How Your Exercise Today Gives A Brain Boost Tomorrow

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

Regular 10almonds readers may remember we not long back wrote about a study that showed how daily activity levels, in aggregate, make a difference to brain health over the course of 1–2 weeks (in fact, it was a 9-day study):

Daily Activity Levels & The Measurable Difference They Make To Brain Health

Today, we’re going to talk about a new (published today, at time of writing) study that shows the associations between daily exercise levels (amongst other things) and how well people performed in cognitive tests the next day.

By this we mean: they recorded exercise vs sedentary behavior vs sleep on a daily basis (using wearable tech to track it), and tested them daily with cognitive tests, and looked at how the previous day’s activities (or lack thereof) impacted the next day’s test results.

Notably, the sample was of older adults (aged 50–83). The sample size wasn’t huge but was statistically significant (n=76) and the researchers are of course calling for more studies to be done with more people.

What they found

To put their findings into few words:

  • Consistent light exercise boosts general cognitive performance not just for hours (which was already known) but through the next day.
  • More moderate or vigorous activity than usual in particular led to better working memory and episodic memory the next day.
  • More sleep (especially slow-wave deep sleep) improved episodic memory and psychomotor speed.
  • Sedentary behavior was associated with poorer working memory.

Let’s define some terms:

  • general cognitive performance = average of scores across the different tests
  • working memory = very short term memory, such as remembering what you came into this room for, or (as an example of a test format) being able to take down a multi-digit number in one go without it being broken down (and then, testing with longer lengths of number until failure)
  • episodic memory = memory of events in a narrative context, where and when they happened, etc
  • psychomotor speed = the speed of connection between perception and reaction in quick-response tests

These are, of course, all useful things to have, which means the general advice here is to:

  • move more, generally
  • exercise more, specifically
  • sit less, whenever reasonably possible
  • sleep well

You can read the study itself here:

Associations of accelerometer-measured physical activity, sedentary behaviour, and sleep with next-day cognitive performance in older adults: a micro-longitudinal study

Want to know the best kind of exercise for brain health?

Check out our article about neuroscientist Dr. Suzuki, and what she has to say about it:

The Exercise That Protects Your Brain

Enjoy!

Don’t Forget…

Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!

Recommended

  • Watch Out For Lipedema
  • Peach vs Passion Fruit – Which is Healthier?
    Passion fruit trumps peach with double the protein, carbs, seven times the fiber, and a sweeping victory in vitamins and minerals!

Learn to Age Gracefully

Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:

  • Thai Green Curry With Crispy Tofu Balls

    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.

    Diversity is key here, with a wide range of mostly plants, offering an even wider range of phytochemical benefits:

    You will need

    • 7 oz firm tofu
    • 1 oz cashew nuts (don’t soak them)
    • 1 tbsp nutritional yeast
    • 1 tsp turmeric
    • 4 scallions, sliced
    • 7 oz mangetout
    • 7 oz fermented red cabbage (i.e., from a jar)
    • 1 cup coconut milk
    • Juice of ½ lime
    • 2 tsp light soy sauce
    • 1 handful fresh cilantro, or if you have the “cilantro tastes like soap” gene, then parsley
    • 1 handful fresh basil
    • 1 green chili, chopped (multiply per heat preference)
    • 1″ piece fresh ginger, roughly chopped
    • ¼ bulb garlic, crushed
    • 1 tsp red chili flakes
    • 1 tsp black pepper, coarse ground
    • ½ tsp MSG or 1 tsp low-sodium salt
    • Avocado oil for frying
    • Recommended, to serve: lime wedges
    • Recommended, to serve: your carbohydrate of choice, such as soba noodles or perhaps our Tasty Versatile Rice.

    Method

    (we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)

    1) Heat the oven to 350℉ / 180℃, and bake the cashews on a baking tray for about 8 minutes until lightly toasted. Remove from the oven and allow to cool a little.

    2) Combine the nuts, tofu, nutritional yeast, turmeric, and scallions in a food processor, and process until the ingredients begin to clump together. Shape into about 20 small balls.

    3) Heat some oil in a skillet and fry the tofu balls, jiggling frequently to get all sides; it should take about 5 minutes to see them lightly browned. Set aside.

    4) Combine the coconut milk, lime juice, soy sauce, cilantro/parsley, basil, scallions, green chili, ginger, garlic, and MSG/salt in a high-speed blender, and blend until a smooth liquid.

    5) Transfer the liquid to a saucepan, and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat, add the mangetout, and simmer for about 5 minutes to reduce slightly. Stir in the red chili flakes and black pepper.

    6) Serve with your preferred carbohydrate, adding the fermented red cabbage and the crispy tofu balls you set aside, along with any garnish you might like to add.

    Enjoy!

    Want to learn more?

    For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:

    *but not MSG or salt, as while they may in culinary terms get lumped in with spices, they are of course not plants. Nor is nutritional yeast (nor any other yeast, for that matter). However, mushrooms (not seen in this recipe, though to be honest they would be a respectable addition) would get included for a whole point per mushroom type, since while they are not technically plants but fungi, the nutritional profile is plantlike.

    Take care!

    Share This Post

  • Laugh Often, To Laugh Longest!

    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.

    Putting The Abs Into Absurdity

    We’ve talked before about the health benefits of a broadly positive outlook on life:

    Optimism Seriously Increases Longevity!

    …and we’re very serious about it, but that’s about optimistic life views in general, and today we’re about not just keeping good humor in questionable circumstances, but actively finding good humor in the those moments—even when the moments in question might not be generally described as good!

    After all, laughter really can be the best medicine, for example:

    The effect of laughter yoga exercises on anxiety and sleep quality in patients suffering from Parkinson’s disease

    From the roots

    First a quick recap on de-toothing the psychological aspect of threats, no matter how menacing they may be:

    Hello, Emotions: Time For Radical Acceptance!

    …which we can then take a step further:

    What’s The Worst That Could Happen?

    Choose your frame

    Do you remember when that hacker hacked and publicized the US Federal no-fly list, after already hacking a nationwide cloud-based security camera company, getting access to more than 150,000 companies’ and private individuals’ security cameras, amongst various other cyber crimes, mostly various kinds of fraud and data theft?

    Imagine how she (age 21) must have felt, when being indicted. What do you suppose this hacker had to say for itself under such circumstances?

    ❝congress is investigating now 🙂

    but i stay silly :3 ❞

    ~ maia arson crimew

    …the latter half of which, usually rendered “but I stay silly” or “but we stay silly” has since entered popular Gen-Z parlance, usually after expressing some negative thing, often in a state of powerlessness.

    Which is an important life skill if powerlessness is something that is often likely.

    It’s important for many Gen-Zs with negligible life prospects economically; it’s equally important for 60-somethings getting cancer diagnoses (statistically the most likely decade to find out one has cancer, by the way), and many other kinds of people younger, older, and in between.

    Because at the end of the day, we all start powerless and we all end powerless.

    Learned helplessness (two kinds)

    In psychology, “learned helplessness” occurs when a person or creature gives up after learning that all and any attempts to resist a Bad Thing™ fail, perhaps even badly. A lab rat may just shut down and sit there getting electroshocked, for example. A person subjected to abuse may stop trying to improve their situation, and just go with the path of least resistance.

    But, there’s another kind, wherein someone in a position of absolute powerlessness not only makes their peace with that, but also, decides that the one thing the outside world can’t control, is how they take it. Like the hacker we mentioned earlier.

    Sometimes the gallows humor is even more literal, laughing at one’s own impending death. Not as a matter of bravado, but genuinely seeing the funny side.

    But how?

    Unfortunately, fortunately

    The trick here is to “find a silver lining” that is nowhere near enough to compensate for the bad thing—and it may even be worse! But that’s fine:

    “Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to do the dishes before leaving for my vacation. Fortunately, I also forgot to turn the oven off, so the house burning down covered up my messy kitchen”

    Writer’s personal less drastic example: today I set my espresso machine to press me an espresso; it doesn’t have an auto-off and I got distracted and it overflowed everywhere; my immediate reaction was “Oh! I have been blessed with an abundance of coffee!”

    This kind of silly little thing, on a daily basis, builds a very solid habit for life that allows one to see the funny side in even the most absurd situations, even matters of life and death (can confirm: been there enough times personally—so far so good, still alive to find the remembered absurdity silly).

    The point is not to genuinely value the “silver lining”, because half the time it isn’t even one, really, and it is useless to pretend, in seriousness.

    But to pretend in silliness? Now we’re onto something, and the real benefit is in the laughs we had along the way.

    Because those worst moments? Are probably when we need it the most, so it’s good to get some practice in!

    Want more ways to find the funny and make it a life habit?

    We reviewed a good book recently:

    The Humor Habit: Rewire Your Brain To Stress Less, Laugh More, And Achieve More’er – by Paul Osincup

    Stay silly!

    Share This Post

  • Foods Linked To Urinary Incontinence In Middle-Age (& Foods That Avert 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.

    Incontinence is an inconvenience associated with aging, especially for women. Indeed, as the study we’re going to talk about today noted:

    ❝Estrogen deficiency during menopause, aging, reproductive history, and factors increasing intra-abdominal pressure may lead to structural and functional failure in the pelvic floor.❞

    ~ Dr. Mari Kuutti et al.

    However, that was just the “background”, before they got the study going, because…

    ❝Lifestyle choices, such as eating behavior, may contribute to pelvic floor disorders. The objective of the study was to investigate associations of eating behavior with symptoms of pelvic floor disorders, that is, stress urinary incontinence, urgency urinary incontinence, fecal incontinence, and constipation or defecation difficulties among middle-aged women.❞

    ~ Ibid.

    How the study went

    The researchers examined 1,098 Finnish women aged 47–55. It was a cross-sectional observational study, so no intervention was made, just: gathering data and analysing it. They examined:

    • Eating behavior (i.e. what one’s diet is like; their questionnaire was quite comprehensive and the simplified conclusion doesn’t do that justice)
    • Food consumption frequency (i.e. temporal patterns of eating)
    • Demographic variables (e.g. age, education, etc)
    • Gynecological variables (e.g. menopause status, hysterectomy, etc)
    • Physical activity variables (e.g. light, moderate, heavy, previous history of no exercise, regular, competitive sport, etc)

    With those things taken into account, the researchers crunched the numbers to assess the associations of dietary factors with pelvic floor disorders.

    What they found

    Adjusting for possible confounding variables…

    • those with disordered eating patterns (e.g. overeating, restrictive eating, swinging between the two behaviors) were 50% higher chance of developing urinary incontinence than the norm
    • those who more frequently consumed ready-made foods got 50% higher chance of developing urinary incontinence than the norm
    • those who ate fruits daily enjoyed a 20% lower chance of urinary incontinence than the norm

    So, in practical terms:

    • practice mindful eating
    • avoid ready-made foods
    • enjoy fruit

    You can read the paper in full here (it obviously goes into a lot more detail, and also covers other things beyond the scope of this article, such as fecal incontinence or, conversely, constipation—needless to say, the same advice stands in any case):

    Association of eating behavior with symptoms of pelvic floor disorders in middle-aged women: An observational study

    As for why this works the way it does: the study focused on the association and only hypothesized the question of “how”, but they did write a bit about that too, and it is almost certainly mostly a matter of gut health vs inflammation.

    We really only have room for that kind of one-line summary here, but do read the paper if you’re interested, as it also talks about other dietary factors that had an impact, with the above-listed items being the topmost impactful factors, but for example (to take just one snippet of many possible ones):

    ❝In particular, saturated fatty acids (SFA) and cholesterol increased the risk for symptoms❞

    ~ Ibid. ← so do read it, for many more snippets like this!

    What else does and doesn’t work

    We covered a little while back the question of whether it is strengthening to hold one’s pee, or better to go whenever one feels the urge, and the answer is clear:

    To Pee Or Not To Pee

    Meanwhile, supplements on the other hand are a mixed bag; there are some that probably help, and others, not so much:

    What’s in the supplements that claim to help you cut down on bathroom breaks? And do they work?

    Want to do more?

    Check out these previous articles of ours:

    Pelvic Floor Exercises (Not Kegels!) To Prevent Urinary Incontinence

    and

    Keeping Your Kidneys Happy: It’s About More Than Just Hydration! ← important at all ages, but especially relevant after 60

    Take care!

    Share This Post

Related Posts

  • Watch Out For Lipedema

  • How To Improve Your Heart Rate Variability

    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

    How’s your heart rate variability?

    The hallmarks of a good, strong cardiovascular system include a medium-to-low resting heart rate (for adults: under 60 beats per minute is good; under 50 is typical of athletes), and healthy blood pressure (for adults: under 120/80, while still above 90/60, is generally considered good).

    Less talked-about is heart rate variability, but it’s important too…

    What is heart rate variability?

    Heart rate variability is a measure of how quickly and easily your heart responds to changes in demands placed upon it. For example:

    • If you’re at rest and then start running your fastest (be it for leisure or survival or anything in between), your heart rate should be able to jump from its resting rate to about 180% of that as quickly as possible
    • When you stop, your heart rate should be able to shift gears back to your resting rate as quickly as possible

    The same goes, to a commensurately lesser extent, to changes in activity between low and moderate, or between moderate and high.

    • When your heart can change gears quickly, that’s called a high heart rate variability
    • When your heart is sluggish to get going and then takes a while to return to normal after exertion, that’s called a low heart rate variability.

    The rate of change (i.e., the variability) is measured in microseconds per beat, and the actual numbers will vary depending on a lot of factors, but for everyone, higher is better than lower.

    Aside from quick response to crises, why does it matter?

    If heart rate variability is low, it means the sympathetic nervous system is dominating the parasympathetic nervous system, which means, in lay terms, your fight-or-flight response is overriding your ability to relax.

    See for example: Stress and Heart Rate Variability: A Meta-Analysis and Review of the Literature

    This has a lot of knock-on effects for both physical and mental health! Your heart and brain will take the worst of this damage, so it’s good to improve things for them impossible.

    This Saturday’s Life Hacks: how to improve your HRV!

    Firstly, the Usual Five Things™:

    1. A good diet (that avoids processed foods)
    2. Good exercise (that includes daily physical activity—more often is more important than more intense!)
    3. Good sleep (7–9 hours of good quality sleep per night)
    4. Reduce or eliminate alcohol consumption (this is dose-dependent; any reduction is an improvement)
    5. Don’t smoke (just don’t)

    Additional regular habits that help a lot:

    • Breathing exercises, mindfulness, meditation
    • Therapy, especially CBT and DBT
    • Stress-avoidance strategies, for example:
      • Get (and maintain) your finances in good order
      • Get (and maintain) your relationship(s) in good order
      • Get (and maintain) your working* life in good order

    *Whatever this means to you. If you’re perhaps retired, or otherwise a home-maker, or even a student, the things you “need to do” on a daily basis are your working life, for these purposes.

    In terms of simple, quick-fix, physical tweaks to focus on if you’re already broadly leading a good life, two great ones are:

    • Exercise: get moving! Walk to the store even if you buy nothing but a snack or drink to enjoy while walking back. If you drove, make more trips with the shopping bags rather than fewer. If you like to watch TV, consider an exercise bike or treadmill to use while watching. If you have a partner, double-up and make it a thing you do together! Take the stairs instead of the elevator. Take the scenic route when walking someplace. Go to the bathroom that’s further away. Every little helps!
    • Breathe: even just a couple of times a day, practice mindful breathing. Start with even just a minute a day, to get the habit going. What breathing exercise you do isn’t so important as that you do it. Notice your breathing; count how long each breath takes. Don’t worry about “doing it right”—you’re doing great, just observe, just notice, just slowly count. We promise that regular practice of this will have you feeling amazing

    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:

  • Guinness Is Good For You*

    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

    Guinness Is Good For You*

    *This is our myth-buster edition, so maybe best not take that at face value!

    To this day, writing the words “Guinness is” into Google will autocomplete to “Guinness is good for you”. The ad campaign proclaiming such launched about a hundred years ago, and was based on Guinness as it was when it was launched another hundred years before that.

    Needless to say, none of this was based on modern science.

    Is there any grain of truth?

    Perhaps its strongest health claim, in terms of what stands up to modern scrutiny, is that it does contain some B vitamins. Famously (as it was once given to pregnant women in Ireland on the strength of such) it contains folate (also known as Vitamin B9). How much?

    A 15oz glass of Guinness contains 12.8µg of folate, which is 3.2% of the RDA. In other words, you could get all the folate your body needs by drinking just 32 glasses of Guinness per day.

    With that in mind, you might want to get the non-alcoholic version!

    “I heard you could live on just Guinness and oranges, because it contains everything but vitamin C?”

    The real question is: how long could you live? Otherwise, a facetious answer here could be akin to the “fun fact” that you can drink lava… once.

    Guinness is missing many essential amino acids and fatty acids, several vitamins, and many minerals. Exactly what it’s missing may vary slightly from region to region, as while the broad recipe is the same, some processes add or remove some extra micronutrients.

    As to what you’d die of first, for obvious reasons there have been no studies done on this, but our money would be on liver failure.

    It would also wreak absolute havoc with your kidneys, but kidneys are tricky beasts—you can be down to 10% functionality and unaware that anything’s wrong yet. So we think liver failure would get you first.

    (Need that 0.0% alcohol Guinness link again? Here it is)

    Fun fact: Top contender in the category of “whole food” is actually seaweed (make sure you don’t get too much iodine, though)!

    Or, should we say, top natural contender. Because foods that have been designed by humans to contain everything we need and more for optimized health, such as Huel, do exactly what they say on the tin.

    And in case you’re curious…

    Read: what bare minimum nutrients do you really need, to survive?

    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:

  • CLA for Weight Loss?

    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

    Conjugated Linoleic Acid for Weight Loss?

    You asked us to evaluate the use of CLA for weight loss, so that’s today’s main feature!

    First, what is CLA?

    Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA) is a fatty acid made by grazing animals. Humans don’t make it ourselves, and it’s not an essential nutrient.

    Nevertheless, it’s a popular supplement, mostly sold as a fat-burning helper, and thus enjoyed by slimmers and bodybuilders alike.

    ❝CLA reduces bodyfat❞—True or False?

    True! Contingently. Specifically, it will definitely clearly help in some cases. For example:

    Did you notice a theme? It’s Animal Farm out there!

    ❝CLA reduces bodyfat in humans❞—True or False?

    False—practically. Technically it appears to give non-significantly better results than placebo.

    A comprehensive meta-analysis of 18 different studies (in which CLA was provided to humans in randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled trials and in which body composition was assessed by using a validated technique) found that, on average, human CLA-takers lost…

    Drumroll please…

    00.00–00.05 kg per week. That’s between 0–50g per week. That’s less than two ounces. Put it this way: if you were to quickly drink an espresso before stepping on the scale, the weight of your very tiny coffee would cover your fat loss.

    The reviewers concluded:

    ❝CLA produces a modest loss in body fat in humans❞

    Modest indeed!

    See for yourself: Efficacy of conjugated linoleic acid for reducing fat mass: a meta-analysis in humans

    But what about long-term? Well, as it happens (and as did show up in the non-human animal studies too, by the way) CLA works best for the first four weeks or so, and then effects taper off.

    Another review of longer-term randomized clinical trials (in humans) found that over the course of a year, CLA-takers enjoyed on average a 1.33kg total weight loss benefit over placebo—so that’s the equivalent of about 25g (0.8 oz) per week. We’re talking less than a shot glass now.

    They concluded:

    ❝The evidence from RCTs does not convincingly show that CLA intake generates any clinically relevant effects on body composition on the long term❞

    A couple of other studies we’ll quickly mention before closing this section:

    What does work?

    You may remember this headline from our “What’s happening in the health world” section a few days ago:

    Research reveals self-monitoring behaviors and tracking tools key to long-term weight loss success

    On which note, we’ve mentioned before, we’ll mention again, and maybe one of these days we’ll do a main feature on it, there’s a psychology-based app/service “Noom” that’s very personalizable and helps you reach your own health goals, whatever they might be, in a manner consistent with any lifestyle considerations you might want to give it.

    Curious to give it a go? Check it out at Noom.com (you can get the app there too, if you want)

    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: