A Guide to Rational Living – by Drs. Albert Ellis and Robert Harper
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We’ve talked before about the evidence-based benefits of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), and this book is indeed about CBT. In fact, it’s in many ways the book that popularized Third Wave CBT—in other words, CBT in its modern form.
Dr. Ellis’s specific branch of CBT is Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, (REBT). What this means is using rationality to rewire emotions so that we’re not constantly sabotaging ourselves and our lives.
This is very much a “for the masses” book and doesn’t assume any prior knowledge of psychology, therapy, or psychotherapy. Or, for that matter, philosophy, since Stoic philosopher Epictetus had a lot to say that influenced Dr. Ellis’s work, too!
This book has also been described as “a self-help book for people who don’t like self-help books”… and certainly that Stoicism we mentioned does give the work a very different feel than a lot of books on the market.
The authors kick off with an initial chapter “How far can you go with self-therapy?”, and the answer is: quite far, even if it’s not a panacea. Everything has its limitations, and this book is no exception. On the other hand…
What the book does offer is a whole stack of tools, resources, and “How to…” chapters. In fact, there are so many “How to…” items in this book that, while it can be read cover-to-cover, it can also be used simply as a dip-in reference guide to refer to in times of need.
Bottom line: this book is highly recommendable to anyone and everyone, and if you don’t have it on your bookshelf, you should.
Click here to check out “A Guide To Rational Living” on Amazon today!
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Behind Book Recommendations
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It’s Q&A Day!
Each Thursday, we respond to subscriber questions and requests! If it’s something small, we’ll answer it directly; if it’s something bigger, we’ll do a main feature in a follow-up day instead!
So, no question/request to big or small; they’ll just get sorted accordingly
Remember, you can always hit reply to any of our emails, or use the handy feedback widget at the bottom. We always look forward to hearing from you!
Q: What’s the process behind the books you recommend? You seem to have a limitless stream of recommendations
We do our best!
The books we recommend are books that…
- are on Amazon—it makes things tidy, consistent, and accessible. And if you end up buying one of the books, we get a small affiliate commission*.
- we have read—we would say “obviously”, but you might be surprised how many people write about books without having read them.
- pertain in at least large part to health and/or productivity.
- are written by humans—bookish people (and especially Kindle Unlimited users) may have noticed lately that there are a lot of low quality AI-written books flooding the market, sometimes with paid 5-star reviews to bolster them. It’s frustrating, but we can tell the difference and screen those out.
- are of a certain level of quality. They don’t have to be “top 5 desert-island books”, because well, there’s one every day and the days keep coming. But they do have to genuinely deliver the value that we describe, and merit a sincere recommendation.
- are varied—we try to not give a run of “samey” books one after another. We will sometimes review a book that covers a topic another previously-reviewed book did, but it must have something about it that makes it different. It may be a different angle or a different writing style, but it needs something to set it apart.
*this is from Amazon and isn’t product-specific, so this is not affecting our choice of what books to review at all—just that they will be books that are available on Amazon.
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11 Things That Can Change Your Eye Color
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Eye color is generally considered so static that iris scans are considered a reasonable security method. However, it can indeed change—mostly for reasons you won’t want, though:
Ringing the changes
Putting aside any wishes of being a manga protagonist with violet eyes, here are the self-changing options:
- Aging in babies: babies are often born with lighter eyes, which can darken as melanocytes develop during the first few months of life. This is similar to how a small child’s blonde hair can often be much darker by the time puberty hits!
- Aging in adults: eyes may continue to darken until adulthood, while aging into the elderly years can cause them to lighten due to conditions like arcus senilis
- Horner’s syndrome: a nerve disorder that can cause the eyes to become lighter due to loss of pigment
- Fuchs heterochromic iridocyclitis: an inflammation of the iris that leads to lighter eyes over time
- Pigment dispersion syndrome: the iris rubs against eye fibers, leading to pigment loss and lighter eyes
- Kayser-Fleischer rings: excess copper deposits on the cornea, often due to Wilson’s disease, causing larger-than-usual brown or grayish rings around the iris
- Iris melanoma: a rare cancer that can darken the iris, often presenting as brown spots
- Cancer treatments: chemotherapy for retinoblastoma in children can result in lighter eye color and heterochromia
- Medications: prostaglandin-based glaucoma treatments can darken the iris, with up to 23% of patients seeing this effect
- Vitiligo: an autoimmune disorder that destroys melanocytes, mostly noticed in the skin, but also causing patchy loss of pigment in the iris
- Emotional and pupil size changes: emotions and trauma can affect pupil size, making eyes appear darker or lighter temporarily by altering how much of the iris is visible
For more about all these, and some notes about more voluntary changes (if you have certain kinds of eye surgery), enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
Understanding And Slowing The Progression Of Cataracts
Take care!
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Calm Your Inflammation – by Dr. Brenda Tidwell
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The book starts with an overview of inflammation, both acute and chronic, before diving into how to reduce the latter kind (acute inflammation being usually necessary and helpful, usually fighting disease rather than creating it).
The advice in the book is not just dietary, and covers lifestyle interventions too, including exercise etc—and how to strike the right balance, since the wrong kind of exercise or too much of it can sabotage our efforts. Similarly, Dr. Tidwell doesn’t just say such things as “manage stress” but also provides 10 ways of doing so, and so forth for other vectors of inflammation-control. She does cover dietary things as well though, including supplements where applicable, and the role of gut health, sleep, and other factors.
The style of the book is quite entry-level pop-science, designed to be readable and comprehensible to all, without unduly dumbing-down. In terms of hard science or jargon, there are 6 pages of bibliography and 3 pages of glossary, so it’s neither devoid of such nor overwhelmed by it.
Bottom line: if fighting inflammation is a priority for you, then this book is an excellent primer.
Click here to check out Calm Your Inflammation, and indeed calm your inflammation!
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Elderberries vs Gooseberries – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing elderberries to gooseberries, we picked the elderberries.
Why?
These are both berries more likely found in your garden or local wood than in the supermarket, but if you have convenient access to them, they’re great options for eating!
In terms of macros, elderberry has nearly 2x the carbs and/but also nearly 2x the fiber, which in glycemic index terms, mostly cancels out (although: elderberry has the slightly lower glycemic index of the two)
In the category of vitamins, both are great but elderberries are winning with more of vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B6, and C, while gooseberries have more vitamin B5.
When it comes to minerals, elderberries again lead with more calcium, iron, phosphorus, and potassium, while gooseberries have more magnesium.
There is an extra category today, which is “extra medicinal properties”, and elderberries have extra immune-boosting qualities, whereas gooseberries—while being as polyphenol-laden as one usually expects berries to be—do not confer the same kind of benefit in this regard.
You can check out the information about elderberry’s extra properties in the links section below; meanwhile, if you’re choosing between these berries, that’s the clear winner in every category today!
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
- Herbs for Evidence-Based Health & Healing ← including elderberry
- Does It Come In A Pill? ← it does (but it doesn’t have to)
- Beyond Supplements: The Real Immune-Boosters! ← this article focusses on not-supplements, but does also have a supplement section
Take care!
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Nature Valley Protein Granola vs Kellog’s All-Bran – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing Nature Valley Protein Granola to Kellog’s All-Bran, we picked the All-Bran.
Why?
While the Protein Granola indeed contains more protein (13g/cup, compared to 5g/cup), it also contains three times as much sugar (18g/cup, compared to 9g/cup) and only ⅓ as much fiber (4g/cup, compared to 12g/cup)
Given that fiber is what helps our bodies to absorb sugar more gently (resulting in fewer spikes), this is extremely important, especially since 18g of sugar in one cup of Protein Granola is already most of the recommended daily allowance, all at once!
For reference: the AHA recommends no more than 25g added sugar for women, or 32g for men
Hence, we went for the option with 3x as much fiber and ⅓ of the sugar, the All-Bran.
For more about keeping blood sugars stable, see:
10 Ways To Balance Blood Sugars
Enjoy!
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Frozen/Thawed/Refrozen Meat: How Much Is Safety, And How Much Is Taste?
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What You Can (And Can’t) Safely Do With Frozen Meat
Yesterday, we asked you:
❝You have meat in the freezer. How long is it really safe to keep it?❞
…and got a range of answers, mostly indicating to a) follow the instructions (a very safe general policy) and b) do not refreeze if thawed because that would be unsafe. Fewer respondents indicated that meat could be kept for much longer than guidelines say, or conversely, that it should only be kept for weeks or less.
So, what does the science say?
Meat can be kept indefinitely (for all intents and purposes) in a freezer; it just might get tougher: True or False?
False, assuming we are talking about a normal household electrical freezer that bottoms out at about -18℃ / 0℉.
Fun fact: cryobiologists cryopreserve tissue samples (so basically, meat) at -196℃ / -320℉, and down at those temperatures, the tissues will last a lot longer than you will (and, for all practical purposes: indefinitely). There are other complications with doing so (such as getting the sample through the glass transition point without cracking it during the vitrification process) but those are beyond the scope of this article.
If you remember back to your physics or perhaps chemistry classes at school, you’ll know that molecules move more quickly at higher temperatures, and more slowly at lower ones, only approaching true stillness as they near absolute zero (-273℃ / -459℉ / 0K ← we’re not saying it’s ok, although it is; rather, that is zero kelvin; no degree sign is used with kelvins)
That means that when food is frozen, the internal processes aren’t truly paused; it’s just slowed to a point of near imperceptibility.
So, all the way up at the relatively warm temperatures of a household freezer, a lot of processes are still going on.
What this means in practical terms: those guidelines saying “keep in the freezer for up to 4 months”, “keep in the freezer for up to 9 months”, “keep in the freezer for up to 12 months” etc are being honest with you.
More or less, anyway! They’ll usually underestimate a little to be on the safe side—but so should you.
Bad things start happening within weeks at most: True or False?
False, for all practical purposes. Again, assuming a normal and properly-working household freezer as described above.
(True, technically but misleadingly: the bad things never stopped; they just slowed down to a near imperceptible pace—again, as described above)
By “bad” here we should clarify we mean “dangerous”. One subscriber wrote:
❝Meat starts losing color and flavor after being in the freezer for too long. I keep meat in the freezer for about 2 months at the most❞
…and as a matter of taste, that’s fair enough!
It is unsafe to refreeze meat that has been thawed: True or False?
False! Assuming it has otherwise been kept chilled, just the same as for fresh meat.
Food poisoning comes from bacteria, and there is nothing about the meat previously having been frozen that will make it now have more bacteria.
That means, for example…
- if it was thawed (but chilled) for a period of time, treat it like you would any other meat that has been chilled for that period of time (so probably: use it or freeze it, unless it’s been more than a few days)
- if it was thawed (and at room temperature) for a period of time, treat it like you would any other meat that has been at room temperature for that period of time (so probably: throw it out, unless the period of time is very small indeed)
The USDA gives for 2 hours max at room temperature before considering it unsalvageable, by the way.
However! Whenever you freeze meat (or almost anything with cells, really), ice crystals will form in and between cells. How much ice crystallization occurs depends on several variables, with how much water there is present in the food is usually the biggest factor (remember that animal cells are—just like us—mostly water).
Those ice crystals will damage the cell walls, causing the food to lose structural integrity. When you thaw it out, the ice crystals will disappear but the damage will be left behind (this is what “freezer burn” is).
So if your food seems a little “squishy” after having been frozen and thawed, that’s why. It’s not rotten; it’s just been stabbed countless times on a microscopic level.
The more times you freeze and thaw and refreeze food, the more this will happen. Your food will degrade in structural integrity each time, but the safety of it won’t have changed meaningfully.
Want to know more?
Further reading:
You can thaw and refreeze meat: five food safety myths busted
Take care!
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