To-Do List Formula – by Damon Zahariades

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The 10almonds Team

The first part of this book is given to reviewing popular to-do list methods that are already widely “out there”. This treatment is practical and exploratory, looking at the pros and cons of each.

The second part of the book is more Zahariades’ own method, taking what he sees as the best of each, plus some tricks and practices of his own. With these, he builds (and shares!) his optimized system.

You may be wondering what you, dear reader, can expect to get out of this book. Well, that depends on where you’re coming from:

Are you new to approaching your general to-dos with a system more organized than post-it notes on your fridge? If so, this will be a great initial introduction to many systems.

Or are you, perhaps, a veteran of GTD, ToDoist, assorted Pomodoro-based systems, and more? Do you do/delegate/defer/ditch tasks more deftly and dextrously than Serena Williams despatches tennis balls?

If so, what you’re more likely to gain here is a fresh perspective on old ideas, and maybe a trick or two you didn’t know before. At the very least, a boost to your motivation, getting you fired up for doing what you know best again.

All in all, a very respectable book for anyone’s to-read list!

Pick Up Your Copy of Zahariades’ To-Do List Formula on Amazon Today!

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    The Best Few Interventions For The Best Health. Improve your diet with the Mediterranean Diet. Get your daily steps in and consider adding HIIT for exercise. Prioritize quality sleep. Don’t drink or smoke.

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  • The Hidden Risk of Stretching: Avoiding Hamstring Injuries in Yoga

    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.

    What is Yoga Butt

    Have you ever experienced a mysterious pain while stretching, or perhaps during yoga? You might be dealing with “yoga butt,” a common—although rarely discussed—injury. In the below video, the Lovely Liv from Livinleggings shares her journey of discovering, and overcoming, “yoga butt”.

    Dealing With Yoga Butt

    Yoga butt, or proximal hamstring tendinopathy, occurs when the hamstrings are overstretched without adequate strengthening. Many yoga poses help stretch the hamstrings, but often don’t focus on strengthening said hamstrings; this imbalance is what can lead to damage over time.

    To help prevent Yoga butt, it’s essential to balance stretching with strengthening. You can look into incorporating hamstring-strengthening exercises like Romanian deadlifts, hamstring curls, and modified yoga poses into your routine.

    (If you’re new to strengthening exercises, we recommend reading Women’s Strength Training Anatomy Workouts or Strength Training for Seniors).

    Watch the full video to learn more and hopefully protect yourself from long-term injuries:

    Let us know your thoughts, and whether you have any other topics you’d like us to cover.

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  • Feta or Parmesan – Which is Healthier?

    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.

    Our Verdict

    When comparing feta to parmesan, we picked the parmesan.

    Why?

    It’s close! Looking at the macros, parmesan has more protein and slightly less fat. Of the fat content, parmesan also has slightly less saturated fat, but neither of them are doing great in this category. Still, a relative win for parmesan.

    In the category of vitamins, feta is a veritable vitamin-B-fest with more of vitamins B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, and B9. On the other hand, parmesan has more of vitamins A, B12, and choline. By strength of numbers, this is a win for feta.

    Minerals tell a different story; parmesan has a lot more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc. Meanwhile, feta is not higher in any minerals. A clear win for parmesan.

    Both cheeses offer gut-healthy benefits (if consumed regularly in small portions), while neither are great for the heart.

    On balance, we say parmesan wins the day.

    Want to learn more?

    You might like to read:

    Feta Cheese vs Mozzarella – Which is Healthier?

    Take care!

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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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  • How To Get Your First Pull-Up

    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

    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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  • You’ve Got Questions? We’ve Got Answers!

    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

    From Cucumbers To Kindles

    Q: Where do I get cucumber extract?

    A: You can buy it from BulkSupplements.com (who, despite their name, start at 100g packs)

    Alternatively: you want it as a topical ointment (for skin health) rather than as a dietary supplement (for bone and joint health), you can extract it yourself! No, it’s not “just juice cucumbers”, but it’s also not too tricky.

    Click Here For A Quick How-To Guide!

    Q: Tips for reading more and managing time for it?

    A: We talked about this a little bit in yesterday’s edition, so you may have seen that, but aside from that:

    • If you don’t already have one, consider getting a Kindle or similar e-reader. They’re very convenient, and also very light and ergonomic—no more wrist strain as can occur with physical books. No more eye-strain, either!
    • Consider making reading a specific part of your daily routine. A chapter before bed can be a nice wind-down, for instance! What’s important is it’s a part of your day that’ll always, or at least almost always, allow you to do a little reading.
    • If you drive, walk, run, or similar each day, a lot of people find that’s a great time to listen to an audiobook. Please be safe, though!
    • If your lifestyle permits such, a “reading retreat” can be a wonderful vacation! Even if you only “retreat” to your bedroom, the point is that it’s a weekend (or more!) that you block off from all other commitments, and curl up with the book(s) of your choice.

    Q: Any study tips as we approach exam season? A lot of the productivity stuff is based on working life, but I can’t be the only student!

    A: We’ve got you covered:

    • Be passionate about your subject! We know of no greater study tip than that.
    • Find a willing person and lecture them on your subject. When one teaches, two learn!
    • Your mileage may vary depending on your subject, but, find a way of studying that’s fun to you!
    • If you can get past papers, get as many as you can, and use those as your “last minute” studying in the week before your exam(s). This will prime you for answering exam-style questions (and leverage state-dependent memory). As a bonus, it’ll also help ease any anxiety, because by the time of your exam it’ll be “same old, same old”!

    Q: Energy drinks for biohacking, yea or nay?

    A: This is definitely one of those “the dose makes the poison” things!

    But… The generally agreed safe dose of taurine is around 3g/day for most people; a standard Red Bull contains 1g.

    That math would be simple, but… if you eat meat (including poultry or fish), that can also contain 10–950mg per 100g. For example, tuna is at the high end of that scale, with a standard 12oz (340g) tin already containing up to 3.23g of taurine!

    And sweetened carbonated beverages in general have so many health issues that it’d take us a full article to cover them.

    Short version? Enjoy in moderation if you must, but there are definitely better ways of getting the benefits they may offer.

    Q: Best morning routine?

    A: The best morning routine is whatever makes you feel most ready to take on your day!

    This one’s going to vary a lot—one person’s morning run could be another person’s morning coffee and newspaper, for example.

    In a nutshell, though, ask yourself these questions:

    • How long does it take me to fully wake up in the morning, and what helps or hinders that?
    • When I get out of bed, what do I really need before I can take on my day?
    • If I could have the perfect morning, what would it look like?
    • What can evening me do, to look after morning me’s best interests? (Semi-prepare breakfast ready? Lay out clothes ready? Running shoes? To-Do list?)

    Q: I’m curious how much of these things you actually use yourselves, and are there any disagreements in the team? In a lot of places things can get pretty heated when it’s paleo vs vegan / health benefits of tea/coffee vs caffeine-abstainers / you need this much sleep vs rise and grinders, etc?

    A: We are indeed genuinely enthusiastic about health and productivity, and that definitely includes our own! We may or may not all do everything, but between us, we probably have it all covered. As for disagreements, we’ve not done a survey, but if you take an evidence-based approach, any conflict will tend to be minimized. Plus, sometimes you can have the best of both!

    • You could have a vegan paleo diet (you’d better love coconut if you do, though!
    • There is decaffeinated coffee and tea (your taste may vary)
    • You can get plenty of sleep and rise early (so long as an “early to bed, early to rise” schedule suits you!)

    Interesting note: humans are social creatures on an evolutionary level. Evolution has resulted in half of us being “night owls” and the other half “morning larks”, the better to keep each other safe while sleeping. Alas, modern life doesn’t always allow us to have the sleep schedule that’d suit each of us best individually!

    Have a question you’d like answered? Reply to this email, or use the feedback widget at the bottom! We always love to hear from you

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  • How to Eat to Change How You Drink – by Dr. Brooke Scheller

    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

    Whether you want to stop drinking or just cut down, this book can help. But what makes it different from the other reduce/stop drinking books we’ve reviewed?

    Mostly, it’s about nutrition. This book focuses on the way that alcohol changes our relationship to food, our gut, our blood sugars, and more. The author also explains how reducing/stopping drinking, without bearing these things in mind, can be unnecessarily extra hard.

    The remedy? To bear them in mind, of course, but that requires knowing them. So what she does is explain the physiology of what’s going on in terms of each of the above things (and more), and how to adjust your diet to make up for what alcohol has been doing to you, so that you can reduce/quit without feeling constantly terrible.

    The style is very pop-science, light in tone, readable. She makes reference to a lot of hard science, but doesn’t discuss it in more depth than is necessary to convey the useful information. So, this is a practical book, aimed at all people who want to reduce/quit drinking.

    Bottom line: if you feel like it’s hard to drink less because it feels like something is missing, it’s probably because indeed something is missing, and this book can help you bridge that gap!

    Click here to check out How To Eat To Change How You Drink, and do just that!

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    Learn to Age Gracefully

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