How To Avoid Slipping Into (Bad) Old Habits

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Treating Bad Habits Like Addictions

How often have you started a healthy new habit (including if it’s a “quit this previous thing” new habit), only to find that you slip back into your old ways?

We’ve written plenty on habit-forming before, so here’s a quick recap before we continue:

How To Really Pick Up (And Keep!) Those Habits

…and even how to give them a boost:

How To Keep On Keeping On… Long Term!

But how to avoid the relapses that are most likely to snowball?

Borrowing from the psychology of addiction recovery

It’s well known that someone recovering from substance addiction should not have even a small amount of the thing they were addicted to. Not one sip of champagne at a wedding, not one drag of a cigarette, and so forth.

This can go for other bad habits too; make one exception, and suddenly you have a whole string of “exceptions”, and before you know it, it’s not the exception anymore; it’s the new rule—again.

Three things that can help guard against this are:

  1. Absolutely refuse to romanticize the bad habit. Do not fall for its marketing! And yes, everything has marketing even if not advertising; for example, consider the Platonic ideal of a junk-food-eating couch-potato who is humble, unassuming, agreeable, the almost-holy idea of homely comfort, and why shouldn’t we be comfortable after all, haven’t we earned our chosen hedonism, and so on. It’s seductive, and we need to make the choice to not be seduced by it. In this case for example, yes pleasure is great, but being sick tired and destroying our bodies is not, in fact, pleasurable in the long run. Which brings us to…
  2. Absolutely refuse to forget why you dropped that behavior in the first place. Remember what it did to you, remember you at your worst. Remember what you feared might become of you if you continued like that. This is something where journaling helps, by the way; remembering our low points helps us to avoid finding ourselves in the same situation again.
  3. Absolutely refuse to let your guard down due to an overabundance of self-confidence in your future self. We all can easily feel that tomorrow is a mystical land in which all productivity is stored, and also where we are strong, energized, iron-willed, and totally able to avoid making the very mistakes that we are right now in the process of making. Instead, be that strong person now, for the benefit of tomorrow’s you. Because after all, if it’s going to be easy tomorrow, it’s easy now, right?

The above is a very simple, hopefully practical, set of rules to follow. If you like hard science more though, Yale’s Dr. Steven Melemis offers five rules (aimed more directly at addiction recovery, so this may be a big “heavy guns” for some milder habits):

  1. change your life
  2. be completely honest
  3. ask for help
  4. practice self-care
  5. don’t bend the rules

You can read his full paper and the studies it’s based on, here:

Relapse Prevention and the Five Rules of Recovery

“What if I already screwed up?”

Draw a line under it, now, and move forwards in the direction you actually want to go.

Here’s a good article, that saves us taking up more space here; it’s very well-written so we do recommend it:

The Abstinence Violation Effect and Overcoming It

this article gives specific, practical advices, including CBT tools to use

Take care!

Don’t Forget…

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  • I’m So Effing Tired – by Dr. Amy Shah

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    It’s easy sometimes to feel like we know more or less what we should be doing… If only we had the energy to get going!

    • We know we want a better diet… But we don’t have the time/energy to cook so will go for the quickest option even when it’s not the best?
    • We know we should exercise… But feel we just need to crash out on the couch for a bit first?
    • We would dearly love to get better sleep… But our responsibilities aren’t facilitating that?

    …and so on. Happily, Dr. Amy Shah is here with ways to cut through the Gordian Knot that is this otherwise self-perpetuating cycle of exhaustion.

    Most of the book is based around tackling what Dr. Shah calls “the energy trifecta“:

    • Hormone levels
    • Immune system
    • Gut health

    You’ll note (perhaps with relief) that none of these things require an initial investment of energy that you don’t have… She’s not asking you to hit the gym at 5am, or magically bludgeon your sleep schedule into its proper place, say.

    Instead, what she gives is practical, actionable, easy changes that don’t require much effort, to gently slide us back into the fast lane of actually having energy to do stuff!

    In short: if you’ve ever felt like you’d like to implement a lot of very common “best practice” lifestyle advice, but just haven’t had the energy to get going, there’s more value in this handbook than in a thousand motivational pep talks.

    Click here to check out “I’m So Effing Tired” and get on a better track of life!

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  • Heart Rate Zones, Oxalates, & More

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    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

    ❝I think the heart may be an issue for lots of us. I know it is for me due to AFib. When I’m in my training zone like on a treadmill, I’m usually around 110 to 120. But there are occasionally times when I’m at 140 or 150. How dangerous is that? If I use that formula of 180 minus age, thats 103. I get nothing from that. My resting heart rate is in the 50 to 60 range.❞

    First, for safety, let us draw attention to our medical disclaimer at the bottom of each email, and also specifically note that we are not cardiologists here, let alone your cardiologist. There’s a lot we can’t know or advise about. However, as general rules of thumb:

    For people without serious health conditions, it is considered good and healthful for one’s heart rate to double (from its resting rate) during exercise, with even more than 2.5x resting rate being nothing more than a good cardio workout.

    As for “180 minus age” (presuming you mean: to calculate the safe maximum heart rate), more common (and used by the American Heart Association) is 220 minus age. In your case, that’d give 143.

    Having atrial fibrillation may change this however, and we can’t offer medical advice.

    We can point to this AHA “AFib Resources For Patients and Professionals”, including this handy FAQ sheet which says:

    “Am I able to exercise?” / “Yes, as long as you’re cleared by your doctor, you can perform normal activities of daily living that you can tolerate” (accompanied by a little graphic of a person using an exercise bike)

    You personally probably know this already, of course, but it’s quite an extensive collection of resources, so we thought we’d include it.

    It’s certainly a good idea for everyone to be aware of their healthy heart rate ranges, regardless of having a known heart condition or not, though!

    American Heart Association: Target Heart Rates Chart

    ❝I would like to see some articles on osteoporosis❞

    You might enjoy this mythbusting main feature we did a few weeks ago!

    The Bare-Bones Truth About Osteoporosis

    ❝Interesting, but… Did you know spinach is high in oxylates? Some people are sensitive and can cause increased inflammation, joint pain or even kidney stones. Moderation is key. My sister and I like to eat healthy but found out by experience that too much spinach salad caused us joint and other aches.❞

    It’s certainly good to be mindful of such things! For most people, a daily serving of spinach shouldn’t cause ill effects, and certainly there are other greens to eat.

    We wondered whether there was a way to reduce the oxalate content, and we found:

    How to Reduce Oxalic Acid in Spinach: Neutralizing Oxalates

    …which led us this product on Amazon:

    Nephure Oxalate Reducing Enzyme, Low Oxalate Diet Support

    We wondered what “nephure” was, and whether it could be trusted, and came across this “Supplement Police” article about it:

    Nephure Review – Oxalate Reducing Enzyme Powder Health Benefits?

    …which honestly, seems to have been written as a paid advertisement. But! It did reference a study, which we were able to look up, and find:

    In vitro and in vivo safety evaluation of Nephure™

    …which seems to indicate that it was safe (for rats) in all the ways that they checked. They did not, however, check whether it actually reduced oxalate content in spinach or any other food.

    The authors did declare a conflict of interest, in that they had a financial relationship with the sponsor of the study, Captozyme Inc.

    All in all, it may be better to just have kale instead of spinach:

    We turn the tables and ask you a question!

    We’ll then talk about this tomorrow:

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  • Hair-Loss Remedies, By Science

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    10almonds Gets Hairy

    Hair loss is a thing that at some point affects most men and a large minority of women. It can be a source of considerable dysphoria for both, as it’s often seen as a loss of virility/femininity respectively, and is societally stigmatized in various ways.

    Today we’re going to focus on the most common kind: androgenic alopecia, which is called “male pattern baldness” in men and “female pattern baldness” in women, despite being the same thing.

    We won’t spend a lot of time on the science of why this happens (we’re going to focus on the remedies instead), but suffice it to say that genes and hormones both play a role, with dihydrogen testosterone (DHT) being the primary villain in this case.

    We’ve talked before about the science of 5α-reductase inhibitors to block the conversion of regular testosterone* to DHT, its more potent form:

    One Man’s Saw Palmetto Is Another Woman’s Serenoa Repens…

    *We all make this to a greater or lesser degree, unless we have had our ovaries/testes removed.

    Finasteride

    Finasteride is a 5α-reductase inhibitor that performs similarly to saw palmetto, but comes in tiny pills instead of needing to take a much higher dose of supplement (5mg of finasteride is comparable in efficacy to a little over 300mg of saw palmetto).

    Does it work? Yes!

    Any drawbacks? A few:

    • It’ll take 3–6 months to start seeing effects. This is because of the hormonal life-cycle of human hairs.
    • Common side-effects include ED.
    • It is popularly labelled/prescribed as “only for men

    On that latter point: the warnings about this are severe, detailing how women must not take it, must not even touch it if it has been cut up or crushed.

    However… That’s because it can carry a big risk to our unborn fetuses. So, if we are confident we definitely don’t have one of those, it’s not actually applicable to us.

    That said, finasteride’s results in women aren’t nearly so clear-cut as in men (though also, there has been less research, largely because of the above). Here’s an interesting breakdown in more words than we have room for here:

    Finasteride for Women: Everything You Need to Know

    Spironolactone

    This one’s generally prescribed to women, not men, largely because it’s the drug sometimes popularly known as a “chemical castration” drug, which isn’t typically great marketing for men (although it can be applied topically, which will have less of an effect on the rest of the body). For women, this risk is simply not an issue.

    We’ll be brief on this one, but we’ll just drop this, so that you know it’s an option that works:

    Spironolactone is an effective and safe treatment of androgenic alopecia which can enhance the efficacy when combined with other conventional treatments such as minoxidil.

    Topical spironolactone is safer than oral administration and is suitable for both male and female patients, and is expected to become a common drug for those who do not have a good response to minoxidil❞

    Read more: The Efficacy and Safety of Oral and Topical Spironolactone in Androgenetic Alopecia Treatment: A Systematic Review

    Minoxidil

    This one is available (to men and women) without prescription. It’s applied topically, and works by shortcutting the hair’s hormonal growth cycle, to reduce the resting phase and kick it into a growth phase.

    Does it work? Yes!

    Any drawbacks? A few:

    • Whereas you’ll remember finasteride takes 3–6 months to see any effect, this one will have an effect very quickly
      • Specifically, the immediate effect is: your rate of hair loss will appear to dramatically speed up
      • This happens because when hairs are kicked into their growth phase if they were in a resting phase, the first part of that growth phase is to shed each old hair to make room for the new one
    • You’ll then need the same 3–6 months as with finasteride, to see the regrowth effects
    • If you stop using it, you will immediately shed whatever hair you gained by this method

    Why do people choose this over finasteride? For one of three reasons, mainly:

    • They are women, and not offered finasteride
    • They are men, and do not want the side effects of finasteride
    • They just saw an ad and tried it

    As to how it works:

    Minoxidil upregulates the expression of vascular endothelial growth factor in human hair dermal papilla cells

    Some final notes:

    There are some other contraindications and warnings with each of these drugs by the way, so do speak with your doctor/pharmacist. For example:

    There are other hair loss remedies and practices, but the above three are the heavy-hitters, so that’s what we spent our time/space on today. We’ll perhaps cover the less powerful (but less risky) options one of these days.

    Meanwhile, take care!

    Share This Post

Related Posts

  • Neurotransmitter Cheatsheet
  • Heart Attack: His & Hers (Be Prepared!)

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    The ECG Wearable That Could Cut Down Preventable Heart Attack Deaths

    Nearly half of people who have heart attacks don’t realize what’s happening until it’s too late. This device could greatly reduce those preventable deaths:

    New wearable ECG device could help prevent heart attacks

    At a glance:

    • Dry electrodes (no gel) are comfortable, durable, and unlikely to cause skin irritation
    • The electrodes, which are less than one tenth the width of a human hair, are highly sensitive to the cardiac signals of the user
    • The device can capture ECG signals even when it is fitted hidden out of the way behind a person’s neck
    • The electrodes are also hydrophobic, meaning they don’t get wet— even if worn in the shower, swimming pool, etc
    • It communicates with a smartphone app by Bluetooth (yes, it has a tiny Bluetooth chip in it)

    Read more about the study, the device, the various versions tested, and which version won out as optimal:

    Dry electrode geometry optimization for wearable ECG devices

    (you can also see pictures of it, if you’re curious!)

    In the meantime…

    That device isn’t available to the public yet (the study was published literally yesterday), so if you’d like to be ahead of the game with regard to recognizing heart attack signs, read on:

    Heart Attack: His & Hers (Be Prepared!)

    Heart attack symptoms vary by sex. This is governed by hormones, so if you are for example a postmenopausal woman and not on HRT, your symptoms might be nearer that of men.

    The following symptom list is intended as a rough “most likely” guide. You may not get all of the symptoms you “should”. You could get symptoms from the “wrong” category. So don’t sweat the minutiae, but do be aware of…

    Symptoms for everyone:

    • Jaw, neck, and/or back pain
    • Nausea and/or vomiting
    • Shortness of breath

    Additional symptoms (mostly) just for men:

    • Pressure and/or pain in the upper chest
    • Discomfort and/or tingling in the arms
    • Sudden cold sweat

    Additional symptoms (mostly) just for women:

    • Pressure and/or pain in the lower chest and/or abdomen
    • Feeling of fullness and/or indigestion
    • Fatigue, dizziness, possibly fainting

    In the event of experiencing symptoms…

    Call 911 or your local equivalent.This is not the time to wait to see if it goes away by itself. If unsure, call. Better safe than sorry/dead.

    If you are not alone, or if it is someone with you who is having the suspected heart attack, it may be quicker to go to the Emergency Room by car, than wait for an ambulance.

    Even if you choose to do that, you should still call 911 anyway, as the responder will be able to instruct you in real-time, not something we can do in a newsletter.

    Note that if available, this means three people in the car is ideal:

    Driver, patient, and third person on the phone giving information and following instructions.

    Emergency situations rarely go entirely by-the-book, but with a little foreknowledge and at least one person with a calm head, preventable deaths can be avoided.

    Don’t Forget…

    Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!

    Learn to Age Gracefully

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  • The Immunostimulant Superfood – 

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    First, what this book is not: a “detox cleanse” book of the kind that claims you can flush out the autism if you just eat enough celery.

    What it rather is: an overview brain chemistry, gut microbiota, and the very many other bodily systems that interact with these “two brains”.

    She also does some mythbusting of popular misconceptions (for example with regard to tryptophan), and explains with good science just what exactly such substances as gluten and casein can and can’t do.

    The format is less of a textbook and more a multipart (i.e., chapter-by-chapter) lecture, in pop-science style though, making it very readable. There are a lot of practical advices too, and options to look up foods by effect, and what to eat for/against assorted mental states.

    Bottom line: anyone who eats food is, effectively, drugging themselves in one fashion or another—so you might as well make a conscious choice about how to do so.

    Click here to check out This Is Your Brain On Food, and choose what kind of day you have!

    Don’t Forget…

    Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!

    Learn to Age Gracefully

    Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:

  • When And Why Do We Pick Up Our Phones?

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    The School of Life’s Alain de Botton makes the argument that—if we pay attention, if we keep track—there’s an understory to why we pick up our phones:

    It’s not about information

    Yes, our phones (or rather, the apps therein) are designed to addict us, to draw us back, to keep us scrolling and never let us go. We indeed seek out information like our ancestors once sought out berries; searching, encouraged by a small discovery, looking for more. The neurochemistry is similar.

    But when we look at the “when” of picking up our phones, de Botton says, it tells a different story:

    We pick them up not to find out what’s going on with the world, but rather specifically to not find out what’s going with ourselves. We pick them up to white out some anxiety we don’t want to examine, a line of thought we don’t want to go down, memories we don’t want to consider, futures we do not want to have to worry about.

    And of course, phones do have a great educational potential, are an immensely powerful tool for accessing knowledge of many kinds—if only we can remain truly conscious while using them, and not take them as the new “opiate of the masses”.

    De Botton bids us, when next we pick up our phone. ask a brave question:

    “If I weren’t allowed to consult my phone right now, what might I need to think about?”

    As for where from there? There’s more in the video:

    Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!

    Further reading

    Making Social Media Work For Your Mental Health

    Take care!

    Don’t Forget…

    Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!

    Learn to Age Gracefully

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