Smart Hearing – by Katherine Bouton
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The author’s hearing loss began in her 30s, and now she’s in her 70s with even less hearing, and/but much more experience. Having worked at the Hearing Loss Association of America for much of that time, she has a lot to share.
This book is a practical guide to adult-onset hearing loss, and aims to help the reader navigate not just the difficulties inherent to the condition, but also the complexities around it that are largely societal, administrative, financial, and so forth.
She advocates for early intervention where possible, and that most people in the early stages of hearing loss don’t realize what’s happening. They will tend to just blame the noisy environment, or the speaker, for example. And beyond just hearing tests, she recommends specifics that you might not have heard of, such as the speech-in-noise test.
With regard to technology, she covers the various options,and also ways to pay for them (because Medicare won’t)—which latter is specific to the US, so if you’re from somewhere else, then probably a) this advice won’t help, but b) you probably won’t need it, as most places have more comprehensive healthcare coverage.
The style is quite personal while remaining professional; she often uses her own story as an illustration, but covers experiences other than hers just as thoroughly, so that no major variant of hearing loss gets overlooked.
Bottom line: if you and/or a loved one aren’t hearing/understanding auditory things so well as you used to, this book can help guide you into a position of more practical empowerment, without the need for quite so much trial and error as you might otherwise find alone.
Click here to check out Smart Hearing, and live better with hearing loss!
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Who Initiates Sex & Why It Matters
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In an ideal world, it wouldn’t matter any more than who first says “let’s get something to eat” when hungry. But in reality, it can cause serious problems on both sides:
Fear and loathing?
The person who initiates gets the special prize of an n% chance of experiencing rejection, and then what? Try again, and again, and risk seeming pushy? Or leave the ball in the other person’s court, where it may then go untouched for the next few months, because (in the most positive scenario) they were waiting for you to initiate at a better time for them?
The person who does not initiate, and/but does not want sex at that time, gets the special prize of either making their partner feel unwanted, insecure, and perhaps unloved, or else grudgingly consenting to sex that’s going to be no fun while your heart’s not in it, and thus create the same end result plus you had an extra bad experience?
So, that sucks all around:
- Initiating touch (sex or cuddling) can feel like a test of being wanted, whereupon a lack of initiation or response may be misinterpreted as a lack of love or appreciation.
- Meanwhile, non-reciprocation might stem from exhaustion or unrelated issues. For many, it’s a physiological lottery.
10almonds note: not discussed in this video, but for many couples, problems can also arise because one partner or another just isn’t showing up with the expected physical signs of physiological arousal, so even if they say (and mean!) an enthusiastic “yes”, their body’s signs get misread as a “not really, though”, resulting in one partner feeling rejected, and both feeling inadequate—on account of something that was completely unrelated to how the person actually felt about the prospect of sex*.
*Sometimes, physiological arousal will simply not accompany psychological arousal, no matter how sincere the latter. And on the flipside, sometimes the signs of physiological arousal will just show up without psychological arousal. The human body is just like that sometimes. We all must listen to our partners’ words, not their genitals!
The solution to this problem is thus the same as the solution to the rest of the problem that is discussed in the video, and it’s: good communication.
That can be easier said than done, of course—not everyone is at their most eloquent in such situations! Which is why it can be important to have those conversations first outside of the bedroom when the stakes are low/non-existent.
Even with the best communication, a more general, overarching non-reciprocity (real or perceived) of sexual desire can cause bitterness, resentment, and can ultimately be relationship-ending if a resolution that’s acceptable to everyone involved is not found.
Ultimately, the work as a couple must begin from within as individuals—addressing self-worth issues to better navigate love and intimacy.
For more on all of this, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
Relationships: When To Stick It Out & When To Call It Quits
Take care!
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What Does Kaempferol Do, Anyway?
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It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!
Have a question or a request? We love to hear from you!
In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!
As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!
So, no question/request too big or small 😎
❝In the this or that article, you said kampeferol was a famously good flavonol on a par with quercetin, does it do the same thing or does it do something different, and is it worth supplementing?❞
So, this will be in reference to a This-or-That from last week:
Cantaloupe vs Cucumber – Which is Healthier?
Let’s break down your question into parts:
- Is it comparable to quercetin?
- Does it have special properties of its own?
- Is it worth supplementing?
Is it comparable to quercetin?
They are both flavonols, and potent ones at that. Similarities include that they’re found in many of the same plants, and that (like most if not all polyphenols) they have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory benefits, which in turn usually translate to anti-aging and anticancer benefits too.
You can read more about quercetin here: Fight Inflammation & Protect Your Brain, With Quercetin
You can read more about polyphenols in general here: 21 Most Beneficial Polyphenols & What Foods Have Them ← quercetin and kaempferol are #1 and #2 on this list, respectively
Does it have special properties of its own?
Yes it does!
❝Epidemiological studies have shown an inverse relationship between kaempferol intake and cancer.
Kaempferol may help by augmenting the body’s antioxidant defense against free radicals, which promote the development of cancer.
At the molecular level, kaempferol has been reported to modulate a number of key elements in cellular signal transduction pathways linked to apoptosis, angiogenesis, inflammation, and metastasis.
Significantly, kaempferol inhibits cancer cell growth and angiognesis and induces cancer cell apoptosis, but on the other hand, kaempferol appears to preserve normal cell viability, in some cases exerting a protective effect.❞
Read in full: A review of the dietary flavonoid, kaempferol on human health and cancer chemoprevention
It is also particularly good for the gut:
❝Most recently, an increasing number of studies have demonstrated the significance of kaempferol in the regulation of intestinal function and the mitigation of intestinal inflammation❞
Read in full: A Critical Review of Kaempferol in Intestinal Health and Diseases
This also means it is particularly efficacious against food allergies:
❝we screened food ingredients with the expectation of finding dietary compounds that exert beneficial effects on intestinal immune tolerance and identified kaempferol, a flavonoid, as the compound that most effectively increased Aldh1a2 mRNA levels❞
(that’s good)
That one’s a bit scientifically denser than we usually try to find when citing sources here, so here’s a pop-science article about the same thing, which explains in more words than we have room to here:
Flavonoid kaempferol could offer natural relief for food allergies ← much lighter reading, but still very informative
Kaempferol (like quercetin, granted) is also a potent neuroprotective agent, not least of all because its anti-inflammatory powers extend to reducing neuroinflammation (not everything does, because not everything we ingest can pass the blood-brain barrier to affect what goes on in the brain):
…and more:
❝it may be used to treat numerous acute and chronic inflammation-induced diseases, including intervertebral disc degeneration and colitis, as well as post-menopausal bone loss and acute lung injury. In addition, it has beneficial effects against cancer, liver injury, obesity and diabetes, inhibits vascular endothelial inflammation, protects the cranial nerve and heart function, and may be used for treating fibroproliferative disorders, including hypertrophic scar.❞
Read in full: Recent progress regarding kaempferol for the treatment of various diseases
Is it worth supplementing?
If you eat a lot of leafy greens, cruciferous vegetables, and/or citrus fruits, and/or drink tea (true teas from tea plants, not miscellaneous herbal infusions), then you probably get a good dose of kaempferol already.
However, if you want to supplement, hawthorn berry is not a bad one to go with, like this example product on Amazon 😎
We wrote about this before, here: Hawthorn For The Heart (& More)
As for teas, if you’re wondering about the merits of black, white, green or red, check out:
Black, White, Green, Red: Which Kind Of Tea Is Best For The Health, According To Science? ← this covers many factors
Enjoy!
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Train For The Event Of Your Life!
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Mobility As A Sporting Pursuit
As we get older, it becomes increasingly important to treat life like a sporting event. By this we mean:
As an “athlete of life”, there are always events coming up for which we need to train. Many of these events will be surprise tests!
Such events/tests might include:
- Not slipping in the shower and breaking a hip (or worse)
- Reaching an item from a high shelf without tearing a ligament
- Getting out of the car at an awkward angle without popping a vertebra
- Climbing stairs without passing out light-headed at the top
- Descending stairs without making it a sled-ride-without-a-sled
…and many more.
Train for these athletic events now
Not necessarily this very second; we appreciate you finishing reading first. But, now generally in your life, not after the first time you fail such a test; it can (and if we’re not attentive: will) indeed happen to us all.
With regard to falling, you might like to revisit our…
…which covers how to not fall, and to not injure yourself if you do.
You’ll also want to be able to keep control of your legs (without them buckling) all the way between standing and being on the ground.
Slav squats or sitting squats (same exercise, different names, amongst others) are great for building and maintaining this kind of strength and suppleness:
(Click here for a refresher if you haven’t recently seen Zuzka’s excellent video explaining how to do this, especially if it’s initially difficult for you, “The Most Anti-Aging Exercise”)
this exercise is, by the way, great for pretty much everything below the waist!
You will also want to do resistance exercises to keep your body robust:
Resistance Is Useful! (Especially As We Get Older)
And as for those shoulders? If it is convenient for you to go swimming, then backstroke is awesome for increasing and maintaining shoulder mobility (and strength).
If swimming isn’t a viable option for you, then doing the same motion with your arms, while standing, will build the same flexibility. If you do it while holding a small weight (even just 1kg is fine, but feel free to increase if you so wish and safely can) in each hand will build the necessary strength as you go too.
As for why even just 1kg is fine: read on
About that “and strength”, by the way…
Stretching is not everything. Stretching is great, but mobility without strength (in that joint!) is just asking for dislocation.
You don’t have to be built like the Terminator, but you do need to have the structural integrity to move your body and then a little bit more weight than that (or else any extra physical work could be enough to tip you to breaking point) without incurring damage from the strain. So, it needs to not be a strain! See again, the aforementioned resistance exercises.
That said, even very gentle exercise helps too; see for example the impact of walking on osteoporosis:
Living near green spaces linked to higher bone density and lower osteoporosis risk
and…
So you don’t have to run marathons—although you can if you want:
Marathons in Mid- and Later-Life
…to keep your hips and more in good order.
Want to test yourself now?
Check out:
Building & Maintaining Mobility
Take care!
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7 Kinds Of Rest When Sleep Is Not Enough
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.
Taking Rest Seriously (More Than Just Sleep)
This is Dr. Matthew Edlund. He has 44 years experience as a psychiatrist, and is also a sleep specialist. He has a holistic view of health, which is reflected in his practice; he advocates for “a more complete health: physical, mental, social, and spiritual well-being”.
What does he want us to know?
Sleep, yes
Sleep cannot do all things for us in terms of rest, but it can do a lot, and it is critical. It is, in short, a necessary-but-not-sufficient condition for being well-rested.
See also: Why You Probably Need More Sleep
Rest actively
Rest is generally thought of as a passive activity, if you’ll pardon the oxymoron. Popular thinking is that it’s not something defined by what we do, so much what we stop doing.
In contrast, Dr. Edlund argues that to take rest seriously, we need do restful things.
Rest is as important as eating, and we wouldn’t want for that to “just happen”, would we?
Dr. Edlund advocates for restful activities such as going to the garden (or a nearby park) to relax. He also suggests we not underestimate the power of sex as an actively restful activity—this one is generally safer in the privacy of one’s home, though!
Rest physically
This is about actively relaxing our body—yoga is a great option here, practised in a way that is not physically taxing, but is physically rejuvenating; gentle stretches are key. Without such things, our body will keep tension, and that is not restful.
For the absolute most restful yogic practice? Check out:
Non-Sleep Deep Rest: A Neurobiologist’s Take
this is about yoga nidra!
Rest mentally
The flipside of the above is that we do need to rest our mind also. When we try to rest from a mental activity by taking on a different mental activity that uses the same faculties of the brain, it is not restful.
Writer’s example: as a writer, I could not rest from my writing by writing recreationally, or even by reading. An accountant, however, could absolutely rest from accounting by picking up a good book, should they feel so inclined.
Rest socially
While we all have our preferences when it comes to how much or how little social interaction we like in our lives, humans are fundamentally social creatures, and it is hardwired into us by evolution to function at our best in a community.
This doesn’t mean you have to go out partying every night, but it does mean you should take care to spend at least a little time with friends, even if just once or twice per week, and yes, even if it’s just a videocall (in person is best, but not everyone lives close by!)
If your social life is feeling a little thin on the ground these days, that’s a very common thing—not only as we get older, but also as many social institutions took a dive in functionality on account of the pandemic, and many are still floundering. Nevertheless, there are more options than you probably realize; yes, even for the naturally reclusive:
How To Beat Loneliness & Isolation
Rest spiritually
Be we religious or not, there are scientifically well-evidenced benefits to religious practices—some are because of the social aspect, and follow on from what we talked about just above. Other benefits come from activities such as prayer or meditation (which means that having some kind of faith, while beneficial, is not actually a requirement for spiritual rest—comparable practices without faith are fine too).
We discussed the overlapping practices of prayer and meditation, here:
The Science Of Mantra Meditation
Rest at home
Obviously, most people sleep at home. But…
Busy family homes can sometimes need a bit of conscious effort to create a restful environment, even if just for a while. A family dinner together is one great way to achieve this, and also ties in with the social element we mentioned before!
A different challenge faced by a lot of older people without live-in families, on the other hand, is the feeling of too much opportunity for rest—and then a feeling of shame for taking it. The view is commonly held that, for example, taking an afternoon nap is a sign of weakness.
On the contrary: taking an afternoon nap can be a good source of strength! Check out:
How To Nap Like A Pro (No More “Sleep Hangovers”!)
Rest at work
Our readership has a lot of retirees, but we know that’s not the case for everyone. How then, to rest while at work? Ideally we have breaks, of course, but most workplaces do not exactly have an amusement arcade in the break room. Nevertheless, there are some quick resets that can be done easily, anywhere, and (almost) any time:
Meditation Games: Meditation That You’ll Actually Enjoy
Want to know more?
You might also like:
How To Rest More Efficiently (Yes, Really)
Take care!
Don’t Forget…
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From Strength to Strength – by Dr. Arthur Brooks
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For most professions, there are ways in which performance can be measured, and the average professional peak varies by profession, but averages are usually somewhere in the 30–45 range, with a pressure to peak between 25–35.
With a peak by age 45 or perhaps 50 at the latest (aside from some statistical outliers, of course), what then to expect at age 50+? Not long after that, there’s a reason for mandatory retirement ages in some professions.
Dr. Brooks examines the case for accepting that rather than fighting it, and/but making our weaknesses into our strengths as we go. If our fluid intelligence slows, our accumulated crystal intelligence (some might call it “wisdom“) can make up for it, for example.
But he also champions the idea of looking outside of ourselves; of the importance of growing and fostering connections; giving to those around us and receiving support in turn; not transactionally, but just as a matter of mutualism of the kind found in many other species besides our own. Indeed, Dr. Brooks gives the example of a grove of aspen trees (hence the cover art of this book) that do exactly that.
The style is very accessible in terms of language but with frequent scientific references, so very much a “best of both worlds” in terms of readability and information-density.
Bottom line: if ever you’ve wondered at what age you might outlive your usefulness, this book will do as the subtitle suggests, and help you carve out your new place.
Click here to check out From Strength To Strength, and find yours!
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End the Insomnia Struggle – by Dr. Colleen Ehrnstrom and Dr. Alisha Brosse
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.
We’ve reviewed sleep books before, and we always try to recommend books that have something a little different than the rest, so what makes this one stand out?
While there is the usual quick overview of the basics that we’re sure you already know (sleep hygiene etc), most of the attention here is given to cold, hard clinical psychology… in a highly personalized way.
How, you may ask, can they personalize a book, that is the same for everyone?
The answer is, by guiding the reader through examining our own situation. With template logbooks, worksheets, and the like—for this reason we recommend getting a paper copy of the book, rather than the Kindle version, in case you’d like to use/photocopy those.
Essentially, reading this book is much like having your own psychologist (or two) to guide you through finding a path to better sleep.
The therapeutic approach, by the way, is a combination of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Acceptance-Commitment Therapy (ACT), which work very well together here.
Bottom line: if you’ve changed your bedsheets and turned off your electronic devices and need something a little more, this book is the psychological “big guns” for removing the barriers between you and good sleep.
Click here to check out End the Insomnia Struggle, and end yours once and for all!
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:
