Are You Flourishing? (There’s a Scale)
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What does it mean, to flourish? And how can you do it more?
In 2009, psychologists Diener et al developed the “Flourishing Scale”, or as it was more prosaically called originally, “Subjective Wellness Scale”. The name was changed later, as it was noted that it went beyond what was typically considered mere “wellness”.
This scale was so useful, that colleagues scrambled to see if they could improve on it, such as with PERMA (2012), which looked at:
- Positive emotion
- Engagement
- positive Relationships
- Meaning
- Accomplishment/Achievement
While popular (despite the tenuous acronym, it is a very good list of things to foster in your life), this was studied and measured scientifically and found to not be an improvement on the Flourishing Scale / SWS, so we’re going to stick to the original version for now.
We couldn’t find an interactive online quiz for the scale though (apart from this NY Times one, which is paywalled for NYT subscribers, so enjoy if you’re a NYT subscriber!), so here’s the source material, still hosted on the website of the (now deceased, as of a couple of years ago) author:
Flourishing Scale (FS) ← it’s an eight-question, ranked choice scale
How did you score? And…
What are the keys to flourishing more?
According to Jeffrey Davis M.A., of Tracking Wonder, there are five key attributes that we must develop and/or maintain:
The ability to direct and re-direct your attention
This isn’t just a task-related thing.This is about your mind itself. For example, the ability to recognize what your emotions are telling you, thank them for the message, and then set them aside. Or the ability to cut through negative thought spirals! How often have you worried about future events that didn’t transpire, or twisted yourself in knots over a past event that you can’t change?
Action: check out our previous article “The Off-Button For Your Brain” ← this is a technique for switching off racing thoughts, and it’s really good
Want more? We also did this:
The tendency to shape your time with intention and for impact
Time is an incredibly precious asset. How you use it is a very personal choice. You don’t have to maximize productivity (though you can if you want), but for example there’s a difference between:
- Deciding to spend an hour watching a TV show you really enjoy
- Wondering what’s on TV, browsing aimlessly, watching listlessly, just a distraction
In the former case, you are enjoying your time. Literally: you are experiencing joy during your time.
In the latter case, to borrow from Jim Steinman, “you were only killing time and it’ll kill you right back”!
Action: do a time audit for a week, and see where your time really goes, rather than where you expect or hope for it to go. Use this information to plan your next week more intentionally. Repeat as and when it seems like it might be useful!
The practice of constant improvement
Fun fact: you are good enough already. And you can also improve. You don’t have to, but improving in the areas that are meaningful to you can really add up over time. This could be becoming excellent at something for which already have a passion… It could also be brushing up something that you feel might be holding you back.
Action: do a quick SWOT* self-assessment. Then plan your next step from there!
*Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats. What are yours?
The ability to communicate and listen to others
A lot of this is about feedback. Giving and receiving feedback are often amongst the hardest things we do in the category of communication… Especially if the feedback is negative. How to decide what to disregard as baseless criticism, and what to take on board (and try not to take it personally), or the other way around, how to present negative feedback in a way that won’t trigger defensiveness.
Action: check out our previous article “Save Time With Better Communication” for some tips that really make relationships (of any kind) so much easier.
The commitment to positive experiences
Many things in life are not fun. Often, we know in advance that they will not be fun. The key here is the ability to make the most of a bad situation, and seek out better situations by your actions. Not like a lost person in a desert seeks water, but like a chess player who employs a general strategy to make tactical advantages more likely to appear.
Action: think about something you have to do but don’t want to. How could it be made more fun? Or failing that, how could it be made at least more comfortable?
See also: Working Smarter < Working Brighter!
Want to read more?
Check out: What Is Flourishing in Positive Psychology? (+8 Tips & PDF)
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Vaccines and cancer: The myth that won’t die
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Two recent studies reported rising cancer rates among younger adults in the U.S. and worldwide. This prompted some online anti-vaccine accounts to link the studies’ findings to COVID-19 vaccines.
But, as with other myths, the data tells a very different story.
What you need to know
- Baseless claims that COVID-19 vaccines cause cancer have persisted online for several years and gained traction in late 2023.
- Two recent reports finding rising cancer rates among younger adults are based on pre-pandemic cancer incidence data. Cancer rates in the U.S. have been on the rise since the 1990s.
- There is no evidence of a link between COVID-19 vaccination and increased cancer risk.
False claims about COVID-19 vaccines began circulating months before the vaccines were available. Chief among these claims was misinformed speculation that vaccine mRNA could alter or integrate into vaccine recipients’ DNA.
It does not. But that didn’t prevent some on social media from spinning that claim into a persistent myth alleging that mRNA vaccines can cause or accelerate cancer growth. Anti-vaccine groups even coined the term “turbo cancer” to describe a fake phenomenon of abnormally aggressive cancers allegedly linked to COVID-19 vaccines.
They used the American Cancer Society’s 2024 cancer projection—based on incidence data through 2020—and a study of global cancer trends between 1999 and 2019 to bolster the false claims. This exposed the dishonesty at the heart of the anti-vaccine messaging, as data that predated the pandemic by decades was carelessly linked to COVID-19 vaccines in viral social media posts.
Some on social media cherry-pick data and use unfounded evidence because the claims that COVID-19 vaccines cause cancer are not true. According to the National Cancer Institute and American Cancer Society, there is no evidence of any link between COVID-19 vaccines and an increase in cancer diagnosis, progression, or remission.
Why does the vaccine cancer myth endure?
At the root of false cancer claims about COVID-19 vaccines is a long history of anti-vaccine figures falsely linking vaccines to cancer. Polio and HPV vaccines have both been the target of disproven cancer myths.
Not only do HPV vaccines not cause cancer, they are one of only two vaccines that prevent cancer.
In the case of polio vaccines, some early batches were contaminated with simian virus 40 (SV40), a virus that is known to cause cancer in some mammals but not humans. The contaminated batches were discovered, and no other vaccine has had SV40 contamination in over 60 years.
Follow-up studies found no increase in cancer rates in people who received the SV40-contaminated polio vaccine. Yet, vaccine opponents have for decades claimed that polio vaccines cause cancer.
Recycling of the SV40 myth
The SV40 myth resurfaced in 2023 when vaccine opponents claimed that COVID-19 vaccines contain the virus. In reality, a small, nonfunctional piece of the SV40 virus is used in the production of some COVID-19 vaccines. This DNA fragment, called the promoter, is commonly used in biomedical research and vaccine development and doesn’t remain in the finished product.
Crucially, the SV40 promoter used to produce COVID-19 vaccines doesn’t contain the part of the virus that enters the cell nucleus and is associated with cancer-causing properties in some animals. The promoter also lacks the ability to survive on its own inside the cell or interact with DNA. In other words, it poses no risk to humans.
Over 5.6 billion people worldwide have received COVID-19 vaccines since December 2020. At that scale, even the tiniest increase in cancer rates in vaccinated populations would equal hundreds of thousands of excess cancer diagnoses and deaths. The evidence for alleged vaccine-linked cancer would be observed in real incidence, treatment, and mortality data, not social media anecdotes or unverifiable reports.
This article first appeared on Public Good News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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Wheat Belly, Revised & Expanded Edition – by Dr. William Davis
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This review pertains to the 2019 edition of the book, not the 2011 original, which will not have had all of the same research.
We are told, by scientific consensus, to enjoy plenty of whole grains as part of our diet. So, what does cardiologist Dr. William Davis have against wheat?
Firstly, not all grains are interchangeable, and wheat—in particular, modern strains of wheat—cannot be described as the same as the wheat of times past.
While this book does touch on the gluten aspect (and Celiac disease), and notes that modern wheat has a much higher gluten content than older strains, most of this book is about other harms that wheat can do to us.
Dr. Davis explores and explains the metabolic implications of wheat’s unique properties on organs such as our pancreas, liver, heart, and brain.
The book does also have recipes and meal plans, though in this reviewer’s opinion they were a little superfluous. Wheat is not hard to cut out unless you are living in a food desert or are experiencing food poverty, in which case, those recipes and meal plans would also not help.
Bottom line: this book, filled with plenty of actual science, makes a strong case against wheat, and again, mostly for reasons other than its gluten content. You might want to cut yours down!
Click here to check out Wheat Belly, and see if skipping the wheat could be good for you!
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Caregiver smartphone use can affect a baby’s development. New parents should get more guidance
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We already know excessive smartphone use affects people’s mental health and their relationships.
But when new parents use digital technologies during care giving, they might also compromise their baby’s development.
Smartphone use in the presence of infants is associated with a range of negative developmental outcomes, including threats to the formation of a secure attachment.
The transition into parenthood is an ideal time for healthy behaviour change. Expectant parents see a range of professionals, but as we found in our new study, they don’t receive any co-ordinated support or advice on managing digital devices in babies’ presence.
One of the new mums we interviewed said:
Literally nothing has come up around […] screen time, or especially breastfeeding and things like that […] it’s interesting because it’s such a big part of our lives.
Another participant said:
I haven’t had anyone talk to me about tech use, at all.
Adult smartphone use is not mentioned in well-child checks. We argue this is a missed public health opportunity.
Secure attachment is important for a baby’s development. They need hours of gazing at their families’ faces to optimally wire their brains. This is more likely when the parent is sensitive to a baby’s cues and emotionally available.
But ubiquitous smartphone use by caregivers has the potential to disrupt attachment by interrupting this sensitivity and availability.
Babies’ central nervous system and senses are immature. But they are born into a rapidly moving world, filled with voices and faces from digital sources. This places a burden on caregivers to act as a human filter between a newborn’s neurobiology and digital distractions.
Getty Images Disrupting relationships
Psychologists have described the phenomenon of frequent disruptions and distractions during parenting – and the disconnection of the in-person relationship – as “technoference”.
A caregiver’s eyes are no longer on the infant but on the device. Their attention is gone, in a state described as “absent presence”, and the phone becomes a “social pollution”.
It’s unpleasant for anyone on the other side of this imbalance. But for babies, whose connection to their significant adults is the only thing that can make them feel safe enough to learn and grow optimally, it causes disproportionate harm because of their vulnerable developmental stage.
During the rapid phase of brain growth in infancy, babies are wired to seek messages of safety from their caregiver’s face. Smartphone use blanks caregivers’ facial expressions in ways that cause physiological stress to babies.
When a caregiver uses their phone while feeding an infant, babies are more likely to be overfed. The number of audible notifications on a parent’s device relates to a child’s language development, with more alerts associated with fewer words at 18 months.
If that’s not reason enough to reign in phone use, evidence also shows that smartphone use can be a source of stress and guilt for parents. This suggests parents themselves would benefit from more purposeful and reduced smartphone habits.
Some public health researchers are urging healthcare workers to consider the parent-infant relationship in addition to the respective health of the baby and caregiver themselves.
This relational space between people is suffering as a result of the social pollution of smartphone-distracted care. Babies’ brains grow so fast, we mustn’t let this process be compromised by the distraction of the attention economy.
Our research shows new parents could use information and support around the use of digital devices. We also recommend that other family members modify their smartphone habits around a new baby. Whānau can create a family media plan and make sure they have someone to talk to about this issue.
Health policies should focus on early investment in parents and children, by prioritising education and action on smartphone use around babies. This would benefit the wellbeing of new parents and the lifelong development of infants.
Miriam McCaleb, Fellow in Public Health, University of Canterbury
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Nutrition To Combat Lymphedema & Lipedema
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Dr. Kelly Sturm is a rehab specialist (Doctor of Physical Therapy), and also a certified lymphedema therapist. Here’s what helps her patients with lymphedema and lipedema:
Don’t fan the flames
Lymphedema and lipedema are inflammatory lymphatic diseases affecting mostly women. As such, an anti-inflammatory diet will be important, but there are other factors too:
- Anti-inflammatory diet: this is to reduce the chronic inflammation associated with lymphatic diseases. This means eating plenty of fruit and vegetables, especially berries and leafy greens, and avoiding things like sugar, alcohol, caffeine, and processed foods. And of course, don’t smoke.
- Intermittent fasting: this also helps by giving the body a chance to correct itself; when the body isn’t digesting food, it has a lot more resources to devote to its favorite activity: maintenance. This results in lower inflammation, and better fat redistribution.
- Weight loss: not a bandwagon we often get on at 10almonds as it’s rarely the most important thing, but in this case it is of high importance (second only to dealing with the inflammation), as excess weight around the lymph nodes and vessels can lead to dysfunction and swelling. Thus, reducing the weight can ease that and allow the body to heal.
For more details on all of the above, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
- Eat To Beat Inflammation ← also some non-dietary advice in there too
- Ask Not What Your Lymphatic System Can Do For You…
- Lose Weight, But Healthily ← more useful than just trying to run a calorie deficit
Take care!
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The Pain Relief Secret – by Sarah Warren
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This one’s a book to not judge by the cover—or the title. The title is actually accurate, but it sounds like a lot of woo, doesn’t it?
Instead, what we find is a very clinical, research-led (40 pages of references!) explanation of:
- the causes of musculoskeletal pain
- how this will tend to drive us to make it worse
- what we can do instead to make it better
A lot of this, to give you an idea what to expect, hinges on the fact that bones only go where muscles allow/move them; muscles only behave as instructed by nerves, and with a good development of biofeedback and new habits to leverage neuroplasticity, we can take more charge of that than you might think.
Warning: you may want to jump straight into the part with the solutions, but if you do so without a very good grounding in anatomy and physiology, you may find yourself out of your depth with previously-explained terms and concepts that are now needed to understand (and apply) the solutions.
However, if you read it methodically cover-to-cover, you’ll find you need no prior knowledge to take full advantage of this book; the author is a very skilled educator.
Bottom line: while it’s not an overnight magic pill, the methodology described in this book is a very sound way to address the causes of musculoskeletal pain.
Click here to check out The Pain Relief Secret, and help your body undo damage done!
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Should I take vitamin C to ward off colds, lower blood pressure or reduce cancer risk?
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Vitamin C is one of the most iconic nutrients in popular health culture, often credited with preventing colds, boosting immunity and even fighting serious diseases.
But while it’s essential for our bodies to function, its benefits are often misunderstood or overstated. Before you stock up on supplements, here’s what to consider.
Sean Anthony Eddy/Getty Images What is vitamin C and why does my body need it?
Vitamin C, also known as ascorbic acid, plays several essential roles in the body.
It is a powerful antioxidant, protecting cells from damage. Vitamin C supports the immune functions of the body, aids in absorption of iron, and is involved in wound healing.
Vitamin C also helps in the synthesis of collagen, which holds together tissues and is a structural component of gums and skin. A severe deficiency of vitamin C leads to a health condition called scurvy, where the body produces insufficient collagen and can’t hold tissue together. Eventually, the gums cannot hold onto teeth and they fall out, and blood vessels break down, causing internal bleeding.
Humans cannot synthesise vitamin C. We must take it in through our diet. Most of our vitamin C comes from vegetables (about 40%), fruits (19%) and from vegetable or fruit juices (29%).
Chemically, the vitamin C in supplements is identical to the vitamin C in food. Your body cannot tell the difference.
Vitamin C in supplements and food are identical. Diana Polekhina/Unsplash What is missing in supplement forms of vitamin C is the fibre, flavonoids, other vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals that come with food, and that may work together with vitamin C.
These other compounds help with absorption, provide complementary antioxidants, and together with vitamin C, provide health benefits that the vitamin by itself does not.
Historically, sailors often had a very limited diet and were often struck down with scurvy. But if you have a balanced diet, you don’t need vitamin C supplements.
What does vitamin C treat and not treat?
Common cold
Vitamin C has been promoted as a way to boost the immune system. It’s widely considered as a way to prevent and treat the common cold and flu.
However, results from a review of all the evidence has shown regular supplementation of 200 mg or more vitamin C does not reduce the incidence of the common cold.
Regular vitamin C supplement does reduce the duration, and at doses greater than 1,000 mg or more, could reduce the severity of common cold symptoms.
When vitamin C is used for treating common colds and only taken at the start of cold symptoms, it does not affect the duration and severity. Some studies have a shown very limited benefit when taken daily before getting sick, but the benefit was very small. Overall, the authors concluded routine supplementation with vitamin C is not worthwhile.
Heart disease and stroke
Research has shown vitamin C supplementation does not change the risk of a range of cardiovascular diseases including heart attack (myocardial infraction), stroke or angina.
One study found vitamin C supplementation at more than 200 mg daily may lower systolic blood pressure (the top number in a reading) by around 4 mmHg and diastolic blood pressure (the lower number) by around 2 mmHg. These are very small changes.
These effects are comparable to regular aerobic exercise and may not be clinically meaningful compared to treatment with conventional medicine, which generally lowers systolic blood pressure by at least 12 mmHg.
Cancer
There are consistent results from multiple studies that show vitamin C supplementation is unable to prevent cancer, including for gastrointestinal, lung, breast, prostate and colorectal cancers.
Is it possible to take too much vitamin C?
The Recommended Daily Intake (RDI) of vitamin C for adults is 45 mg per day. You can get that from a single small glass of orange juice.
The tolerable upper intake level of vitamin C is 2,000 mg daily for adults.
Vitamin C is water-soluble and gets excreted in urine, so the body cannot store it. This means mega-dosing does not provide any benefit, and may in fact cause health problems.
At high doses (above 2,000 mg daily), vitamin C may cause mild to serious side effects. Too much is known to cause diarrhoea, nausea and abdominal cramps. It can also contribute to the formation of kidney stones in men, but not women.
For people who have chronic kidney disease, vitamin C can be especially problematic because vitamin C is flushed from the body by the kidneys. But when the kidneys don’t work properly, it can build up and cause kidney stones.
Should you take a vitamin C supplement?
For most people, a vitamin C tablet is unnecessary. You will get enough from a good balanced diet, from foods such as citrus fruits, berries, tomatoes, capsicum, broccoli and kale.
The evidence doesn’t support claims that vitamin C supplements prevent colds, heart disease or cancer. In fact, the risks may outweigh the benefits.
Nial Wheate, Professor, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University; Ian Jamie, Senior Lecturer, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University, and Wai-Jo Jocelin Chan, Pharmacist and Lecturer, UNSW Sydney; University of Sydney
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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