What Teas To Drink Before Bed (By Science!)
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Which Sleepy Tea?
Herbal “tea” preparations (henceforth we will write it without the quotation marks, although these are not true teas) are popular for winding down at the end of a long day ready for a relaxing sleep.
Today we’ll look at the science for them! We’ll be brief for each, because we’ve selected five and have only so much room, but here goes:
Camomile
Simply put, it works and has plenty of good science for it. Here’s just one example:
❝Noteworthy, our meta-analysis showed a significant improvement in sleep quality after chamomile administration❞
Also this writer’s favourite relaxation drink!
(example on Amazon if you want some)
Lavender
We didn’t find robust science for its popularly-claimed sedative properties, but it does appear to be anxiolytic, and anxiety gets in the way of sleep, so while lavender may not be a sedative, it may calm a racing mind all the same, thus facilitating better sleep:
(example on Amazon if you want some)
Magnolia
Animal study for the mechanism:
Human study for “it is observed to help humans sleep better”:
As you can see from the title, its sedative properties weren’t the point of the study, but if you click through to read it, you can see that they found (and recorded) this benefit anyway
(example on Amazon if you want some)
Passionflower
There’s not a lot of evidence for this one, but there is some. Here’s a small study (n=41) that found:
❝Of six sleep-diary measures analysed, sleep quality showed a significantly better rating for passionflower compared with placebo (t(40) = 2.70, p < 0.01). These initial findings suggest that the consumption of a low dose of Passiflora incarnata, in the form of tea, yields short-term subjective sleep benefits for healthy adults with mild fluctuations in sleep quality.❞
So, that’s not exactly a huge body of evidence, but it is promising.
(example on Amazon if you want some)
Valerian
We’ll be honest, the science for this one is sloppy. It’s very rare to find Valerian tested by itself (or sold by itself; we had to dig a bit to find one for the Amazon link below), and that skews the results of science and renders any conclusions questionable.
And the studies that were done? Dubious methods, and inconclusive results:
Nevertheless, if you want to try it for yourself, you can do a case study (i.e., n=1 sample) if not a randomized controlled trial, and let us know how it goes 🙂
(example on Amazon if you want some)
Summary
- Valerian we really don’t have the science to say anything about it
- Passionflower has some nascent science for it, but not much
- Lavender is probably not soporific, but it is anxiolytic
- Magnolia almost certainly helps, but isn’t nearly so well-backed as…
- Camomile comes out on top, easily—by both sheer weight of evidence, and by clear conclusive uncontroversial results.
Enjoy!
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Sesame & Peanut Tofu
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Yesterday we learned how to elevate tofu from “nutrition” to “nutritious tasty snack” with our Basic Baked Tofu recipe; today we’re expanding on that, to take it from “nutritious tasty snack” to “very respectable meal”.
You will need
For the tofu:
- The Basic Baked Tofu that we made yesterday (consider making this to be “step zero” of today’s recipe if you don’t already have a portion in the fridge)
For the sauce:
- ⅓ cup peanut butter, ideally with no added sugar or salt (if allergic to peanuts specifically, use almond butter; if allergic to nuts generally, use tahini)
- ¼ bulb garlic, grated or crushed
- 1 tbsp tamarind paste
- 1½ tbsp tamari sauce (or low-sodium soy sauce, if a substitution is necessary)
- 1 tbsp sambal oelek (or sriracha sauce, if a substitution is necessary)
- 1 tsp ground coriander
- 1 tsp ground black pepper
- ½ tsp ground sweet cinnamon
- ½ tsp MSG (or else omit; do not substitute with salt in this case unless you have a particular craving)
- zest of 1 lime
For the vegetables:
- 14 oz broccolini / tenderstem broccoli, thick ends trimmed (failing that, any broccoli)
- 6 oz shelled edamame
- 1½ tsp toasted sesame oil
For serving:
- 4 cups cooked rice (we recommend our Tasty Versatile Rice recipe)
- ½ cup raw cashews, soaked in hot water for at least 5 minutes and then drained (if allergic, substitute cooked chickpeas, rinsed and drained)
- 1 tbsp toasted sesame seeds
- 1 handful chopped cilantro, unless you have the “this tastes like soap” gene, in which case substitute chopped parsley
Method
(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)
1) Combine the sauce ingredients in a bowl and whisk well (or use a blender if you have one that’s comfortable with this relatively small quantity of ingredients). Taste it, and adjust the ingredient ratios if you’d like more saltiness, sweetness, sourness, spiciness, umami.
2) Prepare a bowl with cold water and some ice. Steam the broccolini and edamame for about 3 minutes; as soon as they become tender, dump them into the ice bathe to halt the cooking process. Let them chill for a few minutes, then drain, dry, and toss in the sesame oil.
3) Reheat the tofu if necessary (an air fryer is great for this), and then combine with half of the sauce in a bowl, tossing gently to coat well.
4) Add a little extra water to the remaining sauce, enough to make it pourable, whisking to an even consistency.
5) Assemble; do it per your preference, but we recommend the order: rice, vegetables, tofu, cashews, sauce, sesame seeds, herbs.
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:
- Tofu vs Seitan – Which is Healthier?
- Plant vs Animal Protein: Head to Head
- Sweet Cinnamon vs Regular Cinnamon – Which is Healthier?
- Our Top 5 Spices: How Much Is Enough For Benefits?
Take care!
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Creatine’s Brain Benefits Increase With Age
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Creatine is generally thought of as a body-building supplement, and for most young people, that’s all it is. But with extra years come extra advantages, and creatine starts to confer cognitive benefits. Dr. Brad Stanfield shares the science:
What the science says
Although 95% of creatine is stored in muscles, 5% is found in the brain, where it helps produce energy needed for brain processes (and that’s a lot of energy—about 20% of our body’s metabolic base rate is accounted for by our brain).
In this video, Dr. Stanfield shares studies showing creatine improving memory, especially in older adults—and also in vegetarians/vegans, since creatine is found in meat (just like in our own bodies, which are also made of meat) and not in plants. On the meta-analysis level, a systematic review concluded that creatine supplementation indeed improves memory, with stronger effects observed in older adults.
Dr. Stanfield also addresses the safety concerns about creatine, which, on balance, are not actually supported by the science (of course, always consult your own doctor to be sure, as your case could vary).
As for dosage, 5g/day is recommended. For more on all of this plus links to the studies cited, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
Creatine: Very Different For Young & Old People
Take care!
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The Plant-Based Athlete – by Matt Frazier and Robert Cheeke
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If you’re already a seasoned plant-based athlete yourself, you can probably skip this book; the 60 recipes at the end would still provide value, but there is the “No Meat Athlete Cookbook” that you could hop straight to, in any case.
For most readers, there will be plenty of value from start to finish. We get a quick ground-up tour of nutrition basics, before getting into restructuring diet to optimize it for performance.
There is less in the way of “Vegans struggle with…” and more in the way of “People think vegans struggle with…” and explanations of what vegan athletes actually eat. The book does include science, but isn’t too science-heavy, and relies more on modelling what plant-based superathletes enjoy on a daily basis.
To that end,if the book has a weak point, it’s perhaps that it could have stood to include more science. The book comes recommended by Dr. Michael Greger, whose nutritional approach is incredibly science-heavy and well-referenced, and this book is obviously compatible with that (so they could have!), but in this case Frazier and Cheeke leave us to take their word for it.
Nevertheless, the science is good whether they cite it or not, and this book is quite a comprehensive primer of plant-based athleticism.
Bottom line: if you’re wondering how to optimize the two goals of “eating plants” and “being a powerful athlete”, then this one’s the book for you.
Click here to check out The Plant-Based Athlete and upgrade your health and athletic performance!
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Drug Metabolism (When You’re Not Average!)
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When Your Medications Run Out… Of You
Everybody knows that alcohol can affect medications’ effects, but what of smoking, and what of obesity? And how does the alcohol thing work anyway?
It’s all about the enzymes
Medicines that are processed by the liver (which is: most medicines) are metabolized there by specialist enzymes, and the things we do can increase or decrease the quantity of those enzymes—and/or how active they are.
Dr. Kata Wolff Pederson and her team of researchers at Aarhus University in Denmark examined the livers of recently deceased donors in ways that can’t (ethically) be done with live patients, and were able to find the associations between various lifestyle factors and different levels of enzymes responsible for drug metabolism.
And it’s not always how you might think!
Some key things they found:
- Smokers have twice as high levels of enzyme CYP1A2 than non-smokers, which results in the faster metabolism of a lot of drugs.
- Drinkers have 30% higher levels of enzyme CYP2E1, which also results in a faster metabolism of a lot of drugs.
- Patients with obesity have 50% lower levels of enzyme CYP3A4, resulting in slower metabolism of many drugs
This gets particularly relevant when we take into account the next fact:
- Of the individuals in the study, 40% died from poisoning from a mixture of drugs (usually: prescription and otherwise)
Read in full: Sex- and Lifestyle-Related Factors are Associated with Altered Hepatic CYP Protein Levels
Read a pop-sci article about it: Your lifestyle can determine how well your medicine will work
How much does the metabolism speed matter?
It can matter a lot! If you’re taking drugs and carefully abiding by the dosage instructions, those instructions were assuming they know your speed of metabolism, and this is based on an average.
- If your metabolism is faster, you can get too much of a drug too quickly, and it can harm you
- If your metabolism is faster, it also means that while yes it’ll start working sooner, it’ll also stop working sooner
- If it’s a painkiller, that’s inconvenient. If it’s a drug that keeps you alive, then well, that’s especially unfortunate.
- If your metabolism is slower, it can mean your body is still processing the previous dose(s) when you take the next one, and you can overdose (and potentially die)
We touched on this previously when we talked about obesity in health care settings, and how people can end up getting worse care:
As for alcohol and drugs? Obviously we do not recommend, but here’s some of the science of it with many examples:
Why it’s a bad idea to mix alcohol with some medications
Take care!
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How To Prevent And Reverse Type 2 Diabetes
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Turn back the clock on insulin resistance
This is Dr. Jason Fung. He’s a world-leading expert on intermittent fasting and low carbohydrate approaches to diet. He also co-founded the Intensive Dietary Management Program, later rebranded to the snappier title: The Fasting Method, a program to help people lose weight and reverse type 2 diabetes. Dr. Fung is certified with the Institute for Functional Medicine, for providing functional medicine certification along with educational programs directly accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME).
Why Intermittent Fasting?
Intermittent fasting is a well-established, well-evidenced, healthful practice for most people. In the case of diabetes, it becomes complicated, because if one’s blood sugars are too low during a fasting period, it will need correcting, thus breaking the fast.
Note: this is about preventing and reversing type 2 diabetes. Type 1 is very different, and sadly cannot be prevented or reversed in this fashion.
However, these ideas may still be useful if you have T1D, as you have an even greater need to avoid developing insulin resistance; you obviously don’t want your exogenous insulin to stop working.
Nevertheless, please do confer with your endocrinologist before changing your dietary habits, as they will know your personal physiology and circumstances in ways that we (and Dr. Fung) don’t.
In the case of having type 2 diabetes, again, please still check with your doctor, but the stakes are a lot lower for you, and you will probably be able to fast without incident, depending on your diet itself (more on this later).
Intermittent Fasting can be extra helpful for the body in the case of type 2 diabetes, as it helps give the body a rest from high insulin levels, thus allowing the body to become gradually re-sensitised to insulin.
Why low carbohydrate?
Carbohydrates, especially sugars, especially fructose*, cause excess sugar to be quickly processed by the liver and stored there. When the body’s ability to store glycogen is exceeded, the liver stores energy as fat instead. The resultant fatty liver is a major contributor to insulin resistance, when the liver can’t keep up with the demand; the blood becomes spiked full of unprocessed sugars, and the pancreas must work overtime to produce more and more insulin to deal with that—until the body starts becoming desensitized to insulin. In other words, type 2 diabetes.
There are other factors that affect whether we get type 2 diabetes, for example a genetic predisposition. But, our carb intake is something we can control, so it’s something that Dr. Fung focuses on.
*A word on fructose: actual fruits are usually diabetes-neutral or a net positive due to their fiber and polyphenols.
Fructose as an added ingredient, however, not so much. That stuff zips straight into your veins with nothing to slow it down and nothing to mitigate it.
The advice from Dr. Fung is simple here: cut the carbs. If you are already diabetic and do this with no preparation, you will probably simply suffer hypoglycemia, so instead:
- Enjoy a fibrous starter (a salad, some fruit, or perhaps some nuts)
- Load up with protein first, during your main meal—this will start to trigger your feelings of satedness
- Eat carbs last (preferably whole, unprocessed carbohydrates), and stop eating when 80% full.
Adapting Intermittent Fasting to diabetes
Dr. Fung advocates for starting small, and gradually increasing your fasting period, until, ideally, fasting 16 hours per day. You probably won’t be able to do this immediately, and that’s fine.
You also probably won’t be able to do this, if you don’t also make the dietary adjustments that help to give your liver a break, and thus by knock-on-effect, give your pancreas a break too.
With the dietary adjustments too, however, your insulin production-and-response will start to return to its pre-diabetic state, and finally its healthy state, after which, it’s just a matter of maintenance.
Want to hear more from Dr. Fung?
You may enjoy his blog, and for those who like videos, here is his YouTube channel:
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The Five Invitations – by Frank Ostaseski
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This book covers exactly what its subtitle promises, and encourages the reader to truly live life fully, something that Ostaseski believes cannot be done in ignorance of death.
Instead, he argues from his experience of decades working at a hospice, we must be mindful of death not only to appreciate life, but also to make the right decisions in life—which means responding well to what he calls, as per the title of this book, “the five invitations”.
We will not keep them a mystery; they are:
- Don’t wait; do the important things now
- Welcome everything; push away nothing
- Bring your whole self to the experience
- Find a place in the middle of things
- Cultivate a “don’t know” mind
Note, for example, that “do the important things now” requires knowing what is important. For example, ensuring a loved one knows how you feel about them, might be more important than scratching some item off a bucket list. And “push away nothing” does mean bad things too; rather, of course try to make life better rather than worse, but accept the lessons and learnings of the bad too, and see the beauty that can be found in contrast to it. Enjoying the fullness of life without getting lost in it; carrying consciousness through the highs and lows. And yes, approaching the unknown (which means not only death, but also the large majority of life) with open-minded curiosity and wonder.
The style of the book is narrative and personal, without feeling like a collection of anecdotes, but rather, taking the reader on a journey, prompting reflection and introspection along the way.
Bottom line: if you’d like to minimize the regrets you have in life, this book is a fine choice.
Click here to check out The Five Invitations, and answer with a “yes” to the call of life!
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