Rebounding Into The Best Of Health

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“Trampoline” is a brand-name that’s been popularized as a generic name, and “rebounding”, the name used in this video, is the same thing as “trampolining”. With that in mind, let us bounce swiftly onwards:

Surprising benefits

It’s easy to think “isn’t that cheating?” to the point that such “cheating” could be useless, since surely the device is doing most of the work?

The thing is, while indeed it’s doing a lot of the work for you, your muscles are still doing a lot—mostly stabilization work, which is of course a critical thing for our muscles to be able to do. While it’s rare that we need to do a somersault in everyday life, it’s common that we have to keep ourselves from falling over, after all.

It also represents a kind of gentle resistance exercise, and as such, improves bone density—something first discovered during NASA research for astronauts. Other related benefits pertain to the body’s ability to deal with acceleration and deceleration; it also benefits the lymphatic system, which unlike the blood’s circulatory system, has no pump of its own. Rebounding does also benefit the cardiovascular system, though, as now the heart gets confused (in the healthy way, a little like it gets confused with high-intensity interval training).

Those are the main evidence-based benefits; anecdotally (but credibly, since these things can be said of most exercise) it’s also claimed that it benefits posture, improves sleep and mood, promotes weight loss and better digestion, reduces bloating, improves skin (the latter being due to improved circulation), and alleviates arthritis (most moderate exercise improves immune response, and thus reduces chronic inflammation, so again, this is reasonable, even if anecdotal).

For more details on all of these and more, enjoy:

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  • Thriving Beyond Fifty – by Will Harlow

    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.

    We’ve featured this author sometimes in our video section; he’s an over-50s specialist physiotherapist with a lot of very functional advice to offer.

    In this book, Harlow focusses heavily on three things: mobility, strength, endurance.

    You may not want to be a gymnast, powerlifter, or marathon-runner, but these things are important for us all to maintain to at least a fair degree:

    • Mobility can be the difference between tweaking one’s shoulder getting something from a high shelf, or not
    • Strength can be the difference between being able to get back up, or not
    • Endurance can be the difference between coming back from a long day on your feet and thinking “that was a good day; I’m looking forward to tomorrow now”, or not

    One of the greatest strengths of this book is its comprehensive troubleshooting aspect; if you have a weak spot, chances are this book has the remedy.

    As for the style, it’s quite casual/conversational in tone, but without skimping on science and detail. It’s clear, explanatory, and helpful throughout.

    Bottom line: if you’d like to maintain/improve mobility, strength, and endurance, then this book is a very recommendable resource.

    Click here to check out Thriving Beyond Fifty, and keep thriving at every age!

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  • What is ‘doll therapy’ for people with dementia? And is it backed by science?

    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 way people living with dementia experience the world can change as the disease progresses. Their sense of reality or place in time can become distorted, which can cause agitation and distress.

    One of the best ways to support people experiencing changes in perception and behaviour is to manage their environment. This can have profound benefits including reducing the need for sedatives.

    One such strategy is the use of dolls as comfort aids.

    Jack Cronkhite/Shutterstock

    What is ‘doll therapy’?

    More appropriately referred to as “child representation”, lifelike dolls (also known as empathy dolls) can provide comfort for some people with dementia.

    Memories from the distant past are often more salient than more recent events in dementia. This means that past experiences of parenthood and caring for young children may feel more “real” to a person with dementia than where they are now.

    Hallucinations or delusions may also occur, where a person hears a baby crying or fears they have lost their baby.

    Providing a doll can be a tangible way of reducing distress without invalidating the experience of the person with dementia.

    Some people believe the doll is real

    A recent case involving an aged care nurse mistreating a dementia patient’s therapy doll highlights the importance of appropriate training and support for care workers in this area.

    For those who do become attached to a therapeutic doll, they will treat the doll as a real baby needing care and may therefore have a profound emotional response if the doll is mishandled.

    It’s important to be guided by the person with dementia and only act as if it’s a real baby if the person themselves believes that is the case.

    What does the evidence say about their use?

    Evidence shows the use of empathy dolls may help reduce agitation and anxiety and improve overall quality of life in people living with dementia.

    Child representation therapy falls under the banner of non-pharmacological approaches to dementia care. More specifically, the attachment to the doll may act as a form of reminiscence therapy, which involves using prompts to reconnect with past experiences.

    Interacting with the dolls may also act as a form of sensory stimulation, where the person with dementia may gain comfort from touching and holding the doll. Sensory stimulation may support emotional well-being and aid commnication.

    However, not all people living with dementia will respond to an empathy doll.

    fizkes/Shutterstock
    It depends on a person’s background. Shutterstock

    The introduction of a therapeutic doll needs to be done in conjunction with careful observation and consideration of the person’s background.

    Empathy dolls may be inappropriate or less effective for those who have not previously cared for children or who may have experienced past birth trauma or the loss of a child.

    Be guided by the person with dementia and how they respond to the doll.

    Are there downsides?

    The approach has attracted some controversy. It has been suggested that child representation therapy “infantilises” people living with dementia and may increase negative stigma.

    Further, the attachment may become so strong that the person with dementia will become upset if someone else picks the doll up. This may create some difficulties in the presence of grandchildren or when cleaning the doll.

    The introduction of child representation therapy may also require additional staff training and time. Non-pharmacological interventions such as child representation, however, have been shown to be cost-effective.

    Could robots be the future?

    The use of more interactive empathy dolls and pet-like robots is also gaining popularity.

    While robots have been shown to be feasible and acceptable in dementia care, there remains some contention about their benefits.

    While some studies have shown positive outcomes, including reduced agitation, others show no improvement in cognition, behaviour or quality of life among people with dementia.

    Advances in artificial intelligence are also being used to help support people living with dementia and inform the community.

    Viv and Friends, for example, are AI companions who appear on a screen and can interact with the person with dementia in real time. The AI character Viv has dementia and was co-created with women living with dementia using verbatim scripts of their words, insights and experiences. While Viv can share her experience of living with dementia, she can also be programmed to talk about common interests, such as gardening.

    These companions are currently being trialled in some residential aged care facilities and to help educate people on the lived experience of dementia.

    How should you respond to your loved one’s empathy doll?

    While child representation can be a useful adjunct in dementia care, it requires sensitivity and appropriate consideration of the person’s needs.

    People living with dementia may not perceive the social world the same way as a person without dementia. But a person living with dementia is not a child and should never be treated as one.

    Ensure all family, friends and care workers are informed about the attachment to the empathy doll to help avoid unintentionally causing distress from inappropriate handling of the doll.

    If using an interactive doll, ensure spare batteries are on hand.

    Finally, it is important to reassess the attachment over time as the person’s response to the empathy doll may change.

    Nikki-Anne Wilson, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Neuroscience Research Australia (NeuRA), UNSW Sydney

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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  • Super Gut – by Dr. William Davis

    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.

    You may be wondering: what sets this book apart from the other gut health books we’ve reviewed? For this one, mostly it’s depth.

    This is the most scientifically dense book we’ve reviewed on gut health, so if you’re put off by that, this might not be one for you. However, you don’t need prior knowledge, as he does explain things as he goes. The advice in this book is not just the usual “gut health 101” stuff, either!

    A particular strength of this book is that it looks at a wide variety of gut- and gut-related disorders, and ways certain readers may need to do different things than others, to address those problems on the path to good gut health.

    The style, for all its hard science content, is quite sensationalist, and that may take some getting used to for non-Americans. However, it doesn’t affect the content!

    Bottom line: if you just want simple basic advice, then probably best to skip this one. However, if you are sincerely serious about gut health (or just like reading this sort of thing because learning is satisfying), then this book is packed with relevant and detailed information.

    Click here to check out Super Gut, and get to know and improve yours!

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Related Posts

  • 4 Critical Things Female Runners Should Know
  • Lose Weight (Healthily!)

    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.

    What Do You Have To Lose?

    For something that’s a very commonly sought-after thing, we’ve not yet done a main feature specifically about how to lose weight, so we’re going to do that today, and make it part of a three-part series about changing one’s weight:

    1. Losing weight (specifically, losing fat)
    2. Gaining weight (specifically, gaining muscle)
    3. Gaining weight (specifically, gaining fat)

    And yes, that last one is something that some people want/need to do (healthily!), and want/need help with that.

    There will be, however, no need for a “losing muscle” article, because (even though sometimes a person might have some reason to want to do this), it’s really just a case of “those things we said for gaining muscle? Don’t do those and the muscle will atrophy naturally”.

    One reason we’ve not covered this before is because the association between weight loss and good health is not nearly so strong as the weight loss industry would have you believe:

    Shedding Some Obesity Myths

    And, while BMI is not a useful measure of health in general, it’s worth noting that over the age of 65, a BMI of 27 (which is in the high end of “overweight”, without being obese) is associated with the lowest all-cause mortality:

    BMI and all-cause mortality in older adults: a meta-analysis

    Important: the above does mean that for very many of our readers, weight loss would not actually be healthy.

    Today’s article is intended as a guide only for those who are sure that weight loss is the correct path forward. If in doubt, please talk to your doctor.

    With that in mind…

    Start in the kitchen

    You will not be able to exercise well if your body is malnourished.

    Counterintuitively, malnourishment and obesity often go hand-in-hand, partly for this reason.

    Important: it’s not the calories in your food; it’s the food in your calories

    See also: Mythbusting Calories

    The kind of diet that most readily produces unhealthy overweight, the diet that nutritional scientists often call the “Standard American Diet”, or “SAD” for short, is high on calories but low on nutrients.

    So you will want to flip this, and focus on enjoying nutrient-dense whole foods.

    The Mediterranean Diet is the current “gold standard” in this regard, so for your interest we offer:

    Four Ways To Upgrade The Mediterranean Diet

    And since you may be wondering:

    Should You Go Light Or Heavy On Carbs?

    The dining room is the next most important place

    Many people do not appreciate food enough for good health. The trick here is, having prepared a nice meal, to actually take the time to enjoy it.

    It can be tempting when hungry (or just plain busy) to want to wolf down dinner in 47 seconds, but that is the metabolic equivalent of “oh no, our campfire needs more fuel, let’s spray it with a gallon of gasoline”.

    To counter this, here’s the very good advice of Dr. Rupy Aujla, “The Kitchen Doctor”:

    Interoception & Mindful Eating

    The bedroom is important too

    You snooze, you lose… Visceral belly fat, anyway! We’ve talked before about how waist circumference is a better indicator of metabolic health than BMI, and in our article about trimming that down, we covered how good sleep is critical for one’s waistline:

    Visceral Belly Fat & How To Lose It

    Exercise, yes! But in one important way.

    There are various types of exercise that are good for various kinds of health, but there’s only one type of exercise that is good for boosting one’s metabolism.

    Whereas most kinds of exercise will raise one’s metabolism while exercising, and then lower it afterwards (to below its previous metabolic base rate!) to compensate, high-intensity interval training (HIIT) will raise your metabolism while training, and for two hours afterwards:

    High-Intensity Interval Training and Isocaloric Moderate-Intensity Continuous Training Result in Similar Improvements in Body Composition and Fitness in Obese Individuals

    …which means that unlike most kinds of exercise, HIIT actually works for fat loss:

    The acute effect of exercise modality and nutrition manipulations on post-exercise resting energy expenditure and respiratory exchange ratio in women: a randomized trial

    So if you’d like to take up HIIT, here’s how:

    How (And Why) To Do HIIT (Without Wrecking Your Body)

    Want more?

    Check out our previous article about specifically how to…

    Burn! How To Boost Your Metabolism

    Take care!

    Don’t Forget…

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  • The Teenage Brain – by Dr. Frances Jensen

    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.

    We realize that we probably have more grandparents of teenagers than parents of teenagers here, but most of us have at least some teenage relative(s). Which makes this book interesting.

    There are a lot of myths about the teenage brain, and a lot of popular assumptions that usually have some basis in fact but are often misleading.

    Dr. Jensen gives us a strong foundational grounding in the neurophysiology of adolescence, from the obvious-but-often-unclear (such as the role of hormones) to less-known things like the teenage brain’s general lack of myelination. Not just “heightened neuroplasticity” but, if you imagine the brain as an electrical machine, then think of myelin as the insulation between the wires. Little wonder some wires may get crossed sometimes!

    She also talks about such things as the teenage circadian rhythm’s innate differences, the impact of success and failure on the brain, and harder topics such as addiction—and the adolescent cortisol functions that can lead to teenagers needing to seek something to relax in the first place.

    In criticism, we can only say that sometimes the author makes sweeping generalizations without acknowledging such, but that doesn’t detract from what she has to say on the topic of neurophysiology.

    Bottom line: if there’s a teenager in your life whose behavior and/or moods are sometimes baffling to you, and whose mysteries you’d like to unravel, this is a great book.

    Click here to check out the Teenage Brain, and better understand those around you!

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  • HIIT, But Make It HIRT

    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.

    This May HIRT A Bit

    This is Ingrid Clay. She’s a professional athlete, personal trainer, chef*, and science writer.

    *A vegan bodybuilding chef, no less:

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

    For those who prefer reading…

    This writer does too 😉

    We’ve previously reviewed her book, “Science of HIIT”, and we’re going to be talking a bit about High Intensity Interval Training today.

    If you’d like to know a little more about the woman herself first, then…

    Centr | Meet Ingrid: Your HIIT HIRT trainer

    Yes, that is Centr, as in Chris Hemsworth’s personal training app, where Clay is the resident HIIT & HIRT expert & trainer.

    What’s this HIIT & HIRT?

    HIIT” is High Intensity Interval Training, which we’ve written about before:

    How To Do HIIT (Without Wrecking Your Body)

    Basically, it’s a super-efficient way of working out, that gets better results than working out for longer with other methods, especially because of how it raises the metabolism for a couple of hours after training (this effect is called EPOC, by the way—Excessive Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption), and is a good thing.

    You can read more about the science of it, in the above-linked main feature.

    And HIRT?

    HIRT” is High Intensity Resistance Training, and is resistance training performed with HIIT principles.

    See also: Chris Hemsworth’s Trainer Ingrid Clay Explains HIRT

    An example is doing 10 reps of a resistance exercise (e.g., a dumbbell press) every minute on odd-numbered minutes, and 10 reps of a different resistance exercise (e.g. dumbbell squats) on even-numbered minutes.

    If dumbbells aren’t your thing, it could be resistance bands, or even the floor (press-ups are a resistance exercise!)

    For HIRT that’s not also a cardio exercise, gaps between different exercises can be quite minimal, as we only need to confuse the muscles, not the heart. So, effectively, it becomes a specially focused kind of circuit training!

    If doing planks though, you might want to check out Clay’s troubleshooting guide:

    Expert trainer Ingrid Clay identifies the mistakes many people make when doing the plank, and how to correct them.

    Want more from Clay?

    Here she gives a full 20-minute full-body HIIT HIRT workout:

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    Enjoy!

    Don’t Forget…

    Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!

    Learn to Age Gracefully

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