How To Keep Your Mind From Wandering
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Whether your mind keeps wandering more as you get older, or you’re a young student whose super-active brain is more suited to TikTok than your assigned reading, sustained singular focus can be a challenge for everyone—and yet (alas!) it remains a required skill for so much in life.
Today’s edition of 10Almonds presents a nifty trick to get yourself through those tasks! We’ll also be taking some time to reply to your questions and comments, in our weekly interactive Q&A.
First of all though, we’ve a promise to make good on, so…
How To Stay On The Ball (Or The Tomato?) The Easy Way
For most of us, we face three main problems when it comes to tackling our to-dos:
- Where to start?
- The task seems intimidating in its size
- We get distracted and/or run out of energy
If you’re really not sure where to start, we recommended a powerful tool in last Friday’s newsletter!
For the rest, we love the Pomodoro Technique:
- Set a timer for 25 minutes, and begin your task.
- Keep going until the timer is done! No other tasks, just focus.
- Take a 5-minute break.
- Repeat
This approach has three clear benefits:
- No matter the size of the task, you are only committing to 25 minutes—everything is much less overwhelming when there’s an end in sight!
- Being only 25 minutes means we are much more likely to stay on track; it’s easier to defer other activities if we know that there will be a 5-minute break for that soon.
- Even without other tasks to distract us, it can be difficult to sustain attention for long periods; making it only 25 minutes at a time allows us to approach it with a (relatively!) fresh mind.
Have you heard that a human brain can sustain attention for only about 40 minutes before focus starts to decline rapidly?
While that’s been a popular rationale for school classroom lesson durations (and perhaps coincidentally ties in with Zoom’s 40-minute limit for free meetings), the truth is that focus starts dropping immediately, to the point that one-minute attention tests are considered sufficient to measure the ability to focus.
So a 25-minute Pomodoro is a more than fair compromise!
Why’s it called the “Pomodoro” technique?
And why is the 25-minute timed work period called a Pomodoro?
It’s because back in the 80s, university student Francesco Cirillo was struggling to focus and made a deal with himself to focus just for a short burst at a time—and he used a (now “retro” style) kitchen timer in the shape of a tomato, or “pomodoro”, in Italian.
If you don’t have a penchant for kitsch kitchenware, you can use this free, simple Online Pomodoro Timer!
(no registration/login/download necessary; it’s all right there on the web page)
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From Cucumbers To Kindles
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You’ve Got Questions? We’ve Got Answers!
Q: Where do I get cucumber extract?
A: You can buy it from BulkSupplements.com (who, despite their name, start at 100g packs)
Alternatively: you want it as a topical ointment (for skin health) rather than as a dietary supplement (for bone and joint health), you can extract it yourself! No, it’s not “just juice cucumbers”, but it’s also not too tricky.
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The Little-Known Truth…
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Myth-Buster, Myth-Buster, Bust Us A Myth (or three!)
Let’s can this myth for good
People think of “canned foods” as meaning “processed foods” and therefore bad. But the reality is it’s all dependent on what’s in the can (check the ingredients!). And as for nutrients?
Many canned fruits and vegetables contain more nutrients than fresh ones! This is because the way they’ve been stored preserves them better. For example:
- Canned tomatoes contain more bioavailable lycopene than fresh
- Canned spinach contains more bioavailable carotene than fresh
- Canned corn contains more bioavailable lutein than fresh
- The list goes on, but you get the idea!
Don’t Want To Take Our Word For It? Read The Scientific Paper Here!
Gaslight, Gymkeep, Girl-loss?
Many women and girls avoid doing weight-training as part of their exercise—or use only the smallest weights—to avoid “bulking up” and “looking like a man”.
Many men, meanwhile, wish it were that easy to bulk up!
The reality is that nobody, unless you have very rare genes, packs on a lot of muscle by accident. Even with the genes for it, it won’t happen unless you’re also eating for it!
Resistance-based strength training (such as lifting weights), is a great way for most people to look after an important part of their long-term health: bone density!
You can’t have strong muscles on weak bones, so strengthening the muscles cues the body to strengthen the bones. In short, your strength-training at age 45 or 55 (or earlier) could be what helps you avoid a broken hip at 65 or 75.
We’re Not Kidding, It Really Is That Important (Read The Study Here)!
Something doesn’t smell right about this
There’s been a big backlash against anti-perspirants and deodorants. The popular argument is that the aluminium in them causes cancer.
This led to many people buying “deodo-rocks”, crystal rocks that can be run under water and then rubbed on the armpits to deodorize “naturally”. But, those crystal rocks are actually alum crystals (guess what they contain…).
The belief that deodorants cause cancer came from studies done by applying deodorant to cells (like the canine kidney cells in this study) in petri dishes. So, assuming you don’t cut out your kidney and then spray it directly with the deodorant, the jury is still out!
A more recent systematic review sorted out quite clearly the ways in which aluminium was, or was not, harmful, and said:
❝Neither is there clear evidence to show use of Al-containing underarm antiperspirants or cosmetics increases the risk of Alzheimer’s Disease or breast cancer. Metallic Al, its oxides, and common Al salts have not been shown to be either genotoxic or carcinogenic.❞
Critical Reviews in Toxicology
…but also says that you should avoid eating aluminium while pregnant or breastfeeding. We hope you can resist the urge.
See The Summary For Yourself Here!
(actually the whole article is there, but we know you value condensed knowledge, so: the abstract at the top will probably tell you all you want to know!)
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Menopause: 50 Things You Need to Know – by Dr. Felice Gersh
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Can you list 50 important facts about the menopause? If not, you’ll surely find things to learn in here.
The book is divided into three main sections:
- What to expect in perimenopause
- What to expect in early menopause
- What to expect in late menopause
Each section comes with an alarming array of symptoms, ranging from perimenopause fatigue and acne to late menopause tooth loss and vaginal prolapse. This is not to say that everyone will experience everything (fortunately), but rather, that these are the things that can happen and should not arrive unexpected.
Helpfully, of course, Dr. Gersh also gives advice on how to improve your energy and skin health, as well as keep your teeth and vagina in place. And similar professional insights for the rest of the “50 things you need to know”.
The style is like one big (182 pages) patient information leaflet—thus, very clear, explaining everything, and offering reassurance where possible and also what things are reasonable cause for seeking personalized medical attention.
Bottom line: if menopause is in your future, present, or very near past, this is an excellent book for you.
Click here to check out Menopause: 50 Things You Need To Know, and know them!
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Related Posts
The Green Roasting Tin – by Rukmini Iyer
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You may be wondering: “do I really need a book to tell me to put some vegetables in a roasting tin and roast them?” and maybe not, but the book offers a lot more than that.
Indeed, the author notes “this book was slightly in danger of becoming the gratin and tart book, because I love both”, but don’t worry, most of the recipes are—as you might expect—very healthy.
As for formatting: the 75 recipes are divided first into vegan or vegetarian, and then into quick/medium/slow, in terms of how long they take.
However, even the “slow” recipes don’t actually take more effort, just, more time in the oven.
One of the greatest strengths of this book is that not only does it offer a wide selection of wholesome mains, but also, if you’re putting on a big spread, these can easily double up as high-class low-effort sides.
Bottom line: if you’d like to eat more vegetables in 2024 but want to make it delicious and with little effort, put this book on your Christmas list!
Click here to check out The Green Roasting Tin, and level-up yours!
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Exercise Less, Move More
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Exercise Less, Move More
Today we’re talking about Dr. Rangan Chatterjee. He’s a medical doctor with decades of experience, and he wants us all to proactively stay in good health, rather than waiting for things to go wrong.
Great! What’s his deal?
Dr. Chatterjee advises that we take care of the following four pillars of good health:
- Relaxation
- Food
- Movement
- Sleep
And, they’re not in this order at random. Usually advice starts with diet and exercise, doesn’t it?
But for Dr. Chatterjee, it’s useless to try to tackle diet first if one is stressed-to-death by other things. As for food next, he knows that a good diet will fuel the next steps nicely. Speaking of next steps, a day full of movement is the ideal setup to a good night’s sleep—ready for a relaxing next day.
Relaxation
Here, Dr. Chatterjee advises that we go with what works for us. It could be meditation or yoga… Or it could be having a nice cup of tea while looking out of the window.
What’s most important, he says, is that we should take at least 15 minutes per day as “me time”, not as a reward for when we’ve done our work/chores/etc, but as something integrated into our routine, preferably early in the day.
Food
There are no grand surprises here: Dr. Chatterjee advocates for a majority plant-based diet, whole foods, and importantly, avoiding sugar.
He’s also an advocate of intermittent fasting, but only so far as is comfortable and practicable. Intermittent fasting can give great benefits, but it’s no good if that comes at a cost of making us stressed and suffering!
Movement
This one’s important. Well, they all are, but this one’s particularly characteristic to Dr. Chatterjee’s approach. He wants us to exercise less, and move more.
The reason for this is that strenuous exercise will tend to speed up our metabolism to the point that we will be prompted to eat high calorie quick-energy foods to compensate, and when we do, our body will rush to store that as fat, understanding (incorrectly) that we are in a time of great stress, because why else would we be exerting ourselves that much?
Instead, he advocates for building as much natural movement into our daily routine as possible. Walking more, taking the stairs, doing the gardening/housework.
That said, he does also advise some strength-training on a daily basis—bodyweight exercises like squats and lunges are top of his list.
Sleep
Here, aside from the usual “sleep hygiene” advices (dark cool room, fresh bedding, etc), he also advises we do as he does, and take an hour before bedtime as a purely wind-down time. In gentle lighting, perhaps reading (not on a bright screen!), for example.
Ready to start the next day, relaxed and ready to go.
If you’d like to know more about Dr. Chatterjee’s approach…
You can check out his:
If you don’t know where to start, we recommend the blog! It has a lot of guests there too, including Wim Hof, Gabor Maté, Mindy Pelz, and come to think of it, a lot of other people we’ve also featured ideas from previously!
Enjoy!
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Bromelain vs Inflammation & Much More
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Let’s Get Fruity
Bromelain is an enzyme* found in pineapple (and only in pineapple), that has many very healthful properties, some of them unique to bromelain.
*actually a combination of enzymes, but most often referred to collectively in the singular. But when you do see it referred to as “they”, that’s what that means.
What does it do?
It does a lot of things, for starters:
❝Various in vivo and in vitro studies have shown that they are anti-edematous, anti-inflammatory, anti-cancerous, anti-thrombotic, fibrinolytic, and facilitate the death of apoptotic cells. The pharmacological properties of bromelain are, in part, related to its arachidonate cascade modulation, inhibition of platelet aggregation, such as interference with malignant cell growth; anti-inflammatory action; fibrinolytic activity; skin debridement properties, and reduction of the severe effects of SARS-Cov-2❞
Some quick notes:
- “facilitate the death of apoptotic cells” may sound alarming, but it’s actually good; those cells need to be killed quickly; see for example: Fisetin: The Anti-Aging Assassin
- If you’re wondering what arachidonate cascade modulation means, that’s the modulation of the cascade reaction of arachidonic acid, which plays a part in providing energy for body functions, and has a role in cell structure formation, and is the precursor of assorted inflammatory mediators and cell-signalling chemicals.
- Its skin debridement properties (getting rid of dead skin) are most clearly seen when using bromelain topically (one can literally just make a pineapple poultice), but do occur from ingestion also (because of what it can do from the inside).
- As for being anti-thrombotic and fibrinolytic, let’s touch on that before we get to the main item, its anti-inflammatory properties.
If you want to read more of the above before moving on, though, here’s the full text:
Anti-thrombotic and fibrinolytic
While it does have anti-thrombotic effects, largely by its fibrinolytic action (i.e., it dissolves the fibrin mesh holding clots together), it can have a paradoxically beneficial effect on wound healing, too:
For more specifically on its wound-healing benefits:
In Vitro Effect of Bromelain on the Regenerative Properties of Mesenchymal Stem Cells
Anti-inflammatory
Bromelain is perhaps most well-known for its anti-inflammatory powers, which are so diverse that it can be a challenge to pin them all down, as it has many mechanisms of action, and there’s a large heterogeneity of studies because it’s often studied in the context of specific diseases. But, for example:
❝Bromelain reduced IL-1β, IL-6 and TNF-α secretion when immune cells were already stimulated in an overproduction condition by proinflammatory cytokines, generating a modulation in the inflammatory response through prostaglandins reduction and activation of cascade reactions that trigger neutrophils and macrophages, in addition to accelerating the healing process❞
~ Dr. Taline Alves Nobre et al.
Read in full:
Bromelain as a natural anti-inflammatory drug: a systematic review
Or if you want a more specific example, here’s how it stacks up against arthritis:
❝The results demonstrated the chondroprotective effects of bromelain on cartilage degradation and the downregulation of inflammatory cytokine (tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α, IL-1β, IL-6, IL-8) expression in TNF-α–induced synovial fibroblasts by suppressing NF-κB and MAPK signaling❞
~ Dr. Perephan Pothacharoen et al.
Read in full:
More?
Yes more! You’ll remember from the first paper we quoted today, that it has a long laundry list of benefits. However, there’s only so much we can cover in one edition, so that’s it for today
Is it safe?
It is generally recognized as safe. However, its blood-thinning effect means it should be avoided if you’re already on blood-thinners, have some sort of bleeding disorder, or are about to have a surgery.
Additionally, if you have an allergy, this one may not be for you.
Aside from that, anything can have drug interactions, so do check with your doctor/pharmacist to be sure.
Want to try some?
You can just eat pineapples, but if you don’t enjoy that and/or wouldn’t want it every day, bromelain is available in supplement form too.
We don’t sell it, but here for your convenience is an example product on Amazon
Enjoy!
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