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❞

~ J. Flaherty

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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    Outdated evolutionary dental timeline? Dr. Ellie Phillips shares tips for lifelong gum and tooth health beyond 35. Avoid gum recession by managing diet and oral care.

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  • How Are You, Really? And How Old Is Your Heart?

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    How Are You, Really? The Free NHS Health Test

    We took this surprisingly incisive 10-minute test from the UK’s famous National Health Service—the test is part of the “Better Health” programme, a free-to-all (yes, even those from/in other countries) initiative aimed at keeping people healthy enough to have less need of medical attention.

    As one person who took the test wrote:

    ❝I didn’t expect that a government initiative would have me talking about how I need to keep myself going to be there for the people I love, let alone that a rapid-pace multiple-choice test would elicit these responses and give personalized replies in turn, but here we are❞

    It goes beyond covering the usual bases, in that it also looks at what’s most important to you, and why, and what might keep you from doing the things you want/need to do for your health, AND how those obstacles can be overcome.

    Pretty impressive for a 10-minute test!

    Is Your Health Above Average Already? Take the Free 10-minute NHS test now!

    How old are you, in your heart?

    Poetic answers notwithstanding (this writer sometimes feels so old, and yet also much younger than she is), there’s a biological answer here, too.

    Again free for the use of all*, here’s a heart age calculator.

    *It is suitable for you if you are aged 30–95, and do not have a known complicating cardiovascular disease.

    It will ask you your (UK) postcode; just leave that field blank if you’re not in the UK; it’ll be fine.

    How Old Are You, In Your Heart? Take the Free 10-minute NHS test now!

    (Neither test requires logging into anything, and they do not ask for your email address. The tests are right there on the page, and they give the answers right there on the page, immediately)

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  • Is Chiropractic All It’s Cracked Up To Be?

    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.

    Is Chiropractic All It’s Cracked Up To Be?

    Yesterday, we asked you for your opinions on chiropractic medicine, and got the above-depicted, below-described set of results:

    • 38% of respondents said it keeps us healthy, and everyone should do it as maintenance
    • 33% of respondents said it can correct some short-term skeletal issues, but that’s all
    • 16% of respondents said that it’s a dangerous pseudoscience and can cause serious harm
    • 13% of respondents said that it’s mostly just a combination of placebo and endorphins

    Respondents also shared personal horror stories of harm done, personal success stories of things cured, and personal “it didn’t seem to do anything for me” stories.

    What does the science say?

    It’s a dangerous pseudoscience and can cause harm: True or False?

    False and True, respectively.

    That is to say, chiropractic in its simplest form that makes the fewest claims, is not a pseudoscience. If somebody physically moves your bones around, your bones will be physically moved. If your bones were indeed misaligned, and the chiropractor is knowledgeable and competent, this will be for the better.

    However, like any form of medicine, it can also cause harm; in chiropractic’s case, because it more often than not involves manipulation of the spine, this can be very serious:

    ❝Twenty six fatalities were published in the medical literature and many more might have remained unpublished.

    The reported pathology usually was a vascular accident involving the dissection of a vertebral artery.

    Conclusion: Numerous deaths have occurred after chiropractic manipulations. The risks of this treatment by far outweigh its benefit.❞

    Source: Deaths after chiropractic: a review of published cases

    From this, we might note two things:

    1. The abstract doesn’t note the initial sample size; we would rather have seen this information expressed as a percentage. Unfortunately, the full paper is not accessible, and nor are many of the papers it cites.
    2. Having a vertebral artery fatally dissected is nevertheless not an inviting prospect, and is certainly a very reasonable cause for concern.

    It’s mostly just a combination of placebo and endorphins: True or False?

    True or False, depending on what you went in for:

    • If you went in for a regular maintenance clunk-and-click, then yes, you will get your clunk-and-click and feel better for it because you had a ritualized* experience and endorphins were released.
    • If you went in for something that was actually wrong with your skeletal alignment, to get it corrected, and this correction was within your chiropractor’s competence, then yes, you will feel better because a genuine fault was corrected.

    *this is not implying any mysticism, by the way. Rather it means simply that placebo effect is strongest when there is a ritual associated with it. In this case it means going to the place, sitting in a pleasant waiting room, being called in, removing your shoes and perhaps some other clothes, getting the full attention of a confident and assured person for a while, this sort of thing.

    With regard to its use to combat specifically spinal pain (i.e., perhaps the most obvious thing to treat by chiropractic spinal manipulation), evidence is slightly in favor, but remains unclear:

    ❝Due to the low quality of evidence, the efficacy of chiropractic spinal manipulation compared with a placebo or no treatment remains uncertain. ❞

    Source: Clinical Effectiveness and Efficacy of Chiropractic Spinal Manipulation for Spine Pain

    It can correct some short-term skeletal issues, but that’s all: True or False?

    Probably True.

    Why “probably”? The effectiveness of chiropractic treatment for things other than short-term skeletal issues has barely been studied. From this, we may wish to keep an open mind, while also noting that it can hardly claim to be evidence-based—and it’s had hundreds of years to accumulate evidence. In all likelihood, publication bias has meant that studies that were conducted and found inconclusive or negative results were simply not published—but that’s just a hypothesis on our part.

    In the case of using chiropractic to treat migraines, a very-related-but-not-skeletal issue, researchers found:

    ❝Pre-specified feasibility criteria were not met, but deficits were remediable. Preliminary data support a definitive trial of MCC+ for migraine.❞

    Translating this: “it didn’t score as well as we hoped, but we can do better. We got some positive results, and would like to do another, bigger, better trial; please fund it”

    Source: Multimodal chiropractic care for migraine: A pilot randomized controlled trial

    Meanwhile, chiropractors’ claims for very unrelated things have been harshly criticized by the scientific community, for example:

    Misinformation, chiropractic, and the COVID-19 pandemic

    About that “short-term” aspect, one of our subscribers put it quite succinctly:

    ❝Often a skeletal correction is required for initial alignment but the surrounding fascia and muscles also need to be treated to mobilize the joint and release deep tissue damage surrounding the area. In combination with other therapies chiropractic support is beneficial.❞

    This is, by the way, very consistent with what was said in the very clinically-dense book we reviewed yesterday, which has a chapter on the short-term benefits and limitations of chiropractic.

    A truism that holds for many musculoskeletal healthcare matters, holds true here too:

    ❝In a battle between muscle and bone, muscle will always win❞

    In other words…

    Chiropractic can definitely help put misaligned bones back where they should be. However, once they’re there, if the cause of their misalignment is not treated, they will just re-misalign themselves shortly after you walking out of your session.

    This is great for chiropractors, if it keeps you coming back for endless appointments, but it does little for your body beyond give you a brief respite.

    So, by all means go to a chiropractor if you feel so inclined (and you do not fear accidental arterial dissection etc), but please also consider going to a physiotherapist, and potentially other medical professions depending on what seems to be wrong, to see about addressing the underlying cause.

    Take care!

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  • Cabbage vs Kale – Which is Healthier?

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    Our Verdict

    When comparing cabbage to kale, we picked the kale.

    Why?

    Here we go again, pitting Brassica oleracea vs Brassica oleracea. One species, many cultivars! Notwithstanding being the same species, there are important nutritional differences:

    In terms of macros, kale has more protein, carbs, and fiber, and even has the lower glycemic index, not that cabbage is bad at all, of course. But nominally, kale gets the win on all counts in this category.

    In the category of vitamins, cabbage has more of vitamins B5 and choline, while kale has more of vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B6, B7, B9, C, E, and K. An easy win for kale!

    When it comes to minerals, it’s even more decisive: cabbage is not higher in any minerals, while kale has more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, and zinc. Another clear win for kale.

    Adding up the sections makes it very clear that kale wins the day, but we’d like to mention that cabbage was good in all of these metrics too; kale was just better!

    Want to learn more?

    You might like to read:

    21 Most Beneficial Polyphenols & What Foods Have Them

    Enjoy!

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Related Posts

  • The Oh She Glows Cookbook – by Angela Liddon
  • Strong At Every Age: 15 Habits To Level Up Your Health & Fitness

    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.

    Not every increase in health and fitness needs to look like a training montage from the “Rocky” movies!

    Making progress every day

    We’ll not keep the 15 habits a secret; they are:

    1. Follow the one-minute rule: commit to just one minute of action—this makes starting easier, and often you’ll end up doing more once you’ve got started.
    2. Make the habit exciting: add fun elements to make the habit more enjoyable, like using new gear or accessories.
    3. Do it first: prioritize new habits by doing them early in the day to ensure they get done.
    4. Share the love: pair new habits with activities you already enjoy, where practical, to do “temptation bundling”.
    5. Embrace the uncomfortable: get used to discomfort daily to grow and build resilience for bigger changes.
    6. Do as little as possible: start small with habits, to minimize resistance and focus on consistency.
    7. Think how to be lazy: simplify processes and use shortcuts; there are no extra prizes for it having been difficult!
    8. Make the appointment: schedule habits with set dates and times, to increase accountability.
    9. Let habits evolve: adapt habits to fit current circumstances; that way you can still stay consistent over time.
    10. Plan ahead: prepare in advance to avoid setbacks—what could stop you from succeeding, and how can you pre-empt that?
    11. Pause to reflect: regularly evaluate what works and what doesn’t, to adjust and improve.
    12. Shut off your brain: avoid overthinking and start taking action now, not later, to build momentum.
    13. Question and learn: stay curious and open to learning, or else you will plateau quickly!
    14. Ask why: understand the deeper reasons behind any resistance, and make clear for yourself the value of the habit.
    15. Love your failures: embrace any setbacks as learning opportunities and, as such, stepping stones to success.

    For more on all of each of these, enjoy:

    Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!

    Want to learn more?

    You might also like to read:

    How To Really Pick Up (And Keep!) Those Habits

    Take care!

    Don’t Forget…

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  • How Aging Changes At 44 And Again At 60 (And What To Do About It)

    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.

    As it turns out, aging is not linear. Or rather: chronological aging may be, but biological aging isn’t, and there are parts of our life where it kicks into a different gear. This study looked at 108 people (65 of whom women) between the ages of 25 and 75, as part of a longitudinal cohort study, tracked for around 2–8 years (imprecise as not all follow-up durations were the same). They took frequent blood and urine samples, and tested them for thousands of different molecules and analyzing changes in gene expression, proteomic, blood biomarkers, and more. All things that are indicators of various kinds of health/disease, and which might seem more simple but it isn’t: aging.

    Here’s what they found:

    Landmark waypoints

    At 44, significant changes occur in the metabolism, including notably the metabolism of carbs, caffeine, and alcohol. A large portion of this may be hormone related, as that’s a time of change not just for those undergoing the menopause, but also the andropause (not entirely analogous to the menopause, but it does usually entail a significant reduction in sex hormone production; in this case, testosterone).

    However, the study authors also hypothesize that lifestyle factors may be relevant, as one’s 40s are often a stressful time, and an increase in alcohol consumption often occurs around the same time as one’s ability to metabolize it drops, resulting in further dysfunctional alcohol metabolism.

    At 60, carb metabolism slows again, with big changes in glucose metabolism specifically, as well as an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, and a decline in kidney function. In case that wasn’t enough: also an increase free radical pathology, meaning a greatly increased risk of cancer. Immune function drops too.

    What to do about this: the recommendation is of course to be proactive, and look after various aspects of your health before it becomes readily apparent that you need to. For example, good advice for anyone approaching 44 might be to quit alcohol, go easy on caffeine, and eat a diet that is conducive to good glucose metabolism. Similarly, good advice for anyone approaching 60 might be to do the same, and also pay close attention to keeping your kidneys healthy. Getting regular tests done is also key, including optional extras that your doctor might not suggest but you should ask for, such as blood urea nitrogen levels (biomarkers of kidney function). The more we look after each part of our body, the more they can look after us in turn, and the fewer/smaller problems we’ll have down the line.

    If you, dear reader, are approaching the age 44 or 60… Be neither despondent nor complacent. We must avoid falling into the dual traps of “Well, that’s it, bad health is around the corner, nothing I can do about it; that’s nature”, vs “I’ll be fine, statistics are for other people, and don’t apply to me”.

    Those are averages, and we do not have to be average. Every population has statistical outliers. But it would be hubris to think none of this will apply to us and we can just carry on regardless. So, for those of us who are approaching one of those two ages… It’s time to saddle up, knuckle down, and do our best!

    For more on all of this, enjoy:

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    Want to learn more?

    You might also like to read:

    Also, if you’d like to read the actual paper by Dr. Xiaotao Shen et al., here it is:

    Nonlinear dynamics of multi-omics profiles during human aging ← honestly, it’s a lot clearer and more informative than the video, and also obviously discusses things in a lot more detail than we have room to here

    Take care!

    Don’t Forget…

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  • The Power of When – by Dr. Michael Breus

    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.

    There’s a lot more to one’s circadian rhythm than just when one wakes and sleeps. This book goes into that quite deeply!

    For example, those items in the subtitle? You could do them all at the same time, but it probably wouldn’t be optimal (although honestly, that does sound like quite a good life!). Rather, there are distinct times of day that we’re going to be better at certain things, and there are distinct times of day when certain things are going to be better for us.

    Of course, some items are not so simple as a one-size fits all, so Dr. Breus outlines for us how to figure out our own chronotype (within four main schemas), and how to make that work for us as well as possible.

    They style is easy-reading pop-science, with frequent summaries, bullet-points, quizzes, and so forth, making it easy to understand, learn, and apply.

    Bottom line: if you feel like your sleep could use a do-over, then this book can help you get it into order—and the rest of your daily activities too!

    Click here to check out The Power of When, and optimize your health!

    Don’t Forget…

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    Learn to Age Gracefully

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