How To Reduce Chronic Stress
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.
Sunday Stress-Buster
First, an important distinction:
- Acute stress (for example, when stepping out of your comfort zone, engaging in competition, or otherwise focusing on something that requires your full attention for best performance) is generally a good thing. It helps you do you your best. It’s sometimes been called “eustress”, “good stress”.
- Chronic stress (for example, when snowed under at work and you do not love it, when dealing with a serious illness, and/or faced with financial problems) is unequivocally a bad thing. Our body is simply not made to handle that much cortisol (the stress hormone) all the time.
Know the dangers of too much cortisol
We covered this as a main feature last month: Lower Your Cortisol! (Here’s Why & How)
…but it bears mentioning again and for those who’ve joined us since then:
A little spike of cortisol now and again can be helpful. Having it spiking all the time, or even a perpetual background low-to-moderate level, can be ruinous to the health in so many ways.
The good news is, the physiological impact of stress on the body (which ranges from face-and-stomach fat deposits, to rapid aging), can be reversed—even the biological aging!
Read: Biological age is increased by stress and restored upon recovery ← this study is so hot-of-the-press that it was published literally two days ago
Focus on what you can control
A lot of things that cause you stress may be outside of your control. Focus on what is within your control. Oftentimes, we are so preoccupied with the stress, that we employ coping strategies that don’t actually deal with the problem.
That’s a maladaptive response to an evolutionary quirk—our bodies haven’t caught up with modern life, and on an evolutionary scale, are still priming us to deal with sabre-toothed tigers, not financial disputes, for example.
But, how to deal with the body’s “wrong” response?
First, deal with the tiger. There isn’t one, but your body doesn’t know that. Do some vigorous exercise, or if that’s not your thing, tense up your muscles strongly for a few seconds and then relax them, doing each part of your body. This is called progressive relaxation, and how it works is basically tricking your body into thinking you successfully fled the tiger, or fought the tiger and won.
Next, examine what the actual problem is, that’s causing you stress. You’re probably heavily emotionally attached to the problem, or else it wouldn’t be stressing you. So, imagine what advice you would give to help a friend deal with the same problem, and then do that.
Better yet: enlist an actual friend (or partner, family member, etc) to help you. We are evolved to live in a community, engaged in mutual support. That’s how we do well; that’s how we thrive best.
By dealing with the problem—or sometimes even just having support and/or something like a plan—your stress will evaporate soon enough.
The power of “…and then what?”
Sometimes, things are entirely out of your control. Sometimes, bad things are entirely possible; perhaps even probable. Sometimes, they’re so bad, that it’s difficult to avoid stressing about the possible outcomes.
If something seems entirely out of your control and/or inevitable, ask yourself:
“…and then what?”
Writer’s storytime: when I was a teenager, sometimes I would go out without a coat, and my mother would ask, pointedly, “But what will you do if it rains?!”
I’d reply “I’ll get wet, of course”
This attitude can go just the same for much more serious outcomes, up to and including death.
So when you find yourself stressing about some possible bad outcome, ask yourself, “…and then what?”.
- What if this is cancer? Well, it might be. And then what? You might seek cancer treatment.
- What if I can’t get treatment, or it doesn’t work? Well, you might die. And then what?
In Dialectic Behavior Therapy (DBT), this is called “radical acceptance” and acknowledges bad possible/probable/known outcomes, allows one to explore the feelings, and come up with a plan for managing the situation, or even just coming to terms with the fact that sometimes, suffering is inevitable and is part of the human condition.
It’ll still be bad—but you won’t have added extra suffering in the form of stress.
Breathe.
Don’t underestimate the power of relaxed deep breathing to calm the rest of your body, including your brain.
Also: we’ve shared this before, a few months ago, but this 8 minute soundscape was developed by sound technicians working with a team of psychologists and neurologists. It’s been clinically tested, and found to have a much more relaxing effect(in objective measures of lowering heart rate and lowering cortisol levels, as well as in subjective self-reports) than merely “relaxing music”.
Try it and see for yourself:
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:
-
The Fruit That Can Specifically Reduce Belly Fat
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.
Gambooge: Game-Changer Or Gamble?
The gambooge, also called the gummi-gutta, whence its botanical name Garcinia gummi-gutta (formerly Gardinia cambogia), is also known as the Malabar tamarind, and it even got an English name, the brindle berry.
It’s a fruit that looks like a small pale yellow pumpkin in shape, but it grows on trees and has a taste so sour, that it’s usually used only in cooking, and not eaten raw
which makes this writer really want to try it raw now.Its active phytochemical compound hydroxycitric acid (HCA) rose to popularity as a supplement in the US based on a paid recommendation from Dr. Oz, and then became a controversy as supplements associated with it, were in turn associated with hepatotoxicity (more on this in the “Is it safe?” section below).
What do people use it for?
Simply put: it’s a weight loss supplement.
Less simply put: least interestingly, it’s a mild appetite suppressant:
Safety and mechanism of appetite suppression by a novel hydroxycitric acid extract (HCA-SX) ← this talks more about the biochemistry, but isn’t a human study. Human studies have been small and with mixed results. It seems likely that (as in the rat studies discussed above) the mechanism of action is largely about increasing serotonin, which itself is a well-established appetite suppressant. Therefore, the results will depend somewhat on a person’s brain’s serotonergic system.
We’ll revisit that later, but first let’s look at…
Even less simply put: its other mechanism of action is much more interesting; it actually blocks the production of fat (especially: visceral fat) in the body, by inhibiting citrate lyase, which enzyme plays a significant role in fat production:
Effects of (−)-hydroxycitrate on net fat synthesis as de novo lipogenesis
More illustratively, here’s another study, which found:
❝G cambogia reduced abdominal fat accumulation in subjects, regardless of sex, who had the visceral fat accumulation type of obesity. No rebound effect was observed.
It is therefore expected that G cambogia may be useful for the prevention and reduction of accumulation of visceral fat. ❞
~ Dr. Norihiro Shigematsu et al.
As to why this is particularly important, and far more important than mere fat loss in general, see our previous main feature:
Visceral Belly Fat (And How To Lose It)
Is it safe?
It has shown a good safety profile up to large doses (2.8g/day):
Evaluation of the safety and efficacy of hydroxycitric acid or Garcinia cambogia extracts in humans
There have been some fears about hepatotoxicity, but they appear to be unfounded, and based on products that did not, in fact, contain HCA (and were merely sold by a company that used a similar name in their marketing):
No evidence demonstrating hepatotoxicity associated with hydroxycitric acid
However, as it has a serotoninergic effect, it could cause problems for anyone at risk of serotonin syndrome, which means caution is advisable if you are taking SSRIs (which reduce the rate at which the brain can scrub serotonin, with the usually laudable goal of having more serotonin in the brain—but it is possible to have too much of a good thing, and serotonin syndrome isn’t fun).
As ever, do check with your pharmacist and/or doctor, to be sure, since they can advise with regard to your specific situation and any medications you may be taking.
Want to try some?
We don’t sell it, but here for your convenience is an example product on Amazon
Enjoy!
Share This Post
-
What are plyometric exercises? How all that hopping and jumping builds strength, speed and power
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’ve ever seen people at the gym or the park jumping, hopping or hurling weighted balls to the ground, chances are they were doing plyometric exercises.
Examples include:
- box jumps, where you repeatedly leap quickly on and off a box
- lateral skater hops, where you bound from side to side like a speeding ice skater
- rapidly throwing a heavy medicine ball against a wall, or to the ground
- single leg hops, which may involve hopping on the spot or through an obstacle course
- squat jumps, where you repeatedly squat and then launch yourself into the air.
Photo by cottonbro studio/Pexels There are many more examples of plyometric exercises.
What ties all these moves together is that they use what’s known as the “stretch shortening cycle”. This is where your muscles rapidly stretch and then contract.
Runners routinely practise plyometric exercises to improve explosive leg strength. WoodysPhotos/Shutterstock Potential benefits
Research shows incorporating plyometric exercise into your routine can help you:
- jump higher
- sprint faster
- reduce the chances of getting a serious sporting injuries such as anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tears
- build muscle strength
- improve bone mineral density (especially when combined with resistance training such as weight lifting), which is particularly important for women and older people at risk of falls.
Studies have found plyometric exercises can help:
- older people who want to retain and build muscle strength, boost bone health, improve posture and reduce the risk of falls
- adolescent athletes who want to build the explosive strength needed to excel in sports such as athletics, tennis, soccer, basketball and football
- female athletes who want to jump higher or change direction quickly (a useful skill in many sports)
- endurance runners who want to boost physical fitness, run time and athletic performance.
And when it comes to plyometric exercises, you get out what you put in.
Research has found the benefits of plyometrics are significantly greater when every jump was performed with maximum effort.
Jumping can help boost bone strength. WoodysPhotos/Shutterstock Potential risks
All exercise comes with risk (as does not doing enough exercise!)
Plyometrics are high-intensity activities that require the body to absorb a lot of impact when landing on the ground or catching medicine balls.
That means there is some risk of musculoskeletal injury, particularly if the combination of intensity, frequency and volume is too high.
You might miss a landing and fall, land in a weird way and crunch your ankle, or get a muscle tear if you’re overdoing it.
The National Strength and Conditioning Association, a US educational nonprofit that uses research to support coaches and athletes, recommends:
- a maximum of one to three plyometric sessions per week
- five to ten repetitions per set and
- rest periods of one to three minutes between sets to ensure complete muscle recovery.
With the right guidance, jumps can be safe for older people and may help reduce the risk of falls as you age. Realstock/Shutterstock One meta-analysis, where researchers looked at many studies, found plyometric training was feasible and safe, and could improve older people’s performance, function and health.
Overall, with appropriate programming and supervision, plyometric exercise can be a safe and effective way to boost your health and athletic performance.
Justin Keogh, Associate Dean of Research, Faculty of Health Sciences and Medicine, Bond University and Mandy Hagstrom, Senior Lecturer, Exercise Physiology. School of Health Sciences, UNSW Sydney
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Share This Post
-
Red Cabbage vs Brussels Sprouts – Which is Healthier?
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.
Our Verdict
When comparing red cabbage to Brussels sprouts, we picked the sprouts.
Why?
First let’s note that we have an interesting comparison today, because these two plants are the exact same species (and indeed, also the exact same species as broccoli, cauliflower. and kale)—just a different cultivar. All of these plants and more are simply cultivars of Brassica oleracea.
Them being the same species notwithstanding, there are nutritional differences:
In terms of macros, the sprouts have more than 2x the protein, slightly more carbs, and nearly 2x the fiber. An easy win for sprouts here.
Looking at vitamins next, red cabbage has more vitamin A (whence the color), while Brussels sprouts have more of vitamins B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B7, B9, C, E, K, and choline. Another easy win for sprouts.
In the category of minerals, red cabbage has a tiny bit more calcium, while Brussels sprouts have more copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc—while being literally just a few mg/100g behind red cabbage on calcium anyway. So, once again, sprouts are sweeping the victory.
Both vegetables are a rich source of assorted polyphenols; for most polyphenols, Brussels sprouts scores higher—an exception being that red cabbage is very slightly higher in quercetin. So, we’ll call this category a win for Brussels sprouts, too.
In short: enjoy both; diversity is great and so is pretty much any iteration of Brassica oleracea. Standing next to Brussels sprouts made red cabbage look bad, but we assure you that cabbage in general is a nutritional powerhouse, and in this case it was hot the heels of sprouts in most of those micronutrients. If you’re going to pick one though, the Brussels sprouts are indeed the more nutritionally dense.
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Sprout Your Seeds, Grains, Beans, Etc ← sprout your Brassica oleracea, too!
Take care!
Share This Post
-
Healthy Choco-Banoffee Ice Cream
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.
Chocolate, banana, and coffee—quite a threesome, whether for breakfast or dessert, and this is healthy enough for breakfast while being decadent enough for dessert! With no dairy or added sugar, and lots of antioxidants, this is a healthy way to start or end your day.
You will need
- 3 bananas
- 2 tbsp cocoa powder, no additives
- 2 shots espresso, chilled
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- On standby: milk of your choice—we recommend almond or hazelnut
Method
(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)
1) Peel, slice, and freeze the bananas (let them freeze for at least 2–3 hours)
2) Blend the ingredients, except the milk. Add milk as necessary if the mixture is too thick to blend. Be careful not to add too much at once though, or it will become less of an ice cream and more of a milkshake!
3) Scoop into a sundae glass to serve:
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:
- Which Plant Milk?
- The Bitter Truth About Coffee (or is it?)
- Cacao vs Carob – Which is Healthier?
- Apples vs Bananas – Which is Healthier?
- Which Sugars Are Healthier, And Which Are Just The Same?
- Tasty Polyphenols
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:
-
Health Nut: A Feel-Good Cookbook – by Jess Damuck
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.
The author is a classically trained chef (worked with Martha Stewart for a long time!), and while health is the focus here, it’s not the be-all-and-end-all, so there’s a lot of attention given to pleasure also. Which, after all, is not a zero-sum game—we can have both!
So, the title and subtitle together sum up the ethos of the book pretty well.
The recipes themselves are divided into categories by meal-type, snacks, desserts, etc. They’re varied enough to suit most moods and seasons, as well as being equally appropriate for cooking for one, or a family, or entertaining. Many (but not all) of the recipes are vegan, though where they’re not, the substitutions are mostly easy and obvious, or explained, or else alternative recipes are given (for example a vegan “tuna” recipe).
In terms of complexity, these are not very complex, yet include everything they need to to make things interesting. That said, the ingredients are also not obscure, and should be easy to find in any reasonably well-stocked supermarket.
One small downside is that many of the recipes are not illustrated, but the instructions are clear enough that this isn’t really a problem, in this reviewer’s opinion.
Bottom line: if you’d like to broaden your kitchen repertoire with plants-forward cooking from an accomplished chef, then this is a good book for that.
Click here to check out Health Nut, and enjoy the feel-good food!
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:
-
The Drug & Supplement Combo That Reverses Aging
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.
So far, its effects have been dramatic (in a good way) in mice; human trials are now underway.
How does it work?
It builds from previous work, in which a Japanese research team created an “anti-aging vaccine”, that responded to a problem more specific than aging as a whole, namely atherosclerosis.
They found that a certain* protein was upregulated (i.e., it was made at a greater rate resulting in greater quantities) in patients (mouse and human alike) with atherosclerosis. So, they immunized the mice against that protein, and long story short, everything improved for them, from their atherosclerosis to general markers of aging—including growing back fur that had been lost due to age-related balding (just like in humans). They also lived longer, as is to be expected of a mouse who is now biologically younger.
*To avoid being mysterious: it was glycoprotein nonmetastatic melanoma protein B, known to its friends as GPNMB.
You may be wondering: how can one be immunized against a protein? If so, do bear in mind, a virus is also a protein. In this case, they developed an RNA vaccine, that works in a similar way to the COVID vaccines we all know and love (albeit with a different target).
You can read about this in abundant detail here: Senolytic vaccination improves normal and pathological age-related phenotypes and increases lifespan in progeroid mice
Hot on the heels of that, new approaches were found, including…
The combination
We’ll not keep you waiting; the combination is dasatinib plus quercetin, or else fisetin alone.
It’s about killing senescent (aging) “zombie cells” while sparing healthy cells, which that drug (dasatinib) and those supplements (quercetin and fisetin) do.
The researchers noted:
❝Senescent cells are resistant to apoptosis, which is governed through the upregulation of senescent cell anti-apoptotic pathways (SCAPs). Compounds were subsequently identified that disrupted the SCAPs, inducing death of senescent cells while leaving healthy cells unaffected. Forty-six potential senolytic agents were discovered through this process. To advance translational efforts, the majority of research has focused on agents with known safety profiles and limited off-target effects (Kirkland and Tchkonia, 2020).
The best characterized senolytic agents are dasatinib, a tyrosine kinase inhibitor approved for use in humans for cancer treatment, and quercetin, a naturally occurring plant flavonoid. The agents have a synergistic effect, making their combination more potent for senescent cell clearance (Zhu et al., 2015). As senescent cells do not divide and accumulate over a period of weeks, they can be administered using an intermittent approach, which further serves to reduce the risk of side effects (Kirkland and Tchkonia, 2020).
In preclinical trials, the combination of dasatinib and quercetin (D + Q) have been found to alleviate numerous chronic medical conditions including vascular stiffness, osteoporosis, frailty, and hepatic stenosis❞
Source: A geroscience motivated approach to treat Alzheimer’s disease: Senolytics move to clinical trials
As to how they expanded on this research:
❝In our study, oral D + Q were intermittently administered to tau transgenic mice with late-stage pathology (approximated to a 70-year-old human with advanced AD) (Musi et al., 2018). The treatment effectively reduced cellular senescence and associated senescence-associated secretory phenotype incidence. The 35 % reduction in neurofibrillary tangles was accompanied by enhanced neuron density, decreased ventricular enlargement, diminished tau accumulation, and restoration of aberrant cerebral blood flow. A subsequent preclinical study validated the findings, reporting that intermittently administered D + Q cleared senescent cells in the central nervous system, reduced amyloid-β plaques, attenuated neuroinflammation, and enhanced cognition❞
Source: Ibid.
And now taking it to humans:
❝The first clinical trial of D + Q for early-stage Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) has completed enrollment (Gonzales et al., 2021). The primary aim of the open-label pilot study was to examine the central nervous system penetrance of D and Q in a small sample of older adults with early-stage AD (NCT04063124). In addition, two placebo-controlled trials of D + Q for neurodegenerative disease are underway (NCT04685590 and NCT04785300).
One of the trials in development is a multi-site, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study of senolytic therapy in older adults with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or early-stage dementia (Clinical Dementia Rating Scale (CDR) Global 0.5–1) due to AD (elevated CSF total tau/Aβ42 ratio).
The treatment regimen will consist of 12-weeks of intermittently administered oral D + Q.❞
Source: Ibid.
The study is actually completed now, but its results are not yet published (again, at time of writing). Which means: they have the data, and now they’re writing the paper.
We look forward to providing an update about that, when the paper is published!
In the meantime…
Dasatinib is a drug usually prescribed to people with certain kinds of leukemia, and suffice it to say, it’s prescription-only. And unlike drugs that are often prescribed off-label (such as metformin for weight loss), getting your doctor to prescribe you an anticancer drug is unlikely unless you have the cancer in question.
You may be wondering: how is an anticancer drug helpful against aging? And the answer is that cancer and aging are very interrelated, and both have to do with “these old cells just won’t die, and are using the resources needed for young healthy cells”. So in both cases, killing those “zombie cells” while sparing healthy ones, is what’s needed. However, your doctor will probably not buy that as a reason to prescribe you a drug that is technically chemotherapy.
Quercetin, on the other hand, is a readily-available supplement, as is fisetin, and both have glowing (in a good way) safety profiles.
Want to know more?
You can read more about each of quercetin and fisetin (including how to get them), here:
Enjoy!
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:
