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Get Better Sleep: Beyond “Sleep Hygiene”
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Better Sleep, Better Life!
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This is Arianna Huffington. Yes, that Huffington, of the Huffington Post. But! She’s also the CEO of Thrive Global, a behavior change tech company with the mission of changing the way we work and live—in particular, by challenging the idea that burnout is the required price of success.
The power of better sleep
Sleep is a very important, but most often neglected, part of good health. Here are some of Huffington’s top insights from her tech company Thrive, and as per her “Sleep Revolution” initiative.
Follow your circadian rhythm
Are you a night owl or a morning lark? Whichever it is, roll with it, and plan around that if your lifestyle allows for such. While it is possible to change from one to the other, we do have a predisposition towards one or the other, and will generally function best when not fighting it.
This came about, by the way, because we evolved to have half of us awake in the mornings and half in the evenings, to keep us all safe. Socially we’ve marched onwards from that point in evolutionary history, but our bodies are about a hundred generations behind the times, and that’s just what we have to work with!
Don’t be afraid (or ashamed!) to take naps
Naps, done right, can be very good for the health—especially if we had a bad night’s sleep the previous night.
Thrive found that workers are more productive when they have nap rooms, and (following on a little from the previous point) are allowed to sleep in or work from home.
See also: How To Nap Like A Pro (No More “Sleep Hangovers”!)
Make sure you have personal space available in bed
The correlation between relationship satisfaction and sleeping close to one’s partner has been found to be so high that it’s even proportional: the further away a couple sleeps from each other, the less happy they are. But…
Partners who got good sleep the previous night, will be more likely to want intimacy on any given night—at a rate of an extra 14% per extra hour of sleep the previous night. So, there’s a trade-off, as having more room in bed tends to result in better sleep. Time to get a bigger bed?
What gets measured, gets done
This goes for sleep, too! Not only does dream-journaling in the morning cue your subconscious to prepare to dream well the following night, but also, sleep trackers and sleep monitoring apps go a very long way to improving sleep quality, even if no extra steps are consciously taken to “score better”.
We’ve previously reviewed some of the most popular sleep apps; you can check out for yourself how they measured up:
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Maca Root’s Benefits For The Mood And The Ability
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Maca Root: What It Does And Doesn’t Do
Maca root, or Lepidium meyenii, gets thought of as a root vegetable, though it’s in fact a cruciferous vegetable and more closely related to cabbage—notwithstanding that it also gets called “Peruvian ginseng”.
- Nutritionally, it’s full of all manner of nutrients (vitamins, minerals, fiber, and a wide array of phytochemicals)
- Medicinally, it’s long enjoyed traditional use against a wide variety of illnesses, including respiratory infections and inflammatory diseases.
It’s also traditionally an aphrodisiac.
Is it really anti-inflammatory?
Probably not… Unless fermented. This hasn’t been studied deeply, but a 2023 study found that non-fermented and fermented maca root extracts had opposite effects in this regard:
However, this was an in vitro study, so we can’t say for sure that the results will carry over to humans.
Is it really an aphrodisiac?
Actually yes, it seems so. Here’s a study in which 45 women with antidepressant-induced sexual dysfunction found it significantly improved both libido and sexual function:
❝In summary, maca root may alleviate antidepressant-induced sexual dysfunction as women age, particularly in the domain of orgasm❞
~ Dr. Christina Dording et al.
Read in full: A Double-Blind Placebo-Controlled Trial of Maca Root as Treatment for Antidepressant-Induced Sexual Dysfunction in Women
As for men, well these mice (not technically men) found it beneficial too:
Effects of combined extracts of Lepidium meyenii and Allium tuberosum Rottl. on [e-word] dysfunction
(pardon the censorship; we’re trying to avoid people’s spam filters)
It did also improve fertility (and, actually in real men this time):
Does Lepidium meyenii (Maca) improve seminal quality?
Oh, to be in the mood
Here’s an interesting study in which 3g/day yielded significant mood improvement in these 175 (human) subjects:
And yes, it was found to be “well-tolerated” which is scientist-speak for “this appears to be completely safe, but we don’t want to commit ourselves to an absolutist statement and we can’t prove a negative”.
Oh, to have the energy
As it turns out, maca root does also offer benefits in this regard too:
(that’s not an added ingredient; it’s just a relevant chemical that the root naturally contains)
Want to try some?
We don’t sell it, but here for your convenience is an example product on Amazon 😎
Enjoy!
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Good Health From Head To Toe
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It’s Q&A Day!
Have a question or a request? You can always hit “reply” to any of our emails, or use the feedback widget at the bottom!
This newsletter has been growing a lot lately, and so have the questions/requests, and we love that! 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
Q: I am now in the “aging” population. A great concern for me is Alzheimers. My father had it and I am so worried. What is the latest research on prevention?
Very important stuff! We wrote about this not long back:
(one good thing to note is that while Alzheimer’s has a genetic component, it doesn’t appear to be hereditary per se. Still, good to be on top of these things, and it’s never too early to start with preventive measures!)
Q: Foods that help build stronger bones and cut inflammation? Thank you!
We’ve got you…
For stronger bones / To cut inflammation
That “stronger bones” article is about the benefits of collagen supplementation for bones, but there’s definitely more to say on the topic of stronger bones, so we’ll do a main feature on it sometime soon!
Q: Veganism, staying mentally sharp, best exercises for weight gain?
All great stuff! Let’s do a run-down:
- Veganism? As a health and productivity newsletter, we’ll only be focusing veganism’s health considerations, but it does crop up from time to time! For example:
- Which Plant Milk? (entirely about such)
- Plant vs Animal Protein (mostly about such)
- Making Friends With Your Gut (You Can Thank Us Later) (discusses one benefit of such)
- Staying mentally sharp? You might like the things-against-dementia pieces we linked to in the previous response!
- It’s also worth noting that some kinds of dementia, such as Alzheimer’s, can begin the neurodegenerative process 20 years before symptoms show, and can be influenced by lifestyle choices 20 years before that, so it’s definitely never too early be on top of these things!
- Best exercises for weight gain? We’ll do a main feature one of these days (filled with good science and evidence), but in few words meanwhile: core exercises, large muscle groups, heavy weights, few reps, build up slowly. Squats are King.
Q: I am interested in the following: Aging, Exercise, Diet, Relationships, Purpose, Lowering Stress
You’re going to love our Psychology Sunday editions of 10almonds! You might like some of these…
- Relationships: Seriously Useful Communication Skills!
- Purpose: Are You Flourishing? (There’s a Scale)
- Managing stress: Lower Your Cortisol! (Here’s Why & How)
- Also about managing stress: Sunday Stress-Buster
- Also applicable to stress: How To Set Your Anxiety Aside
Q: I’d like to know more about type 2 diabetic foot problems
You probably know that the “foot problems” thing has less to do with the feet and more to do with blood and nerves. So, why the feet?
The reason feet often get something like the worst of it, is because they are extremities, and in the case of blood sugars being too high for too long too often, they’re getting more damage as blood has to fight its way back up your body. Diabetic neuropathy happens when nerves are malnourished because the blood that should be keeping them healthy, is instead syrupy and sluggish.
We’ll definitely do a main feature sometime soon on keeping blood sugars healthy, for both types of diabetes plus pre-diabetes and just general advice for all.
In the meantime, here’s some very good advice on keeping your feet healthy in the context of diabetes. This one’s focussed on Type 1 Diabetes, but the advice goes for both:
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- Veganism? As a health and productivity newsletter, we’ll only be focusing veganism’s health considerations, but it does crop up from time to time! For example:
Owning Your Weight – by Henri Marcoux
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A lot of diet books—which this isn’t—presuppose that the reader wants to lose weight, and varyingly encourage and shame the reader into trying to do so.
Dr. Henri Marcoux takes a completely different approach.
He starts by assuming we are—whether consciously or not—the weight we want to be, and looks at the various physical and psychological factors that influence us to such. Ranging from food poverty to eating our feelings to social factors and more, he bids us examine our relationship with food and eating—not just in the sense of mindful eating, but from multiple scientific angles too.
From this, Dr. Marcoux gives us questions and suggestions to ensure that our relationship with food and eating is what we want it to be, for us.
Much of the latter part of the book covers not just how to go about the requisite lifestyle changes… But also how to implement things in a way that sticks, and is a genuine pleasure to implement. If this sounds over-the-top, the truth is that it’s just because it honestly is a lower-stress way of living.
Bottom line: if you want to gain or lose weight, there’s a good chance this book will help you. If you want to be happier and healthier at the weight you are, there’s a good chance this book will help you with that, too.
Click here to check out Owning Your Weight, and take control of yours!
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Tips For Avoiding/Managing Rheumatoid Arthritis
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Avoiding/Managing Rheumatoid Arthritis
Arthritis is the umbrella term for a cluster of joint diseases involving inflammation of the joints, hence “arthr-” (joint) “-itis” (suffix used to denote inflammation). These are mostly, but not all, autoimmune diseases, in which the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks our own joints.
Inflammatory vs Non-Inflammatory Arthritis
Arthritis is broadly divided into inflammatory arthritis and non-inflammatory arthritis.
You may be wondering: how does one get non-inflammatory inflammation of the joints?
The answer is, in “non-inflammatory” arthritis, such as osteoarthritis, the damage comes first (by general wear-and-tear) and inflammation generally follows as part of the symptoms, rather than the cause. So the name can be a little confusing. In the case of osteo- and other “non-inflammatory” forms of arthritis, you definitely still want to keep your inflammation at bay as best you can, but it’s not as absolutely critical a deal as it is for “inflammatory” forms of arthritis.
We’ll tackle the beast that is osteoarthritis another day, however.
Today we’re going to focus on…
Rheumatoid Arthritis
This is the most common of the autoimmune forms of arthritis. Some quick facts:
- It affects a little under 1% of the global population, but the older we get, the more likely it becomes
- Early onset of rheumatoid arthritis is most likely to show up around the age of 50 (but it can show up at any age)
- However, incidence (not onset) of rheumatoid arthritis peaks in the 70s age bracket
- It is 2–4 times more common in women than in men
- Approximately one third of people stop work within two years of its onset, and this increases thereafter.
Well, that sounds gloomy.
Indeed it’s not fun. There’s a lot of stiffness and aching of joints (often with swelling too), loss of joint function can be common, and then there are knock-on effects like fatigue, weakness, and loss of appetite.
Beyond that it’s an autoimmune disorder, its cause is not known, and there is no known cure.
Is there any good news?
If you don’t have rheumatoid arthritis at the present time, you can reduce your risk factors in several ways:
- Having an anti-inflammatory diet. Get plenty of fiber, greens, and berries. Fatty fish is great too, as are oily nuts. On the other side of things, high consumption of salt, sugar, alcohol, and red meat are associated with a greater risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis.
- Not smoking. Smoking is bad for pretty much everything, including your chances of developing rheumatoid arthritis.
- Not being obese. This one may be more a matter of correlation than causation, because of the dietary factors (if one eats an anti-inflammatory diet, obesity is less likely), but the association is there.
There are other risk factors that are harder to control, such as genetics, age, sex, and having a mother who smoked.
See: Genetic and environmental risk factors for rheumatoid arthritis
What if I already have rheumatoid arthritis?
If you already have rheumatoid arthritis, it becomes a matter of symptom management.
First, reduce inflammation any (reasonable) way you can. We did a main feature on this before, so we’ll just drop that again here:
Next, consider the available medications. Your doctor may or may not have discussed all of the options with you, so be aware that there are more things available than just pain relief. To talk about them all would require a whole main feature, so instead, here’s a really well-compiled list, along with explanations about each of them, up to date as of this year:
Rheumatoid Arthritis Medication List (And What They Do, And How)
Finally, consider other lifestyle adjustments to manage your symptoms. These include:
- Exercise—gently, though! You do not want to provoke a flare-up, but you do want to maintain your mobility as best you can. There’s a use-it-or-lose-it factor here. Swimming and yoga are great options, as is tai chi. You may want to avoid exercises that involve repetitive impacts to your joints, like running.
- Rest—while keeping mobility going. Get good sleep at night (this is important), but don’t make your bed your new home, or your mobility will quickly deteriorate.
- Hot & cold—both can help, and alternating them can reduce inflammation and stiffness by improving your body’s ability to respond appropriately to these stimuli rather than getting stuck in an inappropriate-response state of inflammation.
- Mobility aids—if it helps, it helps. Maybe you only need something during a flare-up, but when that’s the case, you want to be as gentle on your body as possible while keeping moving, so if crutches, handrails etc help, then by all means get them and use them.
- Go easy on the use of braces, splints, etc—these can offer short-term relief, but at a long term cost of loss of mobility. Only you can decide where to draw the line when it comes to that trade-off.
You can also check out our previous article:
Managing Chronic Pain (Realistically!)
Take good care of yourself!
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A Fresh Take On Hypothyroidism
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The Three Rs To Boost Thyroid-Related Energy Levels
This is Dr. Izabella Wentz. She’s a doctor of pharmacology, and after her own diagnosis with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, she has taken it up as her personal goal to educate others on managing hypothyroidism.
Dr. Wentz is also trained in functional medicine through The Institute for Functional Medicine, Kalish Functional Medicine, and the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine. She is a Fellow of the American Society of Consultant Pharmacists, and holds certifications in Medication Therapy Management as well as Advanced Diabetes Care through the American Pharmacists Association. In 2013, she received the Excellence in Innovation Award from the Illinois Pharmacists Association.
Dr. Wentz’s mission
Dr. Wentz was disenchanted by the general medical response to hypothyroidism in three main ways. She tells us:
- Thyroid patients are not diagnosed appropriately.
- For this, she criticises over-reliance on TSH tests that aren’t a reliable marker of thyroid function, especially if you have Hashimoto’s.
- Patients should be better optimized on their medications.
- For this, she criticizes many prescribed drugs that are actually pro-drugs*, that don’t get converted adequately if you have an underactive thyroid.
- Lifestyle interventions are often ignored by mainstream medicine.
- Medicines are great; they truly are. But medicating without adjusting lifestyle can be like painting over the cracks in a crumbling building.
*a “pro-drug” is what it’s called when the drug we take is not the actual drug the body needs, but is a precursor that will get converted to that actual drug we need, inside our body—usually by the liver, but not always. An example in this case is T4, which by definition is a pro-drug and won’t always get correctly converted to the T3 that a thyroid patient needs.
Well that does indeed sound worthy of criticism. But what does she advise instead?
First, she recommends a different diagnostic tool
Instead of (or at least, in addition to) TSH tests, she advises to ask for TPO tests (thyroid peroxidase), and a test for Tg antibodies (thyroglobulin). She says these are elevated for many years before a change in TSH is seen.
Next, identify the root cause and triggers
These can differ from person to person, but in countries that add iodine to salt, that’s often a big factor. And while gluten may or may not be a factor, there’s a strong correlation between celiac disease and Hashimoto’s disease, so it is worth checking too. Same goes for lactose.
By “checking”, here we mean testing eliminating it and seeing whether it makes a difference to energy levels—this can be slow, though, so give it time! It is best to do this under the guidance of a specialist if you can, of course.
Next, get to work on repairing your insides.
Remember we said “this can be slow”? It’s because your insides won’t necessarily bounce back immediately from whatever they’ve been suffering from for what’s likely many years. But, better late than never, and the time will pass anyway, so might as well get going on it.
For this, she recommends a gut-healthy diet with specific dietary interventions for hypothyroidism. Rather than repeat ourselves unduly here, we’ll link to a couple of previous articles of ours, as her recommendations match these:
She also recommends regular blood testing to see if you need supplementary TSH, TPO antibodies, and T3 and T4 hormones—as well as vitamin B12.
Short version
After diagnosis, she recommends the three Rs:
- Remove the causes and triggers of your hypothyroidism, so far as possible
- Repair the damage caused to your body, especially your gut
- Replace the thyroid hormones and related things in which your body has become deficient
Learn more
If you’d like to learn more about this, she offers a resource page, with resources ranging from on-screen information, to books you can get, to links to hook you up with blood tests if you need them, as well as recommended supplements to consider.
She also has a blog, which has an interesting relevant article added weekly.
Enjoy, and take care of yourself!
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- Thyroid patients are not diagnosed appropriately.
How they did it: STAT reporters expose how ailing seniors suffer when Medicare Advantage plans use algorithms to deny care
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In a call with a long-time source, what stood out most to STAT reporters Bob Herman and Casey Ross was just how viscerally frustrated and angry the source was about an algorithm used by insurance companies to decide how long patients should stay in a nursing home or rehab facility before being sent home.
The STAT stories had a far-reaching impact:
- The U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs took a rare step of launching a formal investigation into the use of algorithms by the country’s three largest Medicare Advantage insurers.
- Thirty-two House members urged the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to increase the oversight of algorithms that health insurers use to make coverage decisions.
- In a rare step, CMS launched its own investigation into UnitedHealth. It also stiffened its regulations on the use of proprietary algorithms and introduced plans to audit denials across Medicare Advantage plans in 2024.
- Based on STAT’s reporting, Medicare Advantage beneficiaries filed two class-action lawsuits against UnitedHealth and its NaviHealth subsidiary, the maker of the algorithm, and against Humana, another major health insurance company that was also using the algorithm.
- Amid scrutiny, UnitedHealth renamed NaviHealth.
The companies never allowed an on-the-record interview with their executives, but they acknowledged that STAT’s reporting was true, according to the news organization.
Ross and Herman spoke with The Journalist’s Resource about their project and shared the following eight tips.
1. Search public comments on proposed federal rules to find sources.
Herman and Ross knew that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services had put out a request for public comments, asking stakeholders within the Medicare Advantage industry how the system could improve.
There are two main ways to get Medicare coverage: original Medicare, which is a fee-for-service health plan, and Medicare Advantage, which is a type of Medicare health plan offered by private insurance companies that contract with Medicare. Medicare Advantage plans have increasingly become popular in recent years.
Under the Social Security Act, the public has the opportunity to submit comments on Medicare’s proposed national coverage determinations. CMS uses public comments to inform its proposed and final decisions. It responds in detail to all public comments when issuing a final decision.
The reporters began combing through hundreds of public comments attached to a proposed Medicare Advantage rule that was undergoing federal review. NaviHealth, the UnitedHealth subsidiary and the maker of the algorithm, came up in many of the comments, which include the submitters’ information.
“These are screaming all-caps comments to federal regulators about YOU NEED TO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS BECAUSE IT’S DISGUSTING,” Ross says.
“The federal government is proposing rules and regulations all the time,” adds Herman, STAT’s business of health care reporter. “If someone’s going to take the time and effort to comment on them, they must have at least some knowledge of what’s going on. It’s just a great tool for any journalist to use to figure out more and who to contact.”
The reporters also found several attorneys who had complained in the comments. They began reaching out to them, eventually gaining access to confidential documents and intermediaries who put them in touch with patients to show the human impact of the algorithm.
2. Harness the power of the reader submission box.
At the suggestion of an editor, the reporters added a reader submission box at the bottom of their first story, asking them to share their own experiences with Medicare Advantage denials.
The floodgates opened. Hundreds of submissions arrived.
By the end of their first story, Herman and Ross had confidential records and some patients, but they had no internal sources in the companies they were investigating, including Navihealth. The submission box led them to their first internal source.
(Screenshot of STAT’s submission box.) The journalists also combed through LinkedIn and reached out to former and current employees, but the response rate was much lower than what they received via the submission box.
The submission box “is just right there,” Herman says. “People who would want to reach out to us can do it right then and there after they read the story and it’s fresh in their minds.”
3. Mine podcasts relevant to your story.
The reporters weren’t sure if they could get interviews with some of the key figures in the story, including Tom Scully, the former head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services who drew up the initial plans for NaviHealth years before UnitedHealth acquired it.
But Herman and another colleague had written previously about Scully’s private equity firm and they had found a podcast where he talked about his work. So Herman went back to the podcast — where he discovered Scully had also discussed NaviHealth.
The reporters also used the podcast to get Scully on the phone for an interview.
“So we knew we had a good jumping off point there to be like, ‘OK, you’ve talked about NaviHealth on a podcast, let’s talk about this,’” Herman says. “I think that helped make him more willing to speak with us.”
4. When covering AI initiatives, proceed with caution.
“A source of mine once said to me, ‘AI is not magic,’” Ross says. “People need to just ask questions about it because AI has this aura about it that it’s objective, that it’s accurate, that it’s unquestionable, that it never fails. And that is not true.”
AI is not a neutral, objective machine, Ross says. “It’s based on data that’s fed into it and people need to ask questions about that data.”
He suggests several questions to ask about the data behind AI tools:
- Where does the data come from?
- Who does it represent?
- How is this tool being applied?
- Do the people to whom the tool is being applied match the data on which it was trained? “If racial groups or genders or age of economic situations are not adequately represented in the training set, then there can be an awful lot of bias in the output of the tool and how it’s applied,” Ross says.
- How is the tool applied within the institution? Are people being forced to forsake their judgment and their own ability to do their jobs to follow the algorithm?
5. Localize the story.
More than half of all Medicare beneficiaries have Medicare Advantage and there’s a high likelihood that there are multiple Medicare Advantage plans in every county across the nation.
“So it’s worth looking to see how Medicare Advantage plans are growing in your area,” Herman says.
Finding out about AI use will most likely rely on shoe-leather reporting of speaking with providers, nursing homes and rehab facilities, attorneys and patients in your community, he says. Another source is home health agencies, which may be caring for patients who were kicked out of nursing homes and rehab facilities too soon because of a decision by an algorithm.
The anecdote that opens their first story involves a small regional health insurer in Wisconsin, which was using NaviHealth and a contractor to manage post-acute care services, Ross says.
“It’s happening to people in small communities who have no idea that this insurer they’ve signed up with is using this tool made by this other company that operates nationally,” Ross says.
There are also plenty of other companies like NaviHealth that are being used by Medicare Advantage plans, Herman says. “So it’s understanding which Medicare Advantage plans are being sold in your area and then which post-acute management companies they’re using,” he adds.
Some regional insurers have online documents that show which contractors they use to evaluate post-acute care services.
6. Get familiar with Medicare’s appeals databases
Medicare beneficiaries can contest Medicare Advantage denials through a five-stage process, which can last months to years. The appeals can be filed via the Office of Medicare Hearings and Appeals.
“Between 2020 and 2022, the number of appeals filed to contest Medicare Advantage denials shot up 58%, with nearly 150,000 requests to review a denial filed in 2022, according to a federal database,” Ross and Herman write in their first story. “Federal records show most denials for skilled nursing care are eventually overturned, either by the plan itself or an independent body that adjudicates Medicare appeals.”
There are several sources to find appeals data. Be mindful that the cases themselves are not public to protect patient privacy, but you can find the number of appeals filed and the rationale for decisions.
CMS has two quality improvement organizations, or QIOs, Livanta and Kepro, which are required to file free, publicly-available annual reports, about the cases they handle, Ross says.
Another company, Maximus, a Quality Improvement Contractor, also files reports on prior authorization cases it adjudicates for Medicare. The free annual reports include data on raw numbers of cases and basic information about the percentage denials either overturned or upheld on appeal, Ross explains.
CMS also maintains its own database on appeals for Medicare Part C (Medicare Advantage plans) and Part D, which covers prescription drugs, although the data is not complete, Ross explains.
7. Give your editor regular updates.
“Sprinkle the breadcrumbs in front of your editors,” Ross says.
“If you wrap your editors in the process, you’re more likely to be able to get to the end of [the story] before they say, ‘That’s it! Give me your copy,’” Ross says.
8. Get that first story out.
“You don’t have to know everything before you write that first story,” Ross says. “Because with that first story, if it has credibility and it resonates with people, sources will come forward and sources will continue to come forward.”
Read the stories
Denied by AI: How Medicare Advantage plans use algorithms to cut off care for seniors in need
UnitedHealth pushed employees to follow an algorithm to cut off Medicare patients’ rehab care
UnitedHealth used secret rules to restrict rehab care for seriously ill Medicare Advantage patients
This article first appeared on The Journalist’s Resource and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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