Welcoming the Unwelcome – by Pema Chödrön
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There’s a lot in life that we don’t get to choose. Some things we have zero control over, like the weather. Others, we can only influence, like our health. Still yet others might give us an illusion of control, only to snatch it away, like a financial reversal or a bereavement.
How, then, to suffer those “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” and come through the other side with an even mind and a whole heart?
Author Pema Chödrön has a guidebook for us.
Quick note: this book does not require the reader to have any particular religious faith to enjoy its benefits, but the author is a nun. As such, the way she describes things is generally within the frame of her religion. So that’s a thing to be aware of in case it might bother you. That said…
The largest part of her approach is one that psychology might describe as rational emotive behavioral therapy.
As such, we are encouraged to indeed “meet with triumph and disaster, and treat those two imposters just the same”, and more importantly, she lays out the tools for us to do so.
Does this mean not caring? No! Quite the opposite. It is expected, and even encouraged, that we might care very much. But: this book looks at how to care and remain compassionate, to others and to ourselves.
For Chödrön, welcoming the unwelcome is about de-toothing hardship by accepting it as a part of the complex tapestry of life, rather than something to be endured.
Bottom line: this book can greatly increase the reader’s ability to “go placidly amid the noise and haste” and bring peace to an often hectic world—starting with our own.
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How To Get Your First Pull-Up
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Pull-ups are a great compound exercise that works most of the upper body. However, it can be frustrating for many, if unable to do more than dangle and struggle while not going anywhere. That’s not actually bad, by the way! Of course it’s not great athletic performance, but in terms of exercise, “dangling and struggling while not going anywhere” is an isometric exercise that has plenty of benefits of its own. However, for those who would rather go up in the world, personal trainer Meg Gallagher shows the way:
The Only Way Is Up?
Gallagher offers a few methods; the first is simply an improvement on the “dangling and struggling while not going anywhere” method, but doing it with good form. It’s called the…
Hollow body hold:
- Hang from the bar with legs and feet together.
- Maintain a posterior pelvic tilt (i.e. don’t let your hips roll forwards, and don’t let your butt stick out more than is necessary by mere virtue of having a butt)
- Engage your core by shortening the space between your ribs and pelvis.
- Turn on your abs and lats, with your head slightly behind the bar.
- Practice the hollow body hang instead of dead hangs to build grip and core strength.
Another method is now moving on from the hollow body hold, and shows that in fact, up is not the only way. It’s called…
Negative pull-ups:
- Jump up to get your chin over the bar, then slowly lower yourself in a controlled manner.
- Prioritize negative pull-ups over other exercises to build strength.
- You can use modifications like resistance bands or feet assistance if necessary to extend the duration of your negative pull-up, but these are “crutches”, so try to move on from them as soon as you reasonably can—same if your gym has an “assisted pull-up” machine, consisting of a moving platform with a variable counterweight, mimicking how a pull-up would feel if your body were lighter.
- Practice resisting throughout the entire range of motion.
To give a sense of direction, Gallagher offers the following program:
- On day 1, test how long you can resist the negative pull-up (e.g., 10 seconds).
- For each session, multiply your time by 2 (e.g., 10 seconds × 2 = 20 seconds total).
- Break the total volume into as many sets as needed (e.g., 2 sets of 10 seconds or 4 sets of 5 seconds).
- After each session, add 2 seconds to the total volume for the next session.
- Aim for 3 sessions per week for 3–4 weeks, increasing by 2 seconds each session.
- When you reach about 25 seconds, you should be close to performing your first pull-up.
For more on all of this, plus a few other things to try, plus visual demonstrations, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
Take care!
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The Many Health Benefits Of Garlic
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The Many Health Benefits of Garlic
We’re quite confident you already know what garlic is, so we’re going to leap straight in there with some science today:
First, let’s talk about allicin
Allicin is a compound in garlic that gives most of its health benefits. A downside of allicin is that it’s not very stable, so what this means is:
- Garlic is best fresh—allicin breaks down soon after garlic is cut/crushed
- So while doing the paperwork isn’t fun, buying it as bulbs is better than buying it as granules or similar
- Allicin also breaks down somewhat in cooking, so raw garlic is best
- Our philosophy is: still use it in cooking as well; just use more!
- Supplements (capsule form etc) use typically use extracts and potency varies (from not great to actually very good)
Read more about that:
- Short-term heating reduces the anti-inflammatory effects of fresh raw garlic extracts
- Allicin Bioavailability and Bioequivalence from Garlic Supplements and Garlic Foods
Now, let’s talk benefits…
Benefits to heart health
Garlic has been found to be as effective as the drug Atenolol at reducing blood pressure:
It also lowers LDL (bad cholesterol):
Benefits to the gut
We weren’t even looking for this, but as it turns out, as an add-on to the heart benefits…
Benefits to the immune system
Whether against the common cold or bringing out the heavy guns, garlic is a booster:
- Preventing the common cold with a garlic supplement: a double-blind, placebo-controlled survey
- Supplementation with aged garlic extract improves both NK and γδ-T cell function and reduces the severity of cold and flu symptoms: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled nutrition intervention
Benefits to the youthfulness of body and brain
Garlic is high in antioxidants that, by virtue of reducing oxidative stress, help slow aging. This effect, combined with the cholesterol and blood pressure benefits, means it may also reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia:
- Antioxidant health effects of aged garlic extract
- Effects of garlic consumption on plasma and erythrocyte antioxidant parameters in elderly subjects
- Garlic reduces heart disease and dementia risk
There are more benefits too…
That’s all we have time to dive into study-wise today, but for the visually-inclined, here are yet more benefits to garlic (at a rate of 3–4 cloves per day):
An incredible awesome recipe using lots of garlic:
- Take small potatoes (still in their skins), cut in half
- Add enough peeled cloves of garlic so that you have perhaps a 1:10 ratio of garlic to potato by mass
- Boil (pressure-cooking is ideal) until soft, and drain
- Keeping them in the pan, add a lashing of olive oil, and any additional seasonings per your preference (consider black pepper, rosemary, thyme, parsley)
- Put a lid on the pan, and holding it closed, shake the pan vigorously
- Note: if you didn’t leave the skins on, or you chopped much larger potatoes smaller instead of cutting in half, the potatoes will break up into a rough mash now. This is actually also fine and still tastes (and honestly, looks) great, but it is different, so just be aware, so that you get the outcome you want.
- The garlic, which—unlike the potatoes—didn’t have a skin to hold it together, will now have melted over the potatoes like butter
You can serve like this (it’s delicious already) or finish up in the oven or air-fryer or under the grill, if you prefer a roasted style dish (an amazing option too).
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- Garlic is best fresh—allicin breaks down soon after garlic is cut/crushed
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You Are Not a Before Picture – by Alex Light
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It’s that time of year, and many of us are looking at what we’ll do in the coming days, weeks, and months to level-up our health. So… Is this a demotivational book?
Quite the opposite! It’s rather a case of an often much-needed reminder to ensure that our plans are really our own, and really are what’s best for us. Why wouldn’t they be, you ask?
Much of diet culture (ubiquitous! From magazine covers to movie stars to the models advertising anything from health insurance to water filters) has us reaching for “body goals” that are not possible without a different skeleton and genes and compromises and post-production edits.
Alex Light—herself having moved from the fashion and beauty industry into health education—sets out in a clear, easy-reading manner, how we can look after ourselves, not be neglectful of our bodies, and/but also not get distracted into unhelpful, impossible, castles-in-the-air.
Bottom line: you cannot self-hate your way into good health, and good health will always be much more attainable than a body that’s just not yours. This book can help you sort out which is which.
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Gut-Healthy Tacos
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Full of prebiotics and probiotics, healthy fats, colorful salad boasting vitamins and minerals aplenty, and of course satisfying protein too, these tacos are also boasting generous flavors to keep you coming back for more…
You will need
- 24 sardines—canned is fine (if vegetarian/vegan, substitute tempeh and season generously; marinade if you have time)
- 12 small wholewheat tortillas
- 1 14oz/400g can black beans, drained
- 1 ripe avocado, stoned and cut into small chunks
- 1 red onion, thinly sliced
- 1 little gem lettuce, shredded
- 12 cherry tomatoes, halved
- 1 bulb garlic, crushed
- 1 lemon, sliced
- 4 tbsp plain unsweetened yogurt (your choice what kind, but something with a live culture is best)
- 3oz pickled jalapeños, roughly chopped
- 1oz cilantro (or substitute parsley if you have the cilantro-tastes-like-soap gene), finely chopped
- 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 2 tsp black pepper
- 1 tsp smoked paprika
- Juice of 1 lime
- Optional: Tabasco sauce, or similar hot sauce
Method
(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)
1) Preheat your oven to a low temperature; 200℉ or just under 100℃ is fine
2) Place the lemon slices on top of the sardines on top of foil on a baking tray; you want the foil to be twice as much as you’d expect to need, because now you’re going to fold it over and make a sort of sealed envelope. You could use a dish with a lid yes, but this way is better because there’s going to be less air inside. Upturn the edges of the envelope slightly so that juices won’t run out, and make sure the foil is imperfectly sealed so a little steam can escape but not much at a time. This will ensure it doesn’t dry out, while also ensuring your house doesn’t smell of fish. Put all this into the oven on a middle shelf.
3) Mix the lime juice with the onion in a bowl, and add the avocado and tomatoes, mixing gently. Add half the cilantro, and set aside.
4) Put the black beans in a sieve and pour boiling water over them to refresh and slightly warm them. Tip them into a bowl and add the olive oil, black pepper, and paprika. Mix thoroughly with a fork, and no need to be gentle this time; in fact, deliberately break the beans a little in this case.
5) Mix the yogurt, jalapeños, garlic, and remaining cilantro in a small bowl.
6) Get the warmed sardines from the oven; discard the lemon slices.
7) Assemble! We recommend the order: tortilla, lettuce, fish (2 per taco), black bean mixture, salad mixture, garlic jalapeño yogurt mixture. You can also add a splash of the hot sauce per your preference, or if catering for more people, let people add their own.
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:
- We Are Such Stuff As Fish Are Made Of
- Level-Up Your Fiber Intake! (Without Difficulty Or Discomfort)
- Making Friends With Your Gut (You Can Thank Us Later)
- Our Top 5 Spices: How Much Is Enough For Benefits?
- Enjoy Pungent Polyphenols For Your Heart & Brain
Take care!
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Cucumber Canapés-Crudités
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It’s time to party with these delicious snacks, which are great as an hors d’œuvre, amuse-bouche, or part of a buffet. And like all our offerings, they’re very healthy too—in this case, especially for the gut and heart!
You will need
- 1 cucumber, sliced
- 1 cup pitted Kalamata olives (or other black olives)
- 1 cup sun-dried tomatoes
- 2 oz feta cheese (or vegan equivalent, or pine nuts)
- 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tbsp fresh basil, chopped
- 2 tsp black pepper, coarse ground
Method
(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)
1) Make the first topping by combining the olives, half the olive oil, and half the black pepper, into a food processor and blending until it is a coarse pâté.
2) Make the second topping by doing the same with the tomatoes, basil, feta cheese (or substitution), and the other half of the olive oil and black pepper, again until it is a coarse pâté.
3) Assemble the canapés-crudités by topping the cucumber slices alternately with the two toppings, and serve:
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:
- Making Friends With Your Gut (You Can Thank Us Later)
- Cucumber Extract Beats Glucosamine & Chondroitin… At 1/135th Of The Dose?! ← yes, you can get this benefit by eating cucumber
- Black Olives vs Green Olives – Which is Healthier? ← have a guess!
- Lycopene’s Benefits For The Gut, Heart, Brain, & More ← tomatoes are very rich in lycopene
- Herbs for Evidence-Based Health & Healing ←Basil features here
- Black Pepper’s Impressive Anti-Cancer Arsenal (And More)
Take care!
Don’t Forget…
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How To Kill Laziness
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Laziness Is A Scooby-Doo Villain.
Which means: to tackle it requires doing a Scooby-Doo unmasking.
You know, when the mystery-solving gang has the “ghost” or “monster” tied to a chair, and they pull the mask off, to reveal that there was no ghost etc, and in fact it was a real estate scammer or somesuch.
Social psychologist Dr. Devon Price wrote about this (not with that metaphor though) in a book we haven’t reviewed yet, but will one of these days:
Laziness Does Not Exist – by Dr. Devon Price (book)
In the meantime, and perhaps more accessibly, he gave a very abridged summary for Medium:
Medium | Laziness Does Not Exist… But unseen barriers do (11mins read)
Speaking of barriers, Medium added a paywall to that (the author did not, in fact, arrange the paywall as Medium claim), so in case you don’t have an account, he kindly made the article free on its own website, here:
Devon Price | Laziness Does Not Exist… But unseen barriers do (same article; no paywall)
He details problems that people get into (ranging from missed deadlines to homelessness), that are easily chalked up to laziness, but in fact, these people are not lazily choosing to suffer, and are usually instead suffering from all manner of unchosen things, ranging from…
- imposter syndrome / performance anxiety,
- perfectionism (which can overlap a lot with the above),
- social anxiety and/or depression (these also can overlap for some people),
- executive dysfunction in the brain, and/or
- just plain weathering “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune [and] the heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to”, to borrow from Shakespeare, in ways that aren’t always obviously connected—these things can be great or small, it could be a terminal diagnosis of some terrible disease, or it could be a car breakdown, but the ripples spread.
And nor are you, dear reader, choosing to suffer (even if sometimes it appears otherwise)
Unless you’re actually a masochist, at least, in which case, you do you. But for most of us, what can look like laziness or “doing it to oneself” is usually a case of just having one or more of the above-mentioned conditions in place.
Which means…
That grace we just remembered above to give to other people?
Yep, we should give that to ourselves too.
Not as a free pass, but in the same way we (hopefully) would with someone else, and ask: is there some problem I haven’t considered, and is there something that would make this easier?
Here are some tools to get you started:
- Imposter Syndrome (And Why Almost Everyone Has It)
- Perfectionism, And How To Make Yours Work For You
- How To Set Anxiety Aside
- Mental Health First-Aid (To Get Yourself Or A Loved One Through Depression)
- Procrastination, And How To Pay Off The To-Do List Debt
- Take This Two-Minute Executive Dysfunction Test
Take care!
Don’t Forget…
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