Fast Exercise – by Dr. Michael Mosley & Peta Bee
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We’ve written before about the benefits of High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT), but there’s more to say than we can fit in a short article!
Dr. Michael Mosley, who hates exercise but knows his stuff when it comes to the benefits, teamed up with Peta Bee, who loves exercise and is a science journalist with degrees in sports science and nutrition, to bring us this book.
In it, we learn a lot about:
- the science of HIIT
- what makes it so different from most kinds of exercise
- exactly what benefits one can expect
…in a very detailed clinical fashion (while still remaining very readable).
By “very detailed clinical fashion”, here we mean “one minute of this kind of exercise this many times per week over this period of time will give this many extra healthy life-years”, for example, along with lots of research to back numbers, and explanations of the mechanisms of action (e.g. reducing inflammatory biomarkers of aging, increasing cellular apoptosis, improving cardiometabolic stats for reduced CVD risk, and many things)
There’s also time/space given over to exactly what to do and how to do it, giving enough options to suit personal tastes/circumstances.
Bottom line: if you’d like to make your exercise work a lot harder for you while you spend a lot less time working out, then this book will help you do just that!
Click here to check out Fast Exercise, and enjoy the benefits!
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What families should know about whooping cough
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What you need to know
- Whooping cough is a bacterial respiratory illness that can cause long-term symptoms and even death.
- Two types of vaccines protect against it: The DTap vaccine is given to babies and children up to 6 years old, while the Tdap vaccine is given to children 7 years and older and adults.
- If you or your child has symptoms of whooping cough, isolate them from vulnerable family members and seek treatment early to reduce the risk of serious illness.
Whooping cough, also called pertussis, is a highly contagious respiratory illness that’s particularly dangerous for babies. Cases are now at least four times as high as they were at this time last year. Fortunately, vaccines are extremely effective at preventing the disease across age groups.
Read on to learn about the symptoms and risks of whooping cough, who should get vaccinated, and what to do when symptoms appear.What are the symptoms of whooping cough?
Early symptoms of whooping cough typically appear five to 10 days after exposure and may include a runny or stuffy nose, a low fever, and a mild cough. One to two weeks later, some people may experience extreme coughing fits that can cause shortness of breath, trouble sleeping, vomiting, fatigue, and rib fractures. These fits usually last one to six weeks, but they can last up to 10 weeks after infection.
About one in three babies under 1 year old who contract whooping cough require hospitalization, as they may experience life-threatening pauses in breathing (called apnea), pneumonia, and other complications. Children and adults who have asthma or are immunocompromised are also more likely to develop severe symptoms.
Which vaccines protect against whooping cough, and who is eligible?
Two types of vaccines protect against whooping cough: The DTap vaccine is given to babies and children up to 6 years old, while the Tdap vaccine is given to children 7 years and older and adults. Both vaccines protect against infections from diptheria, tetanus, and pertussis.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that pregnant people receive a single dose of the Tdap vaccine between 27 and 36 weeks of pregnancy, as this lowers the risk of whooping cough in babies younger than 2 months old by 78 percent.
Multiple doses are required for the best protection. Learn more about DTaP and Tdap vaccine schedules from the CDC, and talk to your health care provider about how many doses you and your children need.
What should families do when whooping cough symptoms appear?
If you or your child has symptoms of whooping cough, isolate the infected person from vulnerable family members. It’s also important to seek treatment early to reduce the risk of serious illness. Health care providers typically prescribe antibiotics to those recovering at home.
Over-the-counter cough and cold medicine is not recommended for children under 4 years old. However, limiting smoke, dust, and chemical fumes at home and using a humidifier can reduce coughing. If you are caring for someone with whooping cough who exhibits pauses in breathing or develops gray or blue skin, call 911 immediately.
For more information, talk to your health care provider.Share This Post
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Non-Sleep Deep Rest: A Neurobiologist’s Take
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How to get many benefits of sleep, while awake!
Today we’re talking about Dr. Andrew Huberman, a neuroscientist and professor in the department of neurobiology at Stanford School of Medicine.
He’s also a popular podcaster, and as his Wikipedia page notes:
❝In episodes lasting several hours, Huberman talks about the state of research in a specific topic, both within and outside his specialty❞
Today, we won’t be taking hours, and we will be taking notes from within his field of specialty (neurobiology). Specifically, in this case:
Non-Sleep Deep Rest (NSDR)
What is it? To quote from his own dedicated site on the topic:
❝What is NSDR (Yoga Nidra)? Non-Sleep Deep Rest, also known as NSDR, is a method of deep relaxation developed by Dr. Andrew Huberman, a neuroscientist at Stanford University School of Medicine.
It’s a process that combines controlled breathing and detailed body scanning to bring you into a state of heightened awareness and profound relaxation. The main purpose of NSDR is to reduce stress, enhance focus, and improve overall well-being.❞
While it seems a bit bold of Dr. Huberman to claim that he developed yoga nidra, it is nevertheless reassuring to get a neurobiologist’s view on this:
How it works, by science
Dr. Huberman says that by monitoring EEG readings during NSDR, we can see how the brain slows down. Measurably!
- It goes from an active beta range of 13–30 Hz (normal waking) to a conscious meditation state of an alpha range of 8–13 Hz.
- However, with practice, it can drop further, into a theta range of 4–8 Hz.
- Ultimately, sustained SSDR practice can get us to 0.5–3 Hz.
This means that the brain is functioning in the delta range, something that typically only occurs during our deepest sleep.
You may be wondering: why is delta lower than theta? That’s not how I remember the Greek alphabet being ordered!
Indeed, while the Greek alphabet goes alpha beta gamma delta epsilon zeta eta theta (and so on), the brainwave frequency bands are:
- Gamma = concentrated focus, >30 Hz
- Beta = normal waking, 13–30 Hz
- Alpha = relaxed state, 8–13 Hz
- Theta = light sleep, 4–8 Hz
- Delta = deep sleep, 1–4 Hz
Source: Sleep Foundation ← with a nice infographic there too
NSDR uses somatic cues to engage our parasympathetic nervous system, which in turn enables us to reach those states. The steps are simple:
- Pick a time and place when you won’t be disturbed
- Lie on your back and make yourself comfortable
- Close your eyes as soon as you wish, and now that you’ve closed them, imagine closing them again. And again.
- Slowly bring your attention to each part of your body in turn, from head to toe. As your attention goes to each part, allow it to relax more.
- If you wish, you can repeat this process for another wave, or even a third.
- Find yourself well-rested!
Note: this engagement of the parasympathetic nervous system and slowing down of brain activity accesses restorative states not normally available while waking, but 10 minutes of NSDR will not replace 7–9 hours of sleep; nor will it give you the vital benefits of REM sleep specifically.
So: it’s an adjunct, not a replacement
Want to try it, but not sure where/how to start?
When you’re ready, let Dr. Huberman himself guide you through it in this shortish (10:49) soundtrack:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to try it, but not right now? Bookmark it for later
Take care!
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Optimism Seriously Increases Longevity!
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Always look on the bright side for life
❝I’m not a pessimist; I’m a realist!❞
~ every pessimist ever
To believe self-reports, the world is divided between optimists and realists. But how does your outlook measure up, really?
Below, we’ve included a link to a test, and like most free online tests, this is offered “as-is” with the usual caveats about not being a clinical diagnostic tool, this one actually has a fair amount of scientific weight behind it:
❝Empirical testing has indicated the validity of the Optimism Pessimism Instrument as published in the scientific journal Current Psychology: Research and Reviews.
The IDRlabs Optimism/Pessimism Test (IDR-OPT) was developed by IDRlabs. The IDR-OPT is based on the Optimism/Pessimism Instrument (OPI) developed by Dr. William Dember, Dr. Stephanie Martin, Dr. Mary Hummer, Dr. Steven Howe, and Dr. Richard Melton, at the University of Cincinnati.❞
Take This Short (1–2 mins) Test
How did you score? And what could you do to improve on that score?
We said before that we’d do a main feature on this sometime, and today’s the day! Fits with the theme of Easter too, as for those who observe, this is a time for a celebration of hope, new beginnings, and life stepping out of the shadows.
On which note, before we go any further, let’s look at a very big “why” of optimism…
There have been many studies done regards optimism and health, and they generally come to the same conclusion: optimism is simply good for the health.
Here’s an example. It’s a longitudinal study, and it followed 121,700 women (what a sample size!) for eight years. It controlled for all kinds of other lifestyle factors (especially smoking, drinking, diet, and exercise habits, as well as pre-existing medical conditions), so this wasn’t a case of “people who are healthy are more optimistic as a result. And, in the researchers’ own words…
❝We found strong and statistically significant associations of increasing levels of optimism with decreasing risks of mortality, including mortality due each major cause of death, such as cancer, heart disease, stroke, respiratory disease, and infection.
Importantly, findings were maintained after close control for potential confounding factors, including sociodemographic characteristics and depression❞
Read: Optimism and Cause-Specific Mortality: A Prospective Cohort Study
So that’s the why. Now for the how…
Positive thinking is not what you think it is
A lot of people think of “think positive thoughts” as a very wishy-washy platitude, but positive thinking isn’t about ignoring what’s wrong, or burying every negative emotion.
Rather, it is taking advantage of the basic CBT, DBT, and, for that matter, NLP principles:
- Our feelings are driven by our thoughts
- Our thoughts can be changed by how we frame things
This is a lot like the idea that “there’s not such thing as bad weather; only the wrong clothes”. Clearly written by someone who’s never been in a hurricane, but by and large, the principle stands true.
For example…
- Most problems can be reframed as opportunities
- Replace “I have to…” with “I get to…”
- Will the task be arduous? It’ll be all the better looking back on it.
- Did you fail abjectly? Be proud that you lived true to your values anyway.
A lot of this is about focusing on what you can control. If you live your life by your values (first figure out what they are, if you haven’t already), then that will become a reassuring thing that you can always count on, no matter what.
Practice positive self-talk (eliminate the negative)
We often learn, usually as children, to be self deprecatory so as to not appear immodest. While modesty certainly has its place, we don’t have to trash ourselves to do that!
There are various approaches to this, for example:
- Replacing a self-criticism (whether it was true or not) with a neutral or positive statement that you know is true. “I suck at xyz” is just putting yourself down, “Xyz is a challenge for me” asks the question, how will you rise to it?
- Replacing a self-criticism with irony. It doesn’t matter how dripping with sarcasm your inner voice is, the words will still be better. “Glamorous as ever!” after accidentally putting mascara in your eye. “So elegant and graceful!” after walking into furniture. And so on.
Practice radical acceptance
This evokes the “optimistic nihilism” approach to life. It’s perhaps not best in all scenarios, but if you’re consciously and rationally pretty sure something is going to be terrible (and/or know it’s completely outside of your control), acknowledging that possibility (or even, likelihood) cheerfully. Borrowing from the last tip, this can be done with as much irony as you find necessary. For example:
Facing a surgery the recovery from which you know categorically will be very painful: with a big smile “Yep, I am going to be in a lot of pain, so that’s going to be fun!” (fun fact: psychological misery will not make the physical pain any less painful, so you might as well see the funny side) ← see link for additional benefits laughter can add to health-related quality of life)
Plan for the future with love
You know the whole “planting trees in whose shade you’ll never sit”, thing, but: actually for yourself too. Plan (and act!) now, out of love and compassion for your future self.
Simple example: preparing (or semi-preparing, if appropriate) breakfast for yourself the night before, when you know in the morning you’ll be tired, hungry, and/or pressed for time. You’ll wake up, remember that you did that, and…
Tip: at moments like that, take a moment to think “Thanks, past me”. (Or call yourself by your name, whatever works for you. For example I, your writer here, might say to myself “Thanks, past Nastja!”)
This helps to build a habit of gratitude for your past self and love for your future self.
This goes for little things like the above, but it also goes for things whereby there’s much longer-term delayed gratification, such as:
- Healthy lifestyle changes (usually these see slow, cumulative progress)
- Good financial strategies (usually these see slow, cumulative progress)
- Long educational courses (usually these see slow, cumulative progress)
Basically: pay it forward to your future self, and thank yourself later!
Some quick ideas of systems and apps that go hard on the “long slow cumulative progress” approach that you can look back on with pride:
- Noom—nutritional program with a psychology-based approach to help you attain and maintain your goals, long term
- You Need A Budget—we’ve recommended it before and we’ll recommend it again. This is so good. If you click through, you can see a short explanation of what makes it so different to other budgeting apps.
- Duolingo—the famously persistence-motivational language learning app
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Are Waist Trainers Just A Waste, And Are Posture Fixers A Quick Fix?
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Are Waist Trainers Just A Waste, And Are Posture Fixers A Quick Fix?
Yesterday, we asked you for your opinions on waist trainers and posture-fixing harnesses, and got the above-depicted, below-described set of results:
- The most popular response was “Waist trainers are purely cosmetic, so useless. Posture-fixers have merit”, with a little over a quarter of the votes.
- The least popular response was “Both are great tools to help us to optimal waist size and posture, respectively!”
- The other three answers each got a little under a quarter of the vote. In terms of discrete data, these were all 7±1, so basically, there was nothing in it.
The sample size was smaller than usual—perhaps the cluster of American holiday dates yesterday and today kept people busy! But, pressing on…
What does the science say?
Waist trainers are purely cosmetic, so, useless. True or False?
True, simply. Honestly, they’re not even that great for cosmetic purposes. They will indeed cinch in your middle, and this shape will be retained for a (very) short while after uncinching, because your organs have been squished inwards and may take a short while to get back to where they are supposed to be.
The American Board of Cosmetic Surgery may not be an unbiased source, but we’re struggling to find scientists who will even touch one of these, so, let’s see what these doctors have to say:
- Waist training can damage vital organs
- You will be slowly suffocating yourself
- Waist training simply doesn’t work
- You cannot drastically change your body shape with a piece of fabric*
Read: ABCS | 4 Reasons to Throw Your Waist Trainer in the Trash
*”But what about foot-binding?”—feet have many bones, whose growth can be physically restricted. Your waist has:
- organs: necessary! (long-term damage possible, but they’re not going away)
- muscles: slightly restrictable! (temporary restriction; no permanent change)
- fat: very squeezable! (temporary muffin; no permanent change)
Posture correctors have merit: True or False?
True—probably, and as a stepping-stone measure only.
The Ergonomics Health Association (a workplace health & safety organization) says:
❝Looking at the clinical evidence of posture correctors, we can say without a doubt that they do work, just not for everyone and not in the same way for all patients.❞
Source: Do Posture Correctors Work? Here’s What Our Experts Think
That’s not very compelling, so we looked for studies, and found… Not much, actually. However, what we did find supported the idea that “they probably do help, but we seriously need better studies with less bias”:
That is also not a compelling title, but here is where it pays to look at the studies and not just the titles. Basically, they found that the results were favorable to the posture-correctors—the science itself was just trash:
❝ The overall findings were that posture-correcting shirts change posture and subjectively have a positive effect on discomfort, energy levels and productivity.
The quality of the included literature was poor to fair with only one study being of good quality. The risk of bias was serious or critical for the included studies. Overall, this resulted in very low confidence in available evidence.❞
Since the benefit of posture correctors like this one is due to reminding the wearer to keep good posture, there is a lot more (good quality!) science for wearable biofeedback tech devices, such as this one:
Spine Cop: Posture Correction Monitor and Assistant
Take care!
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Dietary Changes for Artery Health
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It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!
Have a question or a request? You can always hit “reply” to any of our emails, or use the feedback widget at the bottom!
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
❝How does your diet change clean out your arteries of the bad cholesterol?❞
There’s good news and bad news here, and they can both be delivered with a one-word reply:
Slowly.
Or rather: what’s being cleaned out is mostly not the LDL (bad) cholesterol, but rather, the result of that.
When our diet is bad for cardiovascular health, our arteries get fatty deposits on their walls. Cholesterol gets stuck here too, but that’s not the main physical problem.
Our body’s natural defenses come into action and try to clean it up, but they (for example macrophages, a kind of white blood cell that consumes invaders and then dies, before being recycled by the next part of the system) often get stuck and become part of the buildup (called atheroma), which can lead to atherosclerosis and (if calcium levels are high) hardening of the arteries, which is the worst end of this.
This can then require medical attention, precisely because the body can’t remove it very well—especially if you are still maintaining a heart-unhealthy diet, thus continuing to add to the mess.
However, if it is not too bad yet, yes, a dietary change alone will reverse this process. Without new material being added to the arterial walls, the body’s continual process of rejuvenation will eventually fix it, given time (free from things making it worse) and resources.
In fact, your arteries can be one of the quickest places for your body to make something better or worse, because the blood is the means by which the body moves most things (good or bad) around the body.
All the more reason to take extra care of it, since everything else depends on it!
You might also like our previous main feature:
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Body Sculpting with Kettlebells for Women – by Lorna Kleidman
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For those of us who are more often lifting groceries or pots and pans than bodybuilding trophies, kettlebells provide a way of training functional strength. This book does (as per the title) offer both sides of things—the body sculpting, and thebody maintenance free from pain and injury.
Kleidman first explains the basics of kettlebell training, and how to get the most from one’s workouts, before discussing what kinds of exercises are best for which benefits, and finally moving on to provide full exercise programs.
The exercise programs themselves are fairly comprehensive without being unduly detailed, and give a week-by-week plan for getting your body to where you want it to be.
The style is fairly personal and relaxed, while keeping things quite clear—the photographs are also clear, though if there’s a weakness here, it’s that we don’t get to see which muscles are being worked in the same as we do when there’s an illustration with a different-colored part to show that.
Bottom line: if you’re looking for an introductory course for kettlebell training that’ll take you from beginner through to the “I now know what I’m doing and can take it from here, thanks” stage.
Click here to check out Body Sculpting With Kettlebells For Women, and get sculpting!
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