Non-Sleep Deep Rest: A Neurobiologist’s Take

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How to get many benefits of sleep, while awake!

Today we’re talking about Dr. Andrew Huberman, a neuroscientist and professor in the department of neurobiology at Stanford School of Medicine.

He’s also a popular podcaster, and as his Wikipedia page notes:

❝In episodes lasting several hours, Huberman talks about the state of research in a specific topic, both within and outside his specialty❞

Today, we won’t be taking hours, and we will be taking notes from within his field of specialty (neurobiology). Specifically, in this case:

Non-Sleep Deep Rest (NSDR)

What is it? To quote from his own dedicated site on the topic:

What is NSDR (Yoga Nidra)? Non-Sleep Deep Rest, also known as NSDR, is a method of deep relaxation developed by Dr. Andrew Huberman, a neuroscientist at Stanford University School of Medicine.

It’s a process that combines controlled breathing and detailed body scanning to bring you into a state of heightened awareness and profound relaxation. The main purpose of NSDR is to reduce stress, enhance focus, and improve overall well-being.❞

While it seems a bit bold of Dr. Huberman to claim that he developed yoga nidra, it is nevertheless reassuring to get a neurobiologist’s view on this:

How it works, by science

Dr. Huberman says that by monitoring EEG readings during NSDR, we can see how the brain slows down. Measurably!

  • It goes from an active beta range of 13–30 Hz (normal waking) to a conscious meditation state of an alpha range of 8–13 Hz.
  • However, with practice, it can drop further, into a theta range of 4–8 Hz.
  • Ultimately, sustained SSDR practice can get us to 0.5–3 Hz.

This means that the brain is functioning in the delta range, something that typically only occurs during our deepest sleep.

You may be wondering: why is delta lower than theta? That’s not how I remember the Greek alphabet being ordered!

Indeed, while the Greek alphabet goes alpha beta gamma delta epsilon zeta eta theta (and so on), the brainwave frequency bands are:

  • Gamma = concentrated focus, >30 Hz
  • Beta = normal waking, 13–30 Hz
  • Alpha = relaxed state, 8–13 Hz
  • Theta = light sleep, 4–8 Hz
  • Delta = deep sleep, 1–4 Hz

Source: Sleep Foundationwith a nice infographic there too

NSDR uses somatic cues to engage our parasympathetic nervous system, which in turn enables us to reach those states. The steps are simple:

  1. Pick a time and place when you won’t be disturbed
  2. Lie on your back and make yourself comfortable
  3. Close your eyes as soon as you wish, and now that you’ve closed them, imagine closing them again. And again.
  4. Slowly bring your attention to each part of your body in turn, from head to toe. As your attention goes to each part, allow it to relax more.
  5. If you wish, you can repeat this process for another wave, or even a third.
  6. Find yourself well-rested!

Note: this engagement of the parasympathetic nervous system and slowing down of brain activity accesses restorative states not normally available while waking, but 10 minutes of NSDR will not replace 7–9 hours of sleep; nor will it give you the vital benefits of REM sleep specifically.

So: it’s an adjunct, not a replacement

Want to try it, but not sure where/how to start?

When you’re ready, let Dr. Huberman himself guide you through it in this shortish (10:49) soundtrack:

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

Want to try it, but not right now? Bookmark it for later

Take care!

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  • The Five Key Traits Of Healthy 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.

    The Five Keys Of Aging Healthily

    Image courtesy of Peter Prato.

    This is Dr. Daniel Levitin. He’s a neuroscientist, and his research focuses on aging, the brain, health, productivity, and creativity. Also music, and he himself is an accomplished musician also, but we’re not going to be focusing on that today.

    We’re going to be looking at the traits that, according to science, promote healthy longevity in old age. In other words, the things that increase our healthspan, from the perspective of a cognitive scientist.

    What does he say we should do?

    Dr. Levitin offers us what he calls the “COACH” traits:

    1. Curiosity
    2. Openness
    3. Associations
    4. Conscientiousness
    5. Healthy practices

    By “associations”, he means relationships. However, that would have made the acronym “CORCH”, and decisions had to be made.

    Curiosity

    Leonardo da Vinci had a list of seven traits he considered most important.

    We’ll not go into those today (he is not our featured expert of the day!), but we will say that he agreed with Dr. Levitin on what goes at the top of the list: curiosity.

    • Without curiosity, we will tend not to learn things, and learning things is key to keeping good cognitive function in old age
    • Without curiosity, we will tend not to form hypotheses about how/why things are the way they are, so we will not exercise imagination, creativity, problem-solving, and other key functions of our brain
    • Without curiosity, we will tend not to seek out new experiences, and consequently, our stimuli will be limited—and thus, so will our brains

    Openness

    Being curious about taking up ballroom dancing will do little for you, if you are not also open to actually trying it. But, openness is not just a tag-on to curiosity; it deserves its spot in its own right too.

    Sometimes, ideas and opportunities come to us unbidden, and we have to be able to be open to those too. This doesn’t mean being naïve, but it does mean having at least a position of open-minded skepticism.

    Basically, Dr. Levitin is asking us to be the opposite of the pejorative stereotype of “an old person stuck in their ways”.

    Associations

    People are complex, and so they bring complexities to our lives. Hopefully, positively stimulating ones. Without them to challenge us (again, hopefully in a positive way), we can get very stuck in a narrow field of experience.

    And of course, having at least a few good friends has numerous benefits to health. There’s been a lot of research on this; 5 appears to be optimal.

    • More than that, and the depth tends to tail off, and/or stresses ensue from juggling too many relationships
    • Fewer than that, and we might be only a calendar clash away from loneliness

    Friends provide social stimulation and mutual support; they’re good for our mental health and even our physiological immunity (counterintuitively, by means of shared germs).

    And, a strong secure romantic relationship is something that has been found time and again to extend healthy life.

    Note: by popular statistics, this benefit is conferred upon men partnered with women, men partnered with men, women partnered with women, but not women partnered with men.

    There may be a causative factor that’s beyond the scope of this article which is about cognitive science, not feminism, but there could also be a mathematical explanation for this apparent odd-one-out:

    Since women tend to live longer than men (who are also often older than their female partners), women who live the longest are often not in a relationship—precisely because they are widows. So these long-lived widows will tend to skew the stats, through no fault of their husbands.

    On the flipside of this, for a woman to predecease her (statistically older and shorter-lived) husband will often require that she die quite early (perhaps due to accident or illness unrelated to age), which will again skew the stats to “women married to men die younger”, without anything nefarious going on.

    Conscientiousness

    People who score highly in the character trait “conscientiousness” will tend to live longer. The impact is so great, that a child’s scores will tend to dictate who dies in their 60s or their 80s, for example.

    What does conscientiousness mean? It’s a broad character trait that’s scored in psychometric tests, so it can be things that have a direct impact on health, such as brushing one’s teeth, or things that are merely correlated, such as checking one’s work for typos (this writer does her best!).

    In short, if you are the sort of person who attends to the paperwork for your taxes on time, you are probably also the sort of person who remembers to get your flu vaccination and cancer screening.

    Healthy practices

    This means “the usual things”, such as:

    Want to learn more?

    You can check out his book, which we reviewed all so recently, and you can also enjoy this video, in which he talks about matters concerning healthy aging from a neuroscientist’s perspective, ranging from heart health and neurodegeneration, to the myth of failing memory, to music and lifespan and more:

    !

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  • Drug Metabolism (When You’re Not Average!)

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    When Your Medications Run Out… Of You

    Everybody knows that alcohol can affect medications’ effects, but what of smoking, and what of obesity? And how does the alcohol thing work anyway?

    It’s all about the enzymes

    Medicines that are processed by the liver (which is: most medicines) are metabolized there by specialist enzymes, and the things we do can increase or decrease the quantity of those enzymes—and/or how active they are.

    Dr. Kata Wolff Pederson and her team of researchers at Aarhus University in Denmark examined the livers of recently deceased donors in ways that can’t (ethically) be done with live patients, and were able to find the associations between various lifestyle factors and different levels of enzymes responsible for drug metabolism.

    And it’s not always how you might think!

    Some key things they found:

    • Smokers have twice as high levels of enzyme CYP1A2 than non-smokers, which results in the faster metabolism of a lot of drugs.
    • Drinkers have 30% higher levels of enzyme CYP2E1, which also results in a faster metabolism of a lot of drugs.
    • Patients with obesity have 50% lower levels of enzyme CYP3A4, resulting in slower metabolism of many drugs

    This gets particularly relevant when we take into account the next fact:

    • Of the individuals in the study, 40% died from poisoning from a mixture of drugs (usually: prescription and otherwise)

    Read in full: Sex- and Lifestyle-Related Factors are Associated with Altered Hepatic CYP Protein Levels

    Read a pop-sci article about it: Your lifestyle can determine how well your medicine will work

    How much does the metabolism speed matter?

    It can matter a lot! If you’re taking drugs and carefully abiding by the dosage instructions, those instructions were assuming they know your speed of metabolism, and this is based on an average.

    • If your metabolism is faster, you can get too much of a drug too quickly, and it can harm you
    • If your metabolism is faster, it also means that while yes it’ll start working sooner, it’ll also stop working sooner
      • If it’s a painkiller, that’s inconvenient. If it’s a drug that keeps you alive, then well, that’s especially unfortunate.
    • If your metabolism is slower, it can mean your body is still processing the previous dose(s) when you take the next one, and you can overdose (and potentially die)

    We touched on this previously when we talked about obesity in health care settings, and how people can end up getting worse care:

    Let’s Shed Some Obesity Myths

    As for alcohol and drugs? Obviously we do not recommend, but here’s some of the science of it with many examples:

    Why it’s a bad idea to mix alcohol with some medications

    Take care!

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  • Cooking for Longevity – by Nisha Melvani

    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.

    Before it gets to the recipes, this book kicks off with a lot of science (much more than is usual for even healthy-eating recipe books), demystifying more nutrients than most people think of on a daily basis, what they do and where to get them, and even how to enhance nutrient absorption.

    As well as an up-front ingredients list, we additionally get not just meal planning advice in the usual sense of the word, but also advice on timing various aspects of nutrition in order to enjoy the best metabolic benefits.

    The recipes themselves are varied and good. It’s rare to find a recipe book that doesn’t include some redundant recipes, and this one’s no exception, but it’s better to have too much information than too little, so it’s perhaps no bad thing that all potentially necessary bases are covered.

    In terms of how well it delivers on the title’s promised “cooking for longevity” and the subtitle’s promised “boosting healthspan”, the science is good; very consistent with what we write here at 10almonds, and well-referenced too.

    Bottom line: if you’d like recipes to help you live longer and more healthily, then this book has exactly that.

    Click here to check out Cooking For Longevity, and cook for longevity!

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  • Pomegranate vs Cranberries – 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 pomegranate to cranberries, we picked the pomegranate.

    Why?

    Starting with the macros: pomegranate has nearly 4x the protein (actually quite a lot for a fruit, but this is not too surprising—it’s because we are eating the seeds!), and slightly more carbs and fiber. Their glycemic indices are comparable, both being low GI foods. While both of these fruits have excellent macro profiles, we say the pomegranate is slightly better, because of the protein, and when it comes to the carbs and fiber, since they balance each other out, we’ll go with the option that’s more nutritionally dense. We like foods that add more nutrients!

    In the category of vitamins, pomegranate is higher in vitamins B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B9, K, and choline, while cranberry is higher in vitamins A, C, and E. Both are very respectable profiles, but pomegranate wins on strength of numbers (and also some higher margins of difference).

    When it comes to minerals, it is not close; pomegranate is higher in calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc, while cranberry is higher in manganese. An easy win for pomegranate here.

    Both of these fruits have additional “special” properties, though it’s worth noting that:

    • pomegranate’s bonus properties, which are too many to list here, but we link to an article below, are mostly in its peel (so dry it, and grind it into a powder supplement, that can be worked into foods, or used like an instant fruit tea, just without the sugar)
    • cranberries’ bonus properties (including: famously very good at reducing UTI risk) come with some warnings, including that they may increase the risk of kidney stones if you are prone to such, and also that cranberries have anti-clotting effects, which are great for heart health but can be a risk of you’re on blood thinners or have a bleeding disorder.

    You can read about both of these fruits’ special properties in more detail below:

    Want to learn more?

    You might like to read:

    Take care!

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  • How Does One Test Acupuncture Against Placebo Anyway?

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    Pinpointing The Usefulness Of Acupuncture

    We asked you for your opinions on acupuncture, and got the above-depicted, below-described, set of answers:

    • A little under half of all respondents voted for “It’s well-backed by modern science, per neurology, cardiology, immunology, etc”
    • Slightly fewer respondents voted for “We don’t understand how it works, but it works!”
    • A little under a fifth of respondents voted for “It may have some limited clinical applications beyond placebo”
    • One (1) respondent voted for for “It’s placebo at best”

    When we did a main feature about homeopathy, a couple of subscribers wrote to say that they were confused as to what homeopathy was, so this time, we’ll start with a quick definition first.

    First, what is acupuncture? For the convenience of a quick definition so that we can move on to the science, let’s borrow from Wikipedia:

    ❝Acupuncture is a form of alternative medicine and a component of traditional Chinese medicine in which thin needles are inserted into the body.

    Acupuncture is a pseudoscience; the theories and practices of TCM are not based on scientific knowledge, and it has been characterized as quackery.❞

    ~ Wikipedia

    Now, that’s not a promising start, but we will not be deterred! We will instead examine the science itself, rather than relying on tertiary sources like Wikipedia.

    It’s worth noting before we move on, however, that there is vigorous debate behind the scenes of that article. The gist of the argument is:

    • On one side: “Acupuncture is not pseudoscience/quackery! This has long been disproved and there are peer-reviewed research papers on the subject.”
    • On the other: “Yes, but only in disreputable quack journals created specifically for that purpose”

    The latter counterclaim is a) potentially a “no true Scotsman” rhetorical ploy b) potentially true regardless

    Some counterclaims exhibit specific sinophobia, per “if the source is Chinese, don’t believe it”. That’s not helpful either.

    Well, the waters sure are muddy. Where to begin? Let’s start with a relatively easy one:

    It may have some clinical applications beyond placebo: True or False?

    True! Admittedly, “may” is doing some of the heavy lifting here, but we’ll take what we can get to get us going.

    One of the least controversial uses of acupuncture is to alleviate chronic pain. Dr. Vickers et al, in a study published under the auspices of JAMA (a very respectable journal, and based in the US, not China), found:

    ❝Acupuncture is effective for the treatment of chronic pain and is therefore a reasonable referral option. Significant differences between true and sham acupuncture indicate that acupuncture is more than a placebo.

    However, these differences are relatively modest, suggesting that factors in addition to the specific effects of needling are important contributors to the therapeutic effects of acupuncture❞

    Source: Acupuncture for Chronic Pain: Individual Patient Data Meta-analysis

    If you’re feeling sharp today, you may be wondering how the differences are described as “significant” and “relatively modest” in the same text. That’s because these words have different meanings in academic literature:

    • Significant = p<0.05, where p is the probability of the achieved results occurring randomly
    • Modest = the differences between the test group and the control group were small

    In other words, “significant modest differences” means “the sample sizes were large, and the test group reliably got slightly better results than placebo”

    We don’t understand how it works, but it works: True or False

    Broadly False. When it works, we generally have an idea how.

    Placebo is, of course, the main explanation. And even in examples such as the above, how is placebo acupuncture given?

    By inserting acupuncture needles off-target rather than in accord with established meridians and points (the lines and dots that, per Traditional Chinese Medicine, indicate the flow of qi, our body’s vital energy, and welling-points of such).

    So, if a patient feels that needles are being inserted randomly, they may no longer have the same confidence that they aren’t in the control group receiving placebo, which could explain the “modest” difference, without there being anything “to” acupuncture beyond placebo. After all, placebo works less well if you believe you are only receiving placebo!

    Indeed, a (Korean, for the record) group of researchers wrote about this—and how this confounding factor cuts both ways:

    ❝Given the current research evidence that sham acupuncture can exert not only the originally expected non-specific effects but also sham acupuncture-specific effects, it would be misleading to simply regard sham acupuncture as the same as placebo.

    Therefore, researchers should be cautious when using the term sham acupuncture in clinical investigations.❞

    Source: Sham Acupuncture Is Not Just a Placebo

    It’s well-backed by modern science, per neurology, cardiology, immunology, etc: True or False?

    False, for the most part.

    While yes, the meridians and points of acupuncture charts broadly correspond to nerves and vasculature, there is no evidence that inserting needles into those points does anything for one’s qi, itself a concept that has not made it into Western science—as a unified concept, anyway…

    Note that our bodies are indeed full of energy. Electrical energy in our nerves, chemical energy in every living cell, kinetic energy in all our moving parts. Even, to stretch the point a bit, gravitational potential energy based on our mass.

    All of these things could broadly be described as qi, if we so wish. Indeed, the ki in the Japanese martial art of aikido is the latter kinds; kinetic energy and gravitational potential energy based on our mass. Same goes, therefore for the ki in kiatsu, a kind of Japanese massage, while the ki in reiki, a Japanese spiritual healing practice, is rather more mystical.

    The qi in Chinese qigong is mostly about oxygen, thus indirectly chemical energy, and the electrical energy of the nerves that are receiving oxygenated blood at higher or lower levels.

    On the other hand, the efficacy of the use of acupuncture for various kinds of pain is well-enough evidenced. Indeed, even the UK’s famously thrifty NHS (that certainly would not spend money on something it did not find to work) offers it as a complementary therapy for some kinds of pain:

    ❝Western medical acupuncture (dry needling) is the use of acupuncture following a medical diagnosis. It involves stimulating sensory nerves under the skin and in the muscles.

    This results in the body producing natural substances, such as pain-relieving endorphins. It’s likely that these naturally released substances are responsible for the beneficial effects experienced with acupuncture.❞

    Source: NHS | Acupuncture

    Meanwhile, the NIH’s National Cancer Institute recommends it… But not as a cancer treatment.

    Rather, they recommend it as a complementary therapy for pain management, and also against nausea, for which there is also evidence that it can help.

    Frustratingly, while they mention that there is lots of evidence for this, they don’t actually link the studies they’re citing, or give enough information to find them. Instead, they say things like “seven randomized clinical trials found that…” and provide links that look reassuring until one finds, upon clicking on them, that it’s just a link to the definition of “randomized clinical trial”:

    Source: NIH | Nactional Cancer Institute | Acupuncture (PDQ®)–Patient Version

    However, doing our own searches finds many studies (mostly in specialized, potentially biased, journals such as the Journal of Acupuncture and Meridian Studies) finding significant modest outperformance of [what passes for] placebo.

    Sometimes, the existence of papers with promising titles, and statements of how acupuncture might work for things other than relief of pain and nausea, hides the fact that the papers themselves do not, in fact, contain any evidence to support the hypothesis. Here’s an example:

    ❝The underlying mechanisms behind the benefits of acupuncture may be linked with the regulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal (adrenal) axis and activation of the Wnt/β-catenin and OPG/RANKL/RANK signaling pathways.

    In summary, strong evidence may still come from prospective and well-designed clinical trials to shed light on the potential role of acupuncture in preserving bone loss❞

    Source: Acupuncture for Osteoporosis: a Review of Its Clinical and Preclinical Studies

    So, here they offered a very sciencey hypothesis, and to support that hypothesis, “strong evidence may still come”.

    “We must keep faith” is not usually considered evidence worthy of inclusion in a paper!

    PS: the above link is just to the abstract, because the “Full Text” link offered in that abstract leads to a completely unrelated article about HIV/AIDS-related cryptococcosis, in a completely different journal, nothing to do with acupuncture or osteoporosis).

    Again, this is not the kind of professionalism we expect from peer-reviewed academic journals.

    Bottom line:

    Acupuncture reliably performs slightly better than sham acupuncture for the management of pain, and may also help against nausea.

    Beyond placebo and the stimulation of endorphin release, there is no consistently reliable evidence that is has any other discernible medical effect by any mechanism known to Western science—though there are plenty of hypotheses.

    That said, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, and the logistical difficulty of testing acupuncture against placebo makes for slow research. Maybe one day we’ll know more.

    For now:

    • If you find it helps you: great! Enjoy
    • If you think it might help you: try it! By a licensed professional with a good reputation, please.
    • If you are not inclined to having needles put in you unnecessarily: skip it! Extant science suggests that at worst, you’ll be missing out on slight relief of pain/nausea.

    Take care!

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  • They Were Injured at the Super Bowl Parade. A Month Later, They Feel Forgotten.

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    KFF Health News and KCUR are following the stories of people injured during the Feb. 14 mass shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl celebration. Listen to how one Kansas family is coping with the trauma.

    Jason Barton didn’t want to attend the Super Bowl parade this year. He told a co-worker the night before that he worried about a mass shooting. But it was Valentine’s Day, his wife is a Kansas City Chiefs superfan, and he couldn’t afford to take her to games since ticket prices soared after the team won the championship in 2020.

    So Barton drove 50 miles from Osawatomie, Kansas, to downtown Kansas City, Missouri, with his wife, Bridget, her 13-year-old daughter, Gabriella, and Gabriella’s school friend. When they finally arrived home that night, they cleaned blood from Gabriella’s sneakers and found a bullet in Bridget’s backpack.

    Gabriella’s legs were burned by sparks from a ricocheted bullet, Bridget was trampled while shielding Gabriella in the chaos, and Jason gave chest compressions to a man injured by gunfire. He believes it was Lyndell Mays, one of two men charged with second-degree felony murder.

    “There’s never going to be a Valentine’s Day where I look back and I don’t think about it,” Gabriella said, “because that’s a day where we’re supposed to have fun and appreciate the people that we have.”

    One month after the parade in which the U.S. public health crisis that is gun violence played out on live television, the Bartons are reeling from their role at its epicenter. They were just feet from 43-year-old Lisa Lopez-Galvan, who was killed. Twenty-four other people were injured. Although the Bartons aren’t included in that official victim number, they were traumatized, physically and emotionally, and pain permeates their lives: Bridget and Jason keep canceling plans to go out, opting instead to stay home together; Gabriella plans to join a boxing club instead of the dance team.

    During this first month, Kansas City community leaders have weighed how to care for people caught in the bloody crossfire and how to divide more than $2 million donated to public funds for victims in the initial outpouring of grief.

    The questions are far-reaching: How does a city compensate people for medical bills, recovery treatments, counseling, and lost wages? And what about those who have PTSD-like symptoms that could last years? How does a community identify and care for victims often overlooked in the first flush of reporting on a mass shooting: the injured?

    The injured list could grow. Prosecutors and Kansas City police are mounting a legal case against four of the shooting suspects, and are encouraging additional victims to come forward.

    “Specifically, we’re looking for individuals who suffered wounds from their trying to escape. A stampede occurred while people were trying to flee,” said Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker. Anyone who “in the fleeing of this event that maybe fell down, you were trampled, you sprained an ankle, you broke a bone.”

    Meanwhile, people who took charge of raising money and providing services to care for the injured are wrestling with who gets the money — and who doesn’t. Due to large donations from celebrities like Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce, some victims or their families will have access to hundreds of thousands of dollars for medical expenses. Other victims may simply have their counseling covered.

    The overall economic cost of U.S. firearm injuries is estimated by a recent Harvard Medical School study at $557 billion annually. Most of that — 88% — represented quality-of-life losses among those injured by firearms and their families. The JAMA-published study found that each nonfatal firearm injury leads to roughly $30,000 in direct health care spending per survivor in the first year alone.

    In the immediate aftermath of the shootings, as well-intentioned GoFundMe pages popped up to help victims, executives at United Way of Greater Kansas City gathered to devise a collective donation response. They came up with “three concentric circles of victims,” said Jessica Blubaugh, the United Way’s chief philanthropy officer, and launched the #KCStrong campaign.

    “There were folks that were obviously directly impacted by gunfire. Then the next circle out is folks that were impacted, not necessarily by gunshots, but by physical impact. So maybe they were trampled and maybe they tore a ligament or something because they were running away,” Blubaugh said. “Then third is folks that were just adjacent and/or bystanders that have a lot of trauma from all of this.”

    PTSD, Panic, and the Echo of Gunfire

    Bridget Barton returned to Kansas City the day after the shooting to turn in the bullet she found in her backpack and to give a statement at police headquarters. Unbeknownst to her, Mayor Quinton Lucas and the police and fire chiefs had just finished a press conference outside the building. She was mobbed by the media assembled there — interviews that are now a blur.

    “I don’t know how you guys do this every day,” she remembered telling a detective once she finally got inside.

    The Bartons have been overwhelmed by well wishes from close friends and family as they navigate the trauma, almost to the point of exhaustion. Bridget took to social media to explain she wasn’t ignoring the messages, she’s just responding as she feels able — some days she can hardly look at her phone, she said.

    A family friend bought new Barbie blankets for Gabriella and her friend after the ones they brought to the parade were lost or ruined. Bridget tried replacing the blankets herself at her local Walmart, but when she was bumped accidentally, it triggered a panic attack. She abandoned her cart and drove home.

    “I’m trying to get my anxiety under control,” Bridget said.

    That means therapy. Before the parade, she was already seeing a therapist and planning to begin eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, a form of therapy associated with treating post-traumatic stress disorder. Now the shooting is the first thing she wants to talk about in therapy.

    Since Gabriella, an eighth grader, has returned to middle school, she has dealt with the compounding immaturity of adolescence: peers telling her to get over it, pointing finger guns at her, or even saying it should have been her who was shot. But her friends are checking on her and asking how she’s doing. She wishes more people would do the same for her friend, who took off running when the shooting started and avoided injury. Gabriella feels guilty about bringing her to what turned into a horrifying experience.

    “We can tell her all day long, ‘It wasn’t your fault. She’s not your responsibility.’ Just like I can tell myself, ‘It wasn’t my fault or my responsibility,’” Bridget said. “But I still bawled on her mom’s shoulder telling her how sorry I was that I grabbed my kid first.”

    The two girls have spent a lot of time talking since the shooting, which Gabriella said helps with her own stress. So does spending time with her dog and her lizard, putting on makeup, and listening to music — Tech N9ne’s performance was a highlight of the Super Bowl celebration for her.

    In addition to the spark burns on Gabriella’s legs, when she fell to the concrete in the pandemonium she split open a burn wound on her stomach previously caused by a styling iron.

    “When I see that, I just picture my mom trying to protect me and seeing everyone run,” Gabriella said of the wound.

    It’s hard not to feel forgotten by the public, Bridget said. The shooting, especially its survivors, have largely faded from the headlines aside from court dates. Two additional high-profile shootings have occurred in the area since the parade. Doesn’t the community care, she wonders, that her family is still living with the fallout every day?

    “I’m going to put this as plainly as possible. I’m f—ing pissed because my family went through something traumatic,” Bridget vented in a recent social media post. “I don’t really want anything other [than], ‘Your story matters, too, and we want to know how you’re doing.’ Have we gotten that? Abso-f—lutely not.”

    ‘What Is the Landscape of Need?’

    Helped in part by celebrities like Swift and Kelce, donations for the family of Lopez-Galvan, the lone fatality, and other victims poured in immediately after the shootings. Swift and Kelce donated $100,000 each. With the help of an initial $200,000 donation from the Kansas City Chiefs, the United Way’s #KCStrong campaign took off, reaching $1 million in the first two weeks and sitting at $1.2 million now.

    Six verified GoFundMe funds were established. One solely for the Lopez-Galvan family has collected over $406,000. Smaller ones were started by a local college student and Swift fans. Churches have also stepped up, and one local coalition had raised $183,000, money set aside for Lopez-Galvan’s funeral, counseling services for five victims, and other medical bills from Children’s Mercy Kansas City hospital, said Ray Jarrett, executive director of Unite KC.

    Money for Victims Rolls In

    Donations poured in for those injured at the Super Bowl Parade in Kansas City after the Feb. 14 shootings. The largest, starting with a $200,000 donation from the Kansas City Chiefs, is at the United Way of Greater Kansas City. Six GoFundMe sites also popped up, due in part to $100,000 donations each from Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce. Here’s a look at the totals as of March 12.United Way#KCStrong: $1.2 million.Six Verified GoFundMe AccountsLisa Lopez-Galvan GoFundMe (Taylor Swift donated): $406,142Reyes Family GoFundMe (Travis Kelce donated): $207,035Samuel Arellano GoFundMe: $11,896Emily Tavis GoFundMe: $9,518Cristian Martinez’s GoFundMe for United Way: $2,967Swifties’ GoFundMe for Children’s Mercy hospital: $1,060ChurchesResurrection (Methodist) “Victims of Violence Fund”: $53,358‘The Church Loves Kansas City’: $183,000 

    Meanwhile, those leading the efforts found models in other cities. The United Way’s Blubaugh called counterparts who’d responded to their own mass shootings in Orlando, Florida; Buffalo, New York; and Newtown, Connecticut.

    “The unfortunate reality is we have a cadre of communities across the country who have already faced tragedies like this,” Blubaugh said. “So there is an unfortunate protocol that is, sort of, already in place.”

    #KCStrong monies could start being paid out by the end of March, Blubaugh said. Hundreds of people called the nonprofit’s 211 line, and the United Way is consulting with hospitals and law enforcement to verify victims and then offer services they may need, she said.

    The range of needs is staggering — several people are still recovering at home, some are seeking counseling, and many weren’t even counted in the beginning. For instance, a plainclothes police officer was injured in the melee but is doing fine now, said Police Chief Stacey Graves.

    Determining who is eligible for assistance was one of the first conversations United Way officials had when creating the fund. They prioritized three areas of focus: first were the wounded victims and their families, second was collaborating with organizations already helping victims in violence intervention and prevention and mental health services, and third were the first responders.

    Specifically, the funds will be steered to cover medical bills, or lost wages for those who haven’t been able to work since the shootings, Blubaugh said. The goal is to work quickly to help people, she said, but also to spend the money in a judicious, strategic way.

    “We don’t have a clear sightline of the entire landscape that we’re dealing with,” Blubaugh said. “Not only of how much money do we have to work with, but also, what is the landscape of need? And we need both of those things to be able to make those decisions.”

    Firsthand Experience of Daily Kansas City Violence

    Jason used his lone remaining sick day to stay home with Bridget and Gabriella. An overnight automation technician, he is the family’s primary breadwinner.

    “I can’t take off work, you know?” he said. “It happened. It sucked. But it’s time to move on.”

    “He’s a guy’s guy,” Bridget interjected.

    On Jason’s first night back at work, the sudden sound of falling dishes startled Bridget and Gabriella, sending them into each other’s arms crying.

    “It’s just those moments of flashbacks that are kicking our butts,” Bridget said.

    Tell Us About Your Experience

    We are continuing to report on the effects of the parade shooting on the people who were injured and the community as a whole. Do you have an experience you want to tell us about, or a question you think we should look into? Message KCUR’s text line at (816) 601-4777. Your information will not be used in an article without your permission.

    In a way, the shooting has brought the family closer. They’ve been through a lot recently. Jason survived a heart attack and cancer last year. Raising a teenager is never easy.

    Bridget can appreciate that the bullet lodged in her backpack, narrowly missing her, and that Gabriella’s legs were burned by sparks but she wasn’t shot.

    Jason is grateful for another reason: It wasn’t a terrorist attack, as he initially feared. Instead, it fits into the type of gun violence he’d become accustomed to growing up in Kansas City, which recorded its deadliest year last year, although he’d never been this close to it before.

    “This crap happens every single day,” he said. “The only difference is we were here for it.”

    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.

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