doesn’t, but ultimately, kale’s strong flavonoid content keeps it in the lead.
So of course: enjoy both if both are available! But if we must pick one, it’s kale.
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
- Fight Inflammation & Protect Your Brain, With Quercetin
- Spinach vs Kale – Which is Healthier?
- Thai-Style Kale Chips (recipe)
Take care!
Share This Post
Does Your Butt…Wink?
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.
What is a Butt Wink?
A “butt wink” is a common issue that occurs during squatting exercises.
Now, we’ve talked about the benefits of squatting countless times (see here or here for just a few examples). As with all exercises, using the correct technique is imperative, helping to both reduce injury and maximize gain.
Given butt winks are a common issue when squatting, we thought it natural to devote an article to it.
So, a butt wink happens when, at the bottom of your squat position, your pelvis tucks rotates backward (otherwise known as a “posterior pelvic tilt”) and the lower back rounds. This motion looks like a slight ‘wink’, hence the name.
How to Avoid Butt Winking
When the pelvis tucks under and the spine rounds, it can put undue pressure on the lumbar discs. This is especially risky when squatting with weights, as it can exacerbate the stress on the spine.
To avoid a butt wink, it’s important to maintain a neutral spine throughout the squat and to work on flexibility and strength in the hips, glutes, and hamstrings. Adjusting the stance width or foot angle during squats can also help in maintaining proper form.
A visual representation would likely work better than our attempt at describing what to do, so without further ado, here’s today’s video:
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!
Share This Post
Related Posts
The Case Against Sugar – by Gary Taubes
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.
We generally already know that sugar is bad for the health. Most people don’t know how bad.
Taubes makes, as the title goes, “the case against sugar”. Implicated in everything from metabolic syndrome to cancer to Alzheimer’s, sugar is ruinous to the health.
It’s hard to review this book without making a comparison to William Duffy’s 1975 bestseller, “Sugar Blues“. Stylistically it’s very similar, and the general gist is certainly the same.
However! Where this book beats Sugar Blues is in content; Duffy’s book often makes bold claims without scientific backing. Some of those claims didn’t stand the test of time and are now disproven. Instead, Taubes’ book leans on actual up-to-date science, and talks more about what we actually know, than what we imagine.
If this book has a weak point, it’s when it veers away from its main topic and starts talking about, for example, saturated fat. In this side-topic, the book makes some good points, but is less well-considered, cherry-picks data, and lacks nuance.
On its main topic, though, the investigation of sugar, it is rather more thorough.
Bottom line: if you want a next-level motivation to reduce or eliminate dietary sugar, this book may certainly provide that.
Click here to check out The Case Against Sugar and reduce a lot of your health risks!
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
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
Sweet Potato & Black Bean Tacos
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.
Fiber, protein, and polyphenols! What more could one ask for? Well, great taste and warm healthy goodness, which these deliver:
You will need
For the sweet potatoes:
- 2 medium sweet potatoes, cubed (we recommend leaving the skin on, but you can peel them if you really want to)
- 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 2 tsp garlic powder
- 2 tsp smoked paprika
- 1 tsp chili powder
- 1 tsp black pepper
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 1 tsp ground turmeric
- ½ tsp MSG or 1 tsp low-sodium salt
For the black beans:
- 2 cans black beans, drained and rinsed (or 2 cups black beans that you cooked yourself)
- ¼ bulb garlic, minced
- 1 fresh jalapeño finely chopped (or ¼ cup jalapeños from a jar, finely chopped) ← adjust quantities per your preference and per the quality of the pepper(s) you’re using; we can’t judge that from here without tasting them, so we give a good basic starting suggestion.
- 2 tsp black pepper
- 1 tsp red chili flakes
- ½ tsp MSG or 1 tsp low-sodium salt
For serving:
- 8 small corn tortillas, or your preference if substituting
- 1 avocado, pitted, peeled, cubed, and tossed in lime juice ← we’re mentioning this here because you want to do this as soon as you cut it, to avoid oxidation
- Any other salad you’d like to include; fresh parsley is also a good option when it comes to greenery, or cilantro if you don’t have the soap gene
- Tomato salsa (quantity and spice level per your preference)
Method
(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)
1) Preheat the oven to 400°F / 200°C.
2) Toss the sweet potato cubes in a large bowl with the rest of the ingredients from the sweet potato section above, ensuring they are evenly coated.
3) Bake them in the oven, on a baking tray lined with baking paper, for about 30 minutes or until tender inside and crispy at the edges. Turn them over halfway through.
4) While that’s happening, mix the black beans in a bowl with the other ingredients from the black bean section above, and heat them gently. You could do this in a saucepan, but honestly, while it’s not glamorous, the microwave is actually better for this. Note: many people find the microwave cooks food unevenly, but there are two reasons for this and they’re both easily fixable:
- instead of using high power for x minutes, use medium power for 2x minutes; this will produce better results
- instead of putting the food just in a bowl, jug, or similar, use a wide bowl or similar container, and then inside that, place a small empty microwave-safe glass jar or similar upturned in the middle, and then add the food around it, so that the food is arranged in a donut shape rather than a wide cylinder shape. This means there is no “middle bit” to go underheated while the edges are heated excessively; instead, it will heat through evenly.
If you really don’t want to do that though, use a saucepan on a very low heat, add a small amount of liquid (or tomato salsa), and stir constantly.
5) Heat the tortillas in a dry skillet for about 30 seconds each on each side, when ready to serve.
6) Assemble the tacos; you can do this how you like but a good order of operations is: tortilla, leafy salad (if using), potato, beans, non-leafy salad including avocado, salsa or other topping per your preference.
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:
- White Potato vs Sweet Potato – Which is Healthier?
- Kidney Beans or Black Beans – Which is Healthier?
- Coconut vs Avocado – Which is Healthier?
- Glutathione: More Than An Antioxidant
- Our Top 5 Spices: How Much Is Enough For Benefits? ← we hit 4/5 today!
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
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
The Snooze-Button Controversy
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.
To Snooze Or Not To Snooze? (Science Has Answers)
This is Dr. Jennifer Kanaan. She’s a medical doctor with a focus on pulmonary critical care, sleep disorders, and sleep medicine.
What does she want to tell us?
She wants us to be wary of the many news articles that have jumped on a certain recent sleep study, such as:
- Is hitting the snooze button really a bad idea? Study sheds light on the impact of morning alarms on sleep and cognition
- Hitting Snooze May Help You Feel Less Sleepy and More Alert, Research Says
- Is it okay to press the snooze button?
- Hitting Snooze May Help You Feel Less Sleepy and More Alert, Research Says
- Hitting the snooze button on your alarm doesn’t make you more tired
For the curious, here is the paper itself, by Dr. Tina Sundelin et al. It’s actually two studies, by the way, but one paper:
The authors of this study concluded:
❝There were no clear effects of snoozing on the cortisol awakening response, morning sleepiness, mood, or overnight sleep architecture.
A brief snooze period may thus help alleviate sleep inertia, without substantially disturbing sleep, for late chronotypes and those with morning drowsiness.❞
Notably, people tend to snooze because an alarm clock will, if not “smart” about it, wake us up mid sleep-cycle more often than not, and that will produce a short “sleep hangover”. By snoozing, we are basically re-rolling the dice on being woken up between sleep cycles, and thus feeling more refreshed.
What’s Dr. Kanaan’s counterpoint?
Dr. Kanaan says:
❝If you’re coming in and out of sleep for 30 minutes, after the alarm goes off the first time, you’re costing yourself 30 minutes of uninterrupted, quality, restorative sleep. This study doesn’t change that fact.❞
She advises that rather than snoozing, we should prioritize getting good sleep in the first place, and once we do wake up, mid sleep-cycle or not, get sunlight. That way, our brain will start promptly scrubbing melatonin and producing the appropriate wakefulness hormones instead. That means serotonin, and also a spike of cortisol.
Remember: cortisol is only bad when it’s chronically elevated. It’s fine, and even beneficial, to have a short spike of cortisol. We make it for a reason!
If you’d like to hear more from Dr. Kanaan, you might like this interview with her at the University of Connecticut:
Want the best of both worlds?
A great option to avoid getting woken in the middle of a sleep cycle, and also not needing to hit snooze, is a sunrise alarm clock. Specifics of these devices vary, but for example, the kind this writer has starts gently glowing an hour before the set alarm time,and gradually gets brighter and lighter over the course of the hour.
We don’t sell them, but here’s an example sunrise alarm clock on Amazon, for your convenience
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
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails: