Healthy Mind In A Healthy Body
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The 8-minute piece of music “Weightless” by Marconi was created scientifically to lower the heart rate and relax the listener. How did they do it? You can read the British Academy of Sound Therapy’s explanation of the methodology here, but important results of the study were:
- “Weightless” was able to induce greater relaxation levels than a massage (increase of 6%).
- “Weightless” also induced an 11% increase in relaxation over all other relaxing music tracks in the study.
- “Weightless” was also subjectively rated as more relaxing than any other music by all the participants.
Try it for yourself!
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Isn’t that better? Whenever you’re ready, read on…
Today we’re going to share a technique for dealing with difficult emotions. The technique is used in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), and it’s called RAIN:
- Recognizing: ask yourself “what is it that I’m feeling?”, and put a name to it. It could be anger, despair, fear, frustration, anxiety, overwhelm etc.
- Accepting: “OK, so, I’m feeling ________”. There’s no point in denying it, or being defensive about it, these things won’t help you. For now, just accept it.
- Investigating: “Why am I feeling ________?” Maybe there is an obvious reason, maybe you need to dig for a reason—or dig deeper for the real reason. Most bad feelings are driven by some sort of fear or insecurity, so that can be a good avenue for examination. Important: your feelings may be rational or irrational. That’s fine. This is a time for investigating, not judging.
- Non-Identification: not making whatever it is you’re feeling into a part of you. Once you get too attached to “I am jealous”, “I am angry”, “I am sad” etc, it can be difficult to manage something that has become a part of your personality; you’ll defend your jealousy, anger, sadness etc rather than tackle it.
As a CBT tool, this is something you can do for yourself at any time. It won’t magically solve your problems, but it can stop you from spiralling into a state of crisis, and get you back on a more useful track.
As a DBT tool, to give this its full strength, ideally now you will communicate what you’re feeling, to somebody you trust, perhaps a partner or friend, for instance.
Humans are fundamentally social creatures, and we achieve our greatest strengths when we support each other—and that also means sometimes seeking and accepting support!
Do you have a good technique you’d like to share? Reply to this email and let us know!
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Hardcore Self Help: F**k Anxiety – by Dr. Robert Duff
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We’ve reviewed other anxiety books before, so what makes this one different? Mostly, it’s the style.
Aside from swearing approximately once every two lines (so you might want to skip this one if that would bother you), Dr. Duff’s writing is very down-to-earth in other ways too, making it unpretentiously comfortable and accessible without failing to draw upon the wealth of good-practice, evidence-based advice he has to offer.
To that end, he talks about what anxiety is and isn’t, and goes over various approaches, explaining them in a “about” fashion, and also a “how to” fashion, covering areas such as CBT, somatic therapies, social support, when talk therapy is most likely to help.
The book is a quick read (a modest 74 pages), and it’s refreshing that it hasn’t been padded unnecessarily, unlike a lot of books that could have been a fraction of the size without losing value.
Bottom line: if you (or perhaps someone you care about) would benefit from a straight-to-the-point, no-BS approach to dealing with anxiety (that’s actually evidence-based, not just a “get over it” dismissal), then this is the book for you.
Click here to check out Hardcore Self Help: F**k Anxiety, and indeed do just that!
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Cavolo Nero & Sweet Potato Hash
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🎶 Sweet potato hash? It’s a seasonal smash… Catches on in a flash… Let’s do the hash 🎶
You will need
- 6 oz cavolo nero, tough stems removed, chopped
- 1 large sweet potato, diced
- 1 large red onion, finely chopped
- 1 parsnip, grated
- 1 small red pepper, chopped
- 4 oz baby portobello mushrooms, chopped
- ½ cup fresh or thawed peas
- ¼ bulb garlic, thinly sliced
- 1 tbsp nutritional yeast
- 2 tsp black pepper, coarse ground
- 1 tsp dried rosemary
- 1 tsp dried thyme (dried for convenience; fresh is also fine if you have it)
- 1 tsp red chili flakes (dried for convenience; fresh is also fine if you have it)
- 1 tsp ground turmeric
- ½ tsp MSG or 1 tsp low-sodium salt
- Extra virgin olive oil
Method
(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)
1) Preheat the oven to 425℉ / 220℃.
2) Toss the diced sweet potato in 1 tbsp olive oil, as well as the nutritional yeast, ground turmeric, black pepper, and MSG/salt, ensuring an even distribution. Roast in the oven on a lined baking tray, for 30 minutes, turning at least once to get all sides of the potato. When it is done, remove from the oven and set aside.
3) Heat a little oil in a sauté pan or large skillet (either is fine; we’re not adding liquids today), and fry the onion, parsnip, and pepper until softened, which should take about 5 minutes (this is one reason why we grated the parsnip; the other is for the variation in texture).
4) Add the garlic, mushrooms, herbs, and chili flakes, and cook for a further 1 minute, while stirring.
5) Add the cavolo nero and peas, stir until the cavolo nero begins to wilt, and then…
6) Add the roasted sweet potato; cook for about 5 more minutes, pressing down with the spatula here and there to mash the ingredients together.
7) Turn the hash over when it begins to brown on the bottom, to lightly brown the other side too.
8) Serve hot.
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:
- Brain Food? The Eyes Have It!
- Which Bell Peppers To Pick?
- Ergothioneine: “The Longevity Vitamin” (That’s Not A Vitamin)
- Our Top 5 Spices: How Much Is Enough For Benefits?
- What’s Your Plant Diversity Score?
Take care!
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Herring vs Sardines – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing herring to sardine, we picked the sardines.
Why?
In terms of macros, they are about equal in protein and fat, but herring has about 2x the saturated fat and about 2x the cholesterol. So, sardines win this category easily.
When it comes to vitamins, herring has more of vitamins B1, B2, B6, B9, and B12, while sardines have more of vitamins B3, E, and K. That’s a 5:3 win for herring, although it’s worth mentioning that the margins of difference are mostly not huge, except for that sardines have 26x the vitamin K content. Still, by the overall numbers, this one’s a win for herring.
In the category of minerals, herring is not richer in any minerals*, while sardines are richer in calcium, copper, iron, manganese, phosphorus, and selenium, meaning a clear win for sardines.
*unless we want to consider mercury to be a mineral, in which case, let’s mention that on average, herring is 6x higher in mercury. However, we consider that also a win for sardines.
All in all, sardines are better for the heart (much lower in cholesterol), bones (much higher in calcium), and brain (much lower in mercury).
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Farmed Fish vs Wild Caught: Antibiotics, Mercury, & More
Take care!
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Avoid Knee Surgery With This Proven Strategy (Over-50s Specialist Physio)
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A diagnosis of knee arthritis can be very worrying, but it doesn’t necessarily mean a knee replacement surgery is inevitable. Here’s how to keep your knee better, for longer (and potentially, for life):
Flexing your good health
You know we wouldn’t let that “proven” go by unchallenged if it weren’t, so what’s the evidence for it? Research (papers linked in the video description) showed 70% of patients (so, not 100%, but 70% is good odds and a lot better than the alternative) with mild to moderate knee arthritis avoided surgery after following a specific protocol—the one we’re about to describe.
The key strategy is to focus on strengthening the quadriceps muscles for joint protection, as strong quads correlate with reduced pain. However, a full range of motion in the knee is essential for optimal quad function, so that needs attention too, and in fact is foundational (can’t strengthen a quadriceps that doesn’t have a range of motion available to it):
Steps to follow:
- Improve knee extension:
- Passive knee extension exercise: gently press your knee down while lying flat, to increase straightening.
- Weighted heel props: use light weights to encourage gradual knee straightening.
- Enhance knee flexion:
- Use a towel to gently pull the knee towards the body to improve bending range.
Regular practice (multiple times daily) leads to improved knee function and pain relief. Exercises should be performed gently and without pain, aiming for consistent, gradual progress.And of course, if you do experience pain, it is recommend to consult with a local physiotherapist for more personalized guidance.
For more on all of this plus visual demonstrations, enjoy:
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Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
Treat Your Own Knee – by Robin McKenzie
Take care!
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- Improve knee extension:
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Digital Minimalism – by Dr. Cal Newport
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There are a lot of books that advise “Unplug once in a while, and go outside”. But it doesn’t really take a book to convey that, does it? And it just leaves all the digital catching-up once we get back. Surely there must be a better way?
Rather than relying on a “digital detox”, Dr. Newport offers principles to apply to our digital lives, that allow us to reap the benefits of modern information technology without being obeisant to it.
The book’s greatest strength lies in that; having clear guidelines that can be applied to cut out the extra weight of digital media that has simply snuck in because of The Almighty Algorithm—and even tips on how to engage more mindfully with that if we still want to, for example using social media only in a web browser rather than on our phones, so that we can ringfence the time for it rather than having it spill into every spare moment.
In the category of criticism, the book sometimes lacks a little awareness when it comes to assumptions about the reader and the reader’s social circles; that (for example) nobody has any disabilities and everyone lives in the same town. But for most people most of the time, the advices will stand, and the exceptions can be managed by the reader neatly enough.
Stylistically, the book is not very minimalist, but this is not inconsistent with the advice of the book, if you’re curling up in the armchair with a physical copy, or a single-purpose ereader device.
Bottom line: if you’d like to streamline your use of digital media, but don’t want to lose out on the value it brings you, this book provides an excellent template
Click here to check out Digital Minimalism, and choose focused life in a noisy world!
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It’s Not Fantastic To Be Plastic
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We Are Such Stuff As Bottles Are Made Of
We’ve written before about PFAS, often found in non-stick coatings and the like:
PFAS Exposure & Cancer: The Numbers Are High
Today we’re going to be talking about microplastics & nanoplastics!
What are microplastics and nanoplastics?
Firstly, they’renot just the now-banned plastic microbeads that have seen some use is toiletries (although those are classified as microplastics too).
Many are much smaller than that, and if they get smaller than a thousandth of a millimeter, then they get the additional classification of “nanoplastic”.
In other words: not something that can be filtered even if you were to use a single-micron filter. The microplastics would still get through, for example:
Scientists find about a quarter million invisible nanoplastic particles in a liter of bottled water
And unfortunately, that’s bad:
❝What’s disturbing is that small particles can appear in different organs and may cross membranes that they aren’t meant to cross, such as the blood-brain barrier❞
Note: they’re crossing the same blood-brain barrier that many of our nutrients and neurochemicals are too big to cross.
These microplastics are also being found in arterial plaque
What makes arterial plaque bad for the health is precisely its plasticity (the arterial walls themselves are elastic), so you most certainly do not want actual plastic being used as part of the cement that shouldn’t even be lining your arteries in the first place:
Microplastics found in artery plaque linked with higher risk of heart attack, stroke and death
❝In this study, patients with carotid artery plaque in which MNPs were detected had a higher risk of a composite of myocardial infarction, stroke, or death from any cause at 34 months of follow-up than those in whom MNPs were not detected❞
~ Dr. Raffaele Marfella et al.
(MNP = Micro/Nanoplastics)
Source: Microplastics and Nanoplastics in Atheromas and Cardiovascular Events
We don’t know how bad this is yet
There are various ways this might not be as bad as it looks (the results may not be repeated, the samples could have been compromised, etc), but also, perhaps cynically but nevertheless honestly, it could also be worse than we know yet—only more experiments being done will tell us which.
In the meantime, here’s a rundown of what we do and don’t know:
Study links microplastics with human health problems—but there’s still a lot we don’t know
Take care!
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