Built to Move – by Kelly starrett & Juliet Starrett
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In our everyday lives, for most of us anyway, it’s not too important to be able to run a marathon or leg-press a car. Rather more important, however, are such things as:
- being able to get up from the floor comfortably
- reach something on a high shelf without twinging a shoulder
- being able to put our socks on without making a whole plan around this task
- get accidentally knocked by an energetic dog or child and not put our back out
- etc
Starrett and Starrett, of “becoming a supple leopard” fame, lay out for us how to make sure our mobility stays great. And, if it’s not already where it needs to be, how to get there.
The “ten essential habits” mentioned in the subtitle “ten essential habits to help you move freely and live fully”, in fact also come with ten tests. No, not in the sense of arduous trials, but rather, mobility tests.
For each test, it’s explained to us how to score it out of ten (this is an objective assessment, not subjective). It’s then explained how to “level up” whatever score we got, with different advices for different levels of mobility or immobility. And if we got a ten, then of course, we just build the appropriate recommended habit into our daily life, to keep it that way.
The writing style is casual throughout, and a strong point of the book is its very clear illustrations, too.
Bottom line: if you’d like to gain/maintain good mobility (at any age), this book gives a very reliable outline for doing so.
Click here to check out Built to Move, and take care of your body!
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The Longevity Code – by Dr. Kris Verburgh
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Notwithstanding the subtitle claim of “secrets from the leading edge of science”, we’ll note up front that this book was published in 2015, and what was new then, isn’t now. However, what was new then is still important now, so we think the book merits attention just the same.
The book examines why certain creatures (like humans) seem programmed to grow old and die, and why others (few others, but enough to make a list) either simply do not age, or else do age but can become younger when they hit a certain point. If this is the first you’re hearing of biologically immortal creatures, we’ll mention: they can and do die, just, their cause of death is usually by being eaten. But on a cellular and structural level, they don’t age. They grow to maturity and then just stay that way until one day they get eaten (or fall to some similar external circumstance).
Tackling the question of “why do we age?” (not as a philosophical question, but rather as an engineering question) is important to tackle the critical question of “…and could we not?”, and that’s what much of this book is about.
The real reason that compared to other mammals, humans live (for example) slightly longer than bats but not as long as naked mole rats, comes down mostly to genes, which makes it sound like things are set in stone, but rather, even without outright gene-editing technologies like CRISPR, gene expression is often quite modifiable, and often modifiable not just by drugs, but also by supplements, and indeed by nutraceuticals, which means also by diet, plus diet-adjacent things like fasting.
While this is mostly an explanatory book rather than a how-to, there’s enough to make practical use of, and even a recipes section.
The style is very gripping pop-science—or at least, if you’re anything like this reviewer, you’ll find it a page-turner. While being light on citations as we go (not like some authors who will mark several citations per page, or in the extreme, for every declarative sentence made), there is a reassuring bibliography at the back.
Bottom line: if you’re interested in the “under the hood” of aging, then you will love this book.
Click here to check out The Longevity Code, and slow down the aging process to live well for longer!
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How To Reduce Knee Pain After Sitting
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Sitting is bad for the health, and doubly so if you have arthritis, as a lack of regular movement can cause joints to “seize up”. So, what to do about it if you have to sit for an extended time?
Dr. Alyssa Kuhn, arthritis specialist, explains:
Movement remains key
The trick is to continue periodically moving, notwithstanding that you may need to remain seated. So…
- Heel slides
- Straighten and bend your leg by sliding or lifting your heel.
- Promotes blood flow and reduces fluid buildup in the knee.
- Helps lubricate the joint, making standing up easier.
- Heel lifts
- Lift your heels up and down while keeping feet on the ground.
- This one’s ideal for tight spaces, such as when riding in a car or airplane.
- Improves blood circulation and can reduce ankle swelling and leg heaviness.
Do 20–30 repetitions every now and again, to keep your joints moving.
Note: if you are a wheelchair user whose legs lack the strength and/or motor function to do this, in this case it’s the movement of the leg that counts, not where that movement originated from. So, if you use one hand to lift your leg slightly and the other to push it like a swing, that will also be sufficient to give the joint the periodic movement it needs.
For more on all of this plus visual demonstrations, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
Stand Up For Your Health (Or Don’t) ← our main feature on this also includes more things you can do if you must sit, to make sitting less bad!
Take care!
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- Heel slides
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What’s the difference between shyness and social anxiety?
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What’s the difference? is a new editorial product that explains the similarities and differences between commonly confused health and medical terms, and why they matter.
The terms “shyness” and “social anxiety” are often used interchangeably because they both involve feeling uncomfortable in social situations.
However, feeling shy, or having a shy personality, is not the same as experiencing social anxiety (short for “social anxiety disorder”).
Here are some of the similarities and differences, and what the distinction means.
pathdoc/Shutterstock How are they similar?
It can be normal to feel nervous or even stressed in new social situations or when interacting with new people. And everyone differs in how comfortable they feel when interacting with others.
For people who are shy or socially anxious, social situations can be very uncomfortable, stressful or even threatening. There can be a strong desire to avoid these situations.
People who are shy or socially anxious may respond with “flight” (by withdrawing from the situation or avoiding it entirely), “freeze” (by detaching themselves or feeling disconnected from their body), or “fawn” (by trying to appease or placate others).
A complex interaction of biological and environmental factors is also thought to influence the development of shyness and social anxiety.
For example, both shy children and adults with social anxiety have neural circuits that respond strongly to stressful social situations, such as being excluded or left out.
People who are shy or socially anxious commonly report physical symptoms of stress in certain situations, or even when anticipating them. These include sweating, blushing, trembling, an increased heart rate or hyperventilation.
How are they different?
Social anxiety is a diagnosable mental health condition and is an example of an anxiety disorder.
For people who struggle with social anxiety, social situations – including social interactions, being observed and performing in front of others – trigger intense fear or anxiety about being judged, criticised or rejected.
To be diagnosed with social anxiety disorder, social anxiety needs to be persistent (lasting more than six months) and have a significant negative impact on important areas of life such as work, school, relationships, and identity or sense of self.
Many adults with social anxiety report feeling shy, timid and lacking in confidence when they were a child. However, not all shy children go on to develop social anxiety. Also, feeling shy does not necessarily mean a person meets the criteria for social anxiety disorder.
People vary in how shy or outgoing they are, depending on where they are, who they are with and how comfortable they feel in the situation. This is particularly true for children, who sometimes appear reserved and shy with strangers and peers, and outgoing with known and trusted adults.
Individual differences in temperament, personality traits, early childhood experiences, family upbringing and environment, and parenting style, can also influence the extent to which people feel shy across social situations.
Not all shy children go on to develop social anxiety. 249 Anurak/Shutterstock However, people with social anxiety have overwhelming fears about embarrassing themselves or being negatively judged by others; they experience these fears consistently and across multiple social situations.
The intensity of this fear or anxiety often leads people to avoid situations. If avoiding a situation is not possible, they may engage in safety behaviours, such as looking at their phone, wearing sunglasses or rehearsing conversation topics.
The effect social anxiety can have on a person’s life can be far-reaching. It may include low self-esteem, breakdown of friendships or romantic relationships, difficulties pursuing and progressing in a career, and dropping out of study.
The impact this has on a person’s ability to lead a meaningful and fulfilling life, and the distress this causes, differentiates social anxiety from shyness.
Children can show similar signs or symptoms of social anxiety to adults. But they may also feel upset and teary, irritable, have temper tantrums, cling to their parents, or refuse to speak in certain situations.
If left untreated, social anxiety can set children and young people up for a future of missed opportunities, so early intervention is key. With professional and parental support, patience and guidance, children can be taught strategies to overcome social anxiety.
Why does the distinction matter?
Social anxiety disorder is a mental health condition that persists for people who do not receive adequate support or treatment.
Without treatment, it can lead to difficulties in education and at work, and in developing meaningful relationships.
Receiving a diagnosis of social anxiety disorder can be validating for some people as it recognises the level of distress and that its impact is more intense than shyness.
A diagnosis can also be an important first step in accessing appropriate, evidence-based treatment.
Different people have different support needs. However, clinical practice guidelines recommend cognitive-behavioural therapy (a kind of psychological therapy that teaches people practical coping skills). This is often used with exposure therapy (a kind of psychological therapy that helps people face their fears by breaking them down into a series of step-by-step activities). This combination is effective in-person, online and in brief treatments.
Treatment is available online as well as in-person. ImYanis/Shutterstock For more support or further reading
Online resources about social anxiety include:
- This Way Up’s online program for managing excessive shyness and fear of social situations
- Beyond Blue’s resources on social anxiety
- a guide to looking after yourself if you have social anxiety, from the Western Australian health department
- social anxiety online program for children and teens from the University of Queensland
- inroads, a self-guided online program for young adults who drink alcohol to manage their anxiety.
We thank the Black Dog Institute Lived Experience Advisory Network members for providing feedback and input for this article and our research.
Kayla Steele, Postdoctoral research fellow and clinical psychologist, UNSW Sydney and Jill Newby, Professor, NHMRC Emerging Leader & Clinical Psychologist, UNSW Sydney
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Why Diets Make Us Fat – by Dr. Sandra Aamodt
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It’s well-known that crash-dieting doesn’t work. Restrictive diets will achieve short-term weight loss, but it’ll come back later. In the long term, weight creeps slowly upwards. Why?
Dr. Sandra Aamodt explores the science and sociology behind this phenomenon, and offers an evidence-based alternative.
A lot of the book is given over to explanations of what is typically going wrong—that is the title of the book, after all. From metabolic starvation responses to genetics to the negative feedback loop of poor body image, there’s a lot to address.
However, what alternative does she propose?
The book takes us on a shift away from focusing on the numbers on the scale, and more on building consistent healthy habits. It might not feel like it if you desperately want to lose weight, but it’s better to have healthy habits at any weight, than to have a wreck of physical and mental health for the sake of a lower body mass.
Dr. Aamodt lays out a plan for shifting perspectives, building health, and letting weight loss come by itself—as a side effect, not a goal.
In fact, as she argues (in agreement with the best current science, science that we’ve covered before at 10almonds, for that matter), that over a certain age, people in the “overweight” category of BMI have a reduced mortality risk compared to those in the “healthy weight” category. It really underlines how there’s no point in making oneself miserably unhealthy with the end goal of having a lighter coffin—and getting it sooner.
Bottom line: will this book make you hit those glossy-magazine weight goals by your next vacation? Quite possibly not, but it will set you up for actually healthier living, for life, at any weight.
Click here to check out Why Diets Make Us Fat, and live healthier and better!
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Forks Over Knives: Flavor! – by Darshana Thacker
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It’s important to not have to choose too much between health and flavor, because the outcome will never be a good one, either for your health or your happiness. And what’s bad for your happiness will ultimately not work out and thus will be bad for your general health, so, the question becomes: how to get both?
This book handles that nicely, delivering plant-based dishes that are also incidentally oil-free, and also either gluten-free or else there’s an obvious easy substitution to make it such. The flavor here comes from the ingredients as a whole, including the main ingredients as well as seasonings.
On the downside, occasionally those ingredients may be a little obscure if you don’t live in, say, San Francisco, and the ingredients weren’t necessarily chosen for cooking on a budget, either.
However, in most cases for most people it will, at worse, inspire you to try using an ingredient you don’t usually use—so that’s a good result.
The recipes are very clear and easy to follow, although not all are illustrated, and the “ready in…” times are about as accurate as they are for any cookbook, that is to say, it’s the time in which it conceivably can be done if (like the author, a head chef) you have a team of sous-chefs who have done a bunch of prep for you (e.g. sweet potato does not normally come in ½” dice; it comes in sweet potatoes) and laid everything out in little bowls mise-en-place style, and also you know the procedure well enough to not have to stop, hesitate, check anything, wash anything, wait for water to boil or anything else to heat up, or so forth. In other words, if you’re on your own in your home kitchen with normal domestic appliances, it’s going to take a little longer than for a professional in a professional kitchen with professional help.
But don’t let that detract from the honestly very good recipes.
Bottom line: if you’d like to level-up your plant-based cooking, this will definitely make your dishes that bit better!
Click here to check out Forks Over Knives: Flavor!, and dig in!
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Yoga For Stiff Birds – by Marion Deuchars
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Quick show of hands, who here practices yoga in some fashion, but does not necessarily always look Instagrammable while doing it? Yep, same here.
This book is a surprisingly practical introduction to yoga for newcomers, and inspirational motivator for those of us who feel like we should do more.
Rather than studio photography of young models in skimpy attire, popular artist (and well-practised yogi) Marion Deuchars offers in a few brushstrokes what we need to know for each asana, and how to approach it if we’re not so supple yet as we’d like to be.
Bottom line: whether for yourself or as a gift for a loved one (or both!) this is a very charming introduction to (or refresher of) yoga.
Click here to check out Yoga For Stiff Birds, and get yours going!
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