Healthy Mind In A Healthy Body
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The 8-minute piece of music “Weightless” by Marconi was created scientifically to lower the heart rate and relax the listener. How did they do it? You can read the British Academy of Sound Therapy’s explanation of the methodology here, but important results of the study were:
- “Weightless” was able to induce greater relaxation levels than a massage (increase of 6%).
- “Weightless” also induced an 11% increase in relaxation over all other relaxing music tracks in the study.
- “Weightless” was also subjectively rated as more relaxing than any other music by all the participants.
Try it for yourself!
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Isn’t that better? Whenever you’re ready, read on…
Today we’re going to share a technique for dealing with difficult emotions. The technique is used in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), and it’s called RAIN:
- Recognizing: ask yourself “what is it that I’m feeling?”, and put a name to it. It could be anger, despair, fear, frustration, anxiety, overwhelm etc.
- Accepting: “OK, so, I’m feeling ________”. There’s no point in denying it, or being defensive about it, these things won’t help you. For now, just accept it.
- Investigating: “Why am I feeling ________?” Maybe there is an obvious reason, maybe you need to dig for a reason—or dig deeper for the real reason. Most bad feelings are driven by some sort of fear or insecurity, so that can be a good avenue for examination. Important: your feelings may be rational or irrational. That’s fine. This is a time for investigating, not judging.
- Non-Identification: not making whatever it is you’re feeling into a part of you. Once you get too attached to “I am jealous”, “I am angry”, “I am sad” etc, it can be difficult to manage something that has become a part of your personality; you’ll defend your jealousy, anger, sadness etc rather than tackle it.
As a CBT tool, this is something you can do for yourself at any time. It won’t magically solve your problems, but it can stop you from spiralling into a state of crisis, and get you back on a more useful track.
As a DBT tool, to give this its full strength, ideally now you will communicate what you’re feeling, to somebody you trust, perhaps a partner or friend, for instance.
Humans are fundamentally social creatures, and we achieve our greatest strengths when we support each other—and that also means sometimes seeking and accepting support!
Do you have a good technique you’d like to share? Reply to this email and let us know!
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Most adults will gain half a kilo this year – and every year. Here’s how to stop ‘weight creep’
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As we enter a new year armed with resolutions to improve our lives, there’s a good chance we’ll also be carrying something less helpful: extra kilos. At least half a kilogram, to be precise.
“Weight creep” doesn’t have to be inevitable. Here’s what’s behind this sneaky annual occurrence and some practical steps to prevent it.
Allgo/Unsplash Small gains add up
Adults tend to gain weight progressively as they age and typically gain an average of 0.5 to 1kg every year.
While this doesn’t seem like much each year, it amounts to 5kg over a decade. The slow-but-steady nature of weight creep is why many of us won’t notice the extra weight gained until we’re in our fifties.
Why do we gain weight?
Subtle, gradual lifestyle shifts as we progress through life and age-related biological changes cause us to gain weight. Our:
- activity levels decline. Longer work hours and family commitments can see us become more sedentary and have less time for exercise, which means we burn fewer calories
- diets worsen. With frenetic work and family schedules, we sometimes turn to pre-packaged and fast foods. These processed and discretionary foods are loaded with hidden sugars, salts and unhealthy fats. A better financial position later in life can also result in more dining out, which is associated with a higher total energy intake
- sleep decreases. Busy lives and screen use can mean we don’t get enough sleep. This disturbs our body’s energy balance, increasing our feelings of hunger, triggering cravings and decreasing our energy
Insufficient sleep can increase our appetite. Craig Adderley/Pexels - stress increases. Financial, relationship and work-related stress increases our body’s production of cortisol, triggering food cravings and promoting fat storage
- metabolism slows. Around the age of 40, our muscle mass naturally declines, and our body fat starts increasing. Muscle mass helps determine our metabolic rate, so when our muscle mass decreases, our bodies start to burn fewer calories at rest.
We also tend to gain a small amount of weight during festive periods – times filled with calorie-rich foods and drinks, when exercise and sleep are often overlooked. One study of Australian adults found participants gained 0.5 kilograms on average over the Christmas/New Year period and an average of 0.25 kilograms around Easter.
Why we need to prevent weight creep
It’s important to prevent weight creep for two key reasons:
1. Weight creep resets our body’s set point
Set-point theory suggests we each have a predetermined weight or set point. Our body works to keep our weight around this set point, adjusting our biological systems to regulate how much we eat, how we store fat and expend energy.
When we gain weight, our set point resets to the new, higher weight. Our body adapts to protect this new weight, making it challenging to lose the weight we’ve gained.
But it’s also possible to lower your set point if you lose weight gradually and with an interval weight loss approach. Specifically, losing weight in small manageable chunks you can sustain – periods of weight loss, followed by periods of weight maintenance, and so on, until you achieve your goal weight.
Holidays can also come with weight gain. Zan Lazarevic/Unsplash 2. Weight creep can lead to obesity and health issues
Undetected and unmanaged weight creep can result in obesity which can increase our risk of heart disease, strokes, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis and several types of cancers (including breast, colorectal, oesophageal, kidney, gallbladder, uterine, pancreatic and liver).
A large study examined the link between weight gain from early to middle adulthood and health outcomes later in life, following people for around 15 years. It found those who gained 2.5 to 10kg over this period had an increased incidence of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, strokes, obesity-related cancer and death compared to participants who had maintained a stable weight.
Fortunately, there are steps we can take to build lasting habits that will make weight creep a thing of the past.
7 practical steps to prevent weight creep
1. Eat from big to small
Aim to consume most of your food earlier in the day and taper your meal sizes to ensure dinner is the smallest meal you eat.
A low-calorie or small breakfast leads to increased feelings of hunger, specifically appetite for sweets, across the course of the day.
We burn the calories from a meal 2.5 times more efficiently in the morning than in the evening. So emphasising breakfast over dinner is also good for weight management.
Aim to consume bigger breakfasts and smaller dinners. Michael Burrows/Pexels 2. Use chopsticks, a teaspoon or an oyster fork
Sit at the table for dinner and use different utensils to encourage eating more slowly.
This gives your brain time to recognise and adapt to signals from your stomach telling you you’re full.
3. Eat the full rainbow
Fill your plate with vegetables and fruits of different colours first to support eating a high-fibre, nutrient-dense diet that will keep you feeling full and satisfied.
Meals also need to be balanced and include a source of protein, wholegrain carbohydrates and healthy fat to meet our dietary needs – for example, eggs on wholegrain toast with avocado.
4. Reach for nature first
Retrain your brain to rely on nature’s treats – fresh vegetables, fruit, honey, nuts and seeds. In their natural state, these foods release the same pleasure response in the brain as ultra-processed and fast foods, helping you avoid unnecessary calories, sugar, salt and unhealthy fats.
5. Choose to move
Look for ways to incorporate incidental activity into your daily routine – such as taking the stairs instead of the lift – and boost your exercise by challenging yourself to try a new activity.
Just be sure to include variety, as doing the same activities every day often results in boredom and avoidance.
Try new activities or sports to keep your interest up. Cottonbro Studio/Pexels 6. Prioritise sleep
Set yourself a goal of getting a minimum of seven hours of uninterrupted sleep each night, and help yourself achieve it by avoiding screens for an hour or two before bed.
7. Weigh yourself regularly
Getting into the habit of weighing yourself weekly is a guaranteed way to help avoid the kilos creeping up on us. Aim to weigh yourself on the same day, at the same time and in the same environment each week and use the best quality scales you can afford.
At the Boden Group, Charles Perkins Centre, we are studying the science of obesity and running clinical trials for weight loss. You can register here to express your interest.
Nick Fuller, Clinical Trials Director, Department of Endocrinology, RPA Hospital, University of Sydney
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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MSG vs. Salt: Sodium Comparison
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It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!
Q: Is MSG healthier than salt in terms of sodium content or is it the same or worse?
Great question, and for that matter, MSG itself is a great topic for another day. But your actual question, we can readily answer here and now:
- Firstly, by “salt” we’re assuming from context that you mean sodium chloride.
- Both salt and MSG do contain sodium. However…
- MSG contains only about a third of the sodium that salt does, gram-for-gram.
- It’s still wise to be mindful of it, though. Same with sodium in other ingredients!
- Baking soda contains about twice as much sodium, gram for gram, as MSG.
Wondering why this happens?
Salt (sodium chloride, NaCl) is equal parts sodium and chlorine, by atom count, but sodium’s atomic mass is lower than chlorine’s, so 100g of salt contains only 39.34g of sodium.
Baking soda (sodium bicarbonate, NaHCO₃) is one part sodium for one part hydrogen, one part carbon, and three parts oxygen. Taking each of their diverse atomic masses into account, we see that 100g of baking soda contains 27.4g sodium.
MSG (monosodium glutamate, C₅H₈NO₄Na) is only one part sodium for 5 parts carbon, 8 parts hydrogen, 1 part nitrogen, and 4 parts oxygen… And all those other atoms put together weigh a lot (comparatively), so 100g of MSG contains only 12.28g sodium.
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It’s Not A Bloody Trend – by Kat Brown
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This one’s not a clinical book, and the author is not a clinician. However, it’s not just a personal account, either. Kat Brown is an award-winning journalist (with ADHD) and has approached this journalistically.
Not just in terms of investigative journalism, either. Rather, also with her knowledge and understanding of the industry, doing for us some meta-journalism and explaining why the press have gone for many misleading headlines.
Which in this case means for example it’s not newsworthy to say that people have gone undiagnosed and untreated for years and that many continue to go unseen; we know this also about such things as endometriosis, adenomyosis, and PCOS. But some more reactionary headlines will always get attention, e.g. “look at these malingering attention-seekers”.
She also digs into the common comorbidities of various conditions, the differences it makes to friendships, families, relationships, work, self-esteem, parenting, and more.
This isn’t a “how to” book, but there’s a lot of value here if a) you have ADHD, and/or b) you spend any amount of time with someone who does.
Bottom line: if you’d like to understand “what all the fuss is about” in one book, this is the one for ADHD.
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Come As You Are – by Dr. Emily Nagoski
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We’ve all heard the jokes, things like: Q: “Why is the clitoris like Antarctica?” A: “Most men know it’s there; most don’t give a damn”
But… How much do people, in general, really know about the anatomy and physiology of sexual function? Usually very little, but often without knowing how little we know.
This book looks to change that. Geared to a female audience, but almost everyone will gain useful knowledge from this.
The writing style is very easy-to-read, and there are “tl;dr” summaries for those who prefer to skim for relevant information in this rather sizeable (400 pages) tome.
Yes, that’s “what most people don’t know”. Four. Hundred. Pages.
We recommend reading it. You can thank us later!
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Cavolo Nero & Sweet Potato Hash
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🎶 Sweet potato hash? It’s a seasonal smash… Catches on in a flash… Let’s do the hash 🎶
You will need
- 6 oz cavolo nero, tough stems removed, chopped
- 1 large sweet potato, diced
- 1 large red onion, finely chopped
- 1 parsnip, grated
- 1 small red pepper, chopped
- 4 oz baby portobello mushrooms, chopped
- ½ cup fresh or thawed peas
- ¼ bulb garlic, thinly sliced
- 1 tbsp nutritional yeast
- 2 tsp black pepper, coarse ground
- 1 tsp dried rosemary
- 1 tsp dried thyme (dried for convenience; fresh is also fine if you have it)
- 1 tsp red chili flakes (dried for convenience; fresh is also fine if you have it)
- 1 tsp ground turmeric
- ½ tsp MSG or 1 tsp low-sodium salt
- Extra virgin olive oil
Method
(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)
1) Preheat the oven to 425℉ / 220℃.
2) Toss the diced sweet potato in 1 tbsp olive oil, as well as the nutritional yeast, ground turmeric, black pepper, and MSG/salt, ensuring an even distribution. Roast in the oven on a lined baking tray, for 30 minutes, turning at least once to get all sides of the potato. When it is done, remove from the oven and set aside.
3) Heat a little oil in a sauté pan or large skillet (either is fine; we’re not adding liquids today), and fry the onion, parsnip, and pepper until softened, which should take about 5 minutes (this is one reason why we grated the parsnip; the other is for the variation in texture).
4) Add the garlic, mushrooms, herbs, and chili flakes, and cook for a further 1 minute, while stirring.
5) Add the cavolo nero and peas, stir until the cavolo nero begins to wilt, and then…
6) Add the roasted sweet potato; cook for about 5 more minutes, pressing down with the spatula here and there to mash the ingredients together.
7) Turn the hash over when it begins to brown on the bottom, to lightly brown the other side too.
8) Serve hot.
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:
- Brain Food? The Eyes Have It!
- Which Bell Peppers To Pick?
- Ergothioneine: “The Longevity Vitamin” (That’s Not A Vitamin)
- Our Top 5 Spices: How Much Is Enough For Benefits?
- What’s Your Plant Diversity Score?
Take care!
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The Fiber Fueled Cookbook – by Dr. Will Bulsiewicz
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We’ve previously reviewed Dr. Bulsiewicz’s book “Fiber Fuelled” (which is great), but this one is more than just a cookbook with the previous book in mind. Indeed, this is even a great stand-alone book by itself, since it explains the core principles well enough already, and then adds to it.
It’s also about a lot more than just “please eat more fiber”, though. It looks at FODMAPs, purine, histamine intolerance, celiac disease, altered gallbladder function, acid reflux, and more.
He offers a five-part strategy:
Genesis (what is the etiology of your problem)
- Restrict (cut things out to address that first)
- Observe (keep a food/symptom diary)
- Work things back in (re-add potential triggers one by one, see how it goes)
- Train your gut (your microbiome does not exist in a vacuum, and communication is two-way)
- Holistic healing (beyond the gut itself, looking at other relevant factors and aiming for synergistic support)
As for the recipes themselves, there are more than a hundred of them and they are good, so no more “how can I possibly cook [favorite dish] without [removed ingredient]?”
Bottom line: if you’d like better gut health, this book is a top-tier option for fixing existing complaints, and enjoying plain-sailing henceforth.
Click here to check out The Fiber Fueled Cookbook; your gut will thank you later!
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