Black Forest Chia Pudding
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This pudding tastes so decadent, it’s hard to believe it’s so healthy, but it is! Not only is it delicious, it’s also packed with nutrients including protein, carbohydrates, healthy fats (including omega-3s), fiber, vitamins, minerals, and assorted antioxidant polyphenols. Perfect dessert or breakfast!
You will need
- 1½ cups pitted fresh or thawed-from-frozen cherries
- ½ cup mashed banana
- 3 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
- 2 tbsp chia seeds, ground
- Optional: 2 pitted dates, soaked in hot water for 10 minutes and then drained (include these if you prefer a sweeter pudding)
- Garnish: a few almonds, and/or berries, and/or cherries and/or cacao nibs
Method
(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)
1) Blend the ingredients except for the chia seeds and the garnish, with ½ cup of water, until completely smooth
2) Divide into two small bowls or glass jars
3) Add 1 tbsp ground chia seeds to each, and stir until evenly distributed
4) Add the garnish and refrigerate overnight or at least for some hours. There’s plenty of wiggle-room here, so make it at your convenience and serve at your leisure.
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:
- Cherries’ Very Healthy Wealth Of Benefits!
- If You’re Not Taking Chia, You’re Missing Out
- Cacao vs Carob – Which is Healthier?
Take care!
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Radical CBT
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Radical Acceptance!
A common criticism of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is that much of it hinges on the following process:
- You are having bad feelings
- Which were caused by negative automatic thoughts
- Which can be taken apart logically
- Thus diffusing the feelings
- And then feeling better
For example:
- I feel like I’m an unwanted burden to my friend
- Because he canceled on me today
- But a reasonable explanation is that he indeed accidentally double-booked himself and the other thing wasn’t re-arrangeable
- My friend is trusting me to be an understanding friend myself, and greatly values my friendship
- I feel better and look forward to our next time together
But what if the negative automatic thoughts are, upon examination, reasonable?
Does CBT argue that we should just “keep the faith” and go on looking at a cruel indifferent world through rose-tinted spectacles?
Nope, there’s a back-up tool.
This is more talked-about in Dialectic Behavior Therapy (DBT), and is called radical acceptance:
Radical acceptance here means accepting the root of things as true, and taking the next step from there. It follows a bad conclusion with “alright, and now what?”
“But all evidence points to the fact that my friend has been avoiding me for months; I really can’t ignore it or explain it away any longer”
“Alright. Now what?”- Maybe there’s something troubling your friend that you don’t know about (have you asked?)
- Maybe that something is nothing to do with you (or maybe it really is about you!)
- Maybe there’s a way you and he can address it together (how important is it to you?)
- Maybe it’s just time to draw a line under it and move on (with or without him)
Whatever the circumstances, there’s always a way to move forwards.
Feelings are messengers, and once you’ve received and processed the message, the only reason to keep feeling the same thing, is if you want to.
Note that this is true even when you know with 100% certainty that the Bad Thing™ is real and exactly as-imagined. It’s still possible for you to accept, for example:
“Alright, so this person really truly hates me. Damn, that sucks; I think I’ve been nothing but nice to them. Oh well. Shit happens.”
Feel all the feelings you need to about it, and then decide for yourself where you want to go from there.
Get: 25 CBT Worksheets To Help You Find Solutions To A Wide Variety of Problems
Recognizing Emotions
We talked in a previous edition of 10almonds’ Psychology Sunday about how an important part of dealing with difficult emotions is recognizing them as something that you experience, rather than something that’s intrinsically “you”.
But… How?
One trick is to just mentally (or out loud, if your current environment allows for such) greet them when you notice them:
- Hello again, Depression
- Oh, hi there Anxiety, it’s you
- Nice of you to join us, Anger
Not only does this help recognize and delineate the emotion, but also, it de-tooths it and recognizes it for what it is—something that doesn’t actually mean you any harm, but that does need handling.
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The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work – by Dr. John Gottman
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A lot of relationship advice can seem a little wishy-washy. Hardline clinical work, on the other hand, can seem removed from the complex reality of married life. Dr. Gottman, meanwhile, strikes a perfect balance.
He looks at huge datasets, and he listens to very many couples. He famously isolated four relational factors that predict divorce with 91% accuracy, his “Four Horsemen”:
- Criticism
- Contempt
- Defensiveness
- Stonewalling
He also, as the title of this book promises (and we get a chapter-by-chapter deep-dive on each of them) looks at “Seven principles for making marriage work”. They’re not one-word items, so including them here would take up the rest of our space, and this is a book review not a book summary. However…
Dr. Gottman’s seven principles are, much like his more famous “four horsemen”, deeply rooted in science, while also firmly grounded in the reality of individual couples. Essentially, by listening to very many couples talk about their relationships, and seeing how things panned out with each of them in the long-term, he was able to see what things kept on coming up each time in the couples that worked out. What did they do differently?
And, that’s the real meat of the book. Science yes, but lots of real-world case studies and examples, from couples that worked and couples that didn’t.
In so doing, he provides a roadmap for couples who are serious about making their marriage the best it can be.
Bottom line: this is a must-have book for couples in general, no matter how good or bad the relationship.
- For some it’ll be a matter of realising “You know what; this isn’t going to work”
- For others, it’ll be a matter of “Ah, relief, this is how we can resolve that!”
- For still yet others, it’ll be a matter of “We’re doing these things right; let’s keep them forefront in our minds and never get complacent!”
- And for everyone who is in a relationship or thinking of getting into one, it’s a top-tier manual.
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Life Extension Multivitamins vs Centrum Multivitamins – Which is Healthier
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Our Verdict
When comparing Life Extension Multivitamins to Centrum Multivitamins, we picked the Life Extension.
Why?
The clue here was on the label: “two per day”. It’s not so that they can sell extra filler! It’s because they couldn’t fit it all into one.
While the Centrum Multivitamins is a (respectably) run-of-the-mill multivitamin (and multimineral) containing reasonable quantities of most vitamins and minerals that people supplement, the Life Extension product has the same plus more:
- More of the vitamins and minerals; i.e. more of them are hitting 100%+ of the RDA
- More beneficial supplements, including:
- Inositol, Alpha lipoic acid, Bio-Quercetin phytosome, phosphatidylcholine complex, Marigold extract, Apigenin, Lycopene, and more that we won’t list here because it starts to get complicated if we do.
We’ll have to write some main features on some of those that we haven’t written about before, but suffice it to say, they’re all good things.
Main take-away for today: sometimes more is better; it just necessitates then reading the label to check.
Want to get some Life Extension Multivitamins (and/or perhaps just read the label on the back)? Here they are on Amazon
PS: it bears mentioning, since we are sometimes running brands against each other head-to-head in this section: nothing you see here is an advertisement/sponsor unless it’s clearly marked as such. We haven’t, for example, been paid by Life Extension or any agent of theirs, to write the above. It’s just our own research and conclusion.
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Imposter Syndrome (and why almost everyone has it)
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Imposter Syndrome (and why almost everyone has it)
Imposter syndrome is the pervasive idea that we’re not actually good enough, people think we are better than we are, and at any moment we’re going to get found out and disappoint everyone.
Beyond the workplace
Imposter syndrome is most associated with professionals. It can range from a medical professional who feels like they’ve been projecting an image of confidence too much, to a writer or musician who is sure that their next piece will never live up to the acclaim of previous pieces and everyone will suddenly realize they don’t know what they’re doing, to a middle-manager who feels like nobody above or below them realizes how little they know how to do.
But! Less talked-about (but no less prevalent) is imposter syndrome in other areas of life. New parents tend to feel this strongly, as can the “elders” of a family that everyone looks to for advice and strength and support. Perhaps worst is when the person most responsible for the finances of a household feels like everyone just trusts them to keep everything running smoothly, and maybe they shouldn’t because it could all come crashing down at any moment and everyone will see them for the hopeless shambles of a human being that they really are.
Feelings are not facts
And yet (while everyone makes mistakes sometimes) the reality is that we’re all doing our best. Given that imposter syndrome affects up to 82% of people, let’s remember to have some perspective. Everyone feels like they’re winging it sometimes. Everyone feels the pressure.
Well, perhaps not everyone. There’s that other 18%. Some people are sure they’re the best thing ever. Then again, there’s probably some in that 18% that actually feel worse than the 82%—they just couldn’t admit it, even in an anonymized study.
But one thing’s for sure: it’s very, very common. Especially in high-performing women, by the way, and people of color. In other words, people who typically “have to do twice as much to get recognized as half as good”.
That said, the flipside of this is that people who are not in any of those categories may feel “everything is in my favor, so I really have no excuse to not achieve the most”, and can sometimes take very extreme actions to try to avoid perceived failure, and it can be their family that pays the price.
Things to remember
If you find imposter syndrome nagging at you, remember these things:
- There are people far less competent than you, doing the same thing
- Nobody knows how to do everything themselves, especially at first
- If you don’t know how to do something, you can usually find out
- There is always someone to ask for help, or at least advice, or at least support
At the end of the day, we evolved to eat fruit and enjoy the sun. None of us are fully equipped for all the challenges of the modern world, but if we do our reasonable best, and look after each other (and that means that you too, dear reader, deserve looking after as well), we can all do ok.
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Coughing/Wheezing After Dinner?
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The After-Dinner Activities You Don’t Want
A quick note first: our usual medical/legal disclaimer applies here, and we are not here to diagnose you or treat you; we are not doctors, let alone your doctors. Do see yours if you have any reason to believe there may be cause for concern.
Coughing and/or wheezing after eating is more common the younger or older someone is. Lest that seem contradictory: it’s a U-shaped bell-curve.
It can happen at any age and for any of a number of reasons, but there are patterns to the distribution:
Mostly affects younger people:
Allergies, asthma
Young people are less likely to have a body that’s fully adapted to all foods yet, and asthma can be triggered by certain foods (for example sulfites, a common preservative additive):
Adverse reactions to the sulphite additives
Foods/drinks that commonly contain sulfites include soft drinks, wines and beers, and dried fruit
As for the allergies side of things, you probably know the usual list of allergens to watch out for, e.g: dairy, fish, crustaceans, eggs, soy, wheat, nuts.
However, that’s far from an exhaustive list, so it’s good to see an allergist if you suspect it may be an allergic reaction.
Affects young and old people equally:
Again, there’s a dip in the middle where this doesn’t tend to affect younger adults so much, but for young and old people:
Dysphagia (difficulty swallowing)
For children, this can be a case of not having fully got used to eating yet if very small, and when growing, can be a case of “this body is constantly changing and that makes things difficult”.
For older people, this can can come from a variety of reasons, but common culprits include neurological disorders (including stroke and/or dementia), or a change in saliva quality and quantity—a side-effect of many medications:
Hyposalivation in Elderly Patients
(particularly useful in the article above is the table of drugs that are associated with this problem, and the various ways they may affect it)
Managing this may be different depending on what is causing your dysphagia (as it could be anything from antidepressants to cancer), so this is definitely one to see your doctor about. For some pointers, though:
NHS Inform | Dysphagia (swallowing problems)
Affects older people more:
Gastroesophagal reflux disease (GERD)
This is a kind of acid reflux, but chronic, and often with a slightly different set of symptoms.
GERD has no known cure once established, but its symptoms can be managed (or avoided in the first place) by:
- Healthy eating (Mediterranean diet is, as usual, great)
- Weight loss (if and only if obese)
- Avoiding trigger foods
- Eating smaller meals
- Practicing mindful eating
- Staying upright for 3–4 hours after eating
And of course, don’t smoke, and ideally don’t drink alcohol.
You can read more about this (and the different ways it can go from there), here:
NICE | Gastro-oesophageal reflux disease
Note: this above page refers to it as “GORD”, because of the British English spelling of “oesophagus” rather than “esophagus”. It’s the exact same organ and condition, just a different spelling.
Take care!
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Tiramisu Crunch Bites
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It’s coffee, it’s creamy, it’s nutty, it’s chocolatey, what’s not to love? It has all the well-loved flavors of tiramisu, but this recipe is a simple one, and it’s essentially stuffed dates in a way you’ve never had them before. They’re delectable, decadent, and decidedly good for your health. These things are little nutrient-bombs that’ll keep you reaching for more.
You will need
- Coffee (we will discuss this)
- 150g (5.5oz) mascarpone (if vegan or lactose-intolerant, can be substituted with vegan varieties, or at a pinch, pressed silken tofu)
- 500g (1lb) dates (Medjool are ideal)
- Twice as many almonds as you have dates
- 50g (2oz) dark chocolate (the darkest, bitterest, you can find)
- Edible flower petals if you can source them (some shops sell dried rose petals for this purpose)
Method
(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)
1) Take the mascarpone and whisk (or blend) it with the coffee. What kind of coffee, you ask? Many will use instant coffee (1tbsp granules mixed with enough boiling water to dissolve it), and that is actually healthiest (counterintuitive but true) but if you care for flavor over health, and have the means to make espresso, make it ristretto (so, stop it halfway through filling up an espresso cup), let it cool, and use that. Absolute bonus for flavor (not for health): if you have the means to make Turkish coffee, use an equivalent amount of that (again, cooled).
You will now have coffee-flavoured mascarpone. It’s great for your gut and full of antioxidant polyphenols. Set it aside for the moment.
2) Take the dark chocolate and melt it. Please don’t microwave it or try to do it in a pan directly over the hob; instead, you will need to use a Bain-Marie. If you don’t have one made-for-purpose, you can place a metal or heatproof glass bowl in a saucepan, with something to stop it from touching the floor of the pan. Then boil water in the pan (without letting the water get into the bowl), and melt the chocolate in the bowl—this will allow you to melt it evenly without burning the chocolate.
You will now have melted dark chocolate. It has its own set of polyphenols, and is great for everything from the brain to the gut microbiome.
3) Cut the dates lengthways on one side and remove the stone. Stuff them carefully with the coffee-flavored mascarpone (you can use a teaspoon, or use a piping kit if you have one). Add a couple of almonds to each one. Place them all on a big plate, and drizzle the melted chocolate over them. Add the petals if you have them.
The dates and almonds deliver extra vitamins and minerals in abundance (not to mention, lots of fiber), and also are an amazing combination even just by themselves. With the mascarpone and chocolate added, this winning on new levels. We’re not done yet, though…
4) Chill them in the fridge for about 30 minutes.
Serve!
Learn more
For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:
- Make The Heart-Healthiest Coffee ← this is about cafestol content and why instant is heart-healthiest (alas)
- The Bitter Truth About Coffee (Or Is It) ← this is about the health benefits (and some risks, but mostly benefits) of coffee
- Why You Should Diversify Your Nuts ← almonds are a top-tier choice, but other nuts are good too! This recipe could work well with hazelnuts, for example (we wouldn’t call it “tiramisu crunch bites” in that case, though, since the flavor profile would change)
- Which Sugars Are Healthier, And Which Are Just The Same? ← for any worrying “aren’t dates sugary, though?”
Enjoy!
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