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!
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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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90% Of People Skip This Essential Exercise—Are You One Of Them?
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Single-leg strengthening is essential for joint health at any age (unless you want to bunny-hop up and down the stairs with both feet at once, for example), yet many people overlook it. This neglect often leads to pain, stiffness, and a higher risk of injury.
Dr. Alyssa Kuhn, arthritis specialist, explains how to do it:
On the rise
In this video, different exercise variations—beginner, intermediate, and advanced—are presented to help you build strength at your own pace:
Beginner: start by using a chair, adding a cushion for support if needed. Sit at the edge and position one foot slightly in front of the other in a staggered stance. Stand up and sit down in a controlled manner, allowing the back leg to bear more weight and work harder than the front leg. Do 8–10 repetitions per side and pay attention to whether one side feels weaker. To build strength, incorporate this movement into daily activities, such as standing up from the couch. Master this variation before progressing, to avoid knee injury.
Intermediate: to make the exercise more challenging, you can either use a lower chair, or extend your front foot further out, shifting more weight to your back leg. Only modify one variable at a time to maintain control. Do 8–10 repetitions per side, ensuring proper form. A common mistake is allowing the back knee to move inward, which can cause knee stress. To prevent this, use a mirror to check your form and keep the knee and ankle aligned during movement.
Advanced: when you’re ready, extend your front leg completely with the heel on the ground and toes up, removing its stability and forcing the back leg to work even harder. Maintain controlled movement while keeping your knee and ankle aligned. Repeat the exercise on both sides, focusing extra effort on the weaker leg to build balanced strength.
For more on each of these, plus visual demonstrations, enjoy:
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Want to learn more?
You might also like:
The Secret To Better Squats: Foot, Knee, & Ankle Mobility
Take care!
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Beat Cancer Kitchen – by Chris Wark & Micah Wark
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When we eat, many things can increase our cancer risk. Some we might remember to avoid, like ultra-processed foods and red meat. Others might be more neutral when it comes to cancer, neither good nor bad.
But! Some foods also have cancer-fighting properties. Which means reducing cancer risk, and/or having an anti-proliferative effect (i.e., shrinks or at least slows growth of tumors), in the event of already having cancer.
That’s what Chris & Micah Wark are offering here; a cookbook built around anti-cancer foods—after the former beat his own cancer with the help of the latter. He had surgery, but skipped chemo, preferring to look to nutrition to keep cancer-free. Now 18 years later, and so far, so good.
The dietary advice here is entirely consistent with what we’d offer at 10almonds; it’s plant-based, and high in anti-cancer phytonutrients.
The recipes themselves (of which there are about 70-ish) are as delicious and simple as the title suggests, and/but you might want to know:
- On the one hand, many recipes are things like sauces, condiments, or dressings, which in a recipe book can sometimes feel like underdelivering on the promise of recipes when we expect full meals
- On the other hand, those things if you just purchase them ready-made are usually the things with the most ultra-processed products, thus, having anticancer homemade versions instead here can actually make a very big difference
- On the third hand, there areplenty of starters/mains/desserts too!
Bottom line: if you’re looking for an anti-cancer cookbook, this is a very good one whose ingredients aren’t obscure (which can otherwise be a problem for some books of this kind)
Click here to check out Beat Cancer Kitchen, and take good care of yourself and your loved ones!
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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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Junk Food Turns Public Villain as Power Shifts in Washington
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The new Trump administration could be coming for your snacks.
For years, the federal government has steered clear of regulating junk food, fast food, and ultra-processed food.
Now attitudes are changing. Some members of President-elect Donald Trump’s inner circle are gearing up to battle “Big Food,” or the companies that make most of the food and beverages consumed in the United States. Nominees for top health agencies are taking aim at ultra-processed foods that account for an estimated 70% of the nation’s food supply. Based on recent statements, a variety of potential politically charged policy options to regulate ultra-processed food may land on the Trump team menu, including warning labels, changes to agribusiness subsidies, and limits on which products consumers can buy with government food aid.
The push to reform the American diet is being driven largely by conservatives who have taken up the cause that has long been a darling of the left. Trump supporters such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose controversial nomination to lead the Department of Health and Human Services still faces Senate confirmation, are embracing a concept that champions natural foods and alternative medicine. It’s a movement they’ve dubbed “MAHA,” or Make America Healthy Again. Their interest has created momentum because their goals have fairly broad bipartisan support even amid a bitterly divided Congress in which lawmakers from both sides of the aisle focused on the issue last year.
It’s likely to be a pitched battle because the food industry wields immense political influence and has successfully thwarted previous efforts to regulate its products or marketing. The category of “food processing and sales companies,” which includes Tyson Foods and Nestle SA, tallied $26.7 million in spending on lobbying in 2024, according to OpenSecrets. That’s up from almost $10 million in 1998.
“They have been absolutely instrumental and highly, highly successful at delaying any regulatory effectiveness in America,” said Laura Schmidt, a health policy professor at the University of California-San Francisco. “It really does feel like there needs to be a moment of reckoning here where people start asking the question, ‘Why do we have to live like this?’”
“Ultra-processed food” is a widely used term that means different things to different people and is used to describe items ranging from sodas to many frozen meals. These products often contain added fats, starches, and sugars, among other things. Researchers say consumption of ultra-processed foods is linked — in varying levels of intensity — to chronic conditions like diabetes, cancer, mental health problems, and early death.
Nutrition and health leaders are optimistic that a reckoning is already underway. Kennedy has pledged to remove processed foods from school lunches, restrict certain food additives such as dyes in cereal, and shift federal agricultural subsidies away from commodity crops widely used in ultra-processed foods.
The intensifying focus in Washington has triggered a new level of interest on the legal front as lawyers explore cases to take on major foodmakers for selling products they say result in chronic disease.
Bryce Martinez, now 18, filed a lawsuit in December against almost a dozen foodmakers such as Kraft Heinz, The Coca-Cola Co., and Nestle USA. He developed diabetes and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease by age 16, and is seeking to hold them accountable for his illnesses. According to the suit, filed in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, the companies knew or should have known ultra-processed foods were harmful and addictive.
The lawsuit noted that Martinez grew up eating heavily advertised, brand-name foods that are staples of the American diet — sugary soft drinks, Cheerios and Lucky Charms, Skittles and Snickers, frozen and packaged dinners, just to name a few.
Nestle, Coca-Cola, and Kraft Heinz didn’t return emails seeking comment for this article. The Consumer Brands Association, a trade association for makers of consumer packaged goods, disputed the allegations.
“Attempting to classify foods as unhealthy simply because they are processed, or demonizing food by ignoring its full nutrient content, misleads consumers and exacerbates health disparities,” said Sarah Gallo, senior vice president of product policy, in a statement.
Other law firms are on the hunt for children or adults who believe they were harmed by consuming ultra-processed foods, increasing the likelihood of lawsuits.
One Indiana personal injury firm says on its website that “we are actively investigating ultra processed food (UPF) cases.” Trial attorneys in Texas also are looking into possible legal action against the federal regulators they say have failed to police ultra-processed foods.
“If you or your child have suffered health problems that your doctor has linked directly to the consumption of ultra-processed foods, we want to hear your story,” they say on their website.
Meanwhile, the FDA on Jan. 14 announced it is proposing to require a front-of-package label to appear on most packaged foods to make information about a food’s saturated fat, sodium, and added sugar content easily visible to consumers.
And on Capitol Hill, Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) are sounding the alarm over ultra-processed food. Sanders introduced legislation in 2024 that could lead to a federal ban on junk food advertising to children, a national education campaign, and labels on ultra-processed foods that say the products aren’t recommended for children. Booker cosigned the legislation along with Sens. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) and John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.).
The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions held a December hearing examining links between ultra-processed food and chronic disease during which FDA Commissioner Robert Califf called for more funding for research.
Food companies have tapped into “the same neural circuits that are involved in opioid addiction,” Califf said at the hearing.
Sanders, who presided over the hearing, said there’s “growing evidence” that “these foods are deliberately designed to be addictive,” and he asserted that ultra-processed foods have driven epidemics of diabetes and obesity, and hundreds of billions of dollars in medical expenses.
Research on food and addiction “has accumulated to the point where it’s reached a critical mass,” said Kelly Brownell, an emeritus professor at Stanford who is one of the editors of a scholarly handbook on the subject.
Attacks from three sides — lawyers, Congress, and the incoming Trump administration, all seemingly interested in taking up the fight — could lead to enough pressure to challenge Big Food and possibly spur better health outcomes in the U.S., which has the lowest life expectancy among high-income countries.
“Maybe getting rid of highly processed foods in some things could actually flip the switch pretty quickly in changing the percentage of the American public that are obese,” said Robert Redfield, a virologist who led the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during the previous Trump administration, in remarks at a December event hosted by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.
Claims that Big Food knowingly manufactured and sold addictive and harmful products resemble the claims leveled against Big Tobacco before the landmark $206 billion settlement was reached in 1998.
“These companies allegedly use the tobacco industry’s playbook to target children, especially Black and Hispanic children, with integrated marketing tie-ins with cartoons, toys, and games, along with social media advertising,” Rene Rocha, one of the lawyers at Morgan & Morgan representing Martinez, told KFF Health News.
The 148-page Martinez lawsuit against foodmakers draws from documents made public in litigation against tobacco companies that owned some of the biggest brands in the food industry.
Similar allegations were made against opioid manufacturers, distributors, and retailers before they agreed to pay tens of billions of dollars in a 2021 settlement with states.
The FDA ultimately put restrictions on the labeling and marketing of tobacco, and the opioid epidemic led to legislation that increased access to lifesaving medications to treat addiction.
But the Trump administration’s zeal in taking on Big Food may face unique challenges.
The ability of the FDA to impose regulation is hampered in part by funding. While the agency’s drug division collects industry user fees, its division of food relies on a more limited budget determined by Congress.
Change can take time because the agency moves at what some critics call a glacial pace. Last year, the FDA revoked a regulation allowing brominated vegetable oil in food products. The agency determined in 1970 that the additive was not generally recognized as safe.
Efforts to curtail the marketing of ultra-processed food could spur lawsuits alleging that any restrictions violate commercial speech protected by the First Amendment. And Kennedy — if he is confirmed as HHS secretary — may struggle to get support from a Republican-led Congress that champions less federal regulation and a president-elect who during his previous term served fast food in the White House.
“The question is, will RFK be able to make a difference?” said David L. Katz, a doctor who founded True Health Initiative, a nonprofit group that combats public health misinformation. “No prior administration has done much in this space, and RFK is linked to a particularly anti-regulatory administration.”
Meanwhile, the U.S. population is recognized as among the most obese in the world and has the highest rate of people with multiple chronic conditions among high-income countries.
“There is a big grassroots effort out there because of how sick we are,” said Jerold Mande, who served as deputy undersecretary for food safety at the Department of Agriculture from 2009 to 2011. “A big part of it is people shouldn’t be this sick this young in their lives. You’re lucky if you get to 18 without a chronic disease. It’s remarkable.”
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.
This article first appeared on KFF Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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Reinventing Your Life – by Dr. Jeffrey Young & Dr. Janet Klosko
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This book is quite unlike any other broadly-CBT-focused books we’ve reviewed before. How so, you may wonder?
Rather than focusing on automatic negative thoughts and cognitive distortions with a small-lens focus on an immediate problem, this one zooms out rather and tackles the cause rather than the symptom.
The authors outline eleven “lifetraps” that we can get stuck in:
- Abandonment
- Mistrust & abuse
- Vulnerability
- Dependence
- Emptional deprivation
- Social exclusion
- Defectiveness
- Failure
- Subjugation
- Unrelenting standards
- Entitlement
They then borrow from other areas of psychology, to examine where these things came from, and how they can be addressed, such that we can escape from them.
The style of the book is very reader-friendly pop-psychology, with illustrative (and perhaps apocryphal, but no less useful for it if so) case studies.
The authors then go on to give step-by-step instructions for dealing with each of the 11 lifetraps, per 6 unmet needs we probably had that got us into them, and per 3 likely ways we tried to cope with this using maladaptive coping mechanisms that got us into the lifetrap(s) we ended up in.
Bottom line: if you feel there’s something in your life that’s difficult to escape from (we cannot outrun ourselves, after all, and bring our problems with us), this book could well contain the key that you need to get out of that cycle.
Click here to check out “Reinventing Your Life” and break free from any lifetrap(s) of your own!
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Testosterone, Tourette’s, and Tickly Throats
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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
❝Could you do a series on mens health? Testosterone boosters. Libido? What works what doesnt? Also could you discuss prostate health and what supplements, meds, foods or protocols work to relieve symptoms of bph❞
We could indeed! We’ll be sure to write more, but while you’re waiting, you might like to read our main feature from a while back:
Too Much Or Too Little Testosterone?
…as it does include a lot about the use of a supplement that helps against Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia, with performance comparable to the most common drug prescribed for such.
And since (like that drug) it’s a 5α-reductase inhibitor (meaning it works by blocking the conversion of testosterone to DHT), this means it helps against prostate problems (and also, incidentally, male pattern hair loss) without reducing overall testosterone levels. In fact, because less testosterone will be converted to DHT, you’ll actually (all other things being equal) end up with slightly higher free testosterone levels.
❝My BMI is fine, but my waist is too big. What do I do about that? I am 5′ 5″ tall and 128 pounds and 72 years old.❞
It’s hard to say without knowing about your lifestyle (and hormones, for that matter)! But, extra weight around the middle in particular is often correlated with high levels of cortisol, so you might find this of benefit:
Lower Your Cortisol! (Here’s Why & How)
❝Is there anything special that might help someone with Tourette’s syndrome?❞
There are of course a lot of different manifestations of Tourette’s syndrome, and some people’s tics may be far more problematic to themselves and/or others, while some may be quite mild and just something to work around.
It’s an interesting topic for sure, so we’ll perhaps do a main feature (probably also covering the related-and-sometimes-overlapping OCD umbrella rather than making it hyperspecific to Tourette’s), but meanwhile, you might consider some of these options:
- Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS)
- Medications/ Pharmacology
- Comprehensive Behavioral Intervention for Tics (CBIT)
- Speech Therapies
❝Natural solutions for osteoarthritis. Eg. Rosehip tea, dandelion root tea. Any others??? What foods should I absolutely leave alone?❞
We’ll do a main feature on arthritis (in both its main forms) someday soon, but meanwhile, we recommend eating for good bone/joint health and against inflammation. To that end, you might like these main features we did on those topics:
- We Are Such Stuff As Fish Are Made Of (collagen for bone and joint health)
- The Bare-Bones Truth About Osteoporosis (eating for bone health generally)
- Keep Inflammation At Bay (dietary tips for minimizing inflammation—also, our all-time most popular article to date!)
Of these, probably the last one is the most critical, and also will have the speediest effects if implemented.
We turn the tables and ask you a question!
We’ll then talk about this tomorrow:
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