Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics – by Dan Harris
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If you already meditate regularly, this book isn’t aimed at you (though you may learn a thing or two anyway—this reviewer, who has practiced meditation for the past 30 years, learned a thing!).
However, if you’re—as the title suggests—someone who hasn’t so far been inclined towards meditation, you could get the most out of this one. We’ll say more on this (obviously), but first, there’s one other group that may benefit from this book:
If you have already practiced meditation, and/or already understand and want its benefits, but never really made it stick as a habit.
Now, onto what you’ll get:
- A fair scientific overview of meditation as an increasingly evidence-based way to reduce stress and increase both happiness and productivity
- A good grounding in what meditation is and isn’t
- A how-to guide for building up a consistent meditation habit that won’t get kiboshed when you have a particularly hectic day—or a cold.
- An assortment of very common (and some less common) meditative practices to try
- Some great auxiliary tools to build cognitive restructuring into your meditation
We don’t usually cite other people’s reviews, but we love that one Amazon reviewer wrote:
❝I am 3 weeks into daily meditation practice, and I already notice that I am no longer constantly wishing for undercarriage rocket launchers while driving. I will always think your driving sucks, but I no longer wish you a violent death because of it. Yes, I live in Boston❞
Bottom line: if you’re not already meditating daily, this is definitely a book for you. And if you are, you may learn a thing or two anyway!
Click here to get your copy of Meditation For Fidgety Skeptics from Amazon today!
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Exercise with Type 1 Diabetes – by Ginger Vieira
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If you or a loved one has Type 1 Diabetes, you’ll know that exercise can be especially frustrating…
- If you don’t do it, you risk weight gain and eventual insulin resistance.
- If you do it, you risk dangerous hypos, or perhaps hypers if you took off your pump or skipped a bolus.
Unfortunately, the popular medical advice is “well, just do your best”.
Ginger Vieira is Type 1 Diabetic, and writes with 20+ experience of managing her diabetes while being a keen exerciser. As T1D folks out there will also know, comorbidities are very common; in her case, fibromyalgia was the biggest additional blow to her ability to exercise, along with an underactive thyroid. So when it comes to dealing with the practical nuts and bolts of things, she (while herself observing she’s not a doctor, let alone your doctor) has a lot more practical knowledge than an endocrinologist (without diabetes) behind a desk.
Speaking of nuts and bolts, this book isn’t a pep talk.
It has a bit of that in, but most of it is really practical information, e.g: using fasted exercise (4 hours from last meal+bolus) to prevent hypos, counterintuitive as that may seem—the key is that timing a workout for when you have the least amount of fast-acting insulin in your body means your body can’t easily use your blood sugars for energy, and draws from your fat reserves instead… Win/Win!
That’s just one quick tip because this is a 1-minute review, but Vieira gives:
- whole chapters, with example datasets (real numbers)
- tech-specific advice, e.g. pump, injection, etc
- insulin-specific advice, e.g. fast vs slow, and adjustments to each in the context of exercise
- timing advice re meal/bolus/exercise for different insulins and techs
- blood-sugar management advice for different exercise types (aerobic/anaerobic, sprint/endurance, etc)
…and lots more that we don’t have room to mention here
Basically… If you or a loved one has T1D, we really recommend this book!
Order a copy of “Exercise with Type 1 Diabetes” from Amazon today!
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Walk Yourself Happy – by Dr. Julia Bradbury
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Notwithstanding her (honorary) doctorate, Dr. Bradbury is not, in fact, a scientist. But…
- She has a lot of experience walking all around the world, and her walking habit has seen her through all manner of things, from stress and anxiety to cancer and grief and more.
- She does, throughout this book, consult many scientists and other experts (indeed, some we’ve featured here before at 10almonds), so we still get quite a dose of science too.
The writing style of this book is… Compelling. Honestly, the biggest initial barrier to you getting out of the door will be putting this book down first.If you have good self-discipline, you might make it last longer by treating yourself to a chapter per day
Bottom line: you probably don’t need this book to know how to go for a walk, but it will motivate, inspire, and even inform you of how to get the most out of it. Treat yourself!
Click here to check out Walk Yourself Happy, and prepare for a new healthy habit!
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Bone on Bone – by Dr. Meredith Warner
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What this is not: a book about one specific condition, injury, or surgery.
What this is: a guide to dealing with the common factors of many musculoskeletal conditions, inflammatory diseases, and their consequences.
Dr. Warner takes the opportunity to address the whole patient—presumably: the reader, though it could equally be a reader’s loved one, or even a reader’s patient, insofar as this book will probably be read by doctors also.
She takes an “inside-out and outside-in” approach; that is to say, addressing the problem from as many vectors as reasonably possible—including supplements, diet, dietary habits (things like intermittent fasting etc), exercise, and even sleep. And yes, she knows how difficult those latter items can be, and addresses them not merely with a “but it’s important” but also with practical advice.
As an orthopedic surgeon, she’s not a fan of surgery, and counsels the reader to avoid that if reasonably possible. She also talks about how many people in the US are encouraged to have MRI scans for financial reasons (as in, they can be profitable for the doctor/institution), and then any abnormality is used as justification for surgery, to backwards-justify the use of the MRI, even if the abnormality is not actually the cause of the pain.
Noteworthily, humans in general are a typically a pile of abnormalities in a trenchcoat. Our propensity to mutation has made us one of the most adaptable species on the planet, yet many would have us pretend that the insides of people look like they do in textbooks, or else are wrong. The reality is not so, and Dr. Warner rightly shows this for what it is.
Bottom line: if you or a loved one are suffering from, or at risk of, musculoskeletal and/or inflammatory conditions, this is a top-tier book for having a much easier time of it.
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Ovarian cancer is hard to detect. Focusing on these 4 symptoms can help with diagnosis
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Ovarian cancers are often found when they are already advanced and hard to treat.
Researchers have long believed this was because women first experienced symptoms when ovarian cancer was already well-established. Symptoms can also be hard to identify as they’re vague and similar to other conditions.
But a new study shows promising signs ovarian cancer can be detected in its early stages. The study targeted women with four specific symptoms – bloating, abdominal pain, needing to pee frequently, and feeling full quickly – and put them on a fast track to see a specialist.
As a result, even the most aggressive forms of ovarian cancer could be detected in their early stages.
So what did the study find? And what could it mean for detecting – and treating – ovarian cancer more quickly?
Ground Picture/Shutterstock Why is ovarian cancer hard to detect early?
Ovarian cancer cannot be detected via cervical cancer screening (which used to be called a pap smear) and pelvic exams aren’t useful as a screening test.
Current Australian guidelines recommend women get tested for ovarian cancer if they have symptoms for more than a month. But many of the symptoms – such as tiredness, constipation and changes in menstruation – are vague and overlap with other common illnesses.
This makes early detection a challenge. But it is crucial – a woman’s chances of surviving ovarian cancer are associated with how advanced the cancer is when she is diagnosed.
If the cancer is still confined to the original site with no spread, the five-year survival rate is 92%. But over half of women diagnosed with ovarian cancer first present when the cancer has already metastatised, meaning it has spread to other parts of the body.
If the cancer has spread to nearby lymph nodes, the survival rate is reduced to 72%. If the cancer has already metastasised and spread to distant sites at the time of diagnosis, the rate is only 31%.
There are mixed findings on whether detecting ovarian cancer earlier leads to better survival rates. For example, a trial in the UK that screened more than 200,000 women failed to reduce deaths.
That study screened the general public, rather than relying on self-reported symptoms. The new study suggests asking women to look for specific symptoms can lead to earlier diagnosis, meaning treatment can start more quickly.
What did the new study look at?
Between June 2015 and July 2022, the researchers recruited 2,596 women aged between 16 and 90 from 24 hospitals across the UK.
They were asked to monitor for these four symptoms:
- persistent abdominal distension (women often refer to this as bloating)
- feeling full shortly after starting to eat and/or loss of appetite
- pelvic or abdominal pain (which can feel like indigestion)
- needing to urinate urgently or more often.
Women who reported at least one of four symptoms persistently or frequently were put on a fast-track pathway. That means they were sent to see a gynaecologist within two weeks. The fast track pathway has been used in the UK since 2011, but is not specifically part of Australia’s guidelines.
Some 1,741 participants were put on this fast track. First, they did a blood test that measured the cancer antigen 125 (CA125). If a woman’s CA125 level was abnormal, she was sent to do a internal vaginal ultrasound.
What did they find?
The study indicates this process is better at detecting ovarian cancer than general screening of people who don’t have symptoms. Some 12% of women on the fast-track pathway were diagnosed with some kind of ovarian cancer.
A total of 6.8% of fast-tracked patients were diagnosed with high-grade serous ovarian cancer. It is the most aggressive form of cancer and responsible for 90% of ovarian cancer deaths.
Out of those women with the most aggressive form, one in four were diagnosed when the cancer was still in its early stages. That is important because it allowed treatment of the most lethal cancer before it had spread significantly through the body.
There were some promising signs in treating those with this aggressive form. The majority (95%) had surgery and three quarters (77%) had chemotherapy. Complete cytoreduction – meaning all of the cancer appears to have been removed – was achieved in six women out of ten (61%).
It’s a promising sign that there may be ways to “catch” and target ovarian cancer before it is well-established in the body.
What does this mean for detection?
The study’s findings suggest this method of early testing and referral for the symptoms leads to earlier detection of ovarian cancer. This may also improve outcomes, although the study did not track survival rates.
It also points to the importance of public awareness about symptoms.
Clinicians should be able to recognise all of the ways ovarian cancer can present, including vague symptoms like general fatigue.
But empowering members of the general public to recognise a narrower set of four symptoms can help trigger testing, detection and treatment of ovarian cancer earlier than we thought.
This could also save GPs advising every woman who has general tiredness or constipation to undergo an ovarian cancer test, making testing and treatment more targeted and efficient.
Many women remain unaware of the symptoms of ovarian cancer. This study shows recognising them may help early detection and treatment.
Jenny Doust, Clinical Professorial Research Fellow, Australian Women and Girls’ Health Research Centre, The University of Queensland
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Health Simplified – by Daniel Cottmeyer
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Health Simplified – by Daniel Cottmeyer
A lot of books focus on the most marketable aspects of health, such as fat loss or muscle gain. Instead, Cottmeyer takes a “birds-eye-view” of health in all its aspects, and then boils it down to the most critical key parts.
Rather than giving a science-dense tome that nobody reads, or a light motivational piece that everyone reads but it amounts to “you can do it!”, here we get substance… but in a digestible form.
Which we at 10almonds love.
The book presents a simple action plan to:
- Improve your relationship with food/exercise
- Actually get better sleep
- Understand how nutrition really works
- Set up helpful habits that are workable and sustainable
- Bring these components together synergistically
Bottom line: if you’re going to buy only one health/fitness book, this is a fine contender.
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Planning Festivities Your Body Won’t Regret
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The Festive Dilemma
For many, Christmas is approaching. Other holidays abound too, and even for the non-observant, it’d be hard to escape seasonal jollities entirely.
So, what’s the plan?
- Eat, drink, and be merry, and have New Year’s Resolutions for the first few days of January before collapsing in a heap?
- Approach the Yuletide with Spartan abstemiousness and miss all the fun while simultaneously annoying your relatives?
Let’s try to find a third approach instead…
What’s festive and healthy?
We’re doing this article this week, because many people will be shopping already, making plans, and so forth. So here are some things to bear in mind:
Make your own mindful choices
Coca-Cola company really did a number on Christmas, but it doesn’t mean their product is truly integral to the season. Same goes for many other things that flood the stores around this time of year. So much sugary confectionary! But remember, they’re not the boss of you. If you wouldn’t buy it ordinarily, why are you buying it now? Do you actually even want it?
If you really do, then you do you, but mindful choices will invariably be healthier than “because there were three additional aisles of confectionary now so I stopped and looked and picked some things”.
Pick your battles
If you’re having a big family gathering, likely there will be occasions with few healthy options available. But you can decide what’s most important for you to avoid, perhaps picking a theme, e.g:
- No alcohol this year, or
- No processed sugary foods, or
- Eat/drink whatever, but practice intermittent fasting
Some resources:
Fight inflammation
This is a big one so it deserves its own category. In the season of sugar and alcohol and fatty meat, inflammation can be a big problem to come around and bite us in the behind. We’ve written on this previously:
Positive dieting
In other words, less of a focus on what to exclude, and more of a focus on what to include in your diet. Fruity drinks and sweets are common at this time of year, but you know what’s also fruity? Fruit!
And it can be festive, too! Berries are great, and those tiny orange-like fruits that may be called clementines or tangerines or satsumas or, as Aldi would have it, “easy peelers”. Apple and cinnamon are also a great combination that both bring sweetness without needing added sugar.
And as for mains? Make your salads that bit fancier, get plenty of greens with your main, have hearty soups and strews with lentils and beams!
See also: Level-Up Your Fiber Intake! (Without Difficulty Or Discomfort)
Your gut will thank us later!
Get moving!
That doesn’t mean you have to beat the New Year rush to the gym (unless you want to!). But it could mean, for example, more time in your walking shoes (or dancing shoes! With a nod to today’s sponsor) and less time in the armchair.
See also: The doctor who wants us to exercise less; move more
Lastly…
Remember it’s supposed to be fun! And being healthy can be a lot more fun than suffering because of unfortunate choices that we come to regret.
Take care!
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