Staring At The Sun – by Dr. Irvin Yalom

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.

A quick note first: there are two editions of this book; the content is the same, but the cover is different. So if in your region it has a bright yellow cover and the subtitle is the excitable “Overcoming The Terror Of Death” rather than the more measured “Being At Peace With Your Own Mortality”, that is why; different regional publishers made different choices.

For most of us, dying is the last thing we want to do. We may fear it; we may ignore it; we may try to beat it—but it’s a constant existential threat whether we want it or not.

This book is about “death anxiety”, either direct (conscious fear of impending death) or sublimated (not necessarily realising what we’re avoiding thinking about it). In its broadest sense, the fear of death can be described as rational. But angst about it probably won’t help, so this book looks to help us overcome that.

The style of the book is largely anecdotal, in which the author uses examples from his therapeutic practice to illustrate ways in which the fear of death can manifest, and ways in which it can be managed healthily.

Subjective criticism: while this author developed existential therapy, many of the ideas in this book lean heavily on the psychodynamic approach derived from Freud, and this reviewer isn’t a fan of that. But nevertheless, many of the examples here are thought-provoking and useful, so it is not too strong a criticism.

Bottom line: there are many ways to manage one’s mortality, and this book brings attention to a range of possibilities.

Click here to check out Staring At The Sun, and manage your mortality!

Don’t Forget…

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

Recommended

  • Gut Renovation – by Dr. Roshini Raj, with Sheila Buff
  • We created a VR tool to test brain function. It could one day help diagnose dementia
    Worried about memory loss? Early diagnosis of cognitive impairments could be revolutionized by Virtual Reality, offering a more engaging and effective screening tool.

Learn to Age Gracefully

Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:

  • An unbroken night’s sleep is a myth. Here’s what good sleep looks like

    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 imagine a good night’s sleep to be?

    Often when people come into our sleep clinic seeking treatment, they share ideas about healthy sleep.

    Many think when their head hits the pillow, they should fall into a deep and restorative sleep, and emerge after about eight hours feeling refreshed. They’re in good company – many Australians hold the same belief.

    In reality, healthy sleep is cyclic across the night, as you move in and out of the different stages of sleep, often waking up several times. Some people remember one or more of these awakenings, others do not. Let’s consider what a healthy night’s sleep looks like.

    Bricolage/Shutterstock

    Sleep cycles are a roller-coaster

    As an adult, our sleep moves through different cycles and brief awakenings during the night. Sleep cycles last roughly 90 minutes each.

    We typically start the night with lighter sleep, before moving into deeper sleep stages, and rising again into rapid eye movement (REM) sleep – the stage of sleep often linked to vivid dreaming.

    If sleeping well, we get most of our deep sleep in the first half of the night, with REM sleep more common in the second half of the night.

    An older man sleeps peacefully in bed.
    Deepest sleep usually happens during the first half of the night. Verin/Shutterstock

    Adults usually move through five or six sleep cycles in a night, and it is entirely normal to wake up briefly at the end of each one. That means we might be waking up five times during the night. This can increase with older age and still be healthy. If you’re not remembering these awakenings that’s OK – they can be quite brief.

    What does getting a ‘good’ sleep actually mean?

    You’ll often hear that adults need between seven and nine hours of sleep per night. But good sleep is about more than the number of hours – it’s also about the quality.

    For most people, sleeping well means being able to fall asleep soon after getting into bed (within around 30 minutes), sleeping without waking up for long periods, and waking feeling rested and ready for the day.

    You shouldn’t be feeling excessively sleepy during the day, especially if you’re regularly getting at least seven hours of refreshing sleep a night (this is a rough rule of thumb).

    But are you noticing you’re feeling physically tired, needing to nap regularly and still not feeling refreshed? It may be worthwhile touching base with your general practitioner, as there a range of possible reasons.

    Common issues

    Sleep disorders are common. Up to 25% of adults have insomnia, a sleep disorder where it may be hard to fall or stay asleep, or you may wake earlier in the morning than you’d like.

    Rates of common sleep disorders such as insomnia and sleep apnoea – where your breathing can partially or completely stop many times during the night – also increase with age, affecting 20% of early adults and 40% of people in middle age. There are effective treatments, so asking for help is important.

    Beyond sleep disorders, our sleep can also be disrupted by chronic health conditions – such as pain – and by certain medications.

    There can also be other reasons we’re not sleeping well. Some of us are woken by children, pets or traffic noise during the night. These “forced awakenings” mean we may find it harder to get up in the morning, take longer to leave bed and feel less satisfied with our sleep. For some people, night awakenings may have no clear cause.

    A good way to tell if these awakenings are a problem for you is by thinking about how they affect you. When they cause feelings of frustration or worry, or are impacting how we feel and function during the day, it might be a sign to seek some help.

    Weary woman leans against a pole in an empty train carriage.
    If waking up in the night is interfering with your normal day-to-day activities, it may indicate a problem. BearFotos/Shutterstock

    We also may struggle to get up in the morning. This could be for a range of reasons, including not sleeping long enough, going to bed or waking up at irregular times – or even your own internal clock, which can influence the time your body prefers to sleep.

    If you’re regularly struggling to get up for work or family needs, it can be an indication you may need to seek help. Some of these factors can be explored with a sleep psychologist if they are causing concern.

    Can my smart watch help?

    It is important to remember sleep-tracking devices can vary in accuracy for looking at the different sleep stages. While they can give a rough estimate, they are not a perfect measure.

    In-laboratory polysomnography, or PSG, is the best standard measure to examine your sleep stages. A PSG examines breathing, oxygen saturation, brain waves and heart rate during sleep.

    Rather than closely examining nightly data (including sleep stages) from a sleep tracker, it may be more helpful to look at the patterns of your sleep (bed and wake times) over time.

    Understanding your sleep patterns may help identify and adjust behaviours that negatively impact your sleep, such as your bedtime routine and sleeping environment.

    And if you find viewing your sleep data is making you feel worried about your sleep, this may not be useful for you. Most importantly, if you are concerned it is important to discuss it with your GP who can refer you to the appropriate specialist sleep health provider.

    Amy Reynolds, Associate Professor in Clinical Sleep Health, Flinders University; Claire Dunbar, Research Associate, Sleep Health, Flinders University; Gorica Micic, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Clinical Psychologist, Flinders University; Hannah Scott, Research Fellow in Sleep Health, Flinders University, and Nicole Lovato, Associate Professor, Adelaide Institute for Sleep Health, Flinders University

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

    Share This Post

  • Is Marine Collagen Worth Taking?

    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.

    Questions and Answers at 10almonds

    Have a question or a request? You can always hit “reply” to any of our emails, or use the feedback widget at the bottom!

    This newsletter has been growing a lot lately, and so have the questions/requests, and we love that! In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!

    As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!

    So, no question/request too big or small

    I wanted to ask if you think marine collagen is decent to take. I’ve heard a lot of bad press about it

    We don’t know what you’ve heard, but generally speaking it’s been found to be very beneficial to bones, joints, and skin! We wrote about it quite recently on a “Research Review Monday”:

    See: We Are Such Stuff As Fish Are Made Of

    Share This Post

  • Support For Long COVID & Chronic Fatigue

    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.

    Long COVID and Chronic Fatigue

    Getting COVID-19 can be very physically draining, so it’s no surprise that getting Long COVID can (and usually does) result in chronic fatigue.

    But, what does this mean and what can we do about it?

    What makes Long COVID “long”

    Long COVID is generally defined as COVID-19 whose symptoms last longer than 28 days, but in reality the symptoms not only tend to last for much longer than that, but also, they can be quite distinct.

    Here’s a large (3,762 participants) study of Long COVID, which looked at 203 symptoms:

    Characterizing long COVID in an international cohort: 7 months of symptoms and their impact

    Three symptoms stood at out as most prevalent:

    1. Chronic fatigue (CFS)
    2. Cognitive dysfunction
    3. Post-exertional malaise (PEM)

    The latter means “the symptoms get worse following physical or mental exertion”.

    CFS, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, is also called Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME).

    What can be done about it?

    The main “thing that people do about it” is to reduce their workload to what they can do, but this is not viable for everyone. Note that work doesn’t just mean “one’s profession”, but anything that requires physical or mental energy, including:

    • Childcare
    • Housework
    • Errand-running
    • Personal hygiene/maintenance

    For many, this means having to get someone else to do the things—either with support of family and friends, or by hiring help. For many who don’t have those safety nets available, this means things simply not getting done.

    That seems bleak; isn’t there anything more we can do?

    Doctors’ recommendations are chiefly “wait it out and hope for the best”, which is not encouraging. Some people do recover from Long COVID; for others, it so far appears it might be lifelong. We just don’t know yet.

    Doctors also recommend to journal, not for the usual mental health benefits, but because that is data collection. Patients who journal about their symptoms and then discuss those symptoms with their doctors, are contributing to the “big picture” of what Long COVID and its associated ME/CFS look like.

    You may notice that that’s not so much saying what doctors can do for you, so much as what you can do for doctors (and in the big picture, eventually help them help people, which might include you).

    So, is there any support for individuals with Long COVID ME/CFS?

    Medically, no. Not that we could find.

    However! Socially, there are grassroots support networks, that may be able to offer direct assistance, or at least point individuals to useful local resources.

    Grassroots initiatives include Long COVID SOS and the Patient-Led Research Collaborative.

    The patient-led organization Body Politic also used to have such a group, until it shut down due to lack of funding, but they do still have a good resource list:

    Click here to check out the Body Politic resource list (it has eight more specific resources)

    Stay strong!

    Share This Post

Related Posts

  • Gut Renovation – by Dr. Roshini Raj, with Sheila Buff
  • 21% Stronger Bones in a Year at 62? Yes, It’s Possible (No Calcium Supplements Needed!)

    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.

    Bone density is a concern for a lot of people past a certain age, and it can lead to an endless juggling of vitamin and mineral supplements to try to get the right balance. Sachiaki Takamiya advocates for a natural diet- and exercise-based approach instead, showing good results with his Okinawan-influenced Blue Zones diet and lifestyle.

    As a caveat, he has not gone through menopause, so this video does completely overlook the implications of that. Nevertheless, even if some of us must get our hormones from a bottle these days, this diet and exercise approach is a very good foundation and the advice here is important for all—we can take all the estrogen we need and still have weak bones if our diet and exercise aren’t there as needed.

    From strength to strength

    Sachiaki Takamiya’s bone density wasn’t bad the previous year, but this year it is better, hitting 123.4%. This is important information, because it’s easier to achieve an n% increase (for any given value of n) if your starting point is lower. For example, a 50% increase from 1g is 1.5g (so, 0.5g difference), whereas a 50% increase from 20g is 30g (so, a 10g difference). Since his starting value was high, this makes his 21% rise particularly noteworthy—and mean that a reader with a lower starting value will most likely see even better gains, if implementing this protocol.

    You may be wondering: isn’t a bone mass density of 123.4% about 23.4% more than we want it? And the answer is that the 100% value is taken from an average peak bone mass in young adults, so having it at 100% is fine, and having it a bit higher is still better—it just means he’s outclassing healthy young adults, less likely to break a bone if he falls, etc.

    As for what he ate: he focused on getting calcium and magnesium, as well as vitamins D and K2, all from food sources. Key foods included small fish (sardines, niosi, jaco), nattō, mushrooms, and seaweed (nori, wakame, hijiki). In particular, he emphasizes nattō’s benefits for bones, as well as for the gut, heart, and brain.

    As for his exercise: he did weight-bearing exercise and resistance training—including calisthenics and yoga, as well as sport, and simply walking and running. His weekly routine looked like this:

    • Monday: heart rate zone 2 jogging (45 min)
    • Tuesday: bodyweight HIIT and flexibility (20 min)
    • Wednesday: heart rate zone 2 jogging (60 min)
    • Thursday: bodyweight HIIT and flexibility (40 min)
    • Friday: heart rate zone 2 jogging (45 min)
    • Saturday: bodyweight HIIT and flexibility (20 min)

    …as well as social sports (e.g. tennis, amongst others), and additional activities such as gardening, and cycling for groceries.

    For more on all of the above (this is a very information-dense video), enjoy:

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

    Want to learn more?

    You might also like to read:

    Take care!

    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

    Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:

  • Tempeh vs Tofu – Which is Healthier?

    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.

    Our Verdict

    When comparing tempeh to tofu, we picked the tempeh.

    Why?

    Per 100g, tempeh has about 1.5x as many calories, about 2x as much protein, about 3x as much fiber, and about 4x the carbohydrates.

    Which latter sounds like a lot, but really, the amounts here are small—tempeh is under 12% carbohydrates, and most of that is treated by the body as fiber (e.g. it’s a resistant starch).

    Both have no sugar, and both have more or less the same (tiny) amount of fat.

    Micronutrients, you ask? As they’re both made from soybeans, the micronutrient profiles are similar, but exact amounts will depend on the method used, so by all means check labels if comparing products in store. By and large, there’s usually not much difference, though.

    You can see sample stats here:

    Tempeh | Tofu

    In summary

    Both are great, and/but tempeh is the more nutrient-dense of the two.

    Therefore, tempeh is the healthier option, unless you are on a very strictly calorie-controlled diet, in which case, tofu will give you more quantity per calorie.

    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

    Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:

  • Sauerkraut vs Pickled Cucumber – Which is Healthier?

    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.

    Our Verdict

    When comparing sauerkraut to pickled cucumber, we picked the sauerkraut.

    Why?

    Both of these fermented foods can give a gut-healthy microbiome boost, but how do they stack up otherwise?

    In terms of macros, sauerkraut has more protein, carbs, and fiber. They are both low glycemic index foods, so we’ll go with the one that has more fiber out of the two, and that’s the ‘kraut.

    In the category of vitamins, sauerkraut has more of vitamins B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B7, B9, C, E, and choline, while pickled cucumbers have more of vitamins A and K. An easy win for sauerkraut.

    When it comes to minerals, sauerkraut has more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc, while pickled cucumbers are not higher in any mineral, except sodium (on average, pickled cucumbers have about 2x the sodium of sauerkraut). Another clear win for sauerkraut.

    In short, enjoy either or both in moderation, but it’s clear which boasts the most nutritional benefits, and that’s the sauerkraut!

    Want to learn more?

    You might like to read:

    Make Friends With Your Gut (You Can Thank Us Later)

    Take care!

    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

    Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails: