Insomnia Decoded – by Dr. Audrey Porter

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We’ve written about sleep books before, so what makes this one different? Its major selling point is: most of the focus isn’t on the things that everyone already knows.

Yes, there’s a section on sleep hygiene and yes it’ll tell you to cut the caffeine and alcohol, but most of the advice here is beyond that.

Rather, it looks at finding out (if you don’t already know for sure) what is keeping you from healthy sleep, be it environmental, directly physical, or psychological, and breaking out of the stress-sleep cycle that often emerges from such.

The style is light and conversational, but includes plenty of science too; Dr. Porter knows her stuff.

Bottom line: if you feel like you know what you should be doing, but somehow life keeps conspiring to stop you from doing it, then this is the book that could help you break out that cycle.

Click here to check out Insomnia Decoded, and get regular healthy sleep!

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    Strawberries outshine grapes with more fiber, comparable vitamins, and key minerals – a tasty verdict for fruit lovers!

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  • Shoe Wear Patterns: What They Mean, Why It Matters, & How To Fix It

    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 you look under your shoes, do you notice how the tread is worn more in some places than others? Specific patterns of shoe wear correspond to how our body applies force, weight, and rotational movement. This reveals how we move, and uneven wear can indicate problematic movement dynamics.

    The clues in your shoes

    Common shoe wear patterns include:

    • Diagonal wear on the outside of the heel: caused by foot angle, leg position, and instability, leading to joint stress.
    • Rotational wear at specific points: due to internal or external rotation, often originating from the hip, pelvis, or torso.
    • Wear above the big toe: caused by excessive toe lifting, often associated with a “lighter” or kicking leg.

    Fixing movement issues to prevent wear involves correcting posture, improving balance, and adjusting how the legs land during walking/running.

    Key fixes include:

    • Aligning the center of gravity properly to prevent leg overcompensation.
    • Ensuring feet land under the hips and not far in front.
    • Stabilizing the torso to avoid unnecessary rotation.
    • Engaging the glutes effectively to reduce hip flexor dominance and improve leg mechanics.
    • Maintaining even weight distribution on both legs to prevent excessive lifting or twisting.

    Posture and walking mechanics are vital to reducing uneven wear, but meaningful, lasting change takes time and focused effort, to build new habits.

    For more on all this plus visual demonstrations, enjoy:

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

    Want to learn more?

    You might also like to read:

    Steps For Keeping Your Feet A Healthy Foundation

    Take care!

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  • In Defense of Food – by Michael Pollan

    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.

    Eat more like the French. Or the Italians. Or the Japanese. Or…

    Somehow, whatever we eat is not good enough, and we should always be doing it differently!

    Michael Pollan takes a more down-to-Earth approach.

    He kicks off by questioning the wisdom of thinking of our food only in terms of nutritional profiles, and overthinking healthy-eating. He concludes, as many do, that a “common-sense, moderate” approach is needed.

    And yet, most people who believe they are taking a “common-sense, moderate” approach to health are in fact over-fed yet under-nourished.

    So, how to fix this?

    He offers us a reframe: to think of food as a relationship, and health being a product of it:

    • If we are constantly stressing about a relationship, it’s probably not good.
    • On the other hand, if we are completely thoughtless about it, it’s probably not good either.
    • But if we can outline some good, basic principles and celebrate it with a whole heart? It’s probably at the very least decent.

    The style is very casual and readable throughout. His conclusions, by the way, can be summed up as “Eat real food, make it mostly plants, and make it not too much”.

    However, to summarize it thusly undercuts a lot of the actual value of the book, which is the principles for discerning what is “real food” and what is “not too much”.

    Bottom line: if you’re tired of complicated eating plans, this book can help produce something very simple, attainable, and really quite good.

    Click here to check out In Defense of Food, for some good, hearty eating.

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  • The Purple Parsnip’s Bioactive Brain Benefits (& more)

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    This Root Might Be A Guardian Angel

    Sometimes we go searching for supplements to research; sometimes supplements present themselves for examination! In this case, our attention was grabbed by a headline:

    Angelica gigas extract emerges as a potential treatment for vascular disease

    Angelica who?

    Angelica gigas, also called the purple parsnip (amongst other names), is a flowering plant native to Korea. It has assorted medicinal properties, and in this case, it was its heart-healthy benefits that were making news:

    ❝Ultimately, this study presents clearly evidence that Angelica gigas extract is a promising natural product-based functional food/herbal medicine candidate for preventing or regulating hyperlipidemic cardiovascular complications❞

    Source: Angelica gigas extract inhibits acetylation of eNOS via IRE1α sulfonation/RIDD-SIRT1-mediated posttranslational modification in vascular dysfunction

    But it has a lot more to offer…

    The root has various bioactive metabolites, but the compounds that most studies are most interested in are decursin and decursinol, for their neuroprotective and cognitive enhancement effects:

    ❝[C]rude extracts and isolated components from the root of A. gigas exhibited neuroprotective and cognitive enhancement effects.

    Neuronal damage or death is the most important factor for many neurodegenerative diseases.

    In addition, recent studies have clearly demonstrated the possible mechanisms behind the neuroprotective action of extracts/compounds from the root of A. gigas.❞

    That middle paragraph there? That’s one of the main pathogenic processes of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, and Multiple Sclerosis.

    Angelica gigas attenuates (reduces the force of) that process:

    ❝The published reports revealed that the extracts and isolated components from the root of A. gigas showed neuroprotective and cognitive enhancement properties through various mechanisms such as anti-apoptosis, antioxidative actions, inhibiting mRNA and protein expressions of inflammatory mediators and regulating a number of signaling pathways.

    In conclusion, the A. gigas root can serve as an effective neuroprotective agent by modulating various pathophysiological processes❞

    Read more: Neuroprotective and Cognitive Enhancement Potentials of Angelica gigas Nakai Root: A Review

    Beyond neuroprotection & cognitive enhancement

    …and also beyond its protection against vascular disease, which is what got our attention…

    Angelica gigas also has antioxidant properties, anti-cancer properties, and general immune-boosting properties.

    We’ve only so much room, so: those links above will take you to example studies for those things, but there are plenty more where they came from, so we’re quite confident in this one.

    Of course, what has antioxidant properties is usually anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer, and anti-aging, because these things are reliant on many of the same processes as each other, with a lot of overlap.

    Where can we get it?

    We don’t sell it, but here’s an example product on Amazon, for your convenience

    Enjoy!

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Related Posts

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  • The Biological Mind – by Dr. Alan Jasanoff

    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 special is our brain? According to Dr. Alan Jasanoff, it’s not nearly as special as we think it is.

    In this work, he outlines the case for how we have collectively overstated the brain’s importance. That it’s just another organ like a heart or a kidney, and that who we are is as much a matter of other factors, as what goes on in our brain.

    In this reviewer’s opinion, he overcorrects a bit. The heart and kidneys are very simple organs, as organs go. The brain is not. And while everything from our gut microbiota to our environment to our hormones may indeed contribute to what is us, our brain is one thing that can’t just be swapped out.

    Nevertheless, this very well-written book can teach us a lot about everything else that makes us us, including many biological factors that many people don’t know about or consider.

    Towards the end of the book, he switches into futurist speculation, and his speculation can be summed up as “we cannot achieve anything worthwhile in the future”.

    Bottom line: if you’ve an interest in such things as how transplanting glial cells can give a 30% cognitive enhancement, and how a brain transplant wouldn’t result in the same us in a different body, this is the book for you.

    Click here to check out The Biological Mind, and learn about yours!

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  • I want to eat healthily. So why do I crave sugar, salt and carbs?

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    We all want to eat healthily, especially as we reset our health goals at the start of a new year. But sometimes these plans are sabotaged by powerful cravings for sweet, salty or carb-heavy foods.

    So why do you crave these foods when you’re trying to improve your diet or lose weight? And what can you do about it?

    There are many reasons for craving specific foods, but let’s focus on four common ones:

    1. Blood sugar crashes

    Sugar is a key energy source for all animals, and its taste is one of the most basic sensory experiences. Even without specific sweet taste receptors on the tongue, a strong preference for sugar can develop, indicating a mechanism beyond taste alone.

    Neurons responding to sugar are activated when sugar is delivered to the gut. This can increase appetite and make you want to consume more. Giving into cravings also drives an appetite for more sugar.

    In the long term, research suggests a high-sugar diet can affect mood, digestion and inflammation in the gut.

    While there’s a lot of variation between individuals, regularly eating sugary and high-carb foods can lead to rapid spikes and crashes in blood sugar levels. When your blood sugar drops, your body can respond by craving quick sources of energy, often in the form of sugar and carbs because these deliver the fastest, most easily accessible form of energy.

    2. Drops in dopamine and serotonin

    Certain neurotransmitters, such as dopamine, are involved in the reward and pleasure centres of the brain. Eating sugary and carb-rich foods can trigger the release of dopamine, creating a pleasurable experience and reinforcing the craving.

    Serotonin, the feel-good hormone, suppresses appetite. Natural changes in serotonin can influence daily fluctuations in mood, energy levels and attention. It’s also associated with eating more carb-rich snacks in the afternoon.

    Woman sits at her desk, tired
    Do you get 3pm sugar cravings? Serotonin could play a role.
    Marcus Aurelius/Pexels

    Low carb diets may reduce serotonin and lower mood. However, a recent systematic review suggests little association between these diets and risk for anxiety and depression.

    Compared to men, women tend to crave more carb rich foods. Feeling irritable, tired, depressed or experiencing carb cravings are part of premenstrual symptoms and could be linked to reduced serotonin levels.

    3. Loss of fluids and drops in blood sugar and salt

    Sometimes our bodies crave the things they’re missing, such as hydration or even salt. A low-carb diet, for example, depletes insulin levels, decreasing sodium and water retention.

    Very low-carb diets, like ketogenic diets, induce “ketosis”, a metabolic state where the body switches to using fat as its primary energy source, moving away from the usual dependence on carbohydrates.

    Ketosis is often associated with increased urine production, further contributing to potential fluid loss, electrolyte imbalances and salt cravings.

    4. High levels of stress or emotional turmoil

    Stress, boredom and emotional turmoil can lead to cravings for comfort foods. This is because stress-related hormones can impact our appetite, satiety (feeling full) and food preferences.

    The stress hormone cortisol, in particular, can drive cravings for sweet comfort foods.

    A 2001 study of 59 premenopausal women subjected to stress revealed that the stress led to higher calorie consumption.

    A more recent study found chronic stress, when paired with high-calorie diet, increases food intake and a preference for sweet foods. This shows the importance of a healthy diet during stress to prevent weight gain.

    What can you do about cravings?

    Here are four tips to curb cravings:

    1) don’t cut out whole food groups. Aim for a well-balanced diet and make sure you include:

    • sufficient protein in your meals to help you feel full and reduce the urge to snack on sugary and carb-rich foods. Older adults should aim for 20–40g protein per meal with a particular focus on breakfast and lunch and an overall daily protein intake of at least 0.8g per kg of body weight for muscle health
    • fibre-rich foods, such as vegetables and whole grains. These make you feel full and stabilise your blood sugar levels. Examples include broccoli, quinoa, brown rice, oats, beans, lentils and bran cereals. Substitute refined carbs high in sugar like processed snack bars, soft drink or baked goods for more complex ones like whole grain bread or wholewheat muffins, or nut and seed bars or energy bites made with chia seeds and oats

    2) manage your stress levels. Practise stress-reduction techniques like meditation, deep breathing, or yoga to manage emotional triggers for cravings. Practising mindful eating, by eating slowly and tuning into bodily sensations, can also reduce daily calorie intake and curb cravings and stress-driven eating

    3) get enough sleep. Aim for seven to eight hours of quality sleep per night, with a minimum of seven hours. Lack of sleep can disrupt hormones that regulate hunger and cravings

    4) control your portions. If you decide to indulge in a treat, control your portion size to avoid overindulging.

    Overcoming cravings for sugar, salt and carbs when trying to eat healthily or lose weight is undoubtedly a formidable challenge. Remember, it’s a journey, and setbacks may occur. Be patient with yourself – your success is not defined by occasional cravings but by your ability to manage and overcome them.The Conversation

    Hayley O’Neill, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Health Sciences and Medicine, Bond University

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

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  • Natto, Taurine + Black Pepper, And Other Game-Changers

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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

    ❝Loved the info on nuts; of course I always eat pecans, which didn’t make the list of healthy nuts!❞

    Dear subscriber, pardon the paraphrase of your comment—somehow it got deleted and now exists only in this writer’s memory. However, to address it:

    Pecans are great too! We can’t include everything in every article (indeed, we got another feedback the same day saying the article was too long), but we love when you come to us with stuff for us to look at and write about (seriously, writer here: the more you ask, the easier it makes my job), so let’s talk pecans for a moment:

    Pecans would have been number six on our list if we’d have written more!

    Like many nuts, they’ve an abundance of healthy fats, fiber, vitamins, and minerals.

    They’re particularly good for zinc, which is vital for immune function, healing (including normal recovery after normal exercise), and DNA synthesis (so: anti-aging).

    Pecans are also great for reducing LDL (“bad” cholesterol) and triglycerides (which are also bad for heart health); check it out:

    Pecan-Enriched Diets Alter Cholesterol Profiles and Triglycerides in Adults at Risk for Cardiovascular Disease in a Randomized, Controlled Trial

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