Peace Is Every Step – by Thích Nhất Hạnh
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Mindfulness is one of the few practices to make its way from religion (in this case, Buddhism) into hard science. We’ve written before about its many evidence-based benefits, and many national health information outlets recommend it. So, what does this book have to add?
Thích Nhất Hạnh spent most of his 95 years devoted to the practice and teaching of mindfulness and compassion. In this book, the focus is on bringing mindfulness off the meditation mat and into general life.
After all, what if we could extend that “unflappability” into situations that pressure and antagonize us? That would be some superpower!
The author offers techniques to do just that, simple exercises to transform negative emotions, and to make us more likely to remember to do so.
After all, “in the heat of the moment” is rarely when many of us are at our best, this book gives way to allow those moments themselves to serve as immediate triggers to be our best.
The title “Peace Is Every Step” is not a random collection of words; the goal of this book is to enable to reader to indeed carry peace with us as we go.
Not just “peace is always available to us”, but if we do it right: “we have now arranged for our own peace to automatically step in and help us when we need it most”.
Bottom line: if you’d like to practice mindfulness, or practice it more consistently, this book offers some powerful tools.
Click here to check out Peace Is Every Step, and carry yours with you!
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The DASH Diet Mediterranean Solution – by Dr. Marla Heller
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Sometimes, an author releases a series of books that could have just been one book, with various padding and rehashes. In some cases, naming no names
Dr. Mark Hyman, it means we have to carefully pick out the honestly very good and highly recommendable ones from the “you just republished for the extra income, didn’t you?” ones.In this case, today’s book is part of a series of books with very similar titles, and this one seems the most useful as a standalone book
The Mediterranean Diet is still the scientific world’s current “gold standard” in terms of most evidence-based diet for general health, and as we’ve written about, it can be tweaked to focus on being best for [your particular concern here]. In this case, it’s the DASH variant of the Mediterranean Diet, considered best for heart health specifically.
The style is repetitive, and possibly indicative of the author getting into a habit of having to pad books. Nevertheless, saying things too often is better than forgetting to say them, so hey. On which note, it is more of an educational book than a cookbook—it does have recipes, but not many.
Bottom line: if you’d like an introduction to the DASH variant of the Mediterranean Diet, this book will get you well-acquainted.
Click here to check out The DASH Diet Mediterranean Solution, and learn all about it!
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Breathe; Don’t Vent (At Least In The Moment)
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Zen And The Art Of Breaking Things
We’ve talked before about identifying emotions and the importance of being able to express them:
Answering The Most Difficult Question: How Are You?
However, there can be a difference between “expressing how we feel” and “being possessed by how we feel and bulldozing everything in our path”
…which is, of course, primarily a problem in the case of anger—and by extension, emotions that are often contemporaneous with anger, such as jealousy, shame, fear, etc.
How much feeling is too much?
While this is in large part a subjective matter, clinically speaking the key question is generally: is it adversely affecting daily life to the point of being a problem?
For example, if you have to spend half an hour every day actively managing a certain emotion, that’s probably indicative of something unusual, but “unusual” is not inherently bad. If you’re managing it safely and in a way that doesn’t negatively affect the rest of your life, then that is generally considered fine, unless you feel otherwise about it.
A good example of this is complicated grief and/or prolonged grief.
But what about when it comes to anger? How much is ok?
When it comes to those around you, any amount of anger can seem like too much. Anger often makes us short-tempered even with people who are not the object of our anger, and it rarely brings out the best in us.
We can express our feelings in non-aggressive ways, for example:
and
Seriously Useful Communication Skills!
Sometimes, there’s another way though…
Breathe; don’t vent
That’s a great headline, but we can’t take the credit for it, because it came from:
Breathe, don’t vent: turning down the heat is key to managing anger
…in which it was found that, by all available metrics, the popular wisdom of “getting it off your chest” doesn’t necessarily stand up to scrutiny, at least in the short term:
❝The work was inspired in part by the rising popularity of rage rooms that promote smashing things (such as glass, plates and electronics) to work through angry feelings.
I wanted to debunk the whole theory of expressing anger as a way of coping with it,” she said. “We wanted to show that reducing arousal, and actually the physiological aspect of it, is really important.❞
And indeed, he and his team did find that various arousal-increasing activities (such as hitting a punchbag, breaking things, doing vigorous exercise) did not help as much as arousal-decreasing activities, such as mindfulness-based relaxation techniques.
If you’d like to read the full paper, then so would we, but we couldn’t get full access to this one yet. However, the abstract includes representative statistics, so that’s worth a once-over:
Caveat!
Did you notice the small gap between their results and their conclusion?
In a lab or similar short-term observational setting, their recommendation is clearly correct.
However, if the source of your anger is something chronic and persistent, it could well be that calming down without addressing the actual cause is just “kicking the can down the road”, and will still have to actually be dealt with eventually.
So, while “here be science”, it’s not a mandate for necessarily suffering in silence. It’s more about being mindful about how we go about tackling our anger.
As for a primer on mindfulness, feel free to check out:
No-Frills, Evidence-Based Mindfulness
Take care!
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How Much Does A Vegan Diet Affect Biological Aging?
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Slow Your Aging, One Meal At A Time
This one’s a straightforward one today, and the ““life hack” can be summed up:
Enjoy a vegan diet to enjoy younger biological age.
First, what is biological age?
Biological age is not one number, but a collection of numbers, as per different biomarkers of aging, including:
- 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 of aging (e.g. telomere length)
We wrote more about this here:
Age & Aging: What Can (And Can’t) We Do About It?
A vegan diet may well impact multiple of those categories of aging, but today we’re highlighting a study (hot off the press; published only a few days ago!) that looks at its effect on that last category: cellular markers of aging.
There’s an interesting paradox here, because this category is:
- the most easily ignorable; because we all feel it if our knees are giving out or our skin is losing elasticity, but who notices if telomeres’ T/S ratio changed by 0.0407? ← the researchers, that’s who, as this difference is very significant
- the most far-reaching in its impact, because cellular aging in turn has an effect on all the other markers of aging
Second, how much difference does it make, and how do we know?
The study was an eight-week interventional identical twin study. This means several things, to start with:
- Eight weeks is a rather short period of time to accumulate cellular aging, let alone for an intervention to accumulate a significant difference in cellular aging—but it did. So, just imagine what difference it might make in a year or ten!
- Doing an interventional study with identical twin pairs already controlled for a lot of factors, that are usually confounding variables in population / cohort / longitudinal / observational studies.
Factors that weren’t controlled for by default by using identical twins, were controlled for in the experiment design. For example, twin pairs were rejected if one or more twin in a given pair already had medical conditions that could affect the outcome:
❝Inclusion criteria involved participants aged ≥18, part of a willing twin pair, with BMI <40, and LDL-C <190 mg/dL. Exclusions included uncontrolled hypertension, metabolic disease, diabetes, cancer, heart/renal/liver disease, pregnancy, lactation, and medication use affecting body weight or energy.
Eligibility was determined via online screening, followed by an orientation meeting and in-person clinic visit. Randomization occurred only after completing baseline visits, dietary recalls, and questionnaires for both twins❞
~ Dr. Varun Dwaraka et al. ← there’s a lot of “et al.” to this one; the paper had 16 collaborating authors!
As to the difference it made over the course of the 8 weeks…
❝Various measures of epigenetic age acceleration (PC GrimAge, PC PhenoAge, DunedinPACE) were assessed, along with system-specific effects (Inflammation, Heart, Hormone, Liver, and Metabolic).
Distinct responses were observed, with the vegan cohort exhibiting significant decreases in overall epigenetic age acceleration, aligning with anti-aging effects of plant-based diets. Diet-specific shifts were noted in the analysis of methylation surrogates, demonstrating the influence of diet on complex trait prediction through DNA methylation markers.❞
~ Ibid.
You can read the whole paper here (it goes into a lot more detail than we have room to here, and also gives infographics, charts, numbers, the works):
Were they just eating more healthily, though?
Well, arguably yes, as the results show, but to be clear:
The omnivorous diet compared to the vegan diet in this study was also controlled; both groups were given a healthy meal plan for their respective diet. So this wasn’t a case of “any omnivorous diet vs healthy vegan diet”, but rather “healthy omnivorous diet vs healthy vegan diet”.
Again, the paper itself has the full details—a short version is that it involved a healthy meal kit delivery service, followed by ongoing dietician involvement in an equal and carefully-controlled fashion.
So, aside from that one group had an omnivorous meal plan and the other vegan, both groups received the same level of “healthy eating” support, guidance, and oversight.
But isn’t [insert your preferred animal product here] healthy?
Quite possibly! For general health, general scientific consensus is that eating at least mostly plants is best, red meat is bad, poultry is neutral in moderation, fish is good in moderation, dairy is good in moderation if fermented, eggs are good in moderation if not fried.
This study looked at the various biomarkers of aging that we listed, and not every possible aspect of health—there’s more science yet to be done, and the researchers themselves are calling for it.
It also bears mentioning that for some (relatively few, but not insignificantly few) people, extant health conditions may make a vegan diet unhealthy or otherwise untenable. Do speak with your own doctor and/or dietician if unsure.
See also: Do We Need Animal Products To Be Healthy?
We would hypothesize, by the way, that the anti-aging benefits of a vegan diet are probably proportional to abstention from animal products—meaning that even if you simply have some “vegan days”, while still consuming animal products other days, you’ll still get benefit for the days you abstained. That’s just our hypothesis though.
Take care!
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Get The Right Help For Your Pain
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How Much Does It Hurt?
Sometimes, a medical professional will ask us to “rate your pain on a scale of 1–10”.
It can be tempting to avoid rating one’s pain too highly, because if we say “10” then where can we go from there? There is always a way to make pain worse, after all.
But that kind of thinking, however logical, is folly—from a practical point of view. Instead of risking having to give an 11 later, you have now understated your level-10 pain as a “7” and the doctor thinks “ok, I’ll give Tylenol instead of morphine”.
A more useful scale
First, know this:
Zero is not “this is the lowest level of pain I get to”.
Zero is “no pain”.
As for the rest…
- My pain is hardly noticeable.
- I have a low level of pain; I am aware of my pain only when I pay attention to it.
- My pain bothers me, but I can ignore it most of the time.
- I am constantly aware of my pain, but can continue most activities.
- I think about my pain most of the time; I cannot do some of the activities I need to do each day because of the pain.
- I think about my pain all of the time; I give up many activities because of my pain.
- I am in pain all of the time; It keeps me from doing most activities.
- My pain is so severe that it is difficult to think of anything else. Talking and listening are difficult.
- My pain is all that I can think about; I can barely move or talk because of my pain.
- I am in bed and I can’t move due to my pain; I need someone to take me to the emergency room because of my pain.
10almonds tip: are you reading this on your phone? Screenshot the above, and keep it for when you need it!
One extra thing to bear in mind…
Medical staff will be more likely to believe a pain is being overstated, on a like-for-like basis, if you are a woman, or not white, or both.
There are some efforts to compensate for this:
A new government inquiry will examine women’s pain and treatment. How and why is it different?
Some other resources of ours:
- The 7 Approaches To Pain Management ← a pain specialist discusses the options available
- Managing Chronic Pain (Realistically!) ← when there’s no quick fix, but these things can buy you some hours’ relief at least / stop the pain from getting worse in the moment
- Science-Based Alternative Pain Relief ← for when you’re maxxed out on painkillers, and need something more/different, these are the things the science says will work
Take care!
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Gymnema Sylvestre: The “Sugar Destroyer”
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The Leaf That Stops Sugar From “Working”
Gymnema sylvestre, whose botanical name in Greek and Latin means “naked thread of the woods”, and is in various Indian languages referred to be names that translate as “sugar destroyer”, has the most prosaic name in Australia: the Australian cowplant.
In English it’s mostly called by the Greek “gymnema” though, so that’s what we’ll call it here.
You may be wondering: “the sugar destroyer?”
And no, it doesn’t actually destroy sugar. But it does do quite a bit of sugar-related stuff. Here’s the science for it…
Blocks sugar receptors in your tongue
This is what it is most well-known for, and it is a topical effect, so you won’t get this from a pill, but you will get this from the leaves, or from drinking it as a tea made from the leaves.
The effect last several hours, during which time your ability to taste sweetness will be reduced, which not only makes sweet foods less appealing because they’re no longer tasting sweet, but also, once you get used to it, when you actually do taste sweet foods, they will now taste too sweet.
So, it doesn’t just temporarily curb cravings; it offers a long-term escape from such, too.
You may be wondering: “what about artificially sweetened foods and drinks?”
And the answer is: yes, it blocks perception of the sweetness of those too:
Effects of sweetness perception and caloric value of a preload on short term intake ← this study used gymnema as the sweetness-blocker, testing sugary drinks, aspartame-sweetened drinks, and unsweetened drinks
Blocks sugar receptors in the gut, too
Long story short: this slows down the absorption of sugars from the gut, thus resulting in a gentler blood sugar curve, minimizing spikes, and (because of the body’s use of blood sugars as it goes) overall lower blood sugar levels.
Want the long version? Here it is:
Benefits beyond sugar-blocking
It also prevents the accumulation of triglycerides in muscles and the liver, as well as decreasing fatty acid accumulation in the blood. In simpler terms: it lowers LDL (“bad” cholesterol”, including VLDL). As a bonus, it increases HDL (“good” cholesterol) while it’s at it.
The vast majority of the studies for this are on rats and mice though, of which you can see very many listed in the “similar articles” under this systematic review of studies:
A systematic review of Gymnema sylvestre in obesity and diabetes management
We did find one good quality human RCT, testing gymnema along with several other treatments (they found that each worked, and/but using a combination yielded the best results):
(the title says “on weight loss”, but rest assured the study also gives information about its effects on total cholesterol, LDL, HDL, overall triglycerides, and serum leptin levels, as well as excretion of urinary fat metabolites—suffice it to say, they were thorough)
Is it safe?
It has a good safety profile in general, but if you are diabetic, proceed with caution and discuss it with your endocrinologist, since it will be affecting your blood sugar levels and insulin levels. While it’s probably not enough to replace metformin or similar, it is enough that taking it carelessly could result in an unexpected hypo.
Similarly, if you have any heart condition and especially if you are being treated for that with medication, do speak with your cardiologist since its antilipemic action could potentially lower your cholesterol more than expected, and doctors don’t like surprises.
As ever, no list of contraindications will be exhaustive, and we can’t speak for your specific situation, so checking with your pharmacist/doctor is always a good idea.
Want to try some?
We don’t sell it, but here for your convenience is an example product on Amazon ← we’ve linked to a tea version of it so you can enjoy the full effects; if you prefer capsule form, you can click through from there to shop around 😎
Enjoy!
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Fixing Fascia
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Fascia: Why (And How) You Should Take Care Of Yours
Fascia is the web-like layer of connective tissue that divides your muscles and organs from each other. It simultaneously holds some stuff in place, and allows other parts to glide over each other with minimal friction.
At least, that’s what it’s supposed to do.
Like any body part, it can go wrong. More on this later. But first…
A quick note on terms
It may seem like sometimes people say “myofascial” because it sounds fancier, but it does actually have a specific meaning too:
- “Fascia” is what we just described above
- “Myofascial” means “of or relating to muscles and fascia”
For example, “myofascial release” means “stopping the fascia from sticking to the muscle where it shouldn’t” and “myofascial pain” means “pain that has to do with the muscles and fascia”. See also:
Myofascial vs Fascia: When To Use Each One? What To Consider
Why fascia is so ignored
For millennia, it was mostly disregarded as a “neither this nor that” tissue that just happens to be in the body. We didn’t pay attention to it, just like we mostly don’t pay attention to the air around us.
But, much like the air around us, we sure pay attention when something goes wrong with it!
However, even in more recent years, we’ve been held back until quite new developments like musculoskeletal ultrasound that could show us problems with the fascia.
What can go wrong
It’s supposed to be strong, thin, supple, and slippery. It holds on in the necessary places like a spiderweb, but for the most part, it is evolved for minimum friction.
Some things can cause it to thicken and become sticky in the wrong places. Things such as:
- Physical trauma, e.g. an injury or surgery—but we repeat ourselves, because a surgery is an injury! It’s a (usually) necessary injury, but an injury nonetheless.
- Compensation for pain. If a body part hurts for some reason, and your posture changes to accommodate that, doing so can mess up your fascia, and cause you different problems somewhere else entirely.
- This is not witchcraft; think of how, when using a corded vacuum cleaner, sometimes the cord can get snagged on something in the next room and we nearly break something because we expected it to just come with us and it didn’t? It’s like that.
- Repetitive movements (repetitive strain injury is partly a myofascial issue)
- Not enough movement: when it comes to range of motion, it’s “use it or lose it”.
- The human body tries its best to be as efficient as possible for us! So eventually it will go “Hey, I notice you never move more than 30º in this direction, so I’m going to stop making fascia that allows you to go past that point, and I’ll just dump the materials here instead”
“I’ll just dump the materials here instead” is also part of the problem—it creates what we colloquially call “knots”, which are not so much part of the muscle as the fascia that covers it. That’s an actual physical sticky lumpy bit.
What to do about it
Firstly, avoid the above things! But, if for whatever reason something has gone wrong and you now have sticky lumpy fascia that doesn’t let you move the way you’d like (if you have any mobility/flexibility issues that aren’t for another known reason, then this is usually it), there are things can be done:
- Heat—is definitely not a cure-all, but it’s a good first step before doing the other things. A heating pad or a warm bath are great.
- Here’s an example of a neck+back+shoulders heating pad; you can get them for different body parts, or just use an electric blanket!
- Massage—ideally, by someone else who knows what they are doing. Self-massage is possible, as is teaching oneself (there are plenty of video tutorials available), but skilled professional therapeutic myofascial release massage is the gold standard.
- Foam rollers are a great no-skill way to get going with self-massage, whether because that’s what’s available to you, or because you just want something you can do between sessions. Here’s an example of the kind we mean.
- Acupuncture—triggering localized muscular relaxation, an important part of myofascial release, is something acupuncture is good at.
- See also: Pinpointing The Usefulness Of Acupuncture ← noteworthily, the strongest criticism of acupuncture for pain relief is that it performs only slightly better than sham acupuncture, but taken in practical terms, all that really means is “sticking little needles in does work, even if not necessarily by the mechanism acupuncturists believe”
- Calisthenics—Pilates, yoga, and other forms of body movement training can help gradually get one’s fascia to where and how it’s supposed to be.
- This is that “use it or lose it” bodily efficiency we talked about!
Remember, the body is always rebuilding itself. It never stops, until you die. So on any given day, you get to choose whether it rebuilds itself a little bit worse or a little bit better.
Take care!
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