Lyme Disease At-A-Glance
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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
❝Good info as always…was wondering if you have any recommendations for fighting Lyme disease naturally along wDr advice? Dr’s aren’t real keen on alternatives so always interested. Thanks❞
That depends on whether we’re looking at prevention or cure!
Prevention:
- Try not to get bitten by Lyme-disease-carrying ticks. Boots and long socks are your friends. As are long-gauntletted gloves for gardening.
- If you are in a high-risk area and/or engage in high-risk activities, check your body daily.
- This is because it usually takes 36–48 hours of being attached for a tick to cause an infection
- Obviously best if you can get a partner or close friend to help you with this, unless you have mastered some advanced pretzel positions of yoga.
- Contrary to many folk remedies, the safest way to remove a tick is with tweezers (carefully!).
- If you find and remove a tick, or otherwise suspect you have developed symptoms, go to your doctor immediately (not next week; today; time really counts for this).
Cure:
- No. Sorry. Regretfully, antibiotics are the only known effective treatment.
However! As with almost any kind of recovery, getting good rest, including good quality sleep, will hasten things. Also sensible is reducing stress if possible, and anything that could worsen inflammation.
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A Guide to Rational Living – by Drs. Albert Ellis and Robert Harper
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We’ve talked before about the evidence-based benefits of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), and this book is indeed about CBT. In fact, it’s in many ways the book that popularized Third Wave CBT—in other words, CBT in its modern form.
Dr. Ellis’s specific branch of CBT is Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, (REBT). What this means is using rationality to rewire emotions so that we’re not constantly sabotaging ourselves and our lives.
This is very much a “for the masses” book and doesn’t assume any prior knowledge of psychology, therapy, or psychotherapy. Or, for that matter, philosophy, since Stoic philosopher Epictetus had a lot to say that influenced Dr. Ellis’s work, too!
This book has also been described as “a self-help book for people who don’t like self-help books”… and certainly that Stoicism we mentioned does give the work a very different feel than a lot of books on the market.
The authors kick off with an initial chapter “How far can you go with self-therapy?”, and the answer is: quite far, even if it’s not a panacea. Everything has its limitations, and this book is no exception. On the other hand…
What the book does offer is a whole stack of tools, resources, and “How to…” chapters. In fact, there are so many “How to…” items in this book that, while it can be read cover-to-cover, it can also be used simply as a dip-in reference guide to refer to in times of need.
Bottom line: this book is highly recommendable to anyone and everyone, and if you don’t have it on your bookshelf, you should.
Click here to check out “A Guide To Rational Living” on Amazon today!
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4 Critical Things Female Runners Should Know
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When it comes to keeping up performance in the face of menopause, Shona Hendricks has advice:
Don’t let menopause run you down
- Prioritize recovery! Overtraining without adequate recovery just leads to decreased performance in the long term, and remember, you may not recover as quickly as you used to. If you’re still achey from your previous run, give it another day, or at least make it a lighter run.
- Slow down in easy and long runs! This isn’t “taking the easy way out”; it will improve your overall performance, reducing muscle damage, allowing for quicker recovery and ultimately better fitness gains.
- Focus on nutrition! And that means carbs too. A lot of people fighting menopausal weight gain reduce their intake of food, but without sufficient energy availability, you will not be able to run well. In particular, carbohydrates are vital for energy. Consume them sensibly and with fiber and proteins and fats rather than alone, but do consume them.
- Incorporate strength training! Your run is not “leg day” by itself. Furthermore, do whole-body strength training, to prevent injuries and improve overall performance. A strong core is particularly important.
For more on each of these (and some bonus comments about mobility training for runners), enjoy:
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Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
Take care!
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Reclaiming Body Trust – by Hilary Kinavey & Dana Sturtevant
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Authored by a therapist and a dietician, this book draws from both of their extensive professional clinical experiences, to explore how we can (often early in our lives) be led into disordered thinking when it comes to food and our bodies, and how we can “take back that which has been stolen from us”.
More prosaically: the presented goal here is for us to each figure out where we are with our own body, and how we might build our relationship with same going forwards, in the way that will work the best for us.
The style is relaxed and conversational, while taking care to cover topics that are often tricky with no less seriousness. Chapter headings such as “Your coping is rooted in wisdom”, “What does grief have to do with it?” and “Allowing for pleasure and satisfaction” give an idea of the flavors at hand here.
Bottom line: if you think your relationship with food and your body could be better, not only are you probably right, but also, this book can help.
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4 Tips To Stand Without Using Hands
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The “sit-stand” test, getting up off the floor without using one’s hands, is well-recognized as a good indicator of healthy aging, and predictor of longevity. But what if you can’t do it? Rather than struggling, there are exercises to strengthen the body to be able to do this vital movement.
Step by step
Teresa Shupe has been teaching Pilates professionally full-time for over 25 years, and here’s what she has to offer in the category of safe and effective ways of improving balance and posture while doing the sitting-to-standing movement:
- Squat! Doing squats (especially deep ones) regularly strengthens all the parts necessary to effectively complete this movement. If your knees aren’t up to it at first, do the squats with your back against a wall to start with.
- Roll! On your back, cross your feet as though preparing to stand, and rock-and-roll your body forwards. To start with you can “cheat” and use your fingertips to give a slight extra lift. This exercise builds mobility in the various necessary parts of the body, and also strengthens the core—as well as getting you accustomed to using your bodyweight to move your body forwards.
- Lift! This one’s focusing on that last part, and taking it further. Because it may be difficult to get enough momentum initially, you can practice by holding small weights in your hands, to shift your centre of gravity forwards a bit. Unlike many weights exercises, in this case you’re going to transition to holding less weight rather than more, though.
- Complete! Continue from the above, without weights now; use the blades of your feet to stand. If you need to, use your fingertips to give you a touch more lift and stability, and reduce the fingers that you use until you are using none.
For more on each of these as well as a visual demonstration, enjoy this short video:
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Further reading
For more exercises with a similar approach, check out:
Mobility As A Sporting Pursuit
Take care!
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5 Steps To Quit Sugar Easily
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Sugar is one of the least healthy things that most people consume, yet because it’s so prevalent, it can also be tricky to avoid at first, and the cravings can also be a challenge. So, how to quit it?
Step by step
Dr. Mike Hansen recommends the following steps:
- Be aware: a lot of sugar consumption is without realizing it or thinking about it, because of how common it is for there to be added sugar in things we might purchase ready-made, even supposedly healthy things like yogurts, or easy-to-disregard things like condiments.
- Recognize sugar addiction: a controversial topic, but Dr. Hansen comes down squarely on the side of “yes, it’s an addiction”. He wants us to understand more about the mechanics of how this happens, and what it does to us.
- Reduce gradually: instead of going “cold turkey”, he recommends we avoid withdrawal symptoms by first cutting back on liquid sugars like sodas, juices, and syrups, before eliminating solid sugar-heavy things like candy, sugar cookies, etc, and finally the more insidious “why did they put sugar in this?” added-sugar products.
- Find healthy alternatives: simple like-for-like substitutions; whole fruits instead of juices/smoothies, for example. 10almonds tip: stuffing dates with an almond each makes it very much like eating chocolate, experientially!
- Manage cravings: Dr. Hansen recommends distraction, and focusing on upping other healthy habits such as hydration, exercise, and getting more vegetables.
For more on each of these, enjoy:
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Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
- Which Sugars Are Healthier, And Which Are Just The Same?
- Mythbusting The Not-So-Sweet Science Of Sugar Addiction
Take care!
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Get Better Sleep: Beyond The Basics
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First though, for the sake of being methodical, let’s quickly note the basics:
- Aim for 7–9 hours per night
- Set a regular bedtime and (equally important!) regular getting-up time
- Have a 2-hour wind-down period before bed, to decompress from any stresses of the day
- Minimal device/screen usage before bed
- Abstain from stimulants for as long before bed as reasonably possible (caffeine elimination halflife is 4–8 hours depending on your genes, call it 6 hours average to eliminate half (not the whole lot), and you’ll see it’s probably best to put a cap on it earlier rather than later).
- Abstain from alcohol, ideally entirely, but allow at least 1hr/unit before bed. So for example, 1hr for a 1oz single shot of spirits, or 2–3 hours for a glass of wine (depending on size), or 3–4 hours for a martini (depending on recipe). Not that that is not the elimination time, nor even the elimination halflife of alcohol, it’s just a “give your body a chance at least” calculation. If you like to have a drink to relax before bed, then well, only you can decide what you like more: that or actually getting restorative sleep.
- Consider a warm bath/shower before bed, if that suits your schedule.
- Wash and change your bedsheets more often than seems necessary. Or if that’s too onerous, at least change the pillowcases more often, which makes quite a difference already.
- Lower the temperature of your bedroom shortly before bedtime; this will help cue the body to produce melatonin
- Make your bedroom as dark as reasonably possible. Invest in blackout blinds/curtains, and remove any pesky electronics, or at least cover their little LEDs if it’s something that reasonably needs to remain on.
Ok, now, onwards…
Those 7–9 hours? Yes, it goes for you too.
A lot of people mistake getting 6 hours sleep per night for only needing 6 hours sleep per night. Sure, you may still be alive after regularly getting 6 hours, but (unless you have a rare mutation of the ADRB1 gene) it will be causing harm, and yes, that includes later in life; we don’t stop needing so much sleep, even stop getting it:
Why You Probably Need More Sleep
With this in mind, it becomes important to…
Prioritize your sleep—which means planning for it!
When does your bedtime routine start? According to sleep scientist Dr. Lisa Matricciani, it starts before breakfast. This is because the things we do earlier in the day can greatly affect the amount (and quality) of sleep we get later. For example, a morning moderate-to-intense exercise session greatly improves sleep at night:
Planning Ahead For Better Sleep
As for quality, that is as important as quantity, and it’s not just about “soundness” of sleep:
The 6 Dimensions Of Sleep (And Why They Matter)
“What gets measured, gets done” goes for sleep too
Sleep-deprived people usually underestimate how sleep-deprived they are. This is for the same reason as why drunk people usually underestimate how drunk they are—to put it in words that go for both situations: a cognitively impaired person lacks the cognitive function to realize how cognitively impaired they are.
Here’s the science on that, by the way:
How Sleep-Deprived Are You, Really?
For that reason, we recommend using sleep-tracking software (there are many apps for that) on your phone or, ideally, a wearable device (such as a smartwatch or similar).
A benefit of doing so is that we don’t think “well, I slept from 10pm to 6am, so that’s 8 hours”, if our device tells us we slept between 10:43pm and 5:56 am with 74% sleep efficiency because we woke up many times.
As an aside, sleep efficiency should be about 85%, by the way. Why not 100%, you ask? It’s because if your body is truly out like a light for the entire night, something is wrong (either you were very sleep-deprived, or you have been drugged, that kind of thing). See also:
An unbroken night’s sleep is a myth. Here’s what good sleep looks like.
So waking up during the night is normal, and nothing to worry about per se. If you do find trouble getting back to sleep, though:
How to Fall Back Asleep After Waking Up in the Middle of the Night
Be careful about how you try to supplement sleep
This goes both for taking substances of various kinds, and napping. Some sleep aids can help, but many are harmful and/or do not really work as such; here’s a rundown of examples of those:
Safe Effective Sleep Aids For Seniors?
And when it comes to napping, timing is everything:
How To Nap Like A Pro (No More “Sleep Hangovers”!)
Want to know a lot more?
This is the book on sleep:
Why We Sleep – by Dr. Matthew Walker
Enjoy!
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