What this book isn’t: an advice to go on a relaxing meditation retreat, or something like that.

What this is: a science-based guide to what actually works.

There’s no need to be mysterious, so we’ll mention that the titular “5 resets” are:

1. What matters most
2. Quiet in a noisy world
3. Leveraging the brain-body connection
4. Coming up for air (regaining perspective)
5. Bringing your best self forward

All of these are things we can easily lose sight of in the hustle and bustle of daily life, so having a system for keeping them on track can make a huge difference!

The style is personable and accessible, while providing a lot of strongly science-backed tips and tricks along the way.

Bottom line: if life gets away from you a little too often for comfort, this book can help you keep on top of things with a lot less stress.

Click here to check out “The 5 Resets”, and take control with conscious calm!

If you or a loved one has Type 1 Diabetes, you’ll know that exercise can be especially frustrating…

• If you don’t do it, you risk weight gain and eventual insulin resistance.
• If you do it, you risk dangerous hypos, or perhaps hypers if you took off your pump or skipped a bolus.

Unfortunately, the popular medical advice is “well, just do your best”.

Ginger Vieira is Type 1 Diabetic, and writes with 20+ experience of managing her diabetes while being a keen exerciser. As T1D folks out there will also know, comorbidities are very common; in her case, fibromyalgia was the biggest additional blow to her ability to exercise, along with an underactive thyroid. So when it comes to dealing with the practical nuts and bolts of things, she (while herself observing she’s not a doctor, let alone your doctor) has a lot more practical knowledge than an endocrinologist (without diabetes) behind a desk.

Speaking of nuts and bolts, this book isn’t a pep talk.

It has a bit of that in, but most of it is really practical information, e.g: using fasted exercise (4 hours from last meal+bolus) to prevent hypos, counterintuitive as that may seem—the key is that timing a workout for when you have the least amount of fast-acting insulin in your body means your body can’t easily use your blood sugars for energy, and draws from your fat reserves instead… Win/Win!

That’s just one quick tip because this is a 1-minute review, but Vieira gives:

• whole chapters, with example datasets (real numbers)
• tech-specific advice, e.g. pump, injection, etc
• insulin-specific advice, e.g. fast vs slow, and adjustments to each in the context of exercise
• timing advice re meal/bolus/exercise for different insulins and techs
• blood-sugar management advice for different exercise types (aerobic/anaerobic, sprint/endurance, etc)

…and lots more that we don’t have room to mention here

Basically… If you or a loved one has T1D, we really recommend this book!

Order a copy of “Exercise with Type 1 Diabetes” from Amazon today!

This one will be a slightly mixed review, but we think the book has more than enough of value to make it a very worthwhile read.

The premise of the book is that, as the subtitle suggests, positive social qualities increase personal longevity.

Author (and science journalist) Marta Zaraska looks at a lot of research to back this up, and also did a lot of travelling and digging into stories. This is of great value, because she notes where a lot of misconceptions have arisen.

To give one example, it’s commonly noted that marriage (or as-though-marriage life partnerships) is generally* associated with longer life.

*Statistics suggest that marriage-related longevity is enjoyed by men married to women, and people in same-sex marriages regardless of gender, but is not so much the case for women married to men.

However! Zaraska notes a factor she learned from Gottman’s research (yes, that Gottman), that what matters is not the official status of a relationship, so much as the sense of secure lifelong commitment to it.

These kinds of observations (throughout the book) add an extra layer beyond “common wisdom”, and allow us to better understand what’s really going on. The book’s main weaknesses, meanwhile, are twofold:

• The author is (in this reviewer’s opinion) unduly dismissive of physical health lifestyle factors such as diet and exercise, because they “only” account for a similar bonus to healthy longevity.
• Like many, she does not always consider where correlation might not mean causation. For example, she cites that volunteering free time increases healthspan by 22%, but neglects to note that perhaps it is having the kind of socioeconomic situation that allows one free time to volunteer, that gives the benefit.

Bottom line: the book has its flaws, but we think that only serves to make it more engaging. After all, reading should not be a purely passive activity! Zaraska’s well-studied insights give plenty of pointers for tweaking the social side of anyone’s quest for healthy longevity.

Click here to check out Growing Young, increase your healthspan, and take joy in doing it!