Be Your Future Self Now – by Dr. Benjamin Hardy

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Affirmations in the mirror are great and all, but they can only get you so far! And if you’re a regular reader of our newsletter, you probably know about the power of small daily habits adding up and compounding over time. So what does this book offer, that’s different?

“Be Your Future Self Now” beelines the route “from here to there”, with a sound psychological approach. On which note…

The book’s subtitle mentions “the science of intentional transformation”, and while Dr. Hardy is a psychologist, he’s an organizational psychologist (which doesn’t really pertain to this topic). It’s not a science-heavy book, but it is heavy on psychological rationality.

Where Dr. Hardy does bring psychology to bear, it’s in large part that! He teaches us how to overcome our biases that cause us to stumble blindly into the future… rather than intentfully creating our own future to step into. For example:

Most people (regardless of age!) acknowledge what a different person they were 10 years ago… but assume they’ll be basically the same person 10 years from now as they are today, just with changed circumstances.

Radical acceptance of the inevitability of change is the first step to taking control of that change.

That’s just one example, but there are many, and this is a book review not a book summary!

In short: if you’d like to take much more conscious control of the direction your life will take, this is a book for you.

Click here to get your copy of “Be Your Future Self Now” from Amazon!

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    Recent evidence suggests not all ultra-processed foods are equally harmful, challenging the push to restrict them in dietary guidelines.

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  • What is PMDD?

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    Premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) is a mood disorder that causes significant mental health changes and physical symptoms leading up to each menstrual period.

    Unlike premenstrual syndrome (PMS), which affects approximately three out of four menstruating people, only 3 percent to 8 percent of menstruating people have PMDD. However, some researchers believe the condition is underdiagnosed, as it was only recently recognized as a medical diagnosis by the World Health Organization.

    Read on to learn more about its symptoms, the difference between PMS and PMDD, treatment options, and more.

    What are the symptoms of PMDD?

    People with PMDD typically experience both mood changes and physical symptoms during each menstrual cycle’s luteal phase—the time between ovulation and menstruation. These symptoms typically last seven to 14 days and resolve when menstruation begins.

    Mood symptoms may include:

    • Irritability
    • Anxiety and panic attacks
    • Extreme or sudden mood shifts
    • Difficulty concentrating
    • Depression and suicidal ideation

    Physical symptoms may include:

    • Fatigue
    • Insomnia
    • Headaches
    • Changes in appetite
    • Body aches
    • Bloating
    • Abdominal cramps
    • Breast swelling or tenderness

    What is the difference between PMS and PMDD?

    Both PMS and PMDD cause emotional and physical symptoms before menstruation. Unlike PMS, PMDD causes extreme mood changes that disrupt daily life and may lead to conflict with friends, family, partners, and coworkers. Additionally, symptoms may last longer than PMS symptoms.

    In severe cases, PMDD may lead to depression or suicide. More than 70 percent of people with the condition have actively thought about suicide, and 34 percent have attempted it.

    What is the history of PMDD?

    PMDD wasn’t added to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders until 2013. In 2019, the World Health Organization officially recognized it as a medical diagnosis.

    References to PMDD in medical literature date back to the 1960s, but defining it as a mental health and medical condition initially faced pushback from women’s rights groups. These groups were concerned that recognizing the condition could perpetuate stereotypes about women’s mental health and capabilities before and during menstruation.

    Today, many women-led organizations are supportive of PMDD being an official diagnosis, as this has helped those living with the condition access care.

    What causes PMDD?

    Researchers don’t know exactly what causes PMDD. Many speculate that people with the condition have an abnormal response to fluctuations in hormones and serotonin—a brain chemical impacting mood— that occur throughout the menstrual cycle. Symptoms fully resolve after menopause.

    People who have a family history of premenstrual symptoms and mood disorders or have a personal history of traumatic life events may be at higher risk of PMDD.

    How is PMDD diagnosed?

    Health care providers of many types, including mental health providers, can diagnose PMDD. Providers typically ask patients about their premenstrual symptoms and the amount of stress those symptoms are causing. Some providers may ask patients to track their periods and symptoms for one month or longer to determine whether those symptoms are linked to their menstrual cycle.

    Some patients may struggle to receive a PMDD diagnosis, as some providers may lack knowledge about the condition. If your provider is unfamiliar with the condition and unwilling to explore treatment options, find a provider who can offer adequate support. The International Association for Premenstrual Disorders offers a directory of providers who treat the condition.

    How is PMDD treated?

    There is no cure for PMDD, but health care providers can prescribe medication to help manage symptoms. Some medication options include:

    • Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), a class of antidepressants that regulate serotonin in the brain and may improve mood when taken daily or during the luteal phase of each menstrual cycle.
    • Hormonal birth control to prevent ovulation-related hormonal changes. 
    • Over-the-counter pain medication like Tylenol, which can ease headaches, breast tenderness, abdominal cramping, and other physical symptoms.

    Providers may also encourage patients to make lifestyle changes to improve symptoms. Those lifestyle changes may include:

    • Limiting caffeine intake
    • Eating meals regularly to balance blood sugar
    • Exercising regularly
    • Practicing stress management using breathing exercises and meditation
    • Having regular therapy sessions and attending peer support groups

    For more information, talk to your health care provider.

    If you or anyone you know is considering suicide or self-harm or is anxious, depressed, upset, or needs to talk, call the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or text the Crisis Text Line at 741-741. For international resources, here is a good place to begin.

    This article first appeared on Public Good News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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  • Radical Remission – by Dr. Kelly Turner

    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.

    First, what this is not:an autobiographical account of the “I beat cancer and you can too” pep-talk style.

    What it is: a very readable pop-science book based on the author’s own PhD research into radical remission.

    She knew that a very small percentage of people experience spontaneous radical remission (or quasi-spontaneous, if the remission is attributed to lifestyle changes, and/or some alternative therapy), but a small percentage of people means a large number worldwide, so she travelled the world studying over 1,000 cases of people with late-stage cancer who had either not gone for conventional anticancer drugs, or had and then stopped, and lived to tell the tale.

    While she doesn’t advocate for any particular alternative therapy, she does report on what things came to her attention. She does advocate for some lifestyle changes.

    Perhaps the biggest value this book offers is in its promised “9 key factors that can make a real difference”, which are essentially her conclusions from her PhD dissertation.

    There isn’t room to talk about them here in a way that wouldn’t be misleading/unhelpful for a paucity of space, so perhaps we’ll do a main feature one of these days.

    Bottom line: if you have (or a loved one has) cancer, this is an incredibly sensible book to read. If you don’t, then it’s an interesting and thought-provoking book to read.

    Click here to check out Radical Remission, and learn about the factors at hand!

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  • Triple Life Threat – by Donald R. Lyman

    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.

    This book takes a similar approach to “How Not To Die” (which we featured previously), but focussed specifically on three things, per the title: chronic pulmonary obstructive disease (CPOD), diabetes (type 2), and Alzheimer’s disease.

    Lyman strikes a great balance of being both information-dense and accessible; there’s a lot of reference material in here, and the reader is not assumed to have a lot of medical knowledge—but we’re not patronized either, and this is an informative manual, not a sensationalized scaremongering piece.

    All in all… if you have known risk factors for one or more of three diseases this book covers, the information within could well be a lifesaver.

    Get Your Copy Of “Triple Life Threat” On Amazon Today!

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  • Homeopathy: Evidence So Tiny That It’s Not there?

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    Homeopathy: Evidence So Tiny That It’s Not There?

    Yesterday, we asked you your opinions on homeopathy. The sample size of responses was a little lower than we usually get, but of those who did reply, there was a clear trend:

    • A lot of enthusiasm for “Homeopathy works on valid principles and is effective”
    • Near equal support for “It may help some people as a complementary therapy”
    • Very few people voted for “Science doesn’t know how it works, but it works”; this is probably because people who considered voting for this, voted for the more flexible “It may help some people as a complementary therapy” instead.
    • Very few people considered it a dangerous scam and a pseudoscience.

    So, what does the science say?

    Well, let us start our investigation by checking out the position of the UK’s National Health Service, an organization with a strong focus on providing the least expensive treatments that are effective.

    Since homeopathy is very inexpensive to arrange, they will surely want to put it atop their list of treatments, right?

    ❝Homeopathy is a “treatment” based on the use of highly diluted substances, which practitioners claim can cause the body to heal itself.

    There’s been extensive investigation of the effectiveness of homeopathy. There’s no good-quality evidence that homeopathy is effective as a treatment for any health condition.❞

    The NHS actually has a lot more to say about that, and you can read their full statement here.

    But that’s just one institution. Here’s what Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council had to say:

    ❝There was no reliable evidence from research in humans that homeopathy was effective for treating the range of health conditions considered: no good-quality, well-designed studies with enough participants for a meaningful result reported either that homeopathy caused greater health improvements than placebo, or caused health improvements equal to those of another treatment❞

    You can read their full statement here.

    The American FDA, meanwhile, have a stronger statement:

    ❝Homeopathic drug products are made from a wide range of substances, including ingredients derived from plants, healthy or diseased animal or human sources, minerals and chemicals, including known poisons. These products have the potential to cause significant and even permanent harm if they are poorly manufactured, since that could lead to contaminated products or products that have potentially toxic ingredients at higher levels than are labeled and/or safe, or if they are marketed as substitute treatments for serious or life-threatening diseases and conditions, or to vulnerable populations.❞

    You can read their full statement here.

    Homeopathy is a dangerous scam and a pseudoscience: True or False?

    False and True, respectively, mostly.

    That may be a confusing answer, so let’s elaborate:

    • Is it dangerous? Mostly not; it’s mostly just water. However, two possibilities for harm exist:
      • Careless preparation could result in a harmful ingredient still being present in the water—and because of the “like cures like” principle, many of the ingredients used in homeopathy are harmful, ranging from heavy metals to plant-based neurotoxins. However, the process of “ultra-dilution” usually removes these so thoroughly that they are absent or otherwise scientifically undetectable.
      • Placebo treatment has its place, but could result in “real” treatment going undelivered. This can cause harm if the “real” treatment was critically needed, especially if it was needed on a short timescale.
    • Is it a scam? Probably mostly not; to be a scam requires malintent. Most practitioners probably believe in what they are practising.
    • Is it a pseudoscience? With the exception that placebo effect has been highly studied and is a very valid complementary therapy… Yes, aside from that it is a pseudoscience. There is no scientific evidence to support homeopathy’s “like cures like” principle, and there is no scientific evidence to support homeopathy’s “water memory” idea. On the contrary, they go against the commonly understood physics of our world.

    It may help some people as a complementary therapy: True or False?

    True! Not only is placebo effect very well-studied, but best of all, it can still work as a placebo even if you know that you’re taking a placebo… Provided you also believe that!

    Science doesn’t know how it works, but it works: True or False?

    False, simply. At best, it performs as a placebo.

    Placebo is most effective when it’s a remedy against subjective symptoms, like pain.

    However, psychosomatic effect (the effect that our brain has on the rest of our body, to which it is very well-connected) can mean that placebo can also help against objective symptoms, like inflammation.

    After all, our body, directed primarily by the brain, can “decide” what immunological defenses to deploy or hold back, for example. This is why placebo can help with conditions as diverse as arthritis (an inflammatory condition) or diabetes (an autoimmune condition, and/or a metabolic condition, depending on type).

    Here’s how homeopathy measures up, for those conditions:

    (the short answer is “no better than placebo”)

    Homeopathy works on valid principles and is effective: True or False?

    False, except insofar as placebo is a valid principle and can be effective.

    The stated principles of homeopathy—”like cures like” and “water memory”—have no scientific basis.

    We’d love to show the science for this, but we cannot prove a negative.

    However, the ideas were conceived in 1796, and are tantamount to alchemy. A good scientific attitude means being open-minded to new ideas and testing them. In homeopathy’s case, this has been done, extensively, and more than 200 years of testing later, homeopathy has consistently performed equal to placebo.

    In summary…

    • If you’re enjoying homeopathic treatment and that’s working for you, great, keep at it.
    • If you’re open-minded to enjoying a placebo treatment that may benefit you, be careful, but don’t let us stop you.
    • If your condition is serious, please do not delay seeking evidence-based medical treatment.

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  • What Happened to You? – by Dr. Bruce Perry and Oprah Winfrey

    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.

    The very title “What Happened To You?” starts with an assumption that the reader has suffered trauma. This is not just a sample bias of “a person who picks up a book about healing from trauma has probably suffered trauma”, but is also a statistically safe assumption. Around 60% of adults report having suffered some kind of serious trauma.

    The authors examine, as the subtitle suggests, these matters in three parts:

    1. Trauma
    2. Resilience
    3. Healing

    Trauma can take many forms; sometimes it is a very obvious dramatic traumatic event; sometimes less so. Sometimes it can be a mountain of small things that eroded our strength leaving us broken. But what then, of resilience?

    Resilience (in psychology, anyway) is not imperviousness; it is the ability to suffer and recover from things.

    Healing is the tail-end part of that. When we have undergone trauma, displayed whatever amount of resilience we could at the time, and now have outgrown our coping strategies and looking to genuinely heal.

    The authors present many personal stories and case studies to illustrate different kinds of trauma and resilience, and then go on to outline what we can do to grow from there.

    Bottom line: if you or a loved one has suffered trauma, this book may help a lot in understanding and processing that, and finding a way forwards from it.

    Click here to check out “What Happened To You?” and give yourself what you deserve.

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  • Is Chiropractic All It’s Cracked Up To Be?

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    Is Chiropractic All It’s Cracked Up To Be?

    Yesterday, we asked you for your opinions on chiropractic medicine, and got the above-depicted, below-described set of results:

    • 38% of respondents said it keeps us healthy, and everyone should do it as maintenance
    • 33% of respondents said it can correct some short-term skeletal issues, but that’s all
    • 16% of respondents said that it’s a dangerous pseudoscience and can cause serious harm
    • 13% of respondents said that it’s mostly just a combination of placebo and endorphins

    Respondents also shared personal horror stories of harm done, personal success stories of things cured, and personal “it didn’t seem to do anything for me” stories.

    What does the science say?

    It’s a dangerous pseudoscience and can cause harm: True or False?

    False and True, respectively.

    That is to say, chiropractic in its simplest form that makes the fewest claims, is not a pseudoscience. If somebody physically moves your bones around, your bones will be physically moved. If your bones were indeed misaligned, and the chiropractor is knowledgeable and competent, this will be for the better.

    However, like any form of medicine, it can also cause harm; in chiropractic’s case, because it more often than not involves manipulation of the spine, this can be very serious:

    ❝Twenty six fatalities were published in the medical literature and many more might have remained unpublished.

    The reported pathology usually was a vascular accident involving the dissection of a vertebral artery.

    Conclusion: Numerous deaths have occurred after chiropractic manipulations. The risks of this treatment by far outweigh its benefit.❞

    Source: Deaths after chiropractic: a review of published cases

    From this, we might note two things:

    1. The abstract doesn’t note the initial sample size; we would rather have seen this information expressed as a percentage. Unfortunately, the full paper is not accessible, and nor are many of the papers it cites.
    2. Having a vertebral artery fatally dissected is nevertheless not an inviting prospect, and is certainly a very reasonable cause for concern.

    It’s mostly just a combination of placebo and endorphins: True or False?

    True or False, depending on what you went in for:

    • If you went in for a regular maintenance clunk-and-click, then yes, you will get your clunk-and-click and feel better for it because you had a ritualized* experience and endorphins were released.
    • If you went in for something that was actually wrong with your skeletal alignment, to get it corrected, and this correction was within your chiropractor’s competence, then yes, you will feel better because a genuine fault was corrected.

    *this is not implying any mysticism, by the way. Rather it means simply that placebo effect is strongest when there is a ritual associated with it. In this case it means going to the place, sitting in a pleasant waiting room, being called in, removing your shoes and perhaps some other clothes, getting the full attention of a confident and assured person for a while, this sort of thing.

    With regard to its use to combat specifically spinal pain (i.e., perhaps the most obvious thing to treat by chiropractic spinal manipulation), evidence is slightly in favor, but remains unclear:

    ❝Due to the low quality of evidence, the efficacy of chiropractic spinal manipulation compared with a placebo or no treatment remains uncertain. ❞

    Source: Clinical Effectiveness and Efficacy of Chiropractic Spinal Manipulation for Spine Pain

    It can correct some short-term skeletal issues, but that’s all: True or False?

    Probably True.

    Why “probably”? The effectiveness of chiropractic treatment for things other than short-term skeletal issues has barely been studied. From this, we may wish to keep an open mind, while also noting that it can hardly claim to be evidence-based—and it’s had hundreds of years to accumulate evidence. In all likelihood, publication bias has meant that studies that were conducted and found inconclusive or negative results were simply not published—but that’s just a hypothesis on our part.

    In the case of using chiropractic to treat migraines, a very-related-but-not-skeletal issue, researchers found:

    ❝Pre-specified feasibility criteria were not met, but deficits were remediable. Preliminary data support a definitive trial of MCC+ for migraine.❞

    Translating this: “it didn’t score as well as we hoped, but we can do better. We got some positive results, and would like to do another, bigger, better trial; please fund it”

    Source: Multimodal chiropractic care for migraine: A pilot randomized controlled trial

    Meanwhile, chiropractors’ claims for very unrelated things have been harshly criticized by the scientific community, for example:

    Misinformation, chiropractic, and the COVID-19 pandemic

    About that “short-term” aspect, one of our subscribers put it quite succinctly:

    ❝Often a skeletal correction is required for initial alignment but the surrounding fascia and muscles also need to be treated to mobilize the joint and release deep tissue damage surrounding the area. In combination with other therapies chiropractic support is beneficial.❞

    This is, by the way, very consistent with what was said in the very clinically-dense book we reviewed yesterday, which has a chapter on the short-term benefits and limitations of chiropractic.

    A truism that holds for many musculoskeletal healthcare matters, holds true here too:

    ❝In a battle between muscle and bone, muscle will always win❞

    In other words…

    Chiropractic can definitely help put misaligned bones back where they should be. However, once they’re there, if the cause of their misalignment is not treated, they will just re-misalign themselves shortly after you walking out of your session.

    This is great for chiropractors, if it keeps you coming back for endless appointments, but it does little for your body beyond give you a brief respite.

    So, by all means go to a chiropractor if you feel so inclined (and you do not fear accidental arterial dissection etc), but please also consider going to a physiotherapist, and potentially other medical professions depending on what seems to be wrong, to see about addressing the underlying cause.

    Take care!

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