Activate Your Brain – by Scott G. Halford

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We’ve reviewed a number of “improve your brain health” books over time, and this one’s quite different. How?

Most of the books we’ve reviewed have been focused on optimizing diet and exercise for brain health with a nod to other factors… This one focuses more on those other factors.

While this book does reference a fair bit of hard science, much of it is written more like a pop psychology book. As a result, most of the actionable advices, of which there are many, pertain to cognitive and behavioral adjustments.

And no, this is not a book of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. It just happened to also address those two aspects.

We learn, for example, how our neurochemistry influences us—but also how we can influence our neurochemistry.

We also learn the oft-neglected (in other books!) social factors that influence brain health. Not just for our happiness, but for our productivity and peak cognitive performance too. Halford talks us through optimizing these such that we and those around us all get to enjoy the best brain benefits available to each of us.

The format of the book is that each chapter explains what you need to know for a given “activation” as the author calls it, and then an exercise to try out. With fifteen such chapters, every reader is bound to find at least something new.

Bottom line: if you want to grease those synapses in more ways than just eating some nuts and berries and getting good sleep and exercise, this book is a great resource.

Click here to check out “Activate Your Brain” and find your next level of cognitive performance!

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  • The Knowledge That Harvard Medical School’s Clinical Instructor Dr. Monique Tello Thinks Everyone SHOULD Have About Heart Health

    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.

    Anyone (who has not had a double mastectomy, anyway) can get breast cancer.

    Breast cancer, if diagnosed early (before it spreads), has a 98% survival rate.

    That survival rate drops to 31% if diagnosed after it has spread through the body.

    (The US CDC’s breast cancer “stat bite” page has more stats and interactive graphs, so click here to see those charts and get the more detailed low-down on mortality/survival rates with various different situations)

    We think that the difference between 98% and 31% survival rates is more than enough reason to give ourselves a monthly self-check at the very least! You’ve probably seen how-to diagrams before, but here are instructions for your convenience:

    This graphic created by the Jordan Breast Cancer Program (check them out, as they have lots of resources)

    If you don’t have the opportunity to take matters into your own hands right now, rather than just promise yourself “I’ll do that later”, take this free 4-minute Breast Health Assessment from Aurora Healthcare. Again, we think the difference early diagnosis can make to your survival chances make these tests well worth it.

    Lest we forget, men can also get breast cancer (the CDC has a page for men too), especially if over 50. But how do you check for breast cancer, when you don’t have breasts in the commonly-understood sense of the word?

    So take a moment to do this (yes, really actually do it!), and set a reminder in your calendar to repeat it monthly—there really is no reason not to! Take care of yourself; you’re important.

    Pssst! Did you scroll past the diagrams, looking for the online 4-minute test promised by the subtitle? If so, scroll back up; the link is in the middle!

    Harvard Medical School’s Clinical Instructor’s Five-Point Plan for Heart Health

    Dr. Monique Tello, M.D., M.P.H., is a practicing physician at Massachusetts General Hospital, director of research and academic affairs for the MGH DGM Healthy Lifestyle Program, clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School, and author of the evidence-based lifestyle change guide Healthy Habits for Your Heart.

    Here are what she says are the five most important factors to help keep your ticker ticking:

    5. Have (at most) a moderate alcohol intake! While there are polyphenols such as resveratrol in red wine that could boost heart health, there’s so little per glass that you may need 100–1000 glasses to get the dosage that provides benefits in mouse studies. If you’re not a mouse, it may not be as beneficial, and Dr. Tello recommends drinking no more than one glass per day of any alcohol. What constitutes a glass? It varies from one kind of drink to another, so here’s a handy guide.

    4. Don’t smoke. Best of all to never start. But if you did, quit. Simple as that. There is no healthy amount of smoking. While paradoxically, quitting smoking may of course be stressful to you, the long term gains are considered more than worth it. As with all advice, do consult your own physician for guidance, as individual circumstances may vary, and that may change the best approach for you.

    3. Maintain a healthy body weight. While BMI (Body Mass Index) is not a perfect system, it’s a system in popular use, and Dr. Tello recommends keeping a BMI between 18.5 and 24.9.

    What’s your BMI? It takes into account your height and weight; here’s a Quick BMI Calculator for your convenience.

    2. Keep a healthy level of physical activity—which ideally means at least 30 minutes per day vigorous activity, but obviously if you’re not used to this, take it slowly and build up over time. Even just small lifestyle changes (walking where possible, taking the stairs instead of the elevator where possible, etc) can add up to a big difference.

    1. Enjoy a healthy diet. This is the single most important thing, and the best modern scientific consensus holds that the best diet contains plenty of vegetables, fruits and nuts, whole grains, and omega-3 fatty acids, while it avoids processed meats, sugar-sweetened beverages, trans fats (what are trans fats?), and too much sodium.

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  • Her Mental Health Treatment Was Helping. That’s Why Insurance Cut Off Her Coverage.

    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.

    Reporting Highlights

    • Progress Denials: Insurers use a patient’s improvement to justify denying mental health coverage.
    • Providers Disagree: Therapists argue with insurers and the doctors they employ to continue covering treatment for their patients.
    • Patient Harm: Some patients backslid when insurers cut off coverage for treatment at key moments.

    These highlights were written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.

    Geneva Moore’s therapist pulled out her spiral notebook. At the top of the page, she jotted down the date, Jan. 30, 2024, Moore’s initials and the name of the doctor from the insurance company to whom she’d be making her case.

    She had only one chance to persuade him, and by extension Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas, to continue covering intensive outpatient care for Moore, a patient she had come to know well over the past few months.

    The therapist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation from insurers, spent the next three hours cramming, as if she were studying for a big exam. She combed through Moore’s weekly suicide and depression assessments, group therapy notes and write-ups from their past few sessions together.

    She filled two pages with her notes: Moore had suicidal thoughts almost every day and a plan for how she would take her own life. Even though she expressed a desire to stop cutting her wrists, she still did as often as three times a week to feel the release of pain. She only had a small group of family and friends to offer support. And she was just beginning to deal with her grief and trauma over sexual and emotional abuse, but she had no healthy coping skills.

    Less than two weeks earlier, the therapist’s supervisor had struck out with another BCBS doctor. During that call, the insurance company psychiatrist concluded Moore had shown enough improvement that she no longer needed intensive treatment. “You have made progress,” the denial letter from BCBS Texas read.

    When the therapist finally got on the phone with a second insurance company doctor, she spoke as fast as she could to get across as many of her points as possible.

    “The biggest concern was the abnormal thoughts — the suicidal ideation, self-harm urges — and extensive trauma history,” the therapist recalled in an interview with ProPublica. “I was really trying to emphasize that those urges were present, and they were consistent.”

    She told the company doctor that if Moore could continue on her treatment plan, she would likely be able to leave the program in 10 weeks. If not, her recovery could be derailed.

    The doctor wasn’t convinced. He told the therapist that he would be upholding the initial denial. Internal notes from the BCBS Texas doctors say that Moore exhibited “an absence of suicidal thoughts,” her symptoms had “stabilized” and she could “participate in a lower level of care.”

    The call lasted just seven minutes.

    Moore was sitting in her car during her lunch break when her therapist called to give her the news. She was shocked and had to pull herself together to resume her shift as a technician at a veterinary clinic.

    “The fact that it was effective immediately,” Moore said later, “I think that was the hardest blow of it all.”

    Many Americans must rely on insurers when they or family members are in need of higher-touch mental health treatment, such as intensive outpatient programs or round-the-clock care in a residential facility. The costs are high, and the stakes for patients often are, too. In 2019 alone, the U.S. spent more than $106.5 billion treating adults with mental illness, of which private insurance paid about a third. One 2024 study found that the average quoted cost for a month at a residential addiction treatment facility for adolescents was more than $26,000.

    Health insurers frequently review patients’ progress to see if they can be moved down to a lower — and almost always cheaper — level of care. That can cut both ways. They sometimes cite a lack of progress as a reason to deny coverage, labeling patients’ conditions as chronic and asserting that they have reached their baseline level of functioning. And if they make progress, which would normally be celebrated, insurers have used that against patients to argue they no longer need the care being provided.

    Their doctors are left to walk a tightrope trying to convince insurers that patients are making enough progress to stay in treatment as long as they actually need it, but not so much that the companies prematurely cut them off from care. And when insurers demand that providers spend their time justifying care, it takes them away from their patients.

    “The issues that we grapple with are in the real world,” said Dr. Robert Trestman, the chair of psychiatry and behavioral medicine at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine and chair of the American Psychiatric Association’s Council on Healthcare Systems and Financing. “People are sicker with more complex conditions.”

    Mental health care can be particularly prone to these progress-based denials. While certain tests reveal when cancer cells are no longer present and X-rays show when bones have healed, psychiatrists say they have to determine whether someone has returned to a certain level of functioning before they can end or change their treatment. That can be particularly tricky when dealing with mental illness, which can be fluid, with a patient improving slightly one day only to worsen the next.

    Though there is no way to know how often coverage gets cut off mid-treatment, ProPublica has found scores of lawsuits over the past decade in which judges have sharply criticized insurance companies for citing a patient’s improvement to deny mental health coverage. In a number of those cases, federal courts ruled that the insurance companies had broken a federal law designed to provide protections for people who get health insurance through their jobs.

    Reporters reviewed thousands of pages of court documents and interviewed more than 50 insiders, lawyers, patients and providers. Over and over, people said these denials can lead to real — sometimes devastating — harm. An official at an Illinois facility with intensive mental health programs said that this past year, two patients who left before their clinicians felt they were ready due to insurance denials had attempted suicide.

    Dr. Eric Plakun, a Massachusetts psychiatrist with more than 40 years of experience in residential and intensive outpatient programs, and a former board member of the American Psychiatric Association, said the “proprietary standards” insurers use as a basis for denying coverage often simply stabilize patients in crisis and “shortcut real treatment.”

    Plakun offered an analogy: If someone’s house is on fire, he said, putting out the fire doesn’t restore the house. “I got a hole in the roof, and the windows have been smashed in, and all the furniture is charred, and nothing’s working electrically,” he said. “How do we achieve recovery? How do we get back to living in that home?”

    Unable to pay the $350-a-day out-of-pocket cost for additional intensive outpatient treatment, Moore left her program within a week of BCBS Texas’ denial. The insurer would only cover outpatient talk therapy.

    During her final day at the program, records show, Moore’s suicidal thoughts and intent to carry them out had escalated from a 7 to a 10 on a 1-to-10 scale. She was barely eating or sleeping.

    A few hours after the session, Moore drove herself to a hospital and was admitted to the emergency room, accelerating a downward spiral that would eventually cost the insurer tens of thousands of dollars, more than the cost of the treatment she initially requested.

    How Insurers Justify Denials

    Buried in the denial letters that insurance companies send patients are a variety of expressions that convey the same idea: Improvement is a reason to deny coverage.

    “You are better.” “Your child has made progress.” “You have improved.”

    In one instance, a doctor working for Regence Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Oregon wrote that a patient who had been diagnosed with major depression was “sufficiently stable,” even as her own doctors wrote that she “continued to display a pattern of severe impairment” and needed round-the-clock care. A judge ruled that “a preponderance of the evidence” demonstrated that the teen’s continued residential treatment was medically necessary. The insurer said it can’t comment on the case because it ended with a confidential settlement.

    In another, a doctor working for UnitedHealth Group wrote in 2019 that a teenage girl with a history of major depression who had been hospitalized after trying to take her own life by overdosing “was doing better.” The insurer denied ongoing coverage at a residential treatment facility. A judge ruled that the insurer’s determination “lacked any reasoning or citations” from the girl’s medical records and found that the insurer violated federal law. United did not comment on this case but previously argued that the girl no longer had “concerning medical issues” and didn’t need treatment in a 24-hour monitored setting.

    To justify denials, the insurers cite guidelines that they use to determine how well a patient is doing and, ultimately, whether to continue paying for care. Companies, including United, have said these guidelines are independent, widely accepted and evidence-based.

    Insurers most often turn to two sets: MCG (formerly known as Milliman Care Guidelines), developed by a division of the multibillion-dollar media and information company Hearst, and InterQual, produced by a unit of UnitedHealth’s mental health division, Optum. Insurers have also used guidelines they have developed themselves.

    MCG Health did not respond to multiple requests for comment. A spokesperson for the Optum division that works on the InterQual guidelines said that the criteria “is a collection of established scientific evidence and medical practice intended for use as a first level screening tool” and “helps to move patients safely and efficiently through the continuum of care.”

    A separate spokesperson for Optum also said the company’s “priority is ensuring the people we serve receive safe and effective care for their individual needs.” A Regence spokesperson said that the company does “not make coverage decisions based on cost or length of stay,” and that its “number one priority is to ensure our members have access to the care they need when they need it.”

    In interviews, several current and former insurance employees from multiple companies said that they were required to prioritize the proprietary guidelines their company used, even if their own clinical judgment pointed in the opposite direction.

    “It’s very hard when you come up against all these rules that are kind of setting you up to fail the patient,” said Brittainy Lindsey, a licensed mental health counselor who worked at the Anthem subsidiary Beacon and at Humana for a total of six years before leaving the industry in 2022. In her role, Lindsey said, she would suggest approving or denying coverage, which — for the latter — required a staff doctor’s sign-off. She is now a mental health consultant for behavioral health businesses and clinicians.

    A spokesperson for Elevance Health, formerly known as Anthem, said Lindsey’s “recollection is inaccurate, both in terms of the processes that were in place when she was a Beacon employee, and how we operate today.” The spokesperson said “clinical judgment by a physician — which Ms. Lindsey was not — always takes precedence over guidelines.”

    In an emailed statement, a Humana spokesperson said the company’s clinician reviewers “are essential to evaluating the facts and circumstances of each case.” But, the spokesperson said, “having objective criteria is also important to provide checks and balances and consistently comply with” federal requirements.

    The guidelines are a pillar of the health insurance system known as utilization management, which paves the way for coverage denials. The process involves reviewing patients’ cases against relevant criteria every handful of days or so to assess if the company will continue paying for treatment, requiring providers and patients to repeatedly defend the need for ongoing care.

    Federal judges have criticized insurance company doctors for using such guidelines in cases where they were not actually relevant to the treatment being requested or for “solely” basing their decisions on them.

    Wit v. United Behavioral Health, a class-action lawsuit involving a subsidiary of UnitedHealth, has become one of the most consequential mental health cases of this century. In that case, a federal judge in California concluded that a number of United’s in-house guidelines did not adhere to generally accepted standards of care. The judge found that the guidelines allowed the company to wrongly deny coverage for certain mental health and substance use services the moment patients’ immediate problems improved. He ruled that the insurer would need to change its practices. United appealed the ruling on grounds other than the court’s findings about the defects in its guidelines, and a panel of judges partially upheld the decision. The case has been sent back to the district court for further proceedings.

    Largely in response to the Wit case, nine states have passed laws requiring health insurers to use guidelines that align with the leading standards of mental health care, like those developed by nonprofit professional organizations.

    Cigna has said that it “has chosen not to adopt private, proprietary medical necessity criteria” like MCG. But, according to a review of lawsuits, denial letters have continued to reference MCG. One federal judge in Utah called out the company, writing that Cigna doctors “reviewed the claims under medical necessity guidelines it had disavowed.” Cigna did not respond to specific questions about this.

    Timothy Stock, one of the BCBS doctors who denied Moore’s request to cover ongoing care, had cited MCG guidelines when determining she had improved enough — something judges noted he had done before. In 2016, Stock upheld a decision on appeal to deny continued coverage for a teenage girl who was in residential treatment for major depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety. Pointing to the guidelines, Stock concluded she had shown enough improvement.

    The patient’s family sued the insurer, alleging it had wrongly denied coverage. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois argued that there was evidence that showed the patient had been improving. But, a federal judge found the insurer misstated its significance. The judge partially ruled in the family’s favor, zeroing in on Stock and another BCBS doctor’s use of improvement to recommend denying additional care.

    “The mere incidence of some improvement does not mean treatment was no longer medically necessary,” the Illinois judge wrote.

    In another case, BCBS Illinois denied coverage for a girl with a long history of mental illness just a few weeks into her stay at a residential treatment facility, noting that she was “making progressive improvements.” Stock upheld the denial after an appeal.

    Less than two weeks after Stock’s decision, court records show, she cut herself on the arm and leg with a broken light bulb. The insurer defended the company’s reasoning by noting that the girl “consistently denied suicidal ideation,” but a judge wrote that medical records show the girl was “not forthcoming” with her doctors about her behaviors. The judge ruled against the insurer, writing that Stock and another BCBS doctor “unreasonably ignored the weight of the medical evidence” showing that the girl required residential treatment.

    Stock declined to comment. A spokesperson for BCBS said the company’s doctors who review requests for mental health coverage are board certified psychiatrists with multiple years of practice experience. The spokesperson added that the psychiatrists review all information received “from the provider, program and members to ensure members are receiving benefits for the right care, at the right place and at the right time.”

    The BCBS spokesperson did not address specific questions related to Moore or Stock. The spokesperson said that the examples ProPublica asked about “are not indicative of the experience of the vast majority of our members,” and that it is committed to providing “access to quality, cost-effective physical and behavioral health care.”

    A Lifelong Struggle

    A former contemporary dancer with a bright smile and infectious laugh, Moore’s love of animals is eclipsed only by her affinity for plants. She moved from Indiana to Austin, Texas, about six years ago and started as a receptionist at a clinic before working her way up to technician.

    Moore’s depression has been a constant in her life. It began as a child, when, she said, she was sexually and emotionally abused. She was able to manage as she grew up, getting through high school and attending Indiana University. But, she said, she fell back into a deep sadness after she learned in 2022 that the church she found comfort in as a college student turned out to be what she and others deemed a cult. In September of last year, she began an intensive outpatient program, which included multiple group and individual therapy sessions every week.

    Moore, 32, had spent much of the past eight months in treatment for severe depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety when BCBS said it would no longer pay for the program in January.

    The denial had come to her without warning.

    “I was starting to get to the point where I did have some hope, and I was like, maybe I can see an actual end to this,” Moore said. “And it was just cut off prematurely.”

    At the Austin emergency room where she drove herself after her treatment stopped, her heart raced. She was given medication as a sedative for her anxiety. According to hospital records she provided to ProPublica, Moore’s symptoms were brought on after “insurance said they would no longer pay.”

    A hospital social worker frantically tried to get her back into the intensive outpatient program.

    “That’s the sad thing,” said Kandyce Walker, the program’s director of nursing and chief operating officer, who initially argued Moore’s case with BCBS Texas. “To have her go from doing a little bit better to ‘I’m going to kill myself.’ It is so frustrating, and it’s heartbreaking.”

    After the denial and her brief admission to the hospital emergency department in January, Moore began slicing her wrists more frequently, sometimes twice a day. She began to down six to seven glasses of wine a night.

    “I really had thought and hoped that with the amount of work I’d put in, that I at least would have had some fumes to run on,” she said.

    She felt embarrassed when she realized she had nothing to show for months of treatment. The skills she’d just begun to practice seemed to disappear under the weight of her despair. She considered going into debt to cover the cost of ongoing treatment but began to think that she’d rather end her life.

    “In my mind,” she said, “that was the most practical thing to do.”

    Whenever the thought crossed her mind — and it usually did multiple times a day — she remembered that she had promised her therapist that she wouldn’t.

    Moore’s therapist encouraged her to continue calling BCBS Texas to try to restore coverage for more intensive treatment. In late February, about five weeks after Stock’s denial, records show that the company approved a request that sent her back to the same facility and at the same level of care as before.

    But by that time, her condition had deteriorated so severely that it wasn’t enough.

    Eight days later, Moore was admitted to a psychiatric hospital about half an hour from Austin. Medical records paint a harrowing picture of her condition. She had a plan to overdose and the medicine to do it. The doctor wrote that she required monitoring and had “substantial ongoing suicidality.” The denial continued to torment her. She told her doctor that her condition worsened after “insurance stopped covering” her treatment.

    Her few weeks stay at the psychiatric hospital cost $38,945.06. The remaining 10 weeks of treatment at the intensive outpatient program — the treatment BCBS denied — would have cost about $10,000.

    Moore was discharged from the hospital in March and went back into the program Stock had initially said she no longer needed.

    It marked the third time she was admitted to the intensive outpatient program.

    A few months later, as Moore picked at her lunch, her oversized glasses sliding down the bridge of her nose every so often, she wrestled with another painful realization. Had the BCBS doctors not issued the denial, she probably would have completed her treatment by now.

    “I was really looking forward to that,” Moore said softly. As she spoke, she played with the thick stack of bracelets hiding the scars on her wrists.

    A few weeks later, that small facility closed in part because of delays and denials from insurance companies, according to staff and billing records. Moore found herself calling around to treatment facilities to see which ones would accept her insurance. She finally found one, but in October, her depression had become so severe that she needed to be stepped up to a higher level of care.

    Moore was able to get a leave of absence from work to attend treatment, which she worried would affect the promotion she had been working toward. To tide her over until she could go back to work, she used up the money her mother sent for her 30th birthday.

    She smiles less than she did even a few months ago. When her roommates ask her to hang out downstairs, she usually declines. She has taken some steps forward, though. She stopped drinking and cutting her wrists, allowing scar tissue to cover her wounds.

    But she’s still grieving what the denial took from her.

    “I believed I could get better,” she said recently, her voice shaking. “With just a little more time, I could discharge, and I could live life finally.”

    Kirsten Berg contributed research.

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  • Speedy Easy Ratatouille

    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.

    One of the biggest contributing factors to unhealthy eating? The convenience factor. To eat well, it seems, one must have at least two of the following: money, time, and skill. So today we have a health dish that’s cheap, quick, and easy!

    (You won’t need a rat in a hat to help you with this one)

    You will need

    • 3 ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped
    • 2 zucchini, halved and chopped into thick batons
    • 2 portobello mushrooms, sliced into ½” slices
    • 1 large red pepper, cut into thick chunks
    • 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
    • 2 tbsp finely chopped parsley
    • 2 tsp garlic paste
    • 2 tsp thyme leaves, destalked
    • 1 tsp rosemary leaves, destalked
    • 1 tsp red chili flakes
    • 1 tsp black pepper
    • Optional: 1 tsp MSG, or 1 tsp low sodium salt (the MSG is the healthier option as it contains less sodium than even low sodium salt)
    • Optional: other vegetables, chopped. Use what’s in your fridge! This is a great way to use up leftovers. Particularly good options include chopped eggplant, chopped red onion, and/or chopped carrot.

    Method

    (we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)

    1) Put the olive oil into a sauté pan and set the heat on medium. When hot but smoking, add the mushrooms and any optional vegetables (but not the others from the list yet), and fry for 5 minutes.

    Note: if you aren’t pressed for time, then you can diverge from the “speedy” part of this by cooking each of the vegetables separately before combining, which allows each to keep its flavor more distinct.

    2) Add the garlic, followed by the zucchini, red pepper, chili flakes, and thyme; stir periodically (you shouldn’t have to stir constantly) for 10 minutes.

    3) Add the tomatoes and a cup of water to the pan, along with any MSG/salt. Cover with the lid and allow to simmer for a further 10 minutes.

    4) Serve, adding the garnish.

    Enjoy!

    Want to learn more?

    For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:

    Take care!

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Related Posts

  • Complete Guide To Fasting – By Dr. Jason Fung
  • How much does your phone’s blue light really delay your sleep? Relax, it’s just 2.7 minutes

    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.

    It’s one of the most pervasive messages about technology and sleep. We’re told bright, blue light from screens prevents us falling asleep easily. We’re told to avoid scrolling on our phones before bedtime or while in bed. We’re sold glasses to help filter out blue light. We put our phones on “night mode” to minimise exposure to blue light.

    But what does the science actually tell us about the impact of bright, blue light and sleep? When our group of sleep experts from Sweden, Australia and Israel compared scientific studies that directly tested this, we found the overall impact was close to meaningless. Sleep was disrupted, on average, by less than three minutes.

    We showed the message that blue light from screens stops you from falling asleep is essentially a myth, albeit a very convincing one.

    Instead, we found a more nuanced picture about technology and sleep.

    Mangostar/Shutterstock

    What we did

    We gathered evidence from 73 independent studies with a total of 113,370 participants of all ages examining various factors that connect technology use and sleep.

    We did indeed find a link between technology use and sleep, but not necessarily what you’d think.

    We found that sometimes technology use can lead to poor sleep and sometimes poor sleep can lead to more technology use. In other words, the relationship between technology and sleep is complex and can go both ways.

    How is technology supposed to harm sleep?

    Technology is proposed to harm our sleep in a number of ways. But here’s what we found when we looked at the evidence:

    • bright screen light – across 11 experimental studies, people who used a bright screen emitting blue light before bedtime fell asleep an average of only 2.7 minutes later. In some studies, people slept better after using a bright screen. When we were invited to write about this evidence further, we showed there is still no meaningful impact of bright screen light on other sleep characteristics including the total amount or quality of sleep
    • arousal is a measure of whether people become more alert depending on what they’re doing on their device. Across seven studies, people who engaged in more alerting or “exciting” content (for example, video games) lost an average of only about 3.5 minutes of sleep compared to those who engaged in something less exciting (for example, TV). This tells us the content of technology alone doesn’t affect sleep as much as we think
    • we found sleep disruption at night (for example, being awoken by text messages) and sleep displacement (using technology past the time that we could be sleeping) can lead to sleep loss. So while technology use was linked to less sleep in these instances, this was unrelated to being exposed to bright, blue light from screens before bedtime.

    Which factors encourage more technology use?

    Research we reviewed suggests people tend to use more technology at bedtime for two main reasons:

    There are also a few things that might make people more vulnerable to using technology late into the night and losing sleep.

    We found people who are risk-takers or who lose track of time easily may turn off devices later and sacrifice sleep. Fear of missing out and social pressures can also encourage young people in particular to stay up later on technology.

    What helps us use technology sensibly?

    Last of all, we looked at protective factors, ones that can help people use technology more sensibly before bed.

    The two main things we found that helped were self-control, which helps resist the short-term rewards of clicking and scrolling, and having a parent or loved one to help set bedtimes.

    Mother looking over shoulder of teen daughter sitting on sofa using smartphone
    We found having a parent or loved one to help set bedtimes encourages sensible use of technology. fast-stock/Shutterstock

    Why do we blame blue light?

    The blue light theory involves melatonin, a hormone that regulates sleep. During the day, we are exposed to bright, natural light that contains a high amount of blue light. This bright, blue light activates certain cells at the back of our eyes, which send signals to our brain that it’s time to be alert. But as light decreases at night, our brain starts to produce melatonin, making us feel sleepy.

    It’s logical to think that artificial light from devices could interfere with the production of melatonin and so affect our sleep. But studies show it would require light levels of about 1,000-2,000 lux (a measure of the intensity of light) to have a significant impact.

    Device screens emit only about 80-100 lux. At the other end of the scale, natural sunlight on a sunny day provides about 100,000 lux.

    What’s the take-home message?

    We know that bright light does affect sleep and alertness. However our research indicates the light from devices such as smartphones and laptops is nowhere near bright or blue enough to disrupt sleep.

    There are many factors that can affect sleep, and bright, blue screen light likely isn’t one of them.

    The take-home message is to understand your own sleep needs and how technology affects you. Maybe reading an e-book or scrolling on socials is fine for you, or maybe you’re too often putting the phone down way too late. Listen to your body and when you feel sleepy, turn off your device.

    Chelsea Reynolds, Casual Academic/Clinical Educator and Clinical Psychologist, College of Education, Psychology and Social Work, Flinders University

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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  • Redcurrants vs Cranberries – Which is Healthier?

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    Our Verdict

    When comparing redcurrants to cranberries, we picked the redcurrants.

    Why?

    First know: here we’re comparing raw redcurrants to raw cranberries, with no additives in either case. If you buy jelly made from either, or if you buy dried fruits but the ingredients list has a lot of added sugar and often some vegetable oil, then that’s going to be very different. But for now… Let’s look at just the fruits:

    In terms of macros, redcurrants are higher in carbs, but also higher in fiber, and have the lower glycemic index as cranberries have nearly 2x the GI.

    When it comes to vitamins, redcurrants have more of vitamins B1, B2, B6, B9, C, K, and choline, while cranberries have more of vitamins A, B5, and E. In other words, a clear win for redcurrants.

    In the category of minerals, redcurrants sweep even more convincingly with a lot more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc. On the other hand, cranberries boast a little more manganese; they also have about 2x the sodium.

    Both berries have generous amounts of assorted phytochemicals (flavonoids and others), and/but nothing to set one ahead of the other.

    As per any berries that aren’t poisonous, both of these are fine choices for most people most of the time, but redcurrants win with room to spare in most categories.

    Want to learn more?

    You might like to read:

    Health Benefits Of Cranberries (But: You’d Better Watch Out)

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  • Lychees vs Kumquats – Which is Healthier?

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    Our Verdict

    When comparing lychees to kumquats, we picked the kumquats.

    Why?

    In terms of macros, everything is comparable except for fiber, of which kumquats have 5–6x as much fiber, which means a very significant win for kumquats in this category.

    When it comes to vitamins, lychees have slightly more of vitamins B3, B6, C, and K, while kumquats have a lot more of vitamins A and B1, and moderately more vitamins B2, B9, E, and choline. A fair win for kumquats here.

    In the category of minerals, lychees have a little more copper, phosphorus, and selenium, while kumquats have 11x as much calcium, as well as a 2–3x more iron, magnesium, manganese and zinc. An easy win for kumquats.

    Both fruits have great phenolic profiles, being both rich in antioxidants.

    All in all, enjoy both, but if you’re going to pick one, kumquats easily win the day!

    Want to learn more?

    You might like to read:

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