How To Beat Loneliness & Isolation
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Overcoming Loneliness & Isolation
One of the biggest mental health threats that faces many of us as we get older is growing isolation, and the loneliness that can come with it. Family and friends thin out over the years, and getting out and about isn’t always as easy as it used to be for everyone.
Nor is youth a guaranteed protection against this—in today’s world of urban sprawl and nothing-is-walkable cities, in which access to social spaces such as cafés and the like means paying the rising costs with money that young people often don’t have… And that’s without getting started on how much the pandemic impacted an entire generation’s social environments (or lack thereof).
Why is this a problem?
Humans are, by evolution, social creatures. As individuals we may have something of a spectrum from introvert to extrovert, but as a species, we thrive in community. And we suffer, when we don’t have that.
What can we do about it?
We can start by recognizing our needs, such as they are, and identifying to what extent they are being met (or not).
- Some of us may be very comfortable with a lot of alone time—but need someone to talk to sometimes.
- Some of us may need near-constant company to feel at our best—and that’s fine too! We just need to plan accordingly.
In the former case, it’s important to remember that needing someone to talk to is not being a burden to them. Not only will our company probably enrich them too, but also, we are evolved to care for one another, and that itself can bring fulfilment to them as much as to you. But what if you don’t a friend to talk to?
- You might be surprised at who would be glad of you reaching out. Have a think through whom you know, and give it a go. This can be scary, because what if they reject us, or worse, they don’t reject us but silently resent us instead? Again, they probably won’t. Human connection requires taking risks and being vulnerable sometimes.
- If that’s not an option, there are services that can fill your need. For some, therapy might serve a dual purpose in this regard. For others, you might want to check out the list of (mostly free) resources at the bottom of this article
In the second case (that we need near-constant company to feel at our best) we probably need to look more at our overall lifestyle, and find ways to be part of a community. That can include:
- Living in a close-knit community (places with a lot of retirees in one place often have this; or younger folk might look at communal living/working spaces, for example)
- Getting involved in local groups (you can check out NextDoor.com or MeetUp.com for this)
- Volunteering for a charity (not only are acts of service generally fulfilling in and of themselves, but also, you will probably be working with other people of a charitable nature, and such people tend to make for good company!)
Need a little help?
There are many, many organizations that will love to help you (or anyone else) overcome loneliness and isolation.
Rather than list them all here and make this email very long by describing how each of them works, here’s a great compilation of resources:
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12 Questions For Better Brain Health
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We usually preface our “Expert Insights” pieces with a nice banner that has a stylish tall cutout that allows us to put a photo of the expert in. Today we’re not doing that, because for today’s camera-shy expert, we could only find one photo, and it’s a small, grainy, square headshot that looks like it was taken some decades ago, and would not fit our template at all. You can see it here, though!
In any case, Dr. Linda Selwa is a neurologist and neurophysiologist with nearly 40 years of professional experience.
The right questions to ask
As a neurologist, she found that one of the problems that results in delayed interventions (and thus, lower efficacy of those interventions) is that people don’t know there’s anything to worry about until a degenerative brain condition has degenerated past a certain point. With that in mind, she bids us ask ourselves the following questions, and discuss them with our primary healthcare providers as appropriate:
- Sleep: Are you able to get sufficient sleep to feel rested?
- Affect, mood and mental health: Do you have concerns about your mood, anxiety, or stress?
- Food, diet and supplements: Do you have concerns about getting enough or healthy enough food, or have any questions about supplements or vitamins?
- Exercise: Do you find ways to fit physical exercise into your life?
- Supportive social interactions: Do you have regular contact with close friends or family, and do you have enough support from people?
- Trauma avoidance: Do you wear seatbelts and helmets, and use car seats for children?
- Blood pressure: Have you had problems with high blood pressure at home or at doctor visits, or do you have any concerns about blood pressure treatment or getting a blood pressure cuff at home?
- Risks, genetic and metabolic factors: Do you have trouble controlling blood sugar or cholesterol? Is there a neurological disease that runs in your family?
- Affordability and adherence: Do you have any trouble with the cost of your medicines?
- Infection: Are you up to date on vaccines, and do you have enough information about those vaccines?
- Negative exposures: Do you smoke, drink more than one to two drinks per day, or use non-prescription drugs? Do you drink well water, or live in an area with known air or water pollution?
- Social and structural determinants of health: Do you have concerns about keeping housing, having transportation, having access to care and medical insurance, or being physically or emotionally safe from harm?
You will note that some of these are well-known (to 10almonds readers, at least!) risk factors for cognitive decline, but others are more about systemic and/or environmental considerations, things that don’t directly pertain to brain health, but can have a big impact on it anyway.
About “concerns”: in the case of those questions that ask “do you have concerns about…?”, and you’re not sure, then yes, you do indeed have concerns.
About “trouble”: as for these kinds of health-related questionnaires in general, if a question asks you “do you have trouble with…?” and your answer is something like “no, because I have a special way of dealing with that problem” then the answer for the purposes of the questionnaire is yes, you do indeed have trouble.
Note that you can “have trouble with” something that you simultaneously “have under control”—just as a person can have no trouble at all with something that they leave very much out of control.
Further explanation on each of the questions
If you’re wondering what is meant by any of these, or what counts, or why the question is even being asked, then we recommend you check out Dr. Selwa et al’s recently-published paper, then all is explained in there, in surprisingly easy-to-read fashion:
Emerging Issues In Neurology: The Neurologist’s Role in Promoting Brain Health
If you scroll past the abstract, introduction, and disclaimers, then you’ll be straight into the tables of information about the above 12 factors.
Want to be even more proactive?
Check out:
How To Reduce Your Alzheimer’s Risk
Take care!
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Ricezempic: is there any evidence this TikTok trend will help you lose weight?
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If you spend any time looking at diet and lifestyle content on social media, you may well have encountered a variety of weight loss “hacks”.
One of the more recent trends is a home-made drink called ricezempic, made by soaking uncooked rice and then straining it to drink the leftover starchy water. Sounds delicious, right?
Its proponents claim it leads to weight loss by making you feel fuller for longer and suppressing your appetite, working in a similar way to the sought-after drug Ozempic – hence the name.
So does this drink actually mimic the weight loss effects of Ozempic? Spoiler alert – probably not. But let’s look at what the evidence tells us.
New Africa/Shutterstock How do you make ricezempic?
While the recipe can vary slightly depending on who you ask, the most common steps to make ricezempic are:
- soak half a cup of white rice (unrinsed) in one cup of warm or hot water up to overnight
- drain the rice mixture into a fresh glass using a strainer
- discard the rice (but keep the starchy water)
- add the juice of half a lime or lemon to the starchy water and drink.
TikTokers advise that best results will happen if you drink this concoction once a day, first thing in the morning, before eating.
The idea is that the longer you consume ricezempic for, the more weight you’ll lose. Some claim introducing the drink into your diet can lead to a weight loss of up to 27 kilograms in two months.
Resistant starch
Those touting ricezempic argue it leads to weight loss because of the resistant starch rice contains. Resistant starch is a type of dietary fibre (also classified as a prebiotic). There’s no strong evidence it makes you feel fuller for longer, but it does have proven health benefits.
Studies have shown consuming resistant starch may help regulate blood sugar, aid weight loss and improve gut health.
Research has also shown eating resistant starch reduces the risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and other chronic diseases.
Ricezempic is made by soaking rice in water. Kristi Blokhin/Shutterstock Resistant starch is found in many foods. These include beans, lentils, wholegrains (oats, barley, and rice – particularly brown rice), bananas (especially when they’re under-ripe or green), potatoes, and nuts and seeds (particularly chia seeds, flaxseeds and almonds).
Half a cup of uncooked white rice (as per the ricezempic recipe) contains around 0.6 grams of resistant starch. For optimal health benefits, a daily intake of 15–20 grams of resistant starch is recommended. Although there is no concrete evidence on the amount of resistant starch that leaches from rice into water, it’s likely to be significantly less than 0.6 grams as the whole rice grain is not being consumed.
Ricezempic vs Ozempic
Ozempic was originally developed to help people with diabetes manage their blood sugar levels but is now commonly used for weight loss.
Ozempic, along with similar medications such as Wegovy and Trulicity, is a glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonist. These drugs mimic the GLP-1 hormone the body naturally produces. By doing so, they slow down the digestive process, which helps people feel fuller for longer, and curbs their appetite.
While the resistant starch in rice could induce some similar benefits to Ozempic (such as feeling full and therefore reducing energy intake), no scientific studies have trialled ricezempic using the recipes promoted on social media.
Ozempic has a long half-life, remaining active in the body for about seven days. In contrast, consuming one cup of rice provides a feeling of fullness for only a few hours. And simply soaking rice in water and drinking the starchy water will not provide the same level of satiety as eating the rice itself.
Other ways to get resistant starch in your diet
There are several ways to consume more resistant starch while also gaining additional nutrients and vitamins compared to what you get from ricezempic.
1. Cooked and cooled rice
Letting cooked rice cool over time increases its resistant starch content. Reheating the rice does not significantly reduce the amount of resistant starch that forms during cooling. Brown rice is preferable to white rice due to its higher fibre content and additional micronutrients such as phosphorus and magnesium.
2. More legumes
These are high in resistant starch and have been shown to promote weight management when eaten regularly. Why not try a recipe that has pinto beans, chickpeas, black beans or peas for dinner tonight?
3. Cooked and cooled potatoes
Cooking potatoes and allowing them to cool for at least a few hours increases their resistant starch content. Fully cooled potatoes are a rich source of resistant starch and also provide essential nutrients like potassium and vitamin C. Making a potato salad as a side dish is a great way to get these benefits.
In a nutshell
Although many people on social media have reported benefits, there’s no scientific evidence drinking rice water or “ricezempic” is effective for weight loss. You probably won’t see any significant changes in your weight by drinking ricezempic and making no other adjustments to your diet or lifestyle.
While the drink may provide a small amount of resistant starch residue from the rice, and some hydration from the water, consuming foods that contain resistant starch in their full form would offer significantly more nutritional benefits.
More broadly, be wary of the weight loss hacks you see on social media. Achieving lasting weight loss boils down to gradually adopting healthy eating habits and regular exercise, ensuring these changes become lifelong habits.
Emily Burch, Accredited Practising Dietitian and Lecturer, Southern Cross University and Lauren Ball, Professor of Community Health and Wellbeing, The University of Queensland
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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The Philosophy Gym – by Dr. Stephen Law
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If you’d like to give those “little gray cells” an extra workout, this book is a great starting place.
Dr. Stephen Law is Director of Philosophy at the Department of Continuing Education, University of Oxford. As such, he’s no stranger to providing education that’s both attainable and yet challenging. Here, he lays out important philosophical questions, and challenges the reader to get to grips with them in a systematic fashion.
Each of the 25 questions/problems has a chapter devoted to it, and is ranked:
- Warm-up
- Moderate
- More Challenging
But, he doesn’t leave us to our own devices, nor does he do like a caricature of a philosopher and ask us endless rhetorical questions. Instead, he looks at various approaches taken by other philosophers over time, and invites the reader to try out those methods.
The real gain of this book is not the mere enjoyment of reading, but rather in taking those thinking skills and applying them in life… because most if not all of them do have real-world applications and/or implications too.
The book’s strongest point? That it doesn’t assume prior knowledge (and yet also doesn’t patronize the reader). Philosophy can be difficult to dip one’s toes into without a guide, because philosophers writing about philosophy can at first be like finding yourself at a party where you know nobody, but they all know each other.
In contrast, Law excels at giving quick, to-the-point ground-up summaries of key ideas and their progenitors.
In short: a wonderful way to get your brain doing things it might not have tried before!
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How to Read a Book – by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren
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Are you a cover-to-cover person, or a dip-in-and-out person?
Mortimer Adler and Charles van Doren have made a science out of getting the most from reading books.
They help you find what you’re looking for (Maybe you want to find a better understanding of PCOS… maybe you want to find the definition of “heuristics”… maybe you want to find a new business strategy… maybe you want to find a romantic escape… maybe you want to find a deeper appreciation of 19th century poetry, maybe you want to find… etc).
They then help you retain what you read, and make sure that you don’t miss a trick.
Whether you read books so often that optimizing this is of huge value for you, or so rarely that when you do, you want to make it count, this book could make a real difference to your reading experience forever after.
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Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain – by Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett
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We’ve reviewed books about neurology before, and we always try to review books that bring something new/different. So, what makes this one stand out?
Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett, one of the world’s foremost neuroscientists, starts with an overview of how our unusual brain (definitely our species’ defining characteristic) came to be, and then devotes the rest of the book to mostly practical information.
She explains, in clear terms and without undue jargon, how the brain goes about such things as making constant predictions and useful assumptions about our environment, and reports these things to us as facts—which process is usually useful, and sometimes counterproductive.
We learn about how the apparently mystical trait of empathy works, in real flesh-and-blood terms, and why some kinds of empathy are more metabolically costly than others, and what that means for us all.
Unlike many such books, this one also looks at what is going on in the case of “different minds” that operate very dissimilarly to our own, and how this neurodiversity is important for our species.
Critically, she also looks at what else makes our brains stand out, the symphony of “5 Cs” that aren’t often found to the same extent all in the same species: creativity, communication, copying, cooperation, and compression. This latter being less obvious, but perhaps the most important; Dr. Feldman Barrett explains how we use this ability to layer summaries of our memories, perceptions, and assumptions, to allow us to think in abstractions—something that powers much of what we do that separates us from other animals.
Bottom line: if you’d like to learn more about that big wet organ between your ears, what it does for you, and how it goes about doing it, then this book gives a very practical foundation from which to build.
Click here to check out Seven and a Half Lessons about the Brain, and learn more about yours!
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Heart Health Calculator Entry Issue
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It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!
Have a question or a request? You can always hit “reply” to any of our emails, or use the feedback widget at the bottom!
In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!
As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!
So, no question/request too big or small
❝I tried to use your calculator for heart health, and was unable to enter in my height or weight. Is there another way to calculate? Why will that field not populate?❞
(this is in reference to yesterday’s main feature “How Are You, Really? And How Old Is Your Heart?“)
How strange! We tested it in several desktop browsers and several mobile browsers, and were unable to find any version that didn’t work. That includes switching between metric and imperial units, per preference; both appear to work fine. Do be aware that it’ll only take numerical imput, though.
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