A Surprisingly Powerful Tool: Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing
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Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing (EMDR)
What skeletons are in your closet? As life goes on, most of accumulate bad experiences as well as good ones, to a greater or lesser degree. From clear cases of classic PTSD, to the widely underexamined many-headed beast that is C-PTSD*, our past does affect our present. Is there, then, any chance for our future being different?
*PTSD is typically associated with military veterans, for example, or sexual assault survivors. There was a clear, indisputable, Bad Thing™ that was experienced, and it left a psychological scar. When something happens to remind us of that—say, there are fireworks, or somebody touches us a certain way—it’ll trigger an immediate strong response of some kind.
These days the word “triggered” has been popularly misappropriated to mean any adverse emotional reaction, often to something trivial.
But, not all trauma is so clear. If PTSD refers to the result of that one time you were smashed with a sledgehammer, C-PTSD (Complex PTSD) refers to the result of having been hit with a rolled-up newspaper every few days for fifteen years, say.
This might have been…
- childhood emotional neglect
- a parent with a hair-trigger temper
- bullying at school
- extended financial hardship as a young adult
- “just” being told or shown all too often that your best was never good enough
- the persistent threat (real or imagined) of doom of some kind
- the often-reinforced idea that you might lose everything at any moment
If you’re reading this list and thinking “that’s just life though”, you might be in the estimated 1 in 5 people with (often undiagnosed) C-PTSD.
For more on C-PTSD, see our previous main feature:
So, what does eye movement have to do with this?
Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing (EMDR) is a therapeutic technique whereby a traumatic experience (however small or large; it could be the memory of that one time you said something very regrettable, or it could be some horror we couldn’t describe here) is recalled, and then “detoothed” by doing a bit of neurological jiggery-pokery.
How the neurological jiggery-pokery works:
By engaging the brain in what’s called bilateral stimulation (which can be achieved in various ways, but a common one is moving the eyes rapidly from side to side, hence the name), the event can be re-processed, in much the same way that we do when dreaming, and relegated safely to the past.
This doesn’t mean you’ll forget the event; you’d need to do different exercises for that.
See also our previous main feature:
The Dark Side Of Memory (And How To Make Your Life Better)
That’s not the only aspect of EMDR, though…
EMDR is not just about recalling traumatic events while moving your eyes from side-to-side. What an easy fix that would be! There’s a little more to it.
The process also involves (ideally with the help of a trained professional) examining what other memories, thoughts, feelings, come to mind while doing that. Sometimes, a response we have today associated with, for example, a feeling of helplessness, or rage in conflict, or shame, or anything really, can be connected to previous instances of feeling the same thing. And, each of those events will reinforce—and be reinforced by—the others.
An example of this could be an adult who struggles with substance abuse (perhaps alcohol, say), using it as a crutch to avoid feelings of [insert static here; we don’t know what the feelings are because they’re being avoided], that were first created by, and gradually snowballed from, some adverse reaction to something they did long ago as a child, then reinforced at various times later in life, until finally this adult doesn’t know what to do, but they do know they must hide it at all costs, or suffer the adverse reaction again. Which obviously isn’t a way to actually overcome anything.
EMDR, therefore, seeks to not just “detooth” a singular traumatic memory, but rather, render harmless the whole thread of memories.
Needless to say, this kind of therapy can be quite an emotionally taxing experience, so again, we recommend trying it only under the guidance of a professional.
Is this an evidence-based approach?
Yes! It’s not without its controversy, but that’s how it is in the dog-eat-dog world of academia in general and perhaps psychotherapy in particular. To give a note to some of why it has some controversy, here’s a great freely-available paper that presents “both sides” (it’s more than two sides, really); the premises and claims, the criticisms, and explanations for why the criticisms aren’t necessarily actually problems—all by a wide variety of independent research teams:
Research on Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing (EMDR) as a Treatment for PTSD
To give an idea of the breadth of applications for EMDR, and the evidence of the effectiveness of same, here are a few additional studies/reviews (there are many):
- An Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Group Intervention for Syrian Refugees With Post-traumatic Stress Symptoms: Results of a Randomized Controlled Trial
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy vs. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing for Treating Panic Disorder: A Randomized Controlled Trial
- Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy in the treatment of depression: a matched pairs study in an inpatient setting
- Emergency room intervention to prevent post concussion-like symptoms and post-traumatic stress disorder. A pilot randomized controlled study of a brief eye movement desensitization and reprocessing intervention versus reassurance or usual care
As for what the American Psychiatric Association says about it:
❝After assessing the 120 outcome studies pertaining to the focus areas, we conclude that for two of the areas (i.e., PTSD in children and adolescents and EMDR early interventions research) the strength of the evidence is rated at the highest level, whereas the other areas obtain the second highest level.❞
Source: The current status of EMDR therapy, specific target areas, and goals for the future
Want to learn more?
To learn a lot more than we could include here, check out the APA’s treatment guidelines (they are written in a fashion that is very accessible to a layperson):
APA | Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy
Take care!
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The Orchid That Renovates Your Gut (Gently)
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The Orchid That Renovates Your Gut (Gently)
Dendrobium officinale is an orchid that’s made its way from Traditional Chinese Medicine into modern science.
Read: Traditional Uses, Phytochemistry, Pharmacology, and Quality Control of Dendrobium officinale
To summarize its benefits, we’ll quote from Dr. Paharia’s article featured in our “what’s happening in the health world” section all so recently:
❝Gut microbes process Dendriobium officinale polysaccharides (DOPs) in the colon, producing short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) and oligosaccharides that alter gut microbial composition and improve human health.
DOPs have been shown to decrease harmful bacteria like E. coli and Staphylococcus while promoting beneficial ones like Bifidobacterium.❞
We don’t stop at secondary sources, though, so we took a look at the science.
Dr. Wu et al. found (we’ll quote directly for these bullet points):
- DOPs have been shown to influence the gut microbiota, such as the abundance of Lactobacillus, Bifidobacterium, Akkermansia, Bacteroides, and Prevotella, and provide different benefits to the host due to structural differences.
- The dietary intake of DOPs has been shown to improve the composition of the gut microbiome and offers new intervention strategies for metabolic diseases such as obesity and type 2 diabetes as well as inflammatory diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and colitis.
- Compared to drug therapy, intervention with DOPs is not specific and has a longer intervention duration
This is consistent with previous research on Dendrobium officinale, such as last year’s:
❝DOP significantly increased benign intestinal microbe proportion (Lactobacillus, etc.), but reduced harmful bacteria (Escherichia shigella) (P < 0.05), and significantly increased butyric acid production (P < 0.05)❞
In summary…
Research so far indicates that this does a lot of good for the gut, in a way that can “kickstart” healthier, self-regulating gut microbiota.
As to its further prospects, check out:
Very promising!
Where can I get it?
We don’t sell it, but for your convenience here’s an example product on Amazon
Be warned, it is expensive though!
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Chestnuts vs Hazelnuts – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing chestnuts to hazelnuts, we picked the hazelnuts.
Why?
This one’s not close.
In terms of macros, we have some big difference to start with, since chestnuts contain a lot more water and carbs whereas hazelnuts contain a lot more protein, fats, and fiber. The fats, as with most nuts, are healthy; in this case mostly being monounsaturated fat.
Because of the carbs and fiber being so polarized (i.e., chestnuts have most of the carbs and hazelnuts have most of the fiber), there’s a big difference in glycemic index; chestnuts have a GI of 52 while hazelnuts have a GI of 15.
In the category of vitamins, chestnuts contain more vitamin C, while hazelnuts contain more of vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, and B9.
When it comes to minerals, the story is similar: chestnuts contain a tiny bit more potassium, while hazelnuts contain a lot more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, and zinc.
All in all, chestnuts aren’t bad for the health, but hazelnuts are a lot better in almost every way.
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Why You Should Diversify Your Nuts
Take care!
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Burn – by Dr. Herman Pontzer
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We all have reasons to want to focus on our metabolism. Speed it up to burn more fat; slow it down to live longer. Tweak it for more energy in the day. But what actually is it, and how does it work?
Dr. Herman Pontzer presents a very useful overview of not just what our metabolism is and how it works, but also why.
The style of the book is casual, but doesn’t skimp on the science. Whether we are getting campfire stories of Hadza hunter-gatherers, or an explanation of the use of hydrogen isotopes in metabolic research, Dr. Pontzer keeps things easy-reading.
One of the main premises of the book is that our caloric expenditure is not easy to change—if we exercise more, our bodies will cut back somewhere else. After all, the body uses energy for a lot more than just moving. With this in mind, Dr. Pontzer makes the science-based case for focusing more on diet than exercise if weight management is our goal.
In short, if you’d like your metabolism to be a lot less mysterious, this book can help render a lot of science a lot more comprehensible!
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How To Rebuild Your Neurons’ Myelin Sheaths
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PS: We Love You
Phosphatidylserine, or “PS” for short, is a phospholipid found in the brain. In other words, a kind of fatty compound that is such stuff as our brains are made of.
In particular, it’s required for healthy nerve cell membranes and myelin (the protective sheath that neurons live in—basically, myelin sheaths do for neurons what telomere caps do for DNA).
For an overview that’s more comprehensive than we have room for here, check out:
Phosphatidylserine and the human brain
Many people take it as a supplement.
Does taking it as a supplement work?
This is a valid question, as a lot of supplements can’t be absorbed well, and/or can’t pass the blood-brain barrier. But, as the above-linked study notes:
❝Exogenous PS (300-800 mg/d) is absorbed efficiently in humans, crosses the blood-brain barrier, and safely slows, halts, or reverses biochemical alterations and structural deterioration in nerve cells. It supports human cognitive functions, including the formation of short-term memory, the consolidation of long-term memory, the ability to create new memories, the ability to retrieve memories, the ability to learn and recall information, the ability to focus attention and concentrate, the ability to reason and solve problems, language skills, and the ability to communicate. It also supports locomotor functions, especially rapid reactions and reflexes.❞
(“Exogenous” means “coming from outside of the body”, as opposed to “endogenous”, meaning “made inside the body”. Effectively, in this context “exogenous” means “taken as a supplement”.)
Why do people take it?
The health claims for phosphatidylserine fall into two main categories:
- Neuroprotection (helping your brain to avoid age-related decline in the long term)
- Cognitive enhancement (helping your brain work better in the short term)
What does the science say?
There’s a lot of science that’s been done on the neuroprotective properties of PS, and there are thousands of studies we could draw from here. The upshot is that regular phosphatidylserine supplementation (most often 300mg/day, but studies are also found for 100–500mg/day) is strongly associated with a reduction in cognitive decline over the course of 12 weeks (a common study duration). Here are a some spotlight studies showing this:
- Effects of phosphatidylserine in Alzheimer’s disease
- Double-blind cross-over study of phosphatidylserine vs. placebo in patients with early dementia of the Alzheimer type
- Effect of Phosphatidylserine on Cerebral Glucose Metabolism in Alzheimer’s Disease
- The effect of soybean-derived phosphatidylserine on cognitive performance in elderly with subjective memory complaints
Note: PS can be derived from various sources, with the two most common forms being bovine (i.e., from cow brains) or soy-derived.
There is no established difference in the efficacy of these.
There have been some concerns raised about the risk of CJD (the human form of BSE, as in “mad cow disease”) from consuming brain matter from cows, but studies have not found any evidence of this actually happening.
There is also some evidence that phosphatidyserine significantly boosts cognitive performance, even in young people with no extant cognitive decline, for example:
(as the title suggests, they did also test for its effect on mood and endocrine response, but found it made no difference to those, just the cognitive function—which enjoyed a boost before exercise, as well as after it, meaning that the boost wasn’t dependent on the exercise)
PS for cognitive enhancement in the young and healthy is not nearly so well-explored as its use as a later-life guard against age-related cognitive decline. However, just because the studies in younger people are dwarfed in number by the studies in older people, doesn’t detract from the validity of the studies in younger people.
Basically: its use in older people has been studied the most, but all available evidence points to it being beneficial to brain health at all ages.
Where can we get it?
We don’t sell it (or anything else), but for your convenience, here’s an example product on Amazon.
Enjoy!
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Top 8 Fruits That Prevent & Kill Cancer
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Dr. Amy Dee, pharmacist and cancer survivor herself, lays out the best options for anticancer fruits:
The fruits
Without further ado, they are:
- Kiwi: promotes cancer cell death while sparing healthy cells
- Plums & peaches: an interesting choice to list these similar fruits together as one item, but they both also induce cell death in cancer cells while sparing healthy ones
- Dragon fruit: this does the same, while also inhibiting cancer cell growth
- Figs: these have antitumor effects specifically, while removing carcinogens too, and additionally sensitizing cancer cells to light therapy
- cranberries: disrupt cancer cell adhesion, breaking down tumors, while protecting non-cancerous cells against DNA damage
- citrus fruits: inhibit tumor growth and kill cancer cells; regular consumption is also associated with a lower cancer risk (be warned though, grapefruit interacts with some medications)
- cherries: induce cancer cell death; protect healthy cells against DNA damage
- tomatoes: don’t often make it into lists of fruits, but lycopene reduces cancer risk, and slows the growth of cancer cells (10almonds note: watermelon has more lycopene than tomatoes, and is more traditionally considered a fruit in all respects, so could have taken the spot here).
We would also argue that apricots could have had a spot on the list, both for their lycopene content (comparable to tomatoes) and their botanical (and this phytochemical) similarities to peaches and plums.
For more information on each of these (she also talks about the different polyphenols and other nutrients that constitute the active compounds delivering these anticancer effects), enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
- Food Choice & Cancer Risk: Eat To Beat Cancer
- Beat Cancer Kitchen: Deliciously Simple Plant-Based Anticancer Recipes (book)
Take care!
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The Many Faces Of Cosmetic Surgery
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Cosmetic Surgery: What’s The Truth?
In Tuesday’s newsletter, we asked you your opinion on elective cosmetic surgeries, and got the above-depicted, below-described, set of responses:
- About 48% said “Everyone should be able to get what they want, assuming informed consent”
- About 28% said “It can ease discomfort to bring features more in line with normalcy”
- 15% said “They should be available in the case of extreme disfigurement only”
- 10% said “No elective cosmetic surgery should ever be performed; needless danger”
Well, there was a clear gradient of responses there! Not so polarizing as we might have expected, but still enough dissent for discussion
So what does the science say?
The risks of cosmetic surgery outweigh the benefits: True or False?
False, subjectively (but this is important).
You may be wondering: how is science subjective?
And the answer is: the science is not subjective, but people’s cost:worth calculations are. What’s worth it to one person absolutely may not be worth it to another. Which means: for those for whom it wouldn’t be worth it, they are usually the people who will not choose the elective surgery.
Let’s look at some numbers (specifically, regret rates for various surgeries, elective/cosmetic or otherwise):
- Regret rate for elective cosmetic surgery in general: 20%
- Regret rate for knee replacement (i.e., not cosmetic): 17.1%
- Regret rate for hip replacement (i.e., not cosmetic): 4.8%
- Regret rate for gender-affirming surgeries (for transgender patients): 1%
So we can see, elective surgeries have an 80–99% satisfaction rate, depending on what they are. In comparison, the two joint replacements we mentioned have a 82.9–95.2% satisfaction rate. Not too dissimilar, taken in aggregate!
In other words: if a person has studied the risks and benefits of a surgery and decides to go ahead, they’re probably going to be happy with the results, and for them, the benefits will have outweighed the risks.
Sources for the above numbers, by the way:
- What is the regret rate for plastic surgery?
- Decision regret after primary hip and knee replacement surgery
- A systematic review of patient regret after surgery—a common phenomenon in many specialties but rare within gender-affirmation surgery
But it’s just a vanity; therapy is what’s needed instead: True or False?
False, generally. True, sometimes. Whatever the reasons for why someone feels the way they do about their appearance—whether their face got burned in a fire or they just have triple-J cups that they’d like reduced, it’s generally something they’ve already done a lot of thinking about. Nevertheless, it does also sometimes happen that it’s a case of someone hoping it’ll be the magical solution, when in reality something else is also needed.
How to know the difference? One factor is whether the surgery is “type change” or “restorative”, and both have their pros and cons.
- In “type change” (e.g. rhinoplasty), more psychological adjustment is needed, but when it’s all over, the person has a new nose and, statistically speaking, is usually happy with it.
- In “restorative” (e.g. facelift), less psychological adjustment is needed (as it’s just a return to a previous state), so a person will usually be happy quickly, but ultimately it is merely “kicking the can down the road” if the underlying problem is “fear of aging”, for example. In such a case, likely talking therapy would be beneficial—whether in place of, or alongside, cosmetic surgery.
Here’s an interesting paper on that; the sample sizes are small, but the discussion about the ideas at hand is a worthwhile read:
Does cosmetic surgery improve psychosocial wellbeing?
Some people will never be happy no matter how many surgeries they get: True or False?
True! We’re going to refer to the above paper again for this one. In particular, here’s what it said about one group for whom surgeries will not usually be helpful:
❝There is a particular subgroup of people who appear to respond poorly to cosmetic procedures. These are people with the psychiatric disorder known as “body dysmorphic disorder” (BDD). BDD is characterised by a preoccupation with an objectively absent or minimal deformity that causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other areas of functioning.
For several reasons, it is important to recognise BDD in cosmetic surgery settings:
Firstly, it appears that cosmetic procedures are rarely beneficial for these people. Most patients with BDD who have had a cosmetic procedure report that it was unsatisfactory and did not diminish concerns about their appearance.
Secondly, BDD is a treatable disorder. Serotonin-reuptake inhibitors and cognitive behaviour therapy have been shown to be effective in about two-thirds of patients with BDD❞
~ Dr. David Castle et al. (lightly edited for brevity)
Which is a big difference compared to, for example, someone having triple-J breasts that need reducing, or the wrong genitals for their gender, or a face whose features are distinct outliers.
Whether that’s a reason people with BDD shouldn’t be able to get it is an ethical question rather than a scientific one, so we’ll not try to address that with science.
After all, many people (in general) will try to fix their woes with a haircut, a tattoo, or even a new sportscar, and those might sometimes be bad decisions, but they are still the person’s decision to make.
And even so, there can be protectionist laws/regulations that may provide a speed-bump, for example:
Take care!
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