Running: Getting Started – by Jeff Galloway
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Superficially, running is surely one of the easiest sports to get into, for most people. You put one foot in front of the other, repeat, and pick up the pace.
However, many people do not succeed. They head out of the door (perhaps on January the first), push themselves a little, experience runner’s high, think “this is great”, and the next day wake up with some minor aches and no motivation. This book is here to help you bypass that stage.
Jeff Galloway has quite a series of books, but the others seem derivative of this one. So, what makes this one special?
It’s quite comprehensive; it covers (as the title promises) getting started, setting yourself up for success, finding what level your ability is at safely rather than guessing and overdoing it, and building up from there.
He also talks about what kit you’ll want; this isn’t just about shoes, but even “what to wear when the weather’s not good” and so forth; he additionally shares advice about diet, exercise on non-running days, body maintenance (stretching and strengthening), troubleshooting aches and pains, and running well into one’s later years.
Bottom line: if you’d like to take up running but it seems intimidating (perhaps for reasons you can’t quite pin down), this book will take care of all those things, and indeed get you “up and running”.
Click here to check out Running: Getting Started, and get started!
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Black Coffee vs Orange Juice – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing black coffee to orange juice, we picked the coffee.
Why?
While this one isn’t a very like-for-like choice, it’s a choice often made, so it bears examining.
In favor of the orange juice, it has vitamins A and C and the mineral potassium, while the coffee contains no vitamins or minerals beyond trace amounts.
However, to offset that: drinking juice is one of the worst ways to consume sugar; the fruit has not only been stripped of its fiber, but also is in its most readily absorbable state (liquid), meaning that this is going to cause a blood sugar spike, which if done often can lead to insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, and more. Now, the occasional glass of orange juice (and resultant blood sugar spike) isn’t going to cause disease by itself, but everything we consume tips the scales of our health towards wellness or illness (or sometimes both, in different ways), and in this case, juice has a rather major downside that ought not be ignored.
In favor of the coffee, it has a lot of beneficial phytochemicals (mostly antioxidant polyphenols of various kinds), with no drawbacks worth mentioning unless you have a pre-existing condition of some kind.
Coffee can of course be caffeinated or decaffeinated, and we didn’t specify which here. Caffeine has some pros and cons that at worst, balance each other out, and whether or not it’s caffeinated, there’s nothing in coffee to offset the beneficial qualities of the antioxidants we mentioned before.
Obviously, in either case we are assuming consuming in moderation.
In short:
- orange juice has negatives that at least equal, if not outweigh, its positives
- coffee‘s benefits outweigh any drawbacks for most people
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
- The Bitter Truth About Coffee (or is it?)
- Caffeine: Cognitive Enhancer Or Brain-Wrecker?
- Which Sugars Are Healthier, And Which Are Just The Same?
Take care!
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Why Some Friendships Last And Others Don’t
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Friendships matter a lot, playing a significant role in our wellbeing, physical as well as mental. They bring additional meaning to our lives, help us cope with setbacks, and hopefully will be at our side through the highs and lows of life. And yet, for something that’s in principle good for everyone involved, there can be problems:
Friend to the end?
Firstly, some people find it harder to make (and then further deepen) friendships with others, which can be for a whole host of reasons.
Approaching new people can feel intimidating, but it’s a common struggle. Research shows that people often underestimate how much others enjoy their company, a phenomenon known as the “liking gap.” By reminding ourselves that others are likely to appreciate our presence and expecting to be well-received (the “acceptance prophecy”), we can approach social interactions with greater confidence.
As relationships grow, they often deepen through companionship and closeness:
- Companionship arises from shared hobbies, interests, or values, and it builds rapport.
- Closeness involves sharing thoughts, feelings, and experiences, which can build intimacy together.
An important key to these is consistency, which—whether through regular chats, honoring plans, or showing support—helps strengthen bonds, even in long-distance friendships (something often considered a barrier to closeness).
Even the strongest friendships can face challenges, of course. Conflicts may arise from a lack of support during difficult moments, or worse, betrayal. Or it could all be a misunderstanding. These situations are best addressed through honest, non-judgmental conversations. Avoiding defensiveness or accusations, and instead focusing on sharing feelings and understanding the other person’s perspective, can turn these tough discussions into opportunities for growth and stronger connections.
For more on all of this, enjoy:
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Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
How To Beat Loneliness & Isolation
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The Power of Self-Care – by Dr. Sunil Kumar
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First, what this book is mostly not about: bubble baths and scented candles. We say “mostly”, because stress management is an important aspect given worthy treatment in this book, but there is more emphasis on evidence-based interventions and thus Dr. Kumar is readier to prescribe nature walks and meditation, than product-based pampering sessions.
As is made clear in the subtitle “Transforming Heart Health with Lifestyle Medicine”, the focus is on heart health throughout, but as 10almonds readers know, “what’s good for your heart is good for your brain” is a truism that indeed holds true here too.
Dr. Kumar also gives nutritional tweaks to optimize heart health, and includes a selection of heart-healthy recipes, too. And exercise? Yes, customizable exercise plans, even. And a plan for getting sleep into order if perchance it has got a bit out of hand (most people get less sleep than necessary for maintenance of good health), and he even delves into “social prescribing”, that is to say, making sure that one’s social connectedness does not get neglected—without letting it, conversely, take over too much of one’s life (done badly, social connectedness can be a big source of unmanaged stress).
Perhaps the most value of this book comes from its 10-week self-care plan (again, with a focus on heart health), basically taking the reader by the hand for long enough that, after those 10 weeks, habits should be quite well-ingrained.
A strong idea throughout is that the things we take up should be sustainable, because well, a heart is for life, not just for a weekend retreat.
Bottom line: if you’d like to improve your heart health in a way that feels like self-care rather than an undue amount of work, then this is the book for you.
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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 Foundation ← with 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:
- Pick a time and place when you won’t be disturbed
- Lie on your back and make yourself comfortable
- Close your eyes as soon as you wish, and now that you’ve closed them, imagine closing them again. And again.
- 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.
- If you wish, you can repeat this process for another wave, or even a third.
- 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:
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Want to try it, but not right now? Bookmark it for later
Take care!
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Mindsight – by Dr. Daniel Siegel
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A lot of books these days bear the subtitle “The New Science Of…”, but usually it’s not new, and often it’s not even science. So how does this one measure up?
- Is it new? The core ideas are mostly very old, but some of the interventions are new in presentation—and backed by relatively recent research—so we can give him this one on a technicality at least
- It is science? Yes! The author is a clinician (a psychatric clinician, specifically) and there’s nothing here that doesn’t have its foundations in robust science.
So, what’s this “mindsight”, then? Dr. Siegel wants to express to us a concept “for which no word currently exists”, so he had to make one up, to convey the idea of having a conscious awareness of what is going on in our brain, on an experiential basis. In other words: “mindfulness”. There was totally already a word for this, which he goes on to lampshade not very far into the book.
Nevertheless, we’ll forgive him a little copywriting swizzle with the title, because the content here is genuinely top-tier.
In the book, many ideas from many other pop-psychology books are covered, in useful, practical, no-nonsense fashion, laying out tools and interventions to strengthen various parts of our brain and our relationship with same.
Bottom line: this is the most comprehensive, science-centric, book on mindfulness that this reviewer has read.
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Kava vs Anxiety
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Kava, sometimes also called “kava kava” but we’re just going to call it kava once for the sake of brevity, is a heart-shaped herb that
bestows the powers of the Black Pantheris popularly enjoyed for its anxiolytic (anxiety-reducing) effects. Despite the similarity of the name in many languages, it is unrelated to coffee (except insofar as they are both plants), and its botanical name is Piper methysticum.Does it work?
Yes! At least in the short-term; more on that later.
Firstly, you may be wondering how it works; it works by its potentiation of GABA receptors in the brain. GABA (or gamma-aminobutyric acid, to give it its full name), as you may recall, is a neurotransmitter that is associated with feelings of calm; we wrote about it here:
So, what does “potentiation of GABA receptors” mean? It means… Scientists don’t for 100% sure know how it works yet, but it does make GABA receptors fire more. It’s possible that to some degree GABA fits the “molecular lock” of the receptors and causes them to say “GABA is here”; it’s also possible that they just make them more sensitive to the real GABA that is there, or there could be another explanation as yet undiscovered. Either way, it means that taking kava has a similar effect to having increased GABA levels in the brain:
As for how much to use, 20–300mg appears to be an effective dose, and most sources recommend 80–250mg:
Kava as a Clinical Nutrient: Promises and Challenges
This review of clinical trials found that it was more effective than placebo in only 3 of 7 trials; specifically, it was beneficial in the short-term and not in the long-term. For these reasons, the researchers concluded:
❝Kava Kava appears to be a short-term treatment for anxiety, but not a replacement for prolonged anti-anxiety use. Although not witnessed in this review, liver toxicity is especially possible if taken longer than 8 weeks.❞
Another review of clinical trials found better results over the course of 11 clinical trials, though again, short-term treatment only was considered to be where the “safe and effective” claim can be placed:
❝Compared with placebo, kava extract appears to be an effective symptomatic treatment option for anxiety. The data available from the reviewed studies suggest that kava is relatively safe for short-term treatment (1 to 24 weeks), although more information is required. Further rigorous investigations, particularly into the long-term safety profile of kava are warrant❞
Source: Kava extract for treating anxiety
Is it safe?
Nope! It has been associated with liver damage:
The likely main mechanism of toxicity is that it simply monopolizes the liver’s metabolic abilities, meaning that while it’s metabolizing the kava, it’s not metabolizing other things (such as alcohol or other medications), which will then build up, and potentially overwhelm the liver:
Constituents in kava extracts potentially involved in hepatotoxicity: a review
However, traditionally-prepared kava has not had the same effect as modern extracts; at first it seemed the difference was the traditional aqueous extracts vs modern acetonic/ethanolic extracts, but eventually that was found not to be the case, as toxicity occurred with industrial aqueous extracts too. The conclusion so far is that it is about the quality of the source ingredients, and the problems inherent to mass-production:
Meanwhile, short-term use doesn’t seem to have this problem, if you’re not drinking alcohol or taking medications that affect the liver:
Mechanisms/risk factors – kava-associated hepatotoxicity ← you’ll need to scroll down to 4.2.4 to read about this
Want to try it?
If the potential for hepatotoxicity doesn’t put you off, here’s an example product on Amazon ← we do not recommend it, but we are not the boss of you, and maybe you’re confident about your liver and want to use it only very short-term?
Take care!
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