Behaving During the Holidays

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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

❝It’s hard to “behave” when it comes to holiday indulging…I’m on a low sodium, sugar restricted regimen from my doctor. Trying to get interested in bell peppers as a snack…wish me luck!❞

Good luck! Other low sodium, low sugar snacks include:

  • Nuts! Unsalted, of course. We’re biased towards almonds 😉
  • Air-popped popcorn (you can season it, just not with salt/sugar!)
  • Fruit (but not fruit juice; it has to be in solid form)
  • Peas (not a classic snack food, we know, but they can be enjoyed many ways)
    • Seriously, try them frozen or raw! Frozen/raw peas are a great sweet snack.
    • Chickpeas are great dried/roasted, by the way, and give much of the same pleasure as a salty snack without being salty! Obviously, this means cooking them without salt, but that’s fine, or if using tinned, choose “in water” rather than “in brine”
  • Hummus is also a great healthy snack (check the ingredients for salt if not making it yourself, though) and can be enjoyed as a dip using raw vegetables (celery, carrot sticks, cruciferous vegetables, whatever you prefer)

Enjoy!

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  • Neuroaffirming care values the strengths and differences of autistic people, those with ADHD or other profiles. Here’s how

    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.

    We’ve come a long way in terms of understanding that everyone thinks, interacts and experiences the world differently. In the past, autistic people, people with attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) and other profiles were categorised by what they struggled with or couldn’t do.

    The concept of neurodiversity, developed by autistic activists in the 1990s, is an emerging area. It promotes the idea that different brains (“neurotypes”) are part of the natural variation of being human – just like “biodiversity” – and they are vital for our survival.

    This idea is now being applied to research and to care. At the heart of the National Autism Strategy, currently in development, is neurodiversity-affirming (neuroaffirming) care and practice. But what does this look like?

    Unsplash

    Reframing differences

    Neurodiversity challenges the traditional medical model of disability, which views neurological differences solely through a lens of deficits and disorders to be treated or cured.

    Instead, it reframes it as a different, and equally valuable, way of experiencing and navigating the world. It emphasises the need for brains that are different from what society considers “neurotypical”, based on averages and expectations. The term “neurodivergent” is applied to Autistic people, those with ADHD, dyslexia and other profiles.

    Neuroaffirming care can take many forms depending on each person’s needs and context. It involves accepting and valuing different ways of thinking, learning and experiencing the world. Rather than trying to “fix” or change neurodivergent people to fit into a narrow idea of what’s considered “normal” or “better”, neuroaffirming care takes a person-centered, strengths-based approach. It aims to empower and support unique needs and strengths.

    girl sits on couch with colourful fidget toy
    Neuroaffirming care can look different in a school or clinical setting. Shutterstock/Inna Reznik

    Adaptation and strengths

    Drawing on the social model of disability, neuroaffirming care acknowledges there is often disability associated with being different, especially in a world not designed for neurodivergent people. This shift focuses away from the person having to adapt towards improving the person-environment fit.

    This can include providing accommodations and adapting environments to make them more accessible. More importantly, it promotes “thriving” through greater participation in society and meaningful activities.

    At school, at work, in clinic

    In educational settings, this might involve using universal design for learning that benefits all learners.

    For example, using systematic synthetic phonics to teach reading and spelling for students with dyslexia can benefit all students. It also could mean incorporating augmentative and alternative communication, such as speech-generating devices, into the classroom.

    Teachers might allow extra time for tasks, or allow stimming (repetitive movements or noises) for self-regulation and breaks when needed.

    In therapy settings, neuroaffirming care may mean a therapist grows their understanding of autistic culture and learns about how positive social identity can impact self-esteem and wellbeing.

    They may make efforts to bridge the gap in communication between different neurotypes, known as the double empathy problem. For example, the therapist may avoid relying on body language or facial expressions (often different in autistic people) to interpret how a client is feeling, instead of listening carefully to what the client says.

    Affirming therapy approaches with children involve “tuning into” their preferred way of communicating, playing and engaging. This can bring meaningful connection rather than compliance to “neurotypical” ways of playing and relating.

    In workplaces, it can involve flexible working arrangements (hours, patterns and locations), allowing different modes of communication (such as written rather than phone calls) and low-sensory workspaces (for example, low-lighting, low-noise office spaces).

    In public spaces, it can look like providing a “sensory space”, such as at large concerts, where neurodivergent people can take a break and self-regulate if needed. And staff can be trained to recognise, better understand and assist with hidden disabilities.

    Combining lived experience and good practice

    Care is neuroaffirmative when it centres “lived experience” in its design and delivery, and positions people with disability as experts.

    As a result of being “different”, people in the neurodivergent community experience high rates of bullying and abuse. So neuroaffirming care should be combined with a trauma-informed approach, which acknowledges the need to understand a person’s life experiences to provide effective care.

    Culturally responsive care acknowledges limited access to support for culturally and racially marginalised Autistic people and higher rates of LGBTQIA+ identification in the neurodivergent community.

    open meeting room with people putting ideas on colourful notes on wall
    In the workplace, we can acknowledge how difference can fuel ideas. Unsplash/Jason Goodman

    Authentic selves

    The draft National Autism Strategy promotes awareness that our population is neurodiverse. It hopes to foster a more inclusive and understanding society.

    It emphasises the societal and public health responsibilities for supporting neurodivergent people via public education, training, policy and legislation. By providing spaces and places where neurodivergent people can be their authentic, unmasked selves, we are laying the foundations for feeling seen, valued, safe and, ultimately, happy and thriving.

    The author would like to acknowledge the assistance of psychologist Victoria Gottliebsen in drafting this article. Victoria is a member of the Oversight Council for the National Autism Strategy.

    Josephine Barbaro, Associate Professor, Principal Research Fellow, Psychologist, La Trobe University

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

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  • The Twenty-Four Hour Mind – by Dr. Rosalind Cartwright

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    We’ve reviewed books about sleep before, and even about dreaming, so what does this one have to offer that’s new?

    Quite a lot, actually! Before Dr. Cartwright, there were mainly two models of sleep and dreaming:

    • The “top-down” model of psychoanalysts: our minds shape our dreams which in turn reveal things about us as people
    • The “bottom-up” model of neuroscientists: our brains need to go through regular maintaince cycles, of which vivid hallucinations are a quirky side-effect.

    And now, as Dr. Cartwright puts it:

    ❝I will lay out a new [horizontal] psychological model of the twenty-four hour mind; that is, how the predominantly conscious (waking) and unconscious (sleeping) forms of mental behavior interact through the brain’s regular, but differently organized, states of waking, sleeping, and dreaming.❞

    This she does in the exploratory style of a 224-page lecture, which sounds like it might be tedious, but is actually attention-grabbing and engaging throughout. This book is more of a page-turner than soporific bedtime reading!

    Bottom line: if you’d like to know more about the effect your waking and sleeping brain have on each other (to include getting in between those and making adjutments as appropriate), this is very much an elucidating read!

    Click here to check out The Twenty-Four Hour Mind, and learn more about yours!

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  • Antibiotics? Think Thrice

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    Antibiotics: Useful Even Less Often Than Previously Believed (And Still Just As Dangerous)

    You probably already know that antibiotics shouldn’t be taken unless absolutely necessary. Not only does taking antibiotics frivolously increase antibiotic resistance (which is bad, and kills people), but also…

    It’s entirely possible for the antibiotics to not only not help, but instead wipe out your gut’s “good bacteria” that were keeping other things in check.

    Those “other things” can include fungi like Candida albicans.

    Candida, which we all have in us to some degree, feeds on sugar (including the sugar formed from breaking down alcohol, by the way) and refined carbs. Then it grows, and puts its roots through your intestinal walls, linking with your neural system. Then it makes you crave the very things that will feed it and allow it to put bigger holes in your intestinal walls.

    Don’t believe us? Read: Candida albicans-Induced Epithelial Damage Mediates Translocation through Intestinal Barriers

    (That’s scientist-speak for “Candida puts holes in your intestines, and stuff can then go through those holes”)

    And as for how that comes about, it’s like we said:

    See also: Candida albicans as a commensal and opportunistic pathogen in the intestine

    That’s not all…

    And that’s just C. albicans, never mind things like C. diff. that can just outright kill you easily.

    We don’t have room to go into everything here, but you might like to check out:

    Four Ways Antibiotics Can Kill You

    It gets worse (now comes the new news)

    So, what are antibiotics good for? Surely, for clearing up chesty coughs, lower respiratory tract infections, right? It’s certainly one of the two things that antibiotics are most well-known for being good at and often necessary for (the other being preventing/treating sepsis, for example in serious and messy wounds).

    But wait…

    A large, nationwide (US) observational study of people who sought treatment in primary or urgent care settings for lower respiratory tract infections found…

    (drumroll please)

    the use of antibiotics provided no measurable impact on the severity or duration of coughs even if a bacterial infection was present.

    Read for yourself:

    Antibiotics Not Associated with Shorter Duration or Reduced Severity of Acute Lower Respiratory Tract Infection

    And in the words of the lead author of that study,

    ❝Lower respiratory tract infections tend to have the potential to be more dangerous, since about 3% to 5% of these patients have pneumonia. But not everyone has easy access at an initial visit to an X-ray, which may be the reason clinicians still give antibiotics without any other evidence of a bacterial infection.❞

    ~ Dr. Daniel Merenstein

    So, what’s to be done about this? On a large scale, Dr. Merenstein recommends:

    ❝Serious cough symptoms and how to treat them properly needs to be studied more, perhaps in a randomized clinical trial as this study was observational and there haven’t been any randomized trials looking at this issue since about 2012.❞

    ~ Dr. Daniel Merenstein

    This does remind us that, while not a RCT, there is a good ongoing observational study that everyone with a smartphone can participate in:

    Dr. Peter Small’s medical AI: “The Cough Doctor”

    In the meantime, he advises that when COVID and SARS have been ruled out, then “basic symptom-relieving medications plus time brings a resolution to most people’s infections”.

    You can read a lot more detail here:

    Antibiotics aren’t effective for most lower tract respiratory infections

    In summary…

    Sometimes, antibiotics really are a necessary and life-saving medication. But most of the time they’re not, and given their great potential for harm, they may be best simultaneously viewed as the very dangerous threat they also are, and used only when those “heavy guns” are truly what’s required.

    Take care!

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    Intermittent fasting is promoted as a very healthful (evidence-based!) way to trim the fat and slow aging, along with other health benefits. But, physiologically and especially metabolically, the average woman is quite different from the average man! And most resources are aimed at men. So, what’s the difference?

    Emma Sanchez gives an overview not just of intermittent fasting, but also, how it goes with specifically female physiology. From hormonal cycles, to different body composition and fat distribution, to how we simply retain energy better—which can be a mixed blessing!

    We’re given advice about how to optimize all those things and more.

    She also covers issues that many writers on the topic of intermittent fasting will tend to shy away from, such as:

    • mood swings
    • risk of eating disorder
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    …and she does this evenly and fairly, making the case for intermittent fasting while acknowledging potential pitfalls that need to be recognized in order to be managed.

    Lastly, the “over 50” thing. This is covered in detail quite late in the book, but there are a lot of changes that occur (beyond the obvious!), and once again, Sanchez has tips and tricks for holding back the clock where possible, and working with it rather than against it, when appropriate.

    All in all, a great book for any woman over 50, or really also for women under 50, especially if that particular milestone is on the horizon.

    Get your copy of Intermittent Fasting for Women over 50 from Amazon today!

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  • Vibration Plate, Review After 6 Months: Is It Worth It?

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    Is it push-button exercise, or an expensive fad, or something else entirely? Robin, from “The Science of Self-Care”, has insights:

    Science & Experience

    According to the science (studies cited in the video and linked-to in the video description, underneath it on YouTube), vibration therapy does have some clear benefits, namely:

    • Bone health (helps with bone density, particularly beneficial for postmenopausal women)
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    • Joint health (reduces pain and improves function in osteoarthritis patients)
    • Muscle stimulation (helps older adults maintain muscle mass)
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    And from her personal experience, the benefits included:

    • Improved recovery after exercise, reducing muscle soreness and stiffness
    • Reduced back pain and improved posture (not surprising, given the need for stabilizing muscles when using one of these)
    • Better circulation and (likely resulting from same) skin clarity

    She did not, however, notice:

    • Any reduction in cellulite
    • Any change in body composition (fat loss or muscle gain)

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  • How an Idaho vaccine advocacy org plans its annual goals

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    The start of a new year means many nonprofits and community health workers are busy setting goals and reflecting on what’s worked and what hasn’t. For those engaged in vaccine outreach, it also means reflecting on the tools and tactics that help them communicate better with their communities about why vaccines matter.

    Across the country, childhood vaccination rates have declined since the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in a resurgence of preventable diseases like pertussis. 

    Also known as whooping cough, pertussis has surged in states like Idaho, said Karen Jachimowski Sharpnack, executive director of the Idaho Immunization Coalition, in a conversation with PGN about the organization’s 2025 priorities. 

    Sharpnack shared how spikes in infectious respiratory illnesses can create opportunities to listen better and understand the nuances of the communities they serve.

    Here’s more of what Sharpnack said.

    [Editor’s note: The contents of this interview have been edited for length and clarity.]

    PGN: Whooping cough cases are up in your state. Can you share an example of how your organization is responding?

    Karen Jachimowski Sharpnack: If you look at Treasure Valley and Northern Idaho, the majority of those cases have been reported, and it’s like five times as much as we had the previous year. 

    So, two things that the Coalition is doing in response: First, we put out radio public service announcements throughout those particular areas about what whooping cough is, how contagious it is, and what you should do if you think your child or anyone you know has it. 

    Second, we are contacting every school superintendent, principal, school nurse, with a letter from us at the Coalition [to warn about] the whooping cough outbreaks in schools right now. Here’s what the symptoms are, here’s what you can do, and then here’s how you can protect yourself and your families. 

    It doesn’t mean the health district wouldn’t do it, or the Department of Health and Welfare can’t do it. But from our standpoint, at least we are bringing an awareness to the schools that this is happening. 

    PGN: How does your organization decide when outreach is needed? How do you take a pulse of your communities’ vaccine attitudes?

    K.J.S.: We consistently hold listening sessions. We do them in English and Spanish if we need to, and we go around—and I’m talking about the southern part of the state—and bring people together. 

    We’ve done adults, we’ve done teenagers, we’ve done college students, we’ve done seniors, we’ve done all age groups. 

    So, we’ll bring eight or 10 people together, and we’ll spend a couple of hours with them. We feed them and we also pay them to be there. We say, ‘We want to hear from you about what you’re hearing about vaccines, what your views are if you’re vaccinated.’ Anytime, by the way, they can get up and leave and still get paid. 

    We want to hear what they’re hearing on the ground. And these sessions are extremely informational. For one, we learn about the misinformation that goes out there, like immediately. And two, we’re able to then focus [on how to respond]. If we’re hearing this, what kind of media campaign do we need to get together?

    PGN: How do these listening sessions inform your work?

    K.J.S.: So, a couple times a year we also pay a professional poller to do a poll. And when we get those results we check them against our listening sessions. We want to see: Are we on target? Are we ahead? 

    We just finished putting a one-pager together for legislators, so we’re ready to go with the new [legislative] session. We do this poll every year in August-September to know how Idahoans are feeling about vaccines. We get the results in October, because we’re getting ready for the next year. 

    We actually poll 19-to-64-year-olds, really honing in on questions like, ‘Do you believe vaccines are safe and effective?’ ‘Do you believe that school vaccination rules should still be in place?’

    And what’s pretty cool is that two-thirds of Idahoans still believe vaccines are safe and effective, want to keep school rules in place, and believe that the infrastructure systems that we have in place for our vaccine registry should remain the same. Those are important to hear, so this is really good information that we can pull out and do something with.

    PGN: Like what?

    K.J.S.: Here’s the bottom line. It takes money to do this work, so you have to be able to say what you are going to do with the results. 

    Doing a poll costs anywhere from $15,000 to $35,000. This is an expensive investment, but we know that the polling is so important to us, along with the time that I have my staff go out and do the listening sessions and get feedback. 

    We take those results to educate, to talk to our legislators, and advocate for vaccines. We actually do these high-level media campaigns around the state. So, we are actually doing something with the polling. We’re not just sharing the results out. 

    And then we actually ask, what can we do to make a change? What are we hearing that we need to focus on? 

    That’s why it’s really important, because we are actually pushing this out for 2025. We know where we’re going in 2025 programmatically with marketing, and we know where we’re going with advocacy work. 

    We’re not guessing. We’re actually listening to people. And then we’re making really concrete decisions on how we’re going to move the organization forward to be able to help our communities.

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

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