The Midlife Cyclist – by Phil Cavell
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Whether stationary cycling in your living room, or competing in the Tour de France, there’s a lot more to cycling than “push the pedals”—if you want to get good benefits and avoid injury, in any case.
This book explores the benefits of different kinds of cycling, the biomechanics of various body positions, and the physiology of different kinds of performance, and the impact these things have on everything from your joints to your heart to your telomeres.
The style is very much conversational, with science included, and a readiness to acknowledge in cases where the author is guessing or going with a hunch, rather than something being well-evidenced. This kind of honesty is always good to see, and it doesn’t detract from where the science is available and clear.
One downside for some readers will be that while Cavell does endeavour to cover sex differences in various aspects of how they relate to the anatomy and physiology (mostly: the physiology) of cycling, the book is written from a male perspective and the author clearly understands that side of things better. For other readers, of course, this will be a plus.
Bottom line: if you enjoy cycling, or you’re thinking of taking it up but it seems a bit daunting because what if you do it wrong and need a knee replacement in a few years or what if you hurt your spine or something, then this is the book to set your mind at ease, and put you on the right track.
Click here to check out The Midlife Cyclist, and enjoy the cycle of life!
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5 Things You Can Change About Your Personality (But: Should You?)
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There are many personality-typing systems that, with varying degrees of validity*, aim to describe a person’s personality.
*and often pseudoscience:
- sometimes obviously so like astrology
- sometimes dressed up in clinical words like the Meyers-Briggs
- sometimes openly, per “this is not science but you may find it useful to frame things this way”, like the Enneagram
There is currently one kind of personality-typing system (with some minor variations) that is used in the actual field of clinical psychology, specifically under the umbrella of “trait theory”, and that is…
The “Big Five” personality traits
Also called the OCEAN or CANOE model, based on its 5 components:
- openness to experience: inventive/curious rather than consistent/cautious
- conscientiousness: efficient/organized rather than extravagant/careless
- extraversion: outgoing/energetic rather than solitary/reserved
- agreeableness: friendly/compassionate rather than critical/judgmental
- neuroticism: sensitive/nervous rather than resilient/confident
The latter (neuroticism) is not to be confused with neurosis, which is very different and beyond the scope of today’s article.
Note that some of these seem more positive/negative than others at a glance, but really, any of these could be a virtue or a vice depending on specifics or extremity.
For scientific reference, here’s an example paper:
The Big Five Personality Factors and Personal Values
Quick self-assessment
There are of course many lengthy questionnaires for this, but in the interests of expediency:
Take a moment to rate yourself as honestly as you can, on a scale of 1–10, for each of those components, with 10 being highest for the named trait.
For example, this writer gives herself: O7, C6, E3, A8, N2 (in other words I’d say I’m fairly open, moderately conscientious, on the reserved side, quite agreeable, and quite resilient)
Now, put your rating aside (in your phone’s notes app is fine, if you hadn’t written it down already) and forget about it for the moment, because we want you to do the next exercise from scratch.
Who would you be, at your best?
Now imagine your perfect idealized self, the best you could ever be, with no constraints.
Take a moment to rate your idealized self’s personality, on a scale of 1–10, for each of those components, with 10 being highest for the named trait.
For example, this writer picks: O9, C10, E5, A8, N1.
Maybe this, or maybe your own idealized self’s personality, will surprise you. That some traits might already be perfect for you already; others might just be nudged a little here or there; maybe there’s some big change you’d like. Chances are you didn’t go for a string of 10s or 1s (though if you did, you do you; there are no wrong answers here as this one is about your preferences).
We become who we practice being
There are some aspects of personality that can naturally change with age. For example:
- confidence/resilience will usually gradually increase with age due to life experience (politely overlook teenagers’ bravado; they are usually a bundle of nerves inside, resulting in the overcompensatory displays of confidence)
- openness to experience may decrease with age, as we can get into a rut of thinking/acting a certain way, and/or simply consciously decide that our position on something is already complete and does not need revision.
But, we can decide for ourselves how to nudge our “Big Five” traits, for example:
- We can make a point of seeking out new experiences, and considering new ideas, or develop strategies for reining ourselves in
- We can use systems to improve our organization, or go out of our way to introduce a little well-placed chaos
- We can “put ourselves out there” socially, or make the decision to decline more social invitations because we simply don’t want to
- We can make a habit of thinking kindly of others and ourselves, or we can consciously detach ourselves and look on the cynical side more
- We can build on our strengths and eliminate our weaknesses, or lean into uncomfortable emotions
Some of those may provoke a “why would anyone want to…?” response, but the truth is we are all different. An artist and a police officer may have very different goals for who they want to be as a person, for example.
Interventions to change personality can and do work:
A systematic review of personality trait change through intervention
There are many ways to go about “being the change we want to see” in ourselves, and yes there can be a degree of “fake it until you make it” if that works for you, but it doesn’t have to be so. It can also simply be a matter of setting yourself reminders about the things that are most important to you.
Writer’s example: pinned above my digital workspace I have a note from my late beloved, written just under a week before death. The final line reads, “keep being the good person that you are” (on a human level, the whole note is uplifting and soothing to me and makes me smile and remember the love we shared; or to put it in clinical terms, it promotes high agreeableness, low neuroticism).
Other examples could be a daily practice of gratitude (promotes lower neuroticism), or going out of your way to speak to your neighbors (promotes higher extraversion), signing up for a new educational course (promotes higher openness) or downloading a budgeting app (promotes higher conscientiousness).
In short: be the person you want to be, and be that person deliberately, because you can.
Some resources that may help for each of the 5 traits:
- Curiosity Kills The Neurodegeneration
- How (And Why) To Train Your Pre-Frontal Cortex
- How To Beat Loneliness & Isolation
- Optimism Seriously Increases Longevity!
- Building Psychological Resilience (Without Undue Hardship)
Take care!
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The Science and Technology of Growing Young – by Sergey Young
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There are a lot of very optimistic works out there that promise the scientific breakthroughs that will occur very soon. Even amongst the hyperoptimistic transhumanism community, there is the joke of “where’s my flying car?” Sometimes prefaced with “Hey Ray, quick question…” as a nod to (or sometimes, direct address to) Ray Kurzweil, the Google computer scientist and futurist.
So, how does this one measure up?
Our author, Sergey Young, is not a scientist, but an investor with fingers in many pies. Specifically, pies relating to preventative medicine and longevity. Does that make him an unreliable narrator? Not necessarily, but it means we need to at least bear that context in mind.
But, also, he’s investing in those fields because he believes in them, and wants to benefit from them himself. In essense, he’s putting his money where his mouth is. But, enough about the author. What of the book?
It’s a whirlwind tour of the main areas of reseach and development, in the recent past, the present, and the near future. He talks about problems, and compelling solutions to problems.
If the book has a weak point, it’s that it doesn’t really talk about the problems to those solutions—that is, what can still go wrong. He’s excited about what we can do, and it’s somebody else’s job to worry about pitfalls along the way.
As to the “and what you can do now?” We’ll summarize:
- Mediterranean diet, mostly plant-based
- Get moderate exercise daily
- Get good sleep
- Don’t drink or smoke
- Get your personal health genomics data
- Get regular medical check-ups
- Look after your mental health too
Bottom line: this is a great primer on the various avenues of current anti-aging research and development, with discussion ranging from the the technological to the sociological. It has some health tips too, but the real meat of the work is the insight into the workings of the longevity industry.
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When Did You Last Have a Cognitive Health Check-Up?
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When Did You Last Have a Cognitive Health Check-Up?
Regular health check-ups are an important part of a good health regime, especially as we get older. But after you’ve been prodded, probed, sampled and so forth… When did you last have a cognitive health check-up?
Keeping on top of things
In our recent Monday Research Review main feature about citicoline, we noted that it has beneficial effects for a lot of measures of cognitive health.
And that brought us to realize: just how on top of this are we?
Your writer here today could tell you what her sleep was like on any night in the past year, what her heart rate was like, her weight, and all that. Moods too! There’s an app for that. But cognitive health? My last IQ test was in 2001, and I forget when my last memory test was.
It’s important to know how we’re doing, or else how to we know if there has been some decline? We’ve talked previously about the benefits of brain-training of various kinds to improve cognition, so in some parts we’ll draw on the same resources today, but this time the focus is on getting quick measurements that we can retest regularly (mark the calendar!)
Some quick-fire tests
These tests are all free, quick, and accessible. Some of them will try to upsell you on other (i.e. paid) services; we leave that to your own discretion, but the things we’ll be using today are free.
Test your verbal memory
This one’s a random word list generator. It defaults to 12 words, but you can change that if you like. Memorize the words, and then test yourself by seeing how many you can write down from memory. If it gets too easy, crank up the numbers.
Test your visual memory
This one’s a series of images; the test is to click to say whether you’ve seen this exact image previously in the series or not.
Test your IQ
This one’s intended to be general purpose intelligence; in reality, IQ tests have their flaws too, but it’s not a bad metric to keep track of. Just don’t get too hung up on the outcome, and remember, your only competition is yourself!
Test your attention / focus
This writer opened this and this three other attention tests (to get you the best one) before getting distracted, noting the irony, and finally taking the test. Hopefully you can do better!
Test your creativity
This one’s a random object generator. Give yourself a set period of time (per your preference, but make a note of the time you allow yourself, so that you can use the same time period when you retest yourself at a later date) in which to list as many different possible uses for the item.
Test your musical sense
This one’s a pitch recognition test. So, with the caveat that it is partially testing your hearing as well as your cognition, it’s a good one to take and regularly retest in any case.
How often should you retest?
There’s not really any “should” here, but to offer some advice:
- If you take them too often, you might find you get bored of doing so and stop, essentially burning out.
- If you don’t take them regularly, you may forget, lose this list of tests, etc.
- Likely a good “sweet spot” is quarterly or six-monthly, but there’s nothing wrong with testing annually either.
It’s all about the big picture, after all.
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Why do I need to get up during the night to wee? Is this normal?
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It can be normal to wake up once or even twice during the night to wee, especially as we get older.
One in three adults over 30 makes at least two trips to the bathroom every night.
Waking up from sleep to urinate on a regular basis is called nocturia. It’s one of the most commonly reported bothersome urinary symptoms (others include urgency and poor stream).
So what causes nocturia, and how can it affect wellbeing?
A range of causes
Nocturia can be caused by a variety of medical conditions, such as heart or kidney problems, poorly controlled diabetes, bladder infections, an overactive bladder, or gastrointestinal issues. Other causes include pregnancy, medications and consumption of alcohol or caffeine before bed.
While nocturia causes disrupted sleep, the reverse is true as well. Having broken sleep, or insomnia, can also cause nocturia.
When we sleep, an antidiuretic hormone is released that slows down the rate at which our kidneys produce urine. If we lie awake at night, less of this hormone is released, meaning we continue to produce normal rates of urine. This can accelerate the rate at which we fill our bladder and need to get up during the night.
Stress, anxiety and watching television late into the night are common causes of insomnia.
Sometimes we need to get up late at night to pee.
Christian MoroEffects of nocturia on daily functioning
The recommended amount of sleep for adults is between seven and nine hours per night. The more times you have to get up in the night to go to the bathroom, the more this impacts sleep quantity and quality.
Decreased sleep can result in increased tiredness during the day, poor concentration, forgetfulness, changes in mood and impaired work performance.
If you’re missing out on quality sleep due to nighttime trips to the bathroom, this can affect your quality of life.
In more severe cases, nocturia has been compared to having a similar impact on quality of life as diabetes, high blood pressure, chest pain, and some forms of arthritis. Also, frequent disruptions to quality and quantity of sleep can have longer-term health impacts.
Nocturia not only upsets sleep, but also increases the risk of falls from moving around in the dark to go to the bathroom.
Further, it can affect sleep partners or others in the household who may be disturbed when you get out of bed.
Can you have a ‘small bladder’?
It’s a common misconception that your trips to the bathroom are correlated with the size of your bladder. It’s also unlikely your bladder is smaller relative to your other organs.
If you find you are having to wee more than your friends, this could be due to body size. A smaller person drinking the same amount of fluids as someone larger will simply need to go the bathroom more often.
If you find you are going to the bathroom quite a lot during the day and evening (more than eight times in 24 hours), this could be a symptom of an overactive bladder. This often presents as frequent and sudden urges to urinate.
If you are concerned about any lower urinary tract symptoms, it’s worth having a chat with your family GP.
There are some medications that can assist in the management of nocturia, and your doctor will also be able to help identify any underlying causes of needing to go to the toilet during the night.
A happy and healthy bladder
Here are some tips to maintain a happy and healthy bladder, and reduce the risk you’ll be up at night:
- make your sleep environment comfortable, with a suitable mattress and sheets to suit the temperature
- get to bed early, and limit screens, or activites before bed
- limit foods and drinks that irritate the bladder, such as coffee or alcohol, especially before bedtime
- sit in a relaxed position when urinating, and allow time for the bladder to completely empty
- practice pelvic floor muscle exercises
- drink an adequate amount of fluids during the day, and avoid becoming dehydrated
- maintain a healthy lifestyle, eat nutritious foods and do not do anything harmful to the body such as smoking or using illicit drugs
- review your medications, as the time you take some pharmaceuticals may affect urine production or sleep
- if you have swollen legs, raise them a few hours before bedtime to let the fluid drain.
Christian Moro, Associate Professor of Science & Medicine, Bond University and Charlotte Phelps, Senior Teaching Fellow, Medical Program, Bond University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Black Bean Burgers With Guacamole
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Once again proving that burgers do not have to be unhealthy, this one’s a nutritional powerhouse full of protein, fiber, vitamins, and minerals, as well as healthy fats and extra health-giving spices.
You will need
- 1 can black beans, drained and rinsed (or 1 cup same, cooked, drained, and rinsed)
- 3 oz walnuts (if allergic, substitute with pumpkin seeds)
- 1 tbsp chia seeds
- 1 tbsp flax seeds
- ½ red onion, finely chopped
- 1 small eggplant, diced small (e.g. ½” cubes or smaller)
- 1 small carrot, grated
- 3 tbsp finely chopped cilantro (or if you have the “this tastes like soap” gene, then substitute with parsley)
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 1 jalapeño pepper, finely chopped (adjust per heat preferences)
- ¼ bulb garlic, crushed
- 2 tsp black pepper
- 1 tsp smoked paprika
- 1 tsp cayenne pepper (adjust per heat preferences)
- ½ tsp MSG or 1 tsp low-sodium salt
- Burger buns (you can use our Delicious Quinoa Avocado Bread recipe if you like)
For the guacamole:
- 1 large ripe avocado, pitted, skinned, and chopped
- 1 tbsp lime juice
- 1 tomato, finely chopped
- ¼ red onion, finely chopped
- ¼ bulb garlic, crushed
- 1 tsp red chili pepper flakes (adjust per heat preferences)
Method
(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)
1) Process the walnuts, chia seeds, and flax seeds in a food processor/blender, until they become a coarse mixture. Set aside.
2) Heat a little oil in a skillet, and fry the red onion, aubergine, and carrot for 5 minutes stirring frequently, then add the garlic and jalapeño and stir for a further 1 minute. Set aside.
3) Combine both mixtures you set aside with the rest of the ingredients from the burger section of the recipe, except the buns, and process them in the food processor on a low setting if possible, until you have a coarse mixture—you still want some texture, not a paste.
4) Shape into patties; this recipe gives for 4 large patties or 8 small ones. When you’ve done this, put them in the fridge for at least 30 minutes, to firm up.
5) While you wait, make the guacamole by mashing the avocado with the lime juice, and then stirring into the onion, tomato, garlic, and pepper.
6) Cook the patties; you can do this on the grill, in a skillet, or in the oven, per your preference. Grilling or frying should take about 5 minutes on each side, give or take the size and shape of the patties. Baking in the oven should take 20–30 minutes at 400℉ / 200℃ turning over halfway through, but keep an eye on them, because again, the size and shape of the patties will affect this. You may be wondering: aren’t they all going to be patty-shaped? And yes, but for example a wide flat patty will cook more quickly than the same volume of burger mixture in a taller less wide patty.
7) Assemble! We recommend the order: bottom bun, guacamole, burger patty, any additional toppings you want to add (e.g. more salad, pickles, etc), top bun:
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:
- Level-Up Your Fiber Intake! (Without Difficulty Or Discomfort)
- Chickpeas vs Black Beans – Which is Healthier?
- Kidney Beans or Black Beans – Which is Healthier?
- Coconut vs Avocado – Which is Healthier?
- Our Top 5 Spices: How Much Is Enough For Benefits?
Take care!
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What You Should Have Been Told About The Menopause Beforehand
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What You Should Have Been Told About Menopause Beforehand
This is Dr. Jen Gunter. She’s a gynecologist, specializing in chronic pain and vulvovaginal disorders. She’s also a woman on a mission to demystify things that popular culture, especially in the US, would rather not talk about.
When was the last time you remember the menopause being referenced in a movie or TV show? If you can think of one at all, was it just played for laughs?
And of course, the human body can be funny, so that’s not necessarily the problem, but it sure would be nice if that weren’t all that there is!
So, what does Dr. Gunter want us to know?
It’s a time of changes, not an end
The name “menopause” is misleading. It’s not a “pause”, and those menses aren’t coming back.
And yet, to call it a “menostop” would be differently misleading, because there’s a lot more going on than a simple cessation of menstruation.
Estrogen levels will drop a lot, testosterone levels may rise slightly, mood and sleep and appetite and sex drive will probably be affected (progesterone can improve all these things!) and
not to mention butwe’re going to mention: vaginal atrophy, which is very normal and very treatable with a topical estrogen cream. Untreated menopause can also bring a whole lot of increased health risks (for example, heart disease, osteoporosis, and, counterintuitively given the lower estrogen levels, breast cancer).However, with a little awareness and appropriate management, all these things can usually be navigated with minimal adverse health outcomes.
Dr Gunter, for this reason, refers to it interchangeably as “the menopausal transition”. She describes it as being less like a cliff edge we fall off, and more like a bridge we cross.
Bridges can be dangerous to cross! But they can also get us safely where we’re going.
Ok, so how do we manage those things?
Dr. Gunter is a big fan of evidence-based medicine, so we’ll not be seeing any yonic crystals or jade eggs. Or “goop”.
See also: Meet Goop’s Number One Enemy
For most people, she recommends Menopausal Hormone Therapy (MHT), which falls under the more general category of Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT).
This is the most well-evidenced, science-based way to avoid most of the risks associated with menopause.
Nevertheless, there are scare-stories out there, ranging from painful recommencement of bleeding, to (once again) increased risk of breast cancer. However, most of these are either misunderstandings, or unrelated to menopause and MHT, and are rather signs of other problems that should not be ignored.
To get a good grounding in this, you might want to read her Hormone Therapy Guide, freely available as a standalone section on her website. This series of posts is dedicated to hormone therapy. It starts with some basics and builds on that knowledge with each post:
Dr. Gunter’s Guide To The Hormone Menoverse
What about natural therapies?
There are some non-hormonal things that work, but these are mostly things that:
- give a statistically significant reduction in symptoms
- give the same statistically significant reduction in symptoms as placebo
As Dr. Gunter puts it:
❝While most of the studies of prescription medications for hot flashes have an appropriate placebo arm, this is rarely the case with so-called alternative therapies.
In fact, the studies here are almost always low quality, so it’s often not possible to conclude much.
Many reviews that look at these studies often end with a line that goes something like, “Randomized trials with a placebo arm, a low risk of bias, and adequate sample sizes are urgently needed.”
You should interpret this kind of conclusion as the polite way of saying, “We need studies that aren’t BS to say something constructive.”❞
However, if it works, it works, whatever its mechanism. It’s just good, when making medical decisions, to do so with the full facts!
For that matter, even Dr. Gunter acknowledges that while MHT can be lifechanging (in a positive way) for many, it’s not for everyone:
Informed Decisions: When Menopause Hormone Therapy Isn’t Recommended
Want to know more?
Dr. Gunter also has an assortment of books available, including The Menopause Manifesto (which we’ve reviewed previously), and some others that we haven’t, such as “Blood” and “The Vagina Bible”.
Enjoy!
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