How To Reduce The Harm Of Festive Drinking (Without Abstaining)

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.

How To Reduce The Harm Of Festive Drinking

Not drinking alcohol is—of course—the best way to avoid the harmful effects of alcohol. However, not everyone wants to abstain, especially at this time of year, so today we’re going to be focusing on harm reduction without abstinence.

If you do want to quit (or even reduce) drinking, you might like our previous article about that:

How To Reduce Or Quit Alcohol

For everyone else, let’s press on with harm reduction:

Before You Drink

A common (reasonable, but often unhelpful) advice is “set yourself a limit”. The problem with this is that when we’re sober, “I will drink no more than n drinks” is easy. After the first drink, we start to feel differently about it.

So: delay your first drink of the day for as long as possible

That’s it, that’s the tip. The later you start drinking, not only will you likely drink less, but also, your liver will have had longer to finish processing whatever you drank last night, so it’s coming at the new drink(s) fresh.

On that note…

Watch your meds! Often, especially if we are taking medications that also tax our liver (acetaminophen / paracetamol / Tylenol is a fine example of this), we are at risk of having a bit of a build-up, like an office printer that still chewing on the last job while you’re trying to print the next.

Additionally: do indeed eat before you drink.

While You Drink

Do your best to drink slowly. While this can hit the same kind of problem as the “set yourself a limit” idea, in that once you start drinking you forget to drink slowly, it’s something to try for.

If your main reason for drinking is the social aspect, then merely having a drink in your hand is generally sufficient. You don’t need to be keeping pace with anyone.

It is further good to alternate your drinks with water. As in, between each alcoholic drink, have a glass of water. This helps in several ways:

  • Hydrates you, which is good for your body’s recovery abilities
  • Halves the amount of time you spend drinking
  • Makes you less thirsty; it’s easy to think “I’m thirsty” and reach for an alcoholic drink that won’t actually help. So, it may slow down your drinking for that reason, too.

At the dinner table especially, it’s very reasonable to have two glasses, one filled with water. Nobody will be paying attention to which glass you drink from more often.

After You Drink

Even if you are not drunk, assume that you are.

Anything you wouldn’t let a drunk person in your care do, don’t do. Now is not the time to drive, have a shower, or do anything you wouldn’t let a child do in the kitchen.

Hospital Emergency Rooms, every year around this time, get filled up with people who thought they were fine and then had some accident.

The biggest risks from alcohol are:

  1. Accidents
  2. Heart attacks
  3. Things actually popularly associated with alcohol, e.g. alcohol poisoning etc

So, avoiding accidents is as important as, if not more important than, avoiding damage to your liver.

Drink some water, and eat something.

Fruit is great, as it restocks you on vitamins, minerals, and water, while being very easy to digest.

Go to bed.

There is a limit to how much trouble you can get into there. Sleep it off.

In the morning, do not do “hair of the dog”; drinking alcohol will temporarily alleviate a hangover, but only because it kicks your liver back into an earlier stage of processing the alcohol—it just prolongs the inevitable.

Have a good breakfast, instead. Remember, fruit is your friend (as explained above).

Want to know more?

Here’s a great service with a lot of further links to a lot more resources:

With You | How to safely detox from alcohol at home

Take care!

Don’t Forget…

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

Recommended

  • Make Your Vegetables Work Better Nutritionally
  • Is “Extra Virgin” Worth It?
    The health difference between extra virgin olive oil and regular is not huge, but extra virgin has slightly lower free fatty acid content and higher polyphenol content.

Learn to Age Gracefully

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

  • 11 Minutes to Pain-Free Hips – by Melinda Wright

    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.

    If hips don’t lie, what are yours saying to you? If what they’re saying to you sounds like a cry for help sometimes, this is the book to get you onto a better track.

    The hip is the largest joint in your body, and it bears a lot of weight. So it’s little wonder if sometimes they’d like a word with the boss. The question is: what will you do about it? Melinda Wright has suggestions to keep your hips—and you—happy.

    She spends the first couple of chapters introducing key concepts, and some anatomy and physiology that’ll be good to know.

    Then we’re into resistance stretching, basic hip exercises, all the way through to more advanced stuff. There are very clear photos for each. One thing that stands out about this book is each exercise is not just explained simply and clearly, but also offers “easing oneself in” exercises. After all, we’re not all at the same starting point.

    The book finishes off with some more holistic advice about chronic pain management, based on her personal experience with scoliosis, and some dietary tips to reduce joint pain and inflammation too.

    All in all, a very helpful book!

    Pick up 11 “Minutes to Pain-Free Hips” at Amazon today!

    ^You will also see options for pain-free back, and pain-free neck, by the same author

    Share This Post

  • With Only Gloves To Protect Them, Farmworkers Say They Tend Sick Cows Amid Bird Flu

    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.

    GREELEY, Colo. — In early August, farmworkers gathered under a pavilion at a park here for a picnic to celebrate Farmworker Appreciation Day. One sign that this year was different from the others was the menu: Beef fajitas, tortillas, pico de gallo, chips, beans — but no chicken.

    Farms in Colorado had culled millions of chickens in recent months to stem the transmission of bird flu. Organizers filled out the spread with hot dogs.

    No matter the menu, some dairy workers at the event said they don’t exactly feel appreciated. They said they haven’t received any personal protective equipment beyond gloves to guard against the virus, even as they or colleagues have come down with conjunctivitis and flu-like symptoms that they fear to be bird flu.

    “They should give us something more,” one dairy worker from Larimer County said in Spanish. He spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear he’d lose his job for speaking out. “What if something happens to us? They act as if nothing is wrong.”

    Agricultural health and safety experts have been trying to get the word out about how to protect against bird flu, including through bilingual videos on TikTok showing the proper way to gear up with respirators, eye protection, gloves, and coveralls. And Colorado’s health and agriculture departments have offered a free month’s supply of protective equipment to any producer who requests it.

    But so far, many farms aren’t taking them up on it: According to numbers provided by the state health department in late August, fewer than 13% of the state’s dairies had requested and received such PPE.

    The virus is known to infect mammals — from skunks, bears, and cows to people and house pets. It began showing up in dairy cattle in recent months, and Colorado has been in the thick of it. Ten of the 13 confirmed human cases in the U.S. this year have occurred in Colorado, where it continues to circulate among dairy cows. It isn’t a risk in cooked meat or pasteurized milk but is risky for those who come into contact with infected animals or raw milk.

    Weld County, where the farmworker event was held, is one of the nation’s top milk producers, supplying enough milk each month this year to fill about 45 Olympic-size swimming pools, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data. Neighboring counties are notable producers, too.

    Concerns are growing about undiagnosed illness among farmworkers because of a lack of testing and safety precautions. One reason for concern: Bird flu and seasonal flu are capable of gene trading, so if they ended up in the same body at the same time, bird flu might end up with genes that boost its contagiousness. The virus doesn’t appear to be spreading easily between people yet. That could change, and if people aren’t being tested then health officials may be slow to notice.

    Strains of seasonal flu already kill some 47,000 people in the U.S. a year. Public health officials fear the havoc a new form of the flu could wreak if it spreads among people.

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that dairy workers don a respirator and goggles or a face shield, among other protections, whether they are working with sick animals or not.

    A recent study found that not all infected cows show symptoms, so workers could be interacting with contagious animals without realizing it. Even when it is known that animals are infected, farmworkers often still have to get in close contact with them, sometimes under grueling conditions, such as during a recent heat wave when Colorado poultry workers collected hundreds of chickens by hand for culling because of the outbreak. At least six of the workers became infected with bird flu.

    One dairy worker in Weld County, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of losing his job, said his employer has not offered any protective equipment beyond gloves, even though he works with sick cows and raw milk.

    His bosses asked the workers to separate sick cows from the others after some cows produced less milk, lost weight, and showed signs of weakness, he said. But the employer didn’t say anything about the bird flu, he said, or suggest they take any precautions for their own safety.

    He said he bought protective goggles for himself at Walmart when his eyes became itchy and red earlier this summer. He recalled experiencing dizziness, headaches, and low appetite around the same time. But he self-medicated and pushed through, without missing work or going to a doctor.

    “We need to protect ourselves because you never know,” he said in Spanish. “I tell my wife and son that the cows are sick, and she tells me to leave, but it will be the same wherever I go.”

    He said he’d heard that his employers were unsympathetic when a colleague approached them about feeling ill. He’d even seen someone affiliated with management remove a flyer about how people can protect themselves from the bird flu and throw it in a bin.

    The dairy worker in neighboring Larimer County said he, too, has had just gloves as protection, even when he has worked with sick animals — close enough for saliva to wipe off on him. He started working with them when a colleague missed work because of his flu-like symptoms: fever, headache, and red eyes.

    “I only wear latex gloves,” he said. “And I see that those who work with the cows that are sick also only wear gloves.”

    He said he doesn’t have time to wash his hands at work but puts on hand sanitizer before going home and takes a shower once he arrives. He has not had symptoms of infection.

    Such accounts from dairy workers echo those from farmworkers in Texas, as reported by KFF Health News in July.

    “Employers who are being proactive and providing PPE seem to be in the minority in most states,” said Bethany Boggess Alcauter with the National Center for Farmworker Health, a not-for-profit organization based in Texas that advocates for improving the health of farmworkers and their families. “Farmworkers are getting very little information.”

    But Zach Riley, CEO of the Colorado Livestock Association, said he thinks such scenarios are the exception, not the rule.

    “You would be hard-pressed to find a dairy operation that isn’t providing that PPE,” he said. Riley said dairies typically have a stockpile of PPE ready to go for situations like this and that, if they don’t, it’s easily accessed through the state. “All you have to do is ask.”

    Producers are highly motivated to keep infections down, he said, because “milk is their life source.” He said he has heard from some producers that “their family members who work on the farm are doing 18-to 20-hour days just to try to stay ahead of it, so that they’re the first line between everything, to protect their employees.”

    Colorado’s health department is advertising a hotline that ill dairy workers can call for help getting a flu test and medicine.

    Project Protect Food Systems Workers, an organization that emerged early in the covid-19 pandemic to promote farmworker health across Colorado, is distributing PPE it received from the state so promotoras — health workers who are part of the community they serve — can distribute masks and other protections directly to workers if employers aren’t giving them out.

    Promotora Tomasa Rodriguez said workers “see it as another virus, another covid, but it is because they don’t have enough information.”

    She has been passing out flyers about symptoms and protective measures, but she can’t access many dairies. “And in some instances,” she said, “a lot of these workers don’t know how to read, so the flyers are not reaching them, and then the employers are not doing any kind of talks or trainings.”

    The CDC’s Nirav Shah said during an Aug. 13 call with journalists that awareness about bird flu among dairy workers isn’t as high as officials would like it to be, despite months of campaigns on social media and the radio.

    “There’s a road ahead of us that we still need to go down to get awareness on par with, say, what it might be in the poultry world,” he said. “We’re using every single messenger that we can.”

    KFF Health News correspondents Vanessa G. Sánchez and Amy Maxmen contributed to this report.

    Healthbeat is a nonprofit newsroom covering public health published by Civic News Company and KFF Health News. Sign up for its newsletters here.

    KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

    Subscribe to KFF Health News’ free Morning Briefing.

    Share This Post

  • Take This Two-Minute Executive Dysfunction Test

    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.

    Roll For Initiative

    Some of us struggle with executive dysfunction a lot; others, a little.

    What Is Executive Dysfunction?

    Executive function is a broad group of mental skills that enable people to complete tasks and interact with others.

    • Executive dysfunction can impair a person’s ability to organize and manage behavior

    • Executive dysfunction is not a specific stand-alone diagnosis or condition.

    • Instead, conditions such as depression and ADHD (amongst others) can affect a person’s executive function.

    Medical News Today

    Take This Two-Minute Executive Dysfunction Test

    How did you score? (8/16 here!)

    Did you do it? (it honestly is really two minutes and is quite informative)

    If not, here’s your cue to go back up and do it

    For almost all of us, we sometimes find ourselves torn between several competing tasks, and end up doing… none of them.

    For such times, compile yourself a “productivity buffet”, print it, and pin it above your desk or similar space.

    What’s a productivity buffet?

    It’s a numbered list of 6, 8, 10, 12 or 20 common tasks that pretty much always need doing (to at least some extent!). Doesn’t matter how important they are, just that they are frequently recurring tasks. For example:

    1. Tidy desk (including that drawer!)
    2. Reply to emails/messages
    3. Drink water
    4. Collect stray one-off to-dos into a list
    5. Stretch (or at least correct your posture!)
    6. Extend that Duolingo streak
    7. Read one chapter of a book
    8. Etc

    Why 6, 8, 10, 12, or 20?

    Because those are common denominations of polyhedral dice that are very cheap to buy!

    Keep the relevant die to hand (perhaps in your pocket or on your desk), and when you know you should be doing something but can’t decide what exactly, roll the die and do the item corresponding to the number you roll.

    And if you find yourself thinking “damn, I got 12, I wanted 7!” then go ahead and do item 7—the dice aren’t the boss of you, they’re just there to break the ice between you and your to-do list!

    The Housekeeper In Your Pocket?

    If you found the tidying tips (up top) helpful, but don’t like cleaning schedules because you just can’t stick to them, this one’s for you.

    It’s easy to slip into just doing the same few easy tasks while neglecting others for far too long.

    The answer? Outsource!

    Not “get a cleaner” (though if you want to and can, great, go for it, this one won’t be for you after all), but rather, try this nifty little app that helps you keep on top of daily cleaning—which we all know is better than binge-cleaning every few months.

    Sweepy keeps track of:

    • What jobs there are that might need doing in each room (or type of room) in the house
    • How often those jobs generally need doing
    • How much of your energy (a finite resource, which it also takes into account!) those jobs will take
    • How much energy you are prepared to spend per day (you can “lighter/heavier” days, or even “off-days”, too)

    …and then it populates a small daily task list according to what needs cleaning and how much energy it’ll take.

    For example, today Sweepy gives me (your trusty writer, hi! ) the tasks:

    • Bathroom: clean sink (every 3 days, 1pt of energy)
    • Dining room: clean and tidy table (every day, 1pt of energy)
    • Bedroom: vacuum floor (every 7 days, 2pts of energy)
    • Kitchen: clean coffee machine (every 30 days, 2pts of energy)

    And that’s my 6pts of energy I’ve told Sweepy I’m happy to spend per day cleaning. There are “3 pts” tasks too—cleaning the oven, for example—but none came up today.

    Importantly: it does not bother me about any other tasks today (even if something’s overdue), and I don’t have to worry my pretty head about it.

    I don’t have to feel guilty for not doing other cleaning tasks; if they need doing, Sweepy will tell me tomorrow, and it will make sure I don’t get behind or leave anything neglected for too long.

    Check it out (available for both iOS and Android)

    PS: to premium or not to premium? We think the premium is worth it (unlocks some extra customization features) but the free version is sufficient to get your house in order, so don’t be afraid to give it a try first.

    Share This Post

Related Posts

  • Make Your Vegetables Work Better Nutritionally
  • Yes, blue light from your phone can harm your skin. A dermatologist explains

    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.

    Social media is full of claims that everyday habits can harm your skin. It’s also full of recommendations or advertisements for products that can protect you.

    Now social media has blue light from our devices in its sights.

    So can scrolling on our phones really damage your skin? And will applying creams or lotions help?

    Here’s what the evidence says and what we should really be focusing on.

    Max kegfire/Shutterstock

    Remind me, what actually is blue light?

    Blue light is part of the visible light spectrum. Sunlight is the strongest source. But our electronic devices – such as our phones, laptops and TVs – also emit it, albeit at levels 100-1,000 times lower.

    Seeing as we spend so much time using these devices, there has been some concern about the impact of blue light on our health, including on our eyes and sleep.

    Now, we’re learning more about the impact of blue light on our skin.

    How does blue light affect the skin?

    The evidence for blue light’s impact on skin is still emerging. But there are some interesting findings.

    1. Blue light can increase pigmentation

    Studies suggest exposure to blue light can stimulate production of melanin, the natural skin pigment that gives skin its colour.

    So too much blue light can potentially worsen hyperpigmentation – overproduction of melanin leading to dark spots on the skin – especially in people with darker skin.

    Woman with skin pigmentation on cheek
    Blue light can worsen dark spots on the skin caused by overproduction of melanin. DUANGJAN J/Shutterstock

    2. Blue light can give you wrinkles

    Some research suggests blue light might damage collagen, a protein essential for skin structure, potentially accelerating the formation of wrinkles.

    A laboratory study suggests this can happen if you hold your device one centimetre from your skin for as little as an hour.

    However, for most people, if you hold your device more than 10cm away from your skin, that would reduce your exposure 100-fold. So this is much less likely to be significant.

    3. Blue light can disrupt your sleep, affecting your skin

    If the skin around your eyes looks dull or puffy, it’s easy to blame this directly on blue light. But as we know blue light affects sleep, what you’re probably seeing are some of the visible signs of sleep deprivation.

    We know blue light is particularly good at suppressing production of melatonin. This natural hormone normally signals to our bodies when it’s time for sleep and helps regulate our sleep-wake cycle.

    By suppressing melatonin, blue light exposure before bed disrupts this natural process, making it harder to fall asleep and potentially reducing the quality of your sleep.

    The stimulating nature of screen content further disrupts sleep. Social media feeds, news articles, video games, or even work emails can keep our brains active and alert, hindering the transition into a sleep state.

    Long-term sleep problems can also worsen existing skin conditions, such as acne, eczema and rosacea.

    Sleep deprivation can elevate cortisol levels, a stress hormone that breaks down collagen, the protein responsible for skin’s firmness. Lack of sleep can also weaken the skin’s natural barrier, making it more susceptible to environmental damage and dryness.

    Can skincare protect me?

    The beauty industry has capitalised on concerns about blue light and offers a range of protective products such as mists, serums and lip glosses.

    From a practical perspective, probably only those with the more troublesome hyperpigmentation known as melasma need to be concerned about blue light from devices.

    This condition requires the skin to be well protected from all visible light at all times. The only products that are totally effective are those that block all light, namely mineral-based suncreens or some cosmetics. If you can’t see the skin through them they are going to be effective.

    But there is a lack of rigorous testing for non-opaque products outside laboratories. This makes it difficult to assess if they work and if it’s worth adding them to your skincare routine.

    What can I do to minimise blue light then?

    Here are some simple steps you can take to minimise your exposure to blue light, especially at night when it can disrupt your sleep:

    • use the “night mode” setting on your device or use a blue-light filter app to reduce your exposure to blue light in the evening
    • minimise screen time before bed and create a relaxing bedtime routine to avoid the types of sleep disturbances that can affect the health of your skin
    • hold your phone or device away from your skin to minimise exposure to blue light
    • use sunscreen. Mineral and physical sunscreens containing titanium dioxide and iron oxides offer broad protection, including from blue light.

    In a nutshell

    Blue light exposure has been linked with some skin concerns, particularly pigmentation for people with darker skin. However, research is ongoing.

    While skincare to protect against blue light shows promise, more testing is needed to determine if it works.

    For now, prioritise good sun protection with a broad-spectrum sunscreen, which not only protects against UV, but also light.

    Michael Freeman, Associate Professor of Dermatology, Bond University

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

    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:

  • Nutrition To Combat Lymphedema & Lipedema

    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.

    Dr. Kelly Sturm is a rehab specialist (Doctor of Physical Therapy), and also a certified lymphedema therapist. Here’s what helps her patients with lymphedema and lipedema:

    Don’t fan the flames

    Lymphedema and lipedema are inflammatory lymphatic diseases affecting mostly women. As such, an anti-inflammatory diet will be important, but there are other factors too:

    • Anti-inflammatory diet: this is to reduce the chronic inflammation associated with lymphatic diseases. This means eating plenty of fruit and vegetables, especially berries and leafy greens, and avoiding things like sugar, alcohol, caffeine, and processed foods. And of course, don’t smoke.
    • Intermittent fasting: this also helps by giving the body a chance to correct itself; when the body isn’t digesting food, it has a lot more resources to devote to its favorite activity: maintenance. This results in lower inflammation, and better fat redistribution.
    • Weight loss: not a bandwagon we often get on at 10almonds as it’s rarely the most important thing, but in this case it is of high importance (second only to dealing with the inflammation), as excess weight around the lymph nodes and vessels can lead to dysfunction and swelling. Thus, reducing the weight can ease that and allow the body to heal.

    For more details on all of the above, enjoy:

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

    Want to learn more?

    You might also like to read:

    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

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

  • Healing Back Pain – by Dr. John Sarno

    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.

    Often when we review books with titles like this one, we preface it with a “what it’s not: a think-yourself-better book”.

    In this case… It is, in fact, a think-yourself-better book. However, its many essay-length rave reviews caught our attention, and upon reading, we can report: its ideas are worth reading.

    The focus of this book is on TMS, or “Tension Myoneural Syndrome”, to give it its full name. The author asserts (we cannot comment on the accuracy) that many cases of TMS are misdiagnosed as other things, from sciatica to lupus. When other treatments fail, or are simply not available (no cure for lupus yet, for example) or are unenticing (risky surgeries, for example), he offers an alternative approach.

    Dr. Sarno lays out the case for TMS being internally fixable, since our muscles and nerves are all at the command of our brain. Rather than taking a physical-first approach, he takes a psychological-first approach, before building into a more holistic model.

    The writing style is… A little dated and salesey and unnecessarily padded, to be honest, but the content makes it worthwhile.

    Bottom line: if you have back pain, then the advice of this book, priced not much more than a box of top brand painkillers, seems a very reasonable thing to try.

    Click here to check out Healing Back Pain, and see if it works for you!

    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: