Peace Is Every Step – by Thích Nhất Hạnh
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Mindfulness is one of the few practices to make its way from religion (in this case, Buddhism) into hard science. We’ve written before about its many evidence-based benefits, and many national health information outlets recommend it. So, what does this book have to add?
Thích Nhất Hạnh spent most of his 95 years devoted to the practice and teaching of mindfulness and compassion. In this book, the focus is on bringing mindfulness off the meditation mat and into general life.
After all, what if we could extend that “unflappability” into situations that pressure and antagonize us? That would be some superpower!
The author offers techniques to do just that, simple exercises to transform negative emotions, and to make us more likely to remember to do so.
After all, “in the heat of the moment” is rarely when many of us are at our best, this book gives way to allow those moments themselves to serve as immediate triggers to be our best.
The title “Peace Is Every Step” is not a random collection of words; the goal of this book is to enable to reader to indeed carry peace with us as we go.
Not just “peace is always available to us”, but if we do it right: “we have now arranged for our own peace to automatically step in and help us when we need it most”.
Bottom line: if you’d like to practice mindfulness, or practice it more consistently, this book offers some powerful tools.
Click here to check out Peace Is Every Step, and carry yours with you!
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16 Overlooked Autistic Traits In Women
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We hear a lot about “autism moms”, but Taylor Heaton is an autistic mom, diagnosed as an adult, and she has insights to share about overlooked autistic traits in women.
The Traits
- Difficulty navigating romantic relationships: often due to misreading signs
- Difficulty understanding things: including the above, but mostly: difficulty understanding subtext, when people leave things as “surely obvious”. Autistic women are likely to be aware of the possible meanings, but unsure which it might be, and may well guess wrongly.
- Masking: one of the reasons for the gender disparity in diagnosis is that autistic women are often better at “masking”, that is to say, making a conscious effort to blend in to allistic society—often as a result of being more societally pressured to do so.
- Honesty: often to a fault
- Copy and paste: related to masking, this is about consciously mirroring others in an effort to put them at ease and be accepted
- Being labelled sensitive and/or gifted: usually this comes at a young age, but the resultant different treatment can have a lifetime effect
- Secret stims: again related to masking, and again for the same reasons that displaying autistic symptoms is often treated worse in women, autistic women’s stims tend to be more subtle.
- Written communication: autistic women are often more comfortable with the written word than the spoken
- Leadership: autistic women will often gravitate to leadership roles, partly as a survival mechanism
- Gaslighting: oneself, e.g. “If this person did this without that, then I can to” (without taking into account that maybe the circumstances are different, or maybe they actually did lean on crutches that you didn’t know were there, etc).
- Inner dialogue: rich inner dialogue, but unable to express it outwardly—often because of the sheer volume of thoughts per second.
- Fewer female friends: often few friends overall, for that matter, but there’s often a gender imbalance towards male friends, or where there isn’t, towards more masculine friends at least.
- Feeling different: often a matter of feeling one does not meet standard expectations in some fashion
- School: autistic women are often academically successful
- Special interests: often more “socially accepted” interests than autistic men’s.
- Flirting: autistic women are often unsure how to flirt or what to do about it, which can result in simple directness instead
For more details on all of these, enjoy:
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Related reading:
You might like a main feature of ours from not long back:
Miss Diagnosis: Anxiety, ADHD, & Women
Take care!
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Survival of the Prettiest – by Dr. Nancy Etcoff
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Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, right? And what does it matter, in this modern world, especially if we are already in a happy stable partnership?
The science of it, as it turns out, is less poetic. Not only is evolutionary psychology still the foundation of our perception of human beauty (yes, even if we have zero possibility of further procreation personally), but also, its effects are far, far wider than partner selection.
From how nice people are to you, to how much they trust you, to how easily they will forgive a (real or perceived) misdeed, to what kind of medical care you get (or don’t), your looks shape your experiences.
In this very easy-reading work that nevertheless contains very many references, Dr. Etcoff explores the science of beauty. Not just what traits are attractive and why, but also, what they will do for (or against) us—in concrete terms, with numbers.
Bottom line: if you’d like to better understand the subconscious biases held by yourself and others, this book is a top-tier primer.
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The Sweetener That Interferes With Hunger/Satiety Signals
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Non-sugar sweeteners came under fire from the World Health Organization a couple of years ago:
The Problem With Sweeteners ← this is mostly about how they prompt cravings of increasingly sweeter foods/drinks, but there are other considerations discussed too
And sucralose (which is technically a sugar, but isn’t processed by the body as sugar, so it “doesn’t count” as such; the body treats it as a dietary fiber instead) got some bad press of its own:
The Sucralose News: Scaremongering Or Serious? ← the answer is both, by the way, but there’s nuance here, so do read the article!
And now, there’s more news about how sucralose specifically interferes with the brain’s hunger/satiety signals:
The study
A medium-sized (n=75) study of adults looked at the brain’s responses to, varyingly,
- Water
- Sucralose in water
- Sucrose in water (matched to be the same sweetness as the sucralose)
…using MRI, focusing on hunger-related regions like the hypothalamus.
Additionally, blood samples were taken to measure glucose, insulin, and satiety hormone (GLP-1) levels.
As for what they found:
- Sucralose kept hunger signals active in the brain for up to 35 minutes, unlike sucrose, which reduced hunger activity quickly.
- There was increased hypothalamic blood flow after sucralose intake, which meant heightened hunger signaling.
- Participants felt hungrier after consuming sucralose compared to sugar
- Sugar intake increased blood glucose (obviously), suppressing hunger, whereas sucralose had no such effect (again, reasonable, though it was worth checking, because if sucralose had an effect on insulin response, that would indirectly affect blood sugar levels one way or the other, depending on the effect on insulin levels—but that didn’t happen, so for now we may assume sucralose doesn’t affect insulin or insulin signalling).
- Women exhibited twice the hypothalamic response to sucralose compared to men, reinforcing sex-based differences in appetite control. Specifically, it was most likely hormonal differences that drove this, since the study’s participants were young adults (ages 18–35); it’s possible that if older adults had been included, untreated menopause could have changed these stats. But that latter’s just a hypothesis for now.
- Sucralose enhanced brain connectivity between the hypothalamus and motivation/reward-processing areas, potentially increasing cravings.
You can read the paper itself here:
The practical takeaway? Sucralose interferes with the brain’s “full” signals, keeping you hungrier for longer, which will (all else being equal) incline you to eat more than you would otherwise.
So, it might be worth skipping sucralose, unless you specifically want to increase how much you eat.
Want to learn more?
You might want to check out:
Carbonated Water: For Weight Loss, Satiety, Or Just Gas?
Take care!
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The Dopa-Bean
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.
Mucuna pruriens, also called the “magic velvet bean”, is an established herbal drug used for the management of male infertility, nervous disorders, and also as an aphrodisiac:
The Magic Velvet Bean of Mucuna pruriens
How it works is more interesting than that, though.
It’s about the dopamine
M. pruriens contains levodopa (L-dopa). That’s right, the same as the dopaminergic medication most often prescribed for Parkinson’s disease. Furthermore, it might even be better than synthetic L-dopa, because:
❝M. pruriens seed extract demonstrated acetylcholinesterase inhibitory activity, while synthetic L-dopa enhanced the activity of the enzyme. It can be concluded that the administration of M. pruriens seed might be effective in protecting the brain against neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases.
M. pruriens seed extract containing L-dopa has shown less acetylcholinesterase activity stimulation compared with L-dopa, suggesting that the extract might have a superior benefit for use in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease.❞
~ Dr. Narisa Kamkaen et al.
Indeed, it has been tested specifically in (human!) Parkinson’s disease patients, which RCT found:
❝The rapid onset of action and longer on time without concomitant increase in dyskinesias on mucuna seed powder formulation suggest that this natural source of l-dopa might possess advantages over conventional l-dopa preparations in the long term management of Parkinson’s disease❞
~ Dr. Regina Katzenschlager et al.
Read more: Mucuna pruriens in Parkinson’s disease: a double-blind clinical and pharmacological study
Beyond Parkinson’s disease
M. pruriens has also been tested and found beneficial in cases of disease other than Parkinson’s, thus:
Mucuna pruriens in Parkinson’s and in some other diseases: recent advancement and future prospective
…but the science is less well-established for things not generally considered related to dopamine, such as cancer, diabetes, and cardiometabolic disorders.
Note, however, that the science for it being neuroprotective is rather stronger.
Against depression
Depression can have many causes, and (especially on a neurological level) diverse presentations. As such, sometimes what works for one person’s depression won’t touch another person’s, because the disease and treatment are about completely different neurotransmitter dysregulations. So, if a person’s depression is due to a shortage of serotonin, for example, then perking up the dopamine won’t help much, and vice versa. See also:
Antidepressants: Personalization Is Key!
When it comes to M. pruriens and antidepressant activity, then predictably it will be more likely to help if your depression is due to too little dopamine. Note that this means that even if your depression is dopamine-based, but the problem is with your dopamine receptors and not the actual levels of dopamine, then this may not help so much, depending on what else you have going on in there.
The science for M. pruriens and depression is young, and we only found non-human animal studies so far, for example:
In summary
It’s good against Parkinson’s in particular and is good against neurodegeneration in general.
It may be good against depression, depending on the kind of depression you have.
Is it safe?
That’s a great question! And the answer is: it depends. For most people, in moderation, it should be fine (but, see our usual legal/medical disclaimer). Definitely don’t take it if you have bipolar disorder or any kind of schizoid/psychotic disorder; it is likely to trigger a manic/psychotic episode if you do.
For more on this, we discussed it (pertaining to L-dopa in general, not M. pruriens specifically) at greater length here:
An Accessible New Development Against Alzheimer’s ← scroll down to the heading that reads “Is there a catch?”
Want to try some?
We don’t sell it, but here for your convenience is an example product on Amazon 😎
Enjoy!
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The Pains That Good Posture Now Can Help You Avoid Later
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Dr. Murat Dalkilinç explains:
As a rule…
Posture is the foundation for all body movements and good posture helps the body adapt to stress.
Problems arise when poor posture causes muscles to overwork in ways that are not good for them, becoming tight or inhibited over time. Bad posture can lead to wear and tear on joints, increase accident risk, and make some organs (like the lungs, which feed everything else with the oxygen necessary for normal functioning) less efficient. It’s also of course linked to issues like scoliosis, tension headaches, and back pain, and can even affect emotions and pain sensitivity.
Good posture includes straight alignment of vertebrae when viewed from the front/back, and three natural curves in a (very!) gentle S-shape when viewed from the side. Proper posture allows for efficient movement, reduces fatigue, and minimizes muscle strain. For sitting posture, the neck should be vertical, shoulders relaxed, arms close to the body, and knees at a right angle with feet flat.
But really, one should avoid sitting, to whatever extent is reasonably possible. Standing is better than sitting; walking is better than standing. Movement is crucial, as being stationary for extended periods, even with good posture, is not good for our body.
Advices given include: adjust your environment, use ergonomic aids, wear supportive shoes, and keep moving. Regular movement and exercise keep muscles strong to support the body.
For more on all this, enjoy:
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Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
Beyond Just Good Posture: 6 Ways To Look After Your Back
Take care!
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How To Survive A Heart Attack When You’re Alone
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Dr. Alan Mandel emphasizes the importance of staying calm and following these steps to improve survival chances:
Simple is best
Here’s how you will survive a heart attack alone: briefly.
So, you will need to get help as quickly as possible. 90% of people who make it to a hospital alive, go on to survive their heart attack, so that’s your top priority.
Call emergency services as soon as you suspect you are having a heart attack. Stay on the line, and stay calm.
While having a heart attack is not an experience that’s very conducive to relaxation, heightened emotions will exacerbate things, so focus on breathing calmly. One of the commonly reported symptoms of heart attack that doesn’t often make it to official lists is “a strong sense of impending doom”, and that is actually helpful as it helps separate it from “is this indigestion?” or such, but once you have acknowledged “yes, this is probably a heart attack”, you need to put those feelings aside for later.
If you have aspirin available, Dr. Mandel says that the time to take it is once you have called an ambulance. However, if aspirin is not readily available, do not exert yourself trying to find some; indeed, don’t move more than necessary.
Do not drive yourself to hospital; it will increase the risk of fainting, and you may crash.
While you are waiting, your main job is to remain calm; he recommends deep breathing, and lying with knees elevated or feet on a chair; this latter is to minimize the strain on your heart.
For more on all this, plus the key symptoms and risk factors, enjoy:
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Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
Heart Attack: His & Hers (Be Prepared!)
Take care!
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