How Your Diet May Be Causing Chronic Tightness (& How To Fix It)
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There is often more to hamstring flexibility than just stretching:
Three steps
The method focuses on three areas: diet, mindset, and movement.
Why diet? Poor gut health and inflammation, often caused by processed and fast foods, contribute to chronic hamstring tightness. The video suggests nutrient-dense meals like Greek yogurt with poached eggs. As for collagen, that is found most abundantly in the bones and skin of fish and other animals, but if you are vegan/vegetarian, fear not, you can just make sure to eat plenty of its constituent parts instead, and synthesize it yourself like any other animal. See also: The Best Foods For Collagen Production
Why mindset? Addressing pain and other somatic (bodily) concerns involves understanding the body as a single interconnected system. So, it’s necessary to also take care of any emotional stress or other underlying conditions, as well as ensuring your hormones are all in order.
Why movement? Machine-based training, which isolates muscles, can cause imbalances. Instead, consider functional movements like hanging and compound exercises such as Pilates or other calisthenics systems. These improve core strength, enhance flexibility, and prevent stiffness, ensuring better overall function.
Some example exercises:
- Bent knee hamstring stretch: hold for 2 seconds; do 10–12 reps (2 sets per leg).
- Straight leg active isolation: focus on quad engagement with assistance from a band; 10–12 reps (2 sets per leg).
- Active hip abductors: target IT band and glute medius; 1 set of 12 reps per leg.
- Active lunge stretch: incorporate a band to intensify the stretch; 2 seconds at the top range.
For more on all of this plus visual demonstrations of the exercises, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like:
Fix Tight Hamstrings In Just 3 Steps
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Is Your Gut Leading You Into Osteoporosis?
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Bacterioides Vulgatus & Bone Health
We’ve talked before about the importance of gut health:
And we’ve shared quite some information and resources on osteoporosis:
- The Bare-bones Truth: Osteoporosis Mythbusting
- Osteoporosis Exercises (What To Do, And What To Avoid)
- Vit D + Calcium: Too Much Of A Good Thing?
- Collagen For Bones: We Are Such Stuff As Fish Are Made Of
- Which Osteoporosis Medication, If Any, Is Right For You?
How the two are connected
A recent study looked at Bacterioides vulgatus, a very common gut bacterium, and found that it suppresses the gut’s production of valeric acid, a short-chain fatty acid that enhances bone density:
❝For the study, researchers analyzed the gut bacteria of more than 500 peri- and post-menopausal women in China and further confirmed the link between B. vulgatus and a loss of bone density in a smaller cohort of non-Hispanic White women in the United States.❞
Pop-sci source: Does gut bacteria cause osteoporosis?
The study didn’t stop there, though. They proceeded to test, with a rodent model, the effect of giving them either:
- more B. vulgatus, or
- valeric acid supplements
The results of this were as expected:
- Those who were given more B. vulgatus got worse bone microstructure
- Those who were given valeric acid supplements got stronger bones overall
Study source: Gut microbiota impacts bone via Bacteroides vulgatus-valeric acid-related pathways
Where can I get valeric acid?
We couldn’t find a handy supplement for this, but it is in many foods, including avocados, blueberries, cocoa beans, and an assortment of birds.
Click here to see a more extensive food list (you’ll need to scroll down a little)
Bonus: if you happen to be on HRT in the form of Estradiol valerate (e.g: Progynova), then that “valerate” is an ester of valeric acid, that your body can metabolize and use as such.
Enjoy!
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4 things ancient Greeks and Romans got right about mental health
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According to the World Health Organization, about 280 million people worldwide have depression and about one billion have a mental health problem of any kind.
People living in the ancient world also had mental health problems. So, how did they deal with them?
As we’ll see, some of their insights about mental health are still relevant today, even though we might question some of their methods.
Jr Morty/Shutterstock 1. Our mental state is important
Mental health problems such as depression were familiar to people in the ancient world. Homer, the poet famous for the Iliad and Odyssey who lived around the eighth century BC, apparently died after wasting away from depression.
Already in the late fifth century BC, ancient Greek doctors recognised that our health partly depends on the state of our thoughts.
In the Epidemics, a medical text written in around 400BC, an anonymous doctor wrote that our habits about our thinking (as well as our lifestyle, clothing and housing, physical activity and sex) are the main determinants of our health.
Homer, the ancient Greek poet, had depression. Thirasia/Shutterstock 2. Mental health problems can make us ill
Also writing in the Epidemics, an anonymous doctor described one of his patients, Parmeniscus, whose mental state became so bad he grew delirious, and eventually could not speak. He stayed in bed for 14 days before he was cured. We’re not told how.
Later, the famous doctor Galen of Pergamum (129-216AD) observed that people often become sick because of a bad mental state:
It may be that under certain circumstances ‘thinking’ is one of the causes that bring about health or disease because people who get angry about everything and become confused, distressed and frightened for the slightest reason often fall ill for this reason and have a hard time getting over these illnesses.
Galen also described some of his patients who suffered with their mental health, including some who became seriously ill and died. One man had lost money:
He developed a fever that stayed with him for a long time. In his sleep he scolded himself for his loss, regretted it and was agitated until he woke up. While he was awake he continued to waste away from grief. He then became delirious and developed brain fever. He finally fell into a delirium that was obvious from what he said, and he remained in this state until he died.
3. Mental illness can be prevented and treated
In the ancient world, people had many different ways to prevent or treat mental illness.
The philosopher Aristippus, who lived in the fifth century BC, used to advise people to focus on the present to avoid mental disturbance:
concentrate one’s mind on the day, and indeed on that part of the day in which one is acting or thinking. Only the present belongs to us, not the past nor what is anticipated. The former has ceased to exist, and it is uncertain if the latter will exist.
The philosopher Clinias, who lived in the fourth century BC, said that whenever he realised he was becoming angry, he would go and play music on his lyre to calm himself.
Doctors had their own approaches to dealing with mental health problems. Many recommended patients change their lifestyles to adjust their mental states. They advised people to take up a new regime of exercise, adopt a different diet, go travelling by sea, listen to the lectures of philosophers, play games (such as draughts/checkers), and do mental exercises equivalent to the modern crossword or sudoku.
Galen, a famous doctor, believed mental problems were caused by some idea that had taken hold of the mind. Pierre Roche Vigneron/Wikimedia For instance, the physician Caelius Aurelianus (fifth century AD) thought patients suffering from insanity could benefit from a varied diet including fruit and mild wine.
Doctors also advised people to take plant-based medications. For example, the herb hellebore was given to people suffering from paranoia. However, ancient doctors recognised that hellebore could be dangerous as it sometimes induced toxic spasms, killing patients.
Other doctors, such as Galen, had a slightly different view. He believed mental problems were caused by some idea that had taken hold of the mind. He believed mental problems could be cured if this idea was removed from the mind and wrote:
a person whose illness is caused by thinking is only cured by taking care of the false idea that has taken over his mind, not by foods, drinks, [clothing, housing], baths, walking and other such (measures).
Galen thought it was best to deflect his patients’ thoughts away from these false ideas by putting new ideas and emotions in their minds:
I put fear of losing money, political intrigue, drinking poison or other such things in the hearts of others to deflect their thoughts to these things […] In others one should arouse indignation about an injustice, love of rivalry, and the desire to beat others depending on each person’s interest.
4. Addressing mental health needs effort
Generally speaking, the ancients believed keeping our mental state healthy required effort. If we were anxious or angry or despondent, then we needed to do something that brought us the opposite of those emotions.
Watch some comedy, said physician Caelius Aurelianus. VCU Tompkins-McCaw Library/Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA This can be achieved, they thought, by doing some activity that directly countered the emotions we are experiencing.
For example, Caelius Aurelianus said people suffering from depression should do activities that caused them to laugh and be happy, such as going to see a comedy at the theatre.
However, the ancients did not believe any single activity was enough to make our mental state become healthy. The important thing was to make a wholesale change to one’s way of living and thinking.
When it comes to experiencing mental health problems, we clearly have a lot in common with our ancient ancestors. Much of what they said seems as relevant now as it did 2,000 years ago, even if we use different methods and medicines today.
If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.
Konstantine Panegyres, McKenzie Postdoctoral Fellow, researching Greco-Roman antiquity, The University of Melbourne
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Watch Out For Lipedema
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Lipedema occurs mostly in women, mostly in times of hormonal change, with increasing risk as time goes by (so for example, puberty yields a lower risk than pregnancy, which yields a lower risk than menopause).
Its name literally means “fat swelling”, and can easily be mistaken for obesity or, in its earlier stages, just pain old cellulite.
Cellulite, by the way, is completely harmless and is also not, per se, an indicator of bad health. But if you have it and don’t like it, you can reduce it:
Obesity is more of a complex matter, and one that we’ve covered here:
Lipedema is actively harmful
Lipedema can become a big problem, because lifestyle change does not reduce lipedema fat, the fat is painful, can lead to obesity if one was not already obese, causes gait and joint abnormalities, causes fatigue, can lead to lymphedema (beyond the scope of today’s article—perhaps another time!) and very much psychosocial distress.
Like many conditions that mostly affect women, the science is… Well, here’s a recent example review that was conducted and published:
Fun fact: in Romanian there is an expression “one eye is laughing; the other is crying”, and it seems appropriate here.
Spot the signs
Because it’s most readily mistaken for cellulite in first presentation, let’s look at the differences between them:
- Cellulite is characterized by dimpled, bumpy, or even skin; lipedema is the same but with swelling too.
- Cellulite is a connective tissue condition; lipedema is too (at least in part), but also involves the abnormal accumulation and deposition of fat cells, rather than just pulling some down a bit.
- Cellulite has no additional symptoms; lipedema soon also brings swollen limbs, joint pain, and/or skin that’s “spongy” and easily bruised.
What to do about it
First, get it checked out by a doctor.
If the doctor says it is just cellulite or obesity, ask them what difference(s) they are basing that on, and ask that they confirm in writing having dismissed your concerns (having this will be handy later if it turns out to be lipedema after all).
If it is lipedema, you will want to catch it early; there is no known cure, but advanced symptoms are a lot easier to keep at bay than they are to reverse once they’ve shown up.
Weight maintenance, skin care (including good hydration), and compression therapy have all been shown to help slow the progression.
If it is allowed to progress unhindered, that’s when a lot more fat accumulation and joint pain is likely to occur. Liposuction and surgery are options, but even they are only a temporary solution, and are obviously not fun things to have to go through.
Prevention is, as ever, much better than
curetreatment ← because there is no known cureOne last thing
Lipedema’s main risk factor is genetic. The bad news is, there’s not much that can be done about that for now, but the good news is, you can at least get the heads-up about whether you are at increased risk or not, and be especially vigilant if you’re in the increased risk group. See also:
One Test, Many Warnings: The Real Benefit Of Genetic Testing
Take care!
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We Are Such Stuff As Fish Are Made Of
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Research Review: Collagen
For something that’s a very popular supplement, not many people understand what collagen is, where it comes from, or what it does.
In a nutshell:
Collagen is a kind of protein. Our bodies make it naturally, and we can also get more in our diet and/or take extra as a supplement.
Our bodies use collagen in connective tissue, skin, tendon, bone, and cartilage. It has many functions, but a broad description would be “holding things together”.
As we get older, our bodies produce less collagen. Signs of this include wrinkles, loss of skin hydration, and joint pain.
Quick test: pinch the skin on the middle of the back of one of your hands, and then watch what happens when you get low. How quickly and easily did your skin returns to its original shape?
If it was pretty much instantanous and flawless, congratulations, you have plenty of collagen (and also elastin). If you didn’t, you are probably low on both!
(they are quite similar proteins and are made from the same base “stuff”, so if you’re low on one, you’ll usually be low on both)
Quick note: A lot of research out there has been funded by beauty companies, so we had our work cut out for us today, and have highlighted where any research may be biased.
More than skin deep
While marketing for collagen is almost exclusively aimed at “reduce wrinkles and other signs of aging”, it does a lot more than that.
You remember we mentioned that many things from the bones outward are held together by collagen? We weren’t kidding…
Read: Osteoporosis, like skin ageing, is caused by collagen loss which is reversible
Taking extra collagen isn’t the only way
We can’t (yet!) completely halt the age-related loss of collagen, but we can slow it, with our lifestyle choices:
- Don’t smoke tobacco
- Drink only in moderation (or not at all)
- Avoid foods with added sugar, and high-processed foods in general
- Wear sunscreen when appropriate
Can I get collagen from food?
Yep! Just as collagen holds our bodies together, it holds the bodies of other animals together. And, just like collagen is found in most parts of our body but most plentifully in our skin and bones, that’s what to eat to get collagen from other animals, e.g:
- Chicken skin
- Fish skin
- Bone broth ← health benefits and recipes at this link!
What about vegans?
Yes, vegans are also held together by collagen! We do not, however, recommend eating their skin or boiling their bones into broth. Ethical considerations aside, cannibalism can give you CJD!
More seriously, if you’re vegan, you can’t get collagen from a plant-based diet, but you can get the stuff your body uses to make collagen. Basically, you want to make sure you get plenty of:
- Protein (beans, pulses, nuts, etc are all fine; it’s hard to go wrong with this)
- Vitamin C
- Vitamin D
- and Zinc
Just be sure to continue to remember to avoid highly-processed foods. So:
- Soy mince/chunks whose ingredients list reads: “soya”? Yes!
- The Incredible Burger or Linda McCartney’s Sausages? Sadly less healthy
Read: Advanced Glycation End Products in Foods and a Practical Guide to Their Reduction in the Diet
Meat-eaters might want to read that one too. By far the worst offenders for AGEs (Advanced Glycation End Products, which can not only cause collagen to stiffen, but also inactivate proteins responsible for collagen repair, along with doing much more serious damage to your body’s natural functions) include:
- Hot dogs
- Bacon
- Fried/roasted/grilled meats
Is it worth it as a supplement?
That depends on you, your age, and your lifestyle, but it’s generally considered safe*
*if you have a seafood allergy, be careful though, as many supplements are from fish or shellfish—you will need to find one that’s free from your allergen
Also, all collagen is animal-derived. So if you’re a vegan, decide for yourself whether this constitutes medicine and if so, whether that makes it ethically permissible to you.
With that out of the way:
What the science says on collagen supplementation
Collagen for skin
Read: Effects of collagen supplementation on skin aging (systematic review and meta-analysis)
The short version is that they selected 19 studies with over a thousand participants in total, and they found:
In the meta-analysis, a grouped analysis of studies showed favorable results of hydrolyzed collagen supplementation compared with placebo in terms of skin hydration, elasticity, and wrinkles.
The findings of improved hydration and elasticity were also confirmed in the subgroup meta-analysis.
Based on results, ingestion of hydrolyzed collagen for 90 days is effective in reducing skin aging, as it reduces wrinkles and improves skin elasticity and hydration.
Caveat: while that systematic review had no conflicts of interests, at least some of the 19 studies will have been funded by beauty companies. Here are two, so that you know what that looks like:
Funded by Quiris to investigate their own supplement, Elasten®:
A Collagen Supplement Improves Skin Hydration, Elasticity, Roughness, and Density
Funded by BioCell to investigate their own supplement, BioCell Collagen:
The Effects of Skin Aging Associated with the Use of BioCell Collagen
A note on funding bias: to be clear, the issue is not that the researchers might be corrupt (though that could happen).
The issue is more that sometimes companies will hire ten labs to do ten research studies… and then pull funding from ones whose results aren’t going the way they’d like.
So the “best” (for them) study is the one that gets published.
Here’s another systematic review—like the one at the top of this section—that found the same, with doses ranging from 2.5g–15g per day for 8 weeks or longer:
Read: Oral Collagen Supplementation: A Systematic Review of Dermatological Applications
Again, some of those studies will have been funded by beauty companies. The general weight of evidence does seem clear and favorable, though.
Collagen for bones
Here, we encountered a lot less in the way of potential bias, because this is simply marketed a lot less. Despite being arguably far more important!
We found a high quality multi-vector randomized controlled study with a sample size of 131 postmenopausal women. They had these women take 5g collagen supplement (or placebo), and studied the results over the course of a year.
They found:
- The intake of the supplement increased bone mineral density (BMD)
- Supplementation was also associated with a favorable shift in bone markers, indicating:
- increased bone formation
- reduced bone degradation
Read: Specific Collagen Peptides Improve Bone Mineral Density and Bone Markers in Postmenopausal Wome
A follow-up study with 31 of these women found that taking 5 grams of collagen daily for a total of 4 years was associated with a progressive increase in BMD.
You might be wondering if collagen also helps against osteoarthritis.
The answer is: yes, it does (at least, it significantly reduces the symptoms)
Read: Effect of collagen supplementation on osteoarthritis symptoms
In summary:
- You need collagen for health skin, bones, joints, and more
- Your body makes collagen from your food
- You can help it by getting plenty of protein, vitamins, and minerals
- You can also help it by not doing the usual Bad Things™ (smoking, drinking, eating processed foods, especially processed meats)
- You can also eat collagen directly in the form of other animals’ skin and bones
- You can also buy collagen supplements (but watch out for allergens)
Want to try collagen supplementation?
We don’t sell it (or anything else), but for your convenience…
Check it out: Hydrolyzed Collagen Peptides (the same as in most of the above studies), 90 days supply at 5g/day
We selected this one because it’s the same kind used in many of the studies, and it doesn’t contain any known allergens.
It’s bovine collagen, meaning it’s from cows, so it’s not vegan, and also some subscribers may want to abstain for religious reasons. We respect that, and/but make our recommendations based solely on the science of health and productivity.
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How To Set Anxiety Aside
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How To Set Anxiety Aside
We’ve talked previously about how to use the “release” method to stop your racing mind.
That’s a powerful technique, but sometimes we need to be calm enough to use it. So first…
Breathe
Obviously. But, don’t underestimate the immediate power of focusing on your breath, even just for a moment.
There are many popular breathing exercises, but here’s one of the simplest and most effective, “4–4 breathing”:
- Breathe in for a count of four
- Hold for a count four
- Breathe out for a count of four
- Hold for a count of four
- Repeat
Depending on your lung capacity and what you’re used to, it may be that you need to count more quickly or slowly to make it feel right. Experiment with what feels comfortable for you, but the general goal should breathing deeply and slowly.
Identify the thing that’s causing you anxiety
We’ve also talked previously about how to use the RAIN technique to manage difficult emotions, and that’s good for handling anxiety too.
Another powerful tool is journaling.
Read: How To Use Journaling to Challenge Anxious Thoughts
If you don’t want to use any of those (very effective!) methods, that’s fine too—journaling isn’t for everyone.
You can leverage some of the same benefits by simply voicing your worries, even to yourself:
There’s an old folk tradition of “worry dolls”; these are tiny little dolls so small they can be kept in a pocket-size drawstring purse. Last thing at night, the user whispers their worries to the dolls and puts them back in their bag, where they will work on the person’s problem overnight.
We’re a health and productivity newsletter, not a dealer of magic and spells, but you can see how it works, right? It gets the worries out of one’s head, and brings about a helpful placebo effect too.
Focus on what you can control
- Most of what you worry about will not happen.
- Some of what you worry about may happen.
- Worrying about it will not help.
In fact, in some cases it may bring about what you fear, by means of the nocebo effect (like the placebo effect, but bad). Additionally, worrying drains your body and makes you less able to deal with whatever life does throw at you.
So while “don’t worry; be happy” may seem a flippant attitude, sometimes it can be best. However, don’t forget the other important part, which is actually focusing on what you can control.
- You can’t control whether your car will need expensive maintenance…
- …but you can control whether you budget for it.
- You can’t control whether your social event will go well or ill…
- …but you can control how you carry yourself.
- You can’t control whether your loved one’s health will get better or worse…
- …but you can control how you’re there for them, and you can help them take what sensible precautions they may.
…and so forth.
Look after your body as well!
Your body and mind are deeply reliant on each other. In this case, just as anxiety can drain your body’s resources, keeping your body well-nourished, well-exercised, and well-rested and can help fortify you against anxiety. For example, when it comes to diet, exercise, and sleep:
- Read: Fruit and vegetable intake is inversely associated with perceived stress across the adult lifespan
- Read: Exercise and anxiety: physical activity appears to be protective against anxiety disorders in clinical and non-clinical populations
- Read: Sleep problems predict and are predicted by generalized anxiety/depression
Don’t know where to start? How about the scientifically well-researched, evidence-based, 7-minute workout?
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Is ADHD Being Over-Diagnosed For Cash?
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Is ADHD Being Systematically Overdiagnosed?
The BBC’s investigative “Panorama” program all so recently did a documentary in which one of their journalists—who does not have ADHD—went to three private clinics and got an ADHD diagnosis from each of them:
- The BBC documentary: Private ADHD Clinics Exposed (28 mins)
- Their “5 Minutes” version: ADHD Undercover: How I Was Misdiagnosed (6 mins)
So… Is it really a case of show up, pay up, and get a shiny new diagnosis?
The BBC Panorama producers cherry-picked 3 private providers, and during those clinical assessments, their journalist provided answers that would certainly lead to a diagnosis.
This was contrasted against a three-hour assessment with an NHS psychiatrist—something that rarely happens in the NHS. Which prompts the question…
How did he walk into a 3-hour psychiatrist assessment, when most people have to wait in long waiting lists for a much more cursory appointment first with assorted gatekeepers, before going on another long waiting list, for an also-much-shorter appointment with a psychiatrist?
That would be because the NHS psychiatrist was given advance notification that this was part of an investigation and would be filmed (the private clinics were not gifted the same transparency)
So, maybe just a tad unequal treatment!
In case you’re wondering, here’s what that very NHS psychiatrist had to say on the topic:
Is it really too easy to be diagnosed with ADHD?
(we’ll give you a hint—remember Betteridge’s Law!)
❝Since the documentary aired, I have heard from people concerned that GPs could now be more likely to question legitimate diagnoses.
But as an NHS psychiatrist it is clear to me that the root of this issue is not overdiagnosis.
Instead, we are facing the combined challenges of remedying decades of underdiagnosis and NHS services that were set up when there was little awareness of ADHD.❞
~ Dr. Mike Smith, Psychiatrist
The ADHD foundation, meanwhile, has issued its own response, saying:
❝We are disappointed that BBC Panorama has opted to broadcast a poorly researched, sensationalist piece of television journalism.❞
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