5 Steps To Beat Overwhelm
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Dealing With Overwhelm
Whether we live a hectic life in general, or we usually casually take each day as it comes but sometimes several days gang up on us at once, everyone gets overwhelmed sometimes.
Today we’re going to look at how to deal with it healthily.
Step 1: Start anywhere
It’s easy to get stuck in “analysis paralysis” and not know how to tackle an unexpected large problem. An (unhealthy) alternative is to try to tackle everything at once, and end up doing nothing very well.
Even the most expert juggler will not successfully juggle 10 random things thrown unexpectedly at them.
So instead, just pick any part of the the mountain of to-dos, and start.
If you do want a little more finesse though, check out:
Procrastination, And How To Pay Off The To-Do List Debt
Step 2: Accept what you’re capable of
This one works both ways. It means being aware of your limitations yes, but also, of your actual abilities:
- Is the task ahead of you really beyond what you are capable of?
- Could you do it right now without hesitation if a loved one’s life depended on it?
- Could you do it, but there’s a price to pay (e.g. you can do it but it’ll wipe you out in some other life area)?
Work out what’s possible and acceptable to you, and make a decision. And remember, it could be that someone else could do it, but everyone has taken the “if you want something doing, give it to someone busy” approach. It’s flattering that people have such confidence in our competence, but it is also necessary to say “no” sometimes, or at least enlisting help.
Step 3: Listen to your body
…like a leader listening to an advisory council. Your perception of tiredness, pain, weakness, and all your emotions are simply messengers. Listen to the message! And then say “thank you for the information”, and proceed accordingly.
Sometimes that will be in the way the messengers seem to be hoping for!
Sometimes, however, maybe we (blessed with a weighty brain and not entirely a slave to our limbic system) know better, and know when it’s right to push through instead.
Similarly, that voice in your head? You get to decide where it goes and doesn’t. On which note…
Step 4: Be responsive, not reactive
We wrote previously on the difference between these:
A Bone To Pick… Up And Then Put Back Where We Found It
Measured responses will always be better than knee-jerk reactions, unless it is literally a case of a split-second making a difference. 99% of our problems in life are not so; usually the problem will still be there unchanged after a moment’s mindful consideration, so invest in that moment.
You’ve probably heard the saying “give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I’ll spend the first four sharpening the axe”. In this case, that can be your mind. Here’s a good starting point:
No-Frills, Evidence-Based Mindfulness
And if your mental state is already worse than that, mind racing with threats (real or perceived) and doom-laden scenarios, here’s how to get out of that negative spiral first, so that you can apply the rest of this:
Do remember to turn it on again afterwards, though
Step 5: Transcend discomfort
This is partly a callback to step 3, but it’s now coming from a place of a clear ready mind, so the territory should be looking quite different now. Nevertheless, it’s entirely possible that your clear view shows discomfort ahead.
You’re going to make a conscious decision whether or not to proceed through the discomfort (and if you’re not, then now’s the time to start calmly and measuredly looking at alternative plans; delegating, ditching, etc).
If you are going to proceed through discomfort, then it can help to frame the discomfort as simply a neutral part of the path to getting where you want. Maybe you’re going to be going way out of your comfort zone in order to deal with something, and if that’s the case, make your peace with it now, in advance.
“Certainly it hurts” / “Well, what’s the trick then?” / “The trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts”
(lines from a famous scene from the 1962 movie Lawrence of Arabia)
It’s ok to say to yourself (if it’s what you decide is the right thing to do) “Yep, this experience is going to suck terribly, but I’m going to do it anyway”.
See also (this being about Radical Acceptance):
What’s The Worst That Could Happen?
Take care!
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AC: The Power of Appetite Correction – by Dr. Bert Herring
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“Appetite Correction” is an intriguing concept, and so it intrigued us sufficiently to read this book. So what’s it about?
It’s about modifying our response to hunger, and treating it as a messenger to whom we may say “thank you for your opinion” and then do as we already planned to do. And what is that?
Simply, this book is about intermittent fasting, specifically, 19:5 fasting, i.e., fast for 19 hours and eat during a 5hr window each day (the author proposes 5pm–10pm, but honestly, go with what works for you).
During the fasting period, drinking water, or consuming other non insulin-signalling things (e.g. black coffee, black tea, herbal tea, etc) is fine, but not so much as a bite of anything else (nor calorific drinks, e.g. with milk/cream or sugar in, and certainly not sodas, juices, etc).
During the eating period, the idea is to eat at will without restriction (even unhealthy things, if such is your desire) during those 5 hours, with the exception that one should start with something healthy. In other words, you can line up that take-out if you want, but eat a carrot first to break the fast. Or some nuts. Or whatever, but healthy.
The “appetite correction” part of it comes in with how, after a short adjustment period, you will get used to not suffering from hunger during the fasting period, and during the eating period, you will—paradoxically—be more able to practise moderation in your portions.
Most of the book is given over the dealing with psychological difficulties/objections, as well as some social objections, but he does also explain some of the science at hand too (i.e. how intermittent fasting works, on a physiological level). On which note…
The style is on the very light end of pop-science, and unusually, he doesn’t cite any sources for his claims at all. Now, no science that he claimed struck this reviewer as out of the ordinary, but it would have been nice to see a good few pages of bibliography at the back.
Bottom line: this is a super quick-and-easy read that makes a strong (albeit unsourced) case for intermittent fasting. It’s probably best for someone who would like the benefits and needs some persuading, but who is not very interested in delving into the science beyond being content to understand what is explained and put it into practice.
Click here to check out AC: The Power of Appetite Correction, and get yours where you want it!
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Healthy Heart, Healthy Brain – by Dr. Bradley Bale & Dr. Amy Doneen
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We’ve often written that “what’s good for your heart is good for your brain”, because the former feeds the latter and takes away detritus. You cannot have a healthy brain without a healthy heart.
This book goes into that in more detail than we have ever had room to here! This follows from their previous book “Beat The Heart Attack Gene”, but we’re jumping in here because that book doesn’t really contain anything not also included in this one.
The idea is the same though: it is the authors’ opinion that far too many interventions are occurring far too late, and they want to “wake everyone up” (including their colleagues in the field) to encourage earlier (and broader!) testing.
Fun fact: that also reminded this reviewer that she had a pending invitation for blood tests to check these kinds of things—phlebotomy appointment now booked, yay!
True the spirit of such exhortation to early testing, this book does include diagnostic questionnaires, to help the reader know where we might be at. And, interestingly, while the in-book questionnaire format of “so many points for this answer, so many for that one”, etc is quite normal, what they do differently in the diagnostics is that in cases of having to answer “I don’t know”, it assigns the highest-risk point value, i.e. the test will err on the side of assume the worst, in the case of a reader not knowing, for example, what our triglycerides are like. Which, when one thinks about it, is probably a very sensible reasoning.
There’s a lot of advice about specific clinical diagnostic tools and things to ask for, and also things that may raise an alarm that most people might overlook (including doctors, especially if they are only looking for something else at the time).
You may be wondering: do they actually give advice on what to actually do to improve heart and brain health, or just how to be aware of potential problems? And the answer is that the latter is a route to the former, and yes they do offer comprehensive advice—well beyond “eat fiber and get some exercise”, and even down to the pros and cons of various supplements and medications. When it comes to treating a problem that has been identified, or warding off a risk that has been flagged, the advice is a personalized, tailored, approach. Obviously there’s a limit to how much they can do that in the book, but even so, we see a lot of “if this then that” pointers to optimize things along the way.
The style is… a little salesy for this reviewer’s tastes. That is to say, while it has a lot of information of serious value, it’s also quite padded with self-congratulatory anecdotes about the many occasions the authors have pulled a Dr. House and saved the day when everyone else was mystified or thought nothing was wrong, the wonders of their trademarked methodology, and a lot of hype for their own book, as in, the book that’s already in your hands. Without all this padding, the book could have been cut by perhaps a third, if not more. Still, none of that takes away from the valuable insights that are in the book too.
Bottom line: if you’d like to have a healthier heart and brain, and especially if you’d like to avoid diseases of those two rather important organs, then this book is a treasure trove of information.
Click here to check out Healthy Heart, Healthy Brain, and secure your good health now, for later!
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Knee Pain Won’t Get Better Unless You Fix This First
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Most knee pain is mechanical, caused by excessive stress or strain on specific parts of the knee joint. However, it’s weak glutes that are often the root cause of excess knee strain, because when glutes are weak, they fail to keep the pelvis level and legs aligned, leading to improper knee movement.
The seat of the problem
Weak glutes cause the pelvis to drop and the thigh bone to roll inwards (called “valgus knee”). This misalignment creates shearing forces and excessive pressure on different parts of the knee. However, it can usually be fixed, and the following exercises are recommended:
- Seated band abductions: use a resistance band around the thighs while seated. Push your knees apart, and hold for a few seconds.
- Glute bridge with resistance band: lie on your back with your feet flat and a resistance band around your thighs. Push your hips up into a bridge position, then press your knees outward against the band.
- Clamshell exercise: lie on your side, with your knees bent at 90°. Keep your body slightly tilted forward, then lift the top knee while keeping your heels together.
- Hip abductions (lateral leg raises): lie on your side, keeping your legs straight. Lift the top leg slightly backward and upward, leading with your heel.
- Standing hip abductions: stand upright, using a wall for support. Lift one leg sideways and slightly backward while keeping your spine straight. Unlike the other exercises, this one has the benefit of being doable almost anywhere.
For more on each of these plus visual demonstrations, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like:
The Secret to Better Squats: Foot, Knee, & Ankle Mobility
Take care!
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7 Tips To Burn Fat & Build Muscle At The Same Time
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Cori Lefkowith, of “Redefining Strength” and “Strong At Any Age” fame, has her formula to share:
Know your priorities
We’ll not keep the 7 tips a mystery; they are:
- Determine your primary goal: decide whether your main focus is losing fat while building muscle or building muscle while trimming up. This choice will influence your calorie intake, macros, and cardio approach.
- Start tracking: spend 7–14 days logging your current food intake, including calories, protein, carbs, and fats, without taking any particular action to change them yet. Understanding your baseline will help tailor your diet and exercise plan.
- Prioritize strength training: focus on strength work over cardio to build muscle. Avoid turning strength sessions into cardio by rushing between sets—allow adequate rest for muscle progression.
- Center your meals on protein: adjust your protein intake based on your primary goal. For fat loss while gaining muscle, aim for 40-45% of calories from protein. For building muscle while losing fat, aim for 30-40% protein, with attention to maintaining sufficient carbs.
- Set your calories: after adjusting protein, fine-tune your calorie intake. However, make only small changes (e.g. 100 calories up or down) and reassess every 2–3 weeks to avoid extreme deficits or surpluses.
- Adjust your cardio: prioritize strength training but use walking as low-impact cardio. Avoid excessive cardio that may hinder muscle gains, and use strategic HIIT sessions if needed.
- Ditch the scale: avoid using the scale as your sole measure of progress. Instead, rely on measurements, progress photos, and how your clothes fit to track body recomposition effectively.
For more on all of these, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
Can You Gain Muscle & Lose Fat At The Same Time? ← we got this question in our Q&A day not long back, and here was our answer. We went for a less numbers-based approach, and a more principles-based approach. Both ways work, so by all means pick whichever method you personally find better suits how you like to do things!
Take care!
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New study suggests weight loss drugs like Ozempic could help with knee pain. Here’s why there may be a link
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The drug semaglutide, commonly known by the brand names Ozempic or Wegovy, was originally developed to help people with type 2 diabetes manage their blood sugar levels.
However, researchers have discovered it may help with other health issues, too. Clinical trials show semaglutide can be effective for weight loss, and hundreds of thousands of people around the world are using it for this purpose.
Evidence has also shown the drug can help manage heart failure and chronic kidney disease in people with obesity and type 2 diabetes.
Now, a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine has suggested semaglutide can improve knee pain in people with obesity and osteoarthritis. So what did this study find, and how could semaglutide and osteoarthritis pain be linked?
Pormezz/Shutterstock Osteoarthritis and obesity
Osteoarthritis is a common joint disease, affecting 2.1 million Australians. Most people with osteoarthritis have pain and find it difficult to perform common daily activities such as walking. The knee is the joint most commonly affected by osteoarthritis.
Being overweight or obese is a major risk factor for osteoarthritis in the knee. The link between the two conditions is complex. It involves a combination of increased load on the knee, metabolic factors such as high cholesterol and high blood sugar, and inflammation.
For example, elevated blood sugar levels increase the production of inflammatory molecules in the body, which can damage the cartilage in the knee, and lead to the development of osteoarthritis.
Weight loss is strongly recommended to reduce the pain of knee osteoarthritis in people who are overweight or obese. International and Australian guidelines suggest losing as little as 5% of body weight can help.
But losing weight with just diet and exercise can be difficult for many people. One study from the United Kingdom found the annual probability of people with obesity losing 5% or more of their body weight was less than one in ten.
Semaglutide has recently entered the market as a potential alternative route to weight loss. It comes from a class of drugs known as GLP-1 receptor agonists and works by increasing a person’s sense of fullness.
Semaglutide for osteoarthritis?
The rationale for the recent study was that while we know weight loss alleviates symptoms of knee osteoarthritis, the effect of GLP-1 receptor agonists was yet to be explored. So the researchers set out to understand what effect semaglutide might have on knee osteoarthritis pain, alongside body weight.
They randomly allocated 407 people with obesity and moderate osteoarthritis into one of two groups. One group received semaglutide once a week, while the other group received a placebo. Both groups were treated for 68 weeks and received counselling on diet and physical activity. At the end of the treatment phase, researchers measured changes in knee pain, function, and body weight.
As expected, those taking semaglutide lost more weight than those in the placebo group. People on semaglutide lost around 13% of their body weight on average, while those taking the placebo lost around 3% on average. More than 70% of people in the semaglutide group lost at least 10% of their body weight compared to just over 9% of people in the placebo group.
Osteoarthritis of the knee is the most common type of osteoarthritis. SKT Studio/Shutterstock The study found semaglutide reduced knee pain significantly more than the placebo. Participants who took semaglutide reported an additional 14-point reduction in pain on a 0–100 scale compared to the placebo group.
This is much greater than the pain reduction in another recent study among people with obesity and knee osteoarthritis. This study investigated the effects of a diet and exercise program compared to an attention control (where participants are provided with information about nutrition and physical activity). The results here saw only a 3-point difference between the intervention group and the control group on the same scale.
The amount of pain relief reported in the semaglutide trial is also larger than that reported with commonly used pain medicines such as anti-inflammatories, opioids and antidepressants.
Semaglutide also improved knee function compared to the placebo. For example, people who took semaglutide could walk about 42 meters further than those on the placebo in a six-minute walking test.
How could semaglutide reduce knee pain?
It’s not fully clear how semaglutide helps with knee pain from osteoarthritis. One explanation may be that when a person loses weight, there’s less stress on the joints, which reduces pain.
But recent studies have also suggested semaglutide and other GLP-1 receptor agonists might have anti-inflammatory properties, and could even protect against cartilage wear and tear.
While the results of this new study are promising, it’s too soon to regard semaglutide as a “miracle drug” for knee osteoarthritis. And as this study was funded by the drug company that makes semaglutide, it will be important to have independent studies in the future, to confirm the findings, or not.
The study also had strict criteria, excluding some groups, such as those taking opioids for knee pain. One in seven Australians seeing a GP for their knee osteoarthritis are prescribed opioids. Most participants in the trial were white (61%) and women (82%). This means the study may not fully represent the average person with knee osteoarthritis and obesity.
It’s also important to consider semaglutide can have a range of side effects, including gastrointestinal symptoms and fatigue.
There are some concerns that semaglutide could reduce muscle mass and bone density, though we’re still learning more about this.
Further, it can be difficult to access.
I have knee osteoarthritis, what should I do?
Osteoarthritis is a disease caused by multiple factors, and it’s important to take a multifaceted approach to managing it. Weight loss is an important component for those who are overweight or obese, but so are other aspects of self-management. This might include physical activity, pacing strategies, and other positive lifestyle changes such as improving sleep, healthy eating, and so on.
Giovanni E. Ferreira, NHMRC Emerging Leader Research Fellow, Institute of Musculoskeletal Health, University of Sydney and Christina Abdel Shaheed, Associate Professor, School of Public Health, University of Sydney
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Taurine’s Benefits For Heart Health And More
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Taurine: Research Review
First, what is taurine, beyond being an ingredient in many energy drinks?
It’s an amino acid that many animals, including humans, can synthesize in our bodies. Some other animals—including obligate carnivores such as cats (but not dogs, who are omnivorous by nature) cannot synthesize taurine and must get it from food.
So, as humans are very versatile omnivorous frugivores by nature, we have choices:
- Synthesize it—no need for any conscious action; it’ll just happen
- Eat it—by eating meat, which contains taurine
- Supplement it—by taking supplements, including energy drinks, which generally (but not always) use a bioidentical lab-made taurine. Basically, lab-made taurine is chemically identical to the kind found in meat, it’s just cheaper and doesn’t involve animals as a middleman.
What does it do?
Taurine does a bunch of essential things, including:
- Maintaining hydration/electrolyte balance in cells
- Regulating calcium/magnesium balance in cells
- Forming bile salts, which are needed for digestion
- Supporting the integrity of the central nervous system
- Regulating the immune system and antioxidative processes
Thus, a shortage of taurine can lead to such issues as kidney problems, eye tissue damage (since the eyes are a particularly delicate part of the CNS), and cardiomyopathy.
If you want to read more, here’s an academic literature review:
Taurine: A “very essential” amino acid
On the topic of eye health, a 2014 study found that taurine is the most plentiful amino acid in the eye, and helps protect against retinal degeneration, in which they say:
❝We here review the evidence for a role of taurine in retinal ganglion cell survival and studies suggesting that this compound may be involved in the pathophysiology of glaucoma or diabetic retinopathy. Along with other antioxidant molecules, taurine should therefore be seriously reconsidered as a potential treatment for such retinal diseases❞
Read more: Taurine: the comeback of a neutraceutical in the prevention of retinal degenerations
Taurine for muscles… In more than sports!
We’d be remiss not to mention that taurine is enjoyed by athletes to enhance athletic performance; indeed, it’s one of its main selling-points:
See: Taurine in sports and exercise
But! It’s also useful for simply maintaining skeleto-muscular health in general, and especially in the context of age-related decline and chronic disease:
Taurine: the appeal of a safe amino acid for skeletal muscle disorders
On the topic of safety… How safe is it?
There’s an interesting answer to that question. Within safe dose ranges (we’ll get to that), taurine is not only relatively safe, but also, studies that looked to explore its risks found new benefits in the process. Specifically of interest to us were that it appears to promote better long-term memory, especially as we get older (as taurine levels in the brain decline with age):
Taurine, Caffeine, and Energy Drinks: Reviewing the Risks to the Adolescent Brain
^Notwithstanding the title, we assure you, the research got there; they said:
❝Interestingly, the levels of taurine in the brain decreased significantly with age, which led to numerous studies investigating the potential neuroprotective effects of supplemental taurine in several different experimental models❞
What experimental models were those? These ones:
- Taurine protects cerebellar neurons of the external granular layer
- Effects of taurine on alterations of neurobehavior and neurodevelopment key proteins expression
- Neuroprotective role of taurine in developing offspring affected by maternal alcohol consumption
…which were all animal studies, however.
The same systematic review also noted that not only was more research needed on humans, but also, existing studies have had a strong bias to male physiology (in both human and assorted other animal studies), so more diverse study is needed too.
What are the safe dose ranges?
Before we get to toxicity, let’s look at some therapeutic doses. In particular, some studies that found that 500mg 3x daily, i.e. 1.5g total daily, had benefits for heart health:
- Taurine and atherosclerosis
- The Anti-Inflammatory Effect of Taurine on Cardiovascular Disease
- Taurine supplementation has anti-atherogenic and anti-inflammatory effects before and after incremental exercise in heart failure
- Taurine Supplementation Lowers Blood Pressure and Improves Vascular Function in Prehypertension
- Taurine improves the vascular tone through the inhibition of TRPC3 function in the vasculature
Bottom line on safety: 3g/day has been found to be safe:
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