The Imperfect Nutritionist – by Jennifer Medhurst
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The idea of the “imperfect nutritionist” is to note that we’re all different with slightly different needs and sometimes very different preferences (or circumstances!) and having a truly perfect diet is probably a fool’s errand. Should we just give up, then? Not at all:
What we can do, Medhust argues, is find what’s best for us, realistically.
It’s better to have an 80% perfect diet 80% of the time, than to have a totally perfect diet for four and a half meals before running out of steam (and ingredients).
As for the “seven principles” mentioned in the title… we’re not going to keep those a mystery; they are:
- Focusing on wholefood
- Being diverse
- Knowing your fats
- Including fermented, prebiotic and probiotic foods
- Reducing refined carbohydrates
- Being aware of liquids
- Eating mindfully
The first part of the book is a treatise on how to implement those principles in your diet generally; the second part of the book is a recipe collection—70 recipes, with “these ingredients will almost certainly be available at your local supermarket” as a baseline. No instances of “the secret to being a good chef is knowing how to source fresh ingredients; ask your local greengrocer where to find spring-harvested perambulatory truffle-cones” here!
Basically, it focusses on adding healthy foods per your personal preferences and circumstances, and building these up into a repertoire of meals that will keep you and your family happy and healthy.
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10 Ways To Naturally Boost Dopamine
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Dopamine is the “reward” hormone, and is responsible for motivation, as well as various oft-forgotten functions (such as spatial skills, motor functions, task processing, planning, and language). Sometimes, our relationship with dopamine isn’t what it could be, so here’s how to fix that:
Let’s get hormone-hacking…
Here are the 10 ways:
- The seesaw effect: reduce overstimulation by taking tolerance breaks from high-dopamine activities that aren’t particularly useful (like social media or phone games), allowing for natural enjoyment of daily activities that you’d normally find enjoyable. Think: if you died and negotiated to be sent back to life on the condition you’d appreciate it properly this time, what things would you then spend your time doing? It’s probably not Kingdom Crush Saga Farm 2, is it?
- Conscious state meditation: practise conscious state meditation, focusing inward to reduce anxiety and release dopamine. Even a few minutes a day can significantly enhance dopamine levels.
- Hack your REM cycles: optimize sleep, especially REM cycles, which produce the most dopamine. Aim to wake up after your final REM cycle to feel energized and happy.
- The runner’s high: engage in regular exercise, which boosts dopamine through physical exertion and can lead to feelings of relaxation and euphoria, often known as the “runner’s high.”
- Mood-enhancing music: listen to music that makes you feel good. Favorite songs can stimulate dopamine production, improving your mood and well-being.
- Bright light therapy: spend time in natural sunlight to stimulate dopamine production and elevate your mood, countering the negative effects of extended indoor time. If natural sunlight is not very available where you are (e.g. this writer who lives next to an ancient bog surrounded by fog and the days are getting short, at time of writing), then artificial daylight lamps are respectable supplement—but just that, a supplement, not a replacement. Despite how it looks/feels, natural sunlight (especially in the morning, to cue the circadian rhythm to do its thing) is beneficial even through cloud cover.
- Relieve stress for good: actively reduce stress, as it inhibits dopamine. Simplify daily routines and eliminate stressors to naturally boost dopamine and feel more relaxed. Of course, you cannot remove all stress from your life, so get good at managing the stress created by the stressors that do remain.
- Tap into your flow state: enter a “flow state” by focusing deeply on an engaging task, which can elevate dopamine levels and boost motivation and happiness.
- The hormesis effect: embrace mild physical challenges, like cold showers. The temporary discomfort will paradoxically increase dopamine (it’s the body’s way of saying “congratulations, you survived the hard thing, here’s a little treat, so that you’ll be motivated to survive the next hard thing, too”)
- Activate your inner artist: engage in creative activities that you find fun. The process of creating boosts dopamine and provides motivation, enhancing mood and enjoyment in life.
For more on all of these, enjoy:
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Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
Rebalancing Dopamine (Without “Dopamine Fasting”)
Take care!
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Salt Sugar Fat – by Michael Moss
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You are probably already aware that food giants put unhealthy ingredients in processed food. So what does this book offer of value?
Sometimes, better understanding leads to better movation. In this case, while a common (reasonable) view has been:
“The food giants fill their food with salt, sugar, and fat, because it makes that food irresistibly delicious”
…but that doesn’t exactly put us off the food, does it? It just makes it a guilty pleasure. Ah yes, the irresistible McDouble Dopamineburger. The time-honored tradition of Pizza Night; a happy glow; a special treat.
What Pulitzer-winning author Michael Moss brings to us is different.
He examines not just how they hooked us, but why. And the answer is not merely the obvious “profit and greed”, but also “survival, under capitalism”. That without regulation forcing companies to keep salt/sugar/fat levels down, companies that have tried to do so voluntarily have quickly had to u-turn to regain any hope of competitiveness.
He also looks at how the salt/sugar/fat components are needed to mask the foul taste of the substandard ingredients they use to maintain lower costs… Processed food, without the heavy doses of salt/sugar/fat, is not anywhere close to what you might make at home. Industry will cut costs where it can.
Bottom line: if you need a push to kick the processed food habit, this is the book that will do it.
Click here to check out Salt Sugar Fat, and reclaim your health!
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Chiropractors have been banned again from manipulating babies’ spines. Here’s what the evidence actually says
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Chiropractors in Australia will not be able to perform spinal manipulation on children under the age of two once more, following health concerns from doctors and politicians.
But what is the spinal treatment at the centre of the controversy? Does it work? Is there evidence of harm?
We’re a team of researchers who specialise in evidence-based musculoskeletal health. I (Matt) am a registered chiropractor, Joshua is a registered physiotherapist and Giovanni trained as a physiotherapist.
Here’s what the evidence says.
Dmitry Naumov/Shutterstock Remind me, how did this all come about?
A Melbourne-based chiropractor posted a video on social media in 2018 using a spring-loaded device (known as the Activator) to manipulate the spine of a two-week-old baby suspended upside down by the ankles.
The video sparked widespread concerns among the public, medical associations and politicians. It prompted a ban on the procedure in young children. The Victorian health minister commissioned Safer Care Victoria to conduct an independent review of spinal manipulation techniques on children.
Recently, the Chiropractic Board of Australia reinstated chiropractors’ authorisation to perform spinal manipulation on babies under two years old. But this week, it backflipped, following heavy criticism from medical associations and politicians.
What is spinal manipulation?
Spinal manipulation is a treatment used by chiropractors and other health professionals such as doctors, osteopaths and physiotherapists.
It is an umbrella term that includes popular “back cracking” techniques.
It also includes more gentle forms of treatment, such as massage or joint mobilisations. These involve applying pressure to joints without generating a “cracking” sound.
Does spinal manipulation in babies work?
Several international guidelines for health-care professionals recommend spinal manipulation to treat adults with conditions such as back pain and headache as there is an abundance of evidence on the topic. For example, spinal manipulation for back pain is supported by data from nearly 10,000 adults.
For children, it’s a different story. Safer Care Victoria’s 2019 review of spinal manipulation found very few studies testing whether this treatment was safe and effective in children.
Studies were generally small and were of poor quality. Some of those small, poor-quality studies, suggest spinal manipulation provides a very small benefit for back pain, colic and potentially bedwetting – some common reasons for parents to take their child to see a chiropractor. But overall, the review found the overall body of evidence was very poor.
Spinal manipulation doesn’t seem to help young children with an ear infection. MIA Studio/Shutterstock However, for most other children’s conditions chiropractors treat – such as headache, asthma, otitis media (a type of ear infection), cerebral palsy, hyperactivity and torticollis (“twisted neck”) – there did not appear to be a benefit.
The number of studies investigating the effectiveness of spinal manipulation on babies under two years of age was even smaller.
There was one high-quality study and two small, poor quality studies. These did not show an appreciable benefit of spinal manipulation on colic, otitis media with effusion (known as glue ear) or twisted neck in babies.
Is spinal manipulation on babies safe?
In terms of safety, most studies in the review found serious complications were extremely rare. The review noted one baby or child dying (a report from Germany in 2001 after spinal manipulation by a physiotherapist). The most common complications were mild in nature such as increased crying and soreness.
However, because studies were very small, they cannot tell us anything about the safety of spinal manipulation in a reliable way. Studies that are designed to properly investigate if a treatment is safe typically include thousands of patients. And these studies have not yet been done.
Why do people see chiropractors?
Safer Care Victoria also conducted surveys with more than 20,000 people living in Australia who had taken their children under 12 years old to a chiropractor in the past ten years.
Nearly three-quarters said that was for treatment of a child aged two years or younger.
Nearly all people surveyed reported a positive experience when they took their child to a chiropractor and reported that their child’s condition improved with chiropractic care. Only a small number of people (0.3%) reported a negative experience, and this was mostly related to cost of treatment, lack of improvement in their child’s condition, excessive use of x-rays, and perceived pressure to avoid medications.
Many of the respondents had also consulted their GP or maternity/child health nurse.
What now for spinal manipulation in children?
At the request of state and federal ministers, the Chiropractic Board of Australia confirmed that spinal manipulation on babies under two years old will continue to be banned until it discusses the issue further with health ministers.
Many chiropractors believe this is unfair, especially considering the strong consumer support for chiropractic care outlined in the Safer Care Victoria report, and the rarity of serious reported harms in children.
Others believe that in the absence of evidence of benefit and uncertainty around whether spinal manipulation is safe in children and babies, the precautionary principle should apply and children and babies should not receive spinal manipulation.
Ultimately, high quality research is urgently needed to better understand whether spinal manipulation is beneficial for the range of conditions chiropractors provide it for, and whether the benefit outweighs the extremely small chance of a serious complication.
This will help parents make an informed choice about health care for their child.
Matt Fernandez, Senior lecturer and researcher in chiropractic, CQUniversity Australia; Giovanni E. Ferreira, NHMRC Emerging Leader Research Fellow, Institute of Musculoskeletal Health, University of Sydney, and Joshua Zadro, NHMRC Emerging Leader Research Fellow, Sydney Musculoskeletal Health, University of Sydney
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Creatine: Very Different For Young & Old People
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What’s the Deal with Creatine?
Creatine is best-known for its use as a sports supplement. It has a few other uses too, usually in the case of helping to treat (or recover from) specific medical conditions.
What actually is it?
Creatine is an organic compound formed from amino acids (mostly l-arginine and lysine, can be l-methionine, but that’s not too important for our purposes here).
We can take it as a supplement, we can get it in our diet (unless we’re vegan, because plants don’t make it; vertebrates do), and we can synthesize it in our own bodies.
What does it do?
While creatine supplements mostly take the form of creatine monohydrate, in the body it’s mostly stored in our muscle tissue as phosphocreatine, and it helps cells produce adenosine triphosphate, (ATP).
ATP is how energy is kept ready to use by cells, and is cells’ immediate go-to when they need to do something. For this reason, it’s highly instrumental in cell repair and rebuilding—which is why it’s used so much by athletes, especially bodybuilders or other athletes that have a vested interest in gaining muscle mass and enjoying faster recovery times.
See: Creatine use among young athletes
However! For reasons as yet not fully known, it doesn’t seem to have the same beneficial effect after a certain age:
What about the uses outside of sport?
Almost all studies outside of athletic performance have been on animals, despite it being suggested as potentially helpful for many things, including:
- Alzheimer’s disease
- Parkinson’s disease
- Huntington’s disease
- ischemic stroke
- epilepsy
- brain or spinal cord injuries
- motor neuron disease
- memory and brain function in older adults
However, research that’s been done on humans has been scant, if promising:
- A review of creatine supplementation in age-related diseases: more than a supplement for athletes
- Creatine supplementation and cognitive performance in elderly individuals
In short: creatine may reduce symptoms and slow the progression of some neurological diseases, although more research in humans is needed, and words such as “promising”, “potential”, etc are doing a lot of the heavy lifting in those papers we just cited.
Is it safe?
It seems so: Creatine supplementation and health variables: a retrospective study
Nor does it appear to create the sometimes-rumored kidney problems, cramps, or dehydration:
Where can I get it?
You can get it from pretty much any sports nutrition outlet, or you can order online. For example:
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Captivate – by Vanessa van Edwards
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This book isn’t just for one area of human interactions. It covers everything from the boardroom to the bedroom (not necessarily a progression with the same person!), business associates, friends, partners, kids, and more.
She presents information in a layered manner, covering for example, chapter-by-chapter:
- the first five minutes
- the first five hours
- the first five days
She also covers such things as:
- starting conversations in a way that makes you memorable (without making it weird!)
- the importance of really listening (and how to do that)
- collecting like-minded people appropriately
- introducing other people! Because a) it’s not all about you, but also b) you’re the person who knows everybody now
- where to stand at parties / networking events!
- dating and early-days dating messages
- reading the room, reading the people
All in all, a great resource for anyone who wants to make (and maintain!) meaningful relationships with those around you.
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How can I stop using food to cope with negative emotions?
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Have you ever noticed changes in your eating habits when you are sad, bored or anxious?
Many people report eating either more, or less, as a way of helping them to cope when they experience difficult emotions.
Although this is a very normal response, it can take the pleasure out of eating, and can become distressing and bring about other feelings of shame and self-criticism.
Adding to the complexity of it all, we live in a world where diet culture is unavoidable, and our relationship to eating, food and body image can become complicated and confusing.
Drazen Zigic/Shutterstock Emotional eating is common
“Emotional eating” refers to the eating behaviours (typically eating more) that occur in response to difficult emotions.
Research shows around 20% of people regularly engage in emotional eating, with a higher prevalence among adolescents and women. In a study of more than 1,500 adolescents, 34% engaged in emotional eating while sad and 40% did so while anxious.
Foods consumed are often fast-foods and other energy-dense, nutrient-poor convenience foods.
Stress, strong emotions and depression
For some people, emotional eating was simply a habit formed earlier in life that has persisted over time.
But other factors might also contribute to the likelihood of emotional eating. The physiological effects of stress and strong emotions, for example, can influence hormones such as cortisol, insulin and glucose, which can also increase appetite.
Increased impulsivity (behaving before thinking things through), vulnerability to depression, a tendency to ruminate and difficulties regulating emotions also increase the likelihood of emotional eating.
Depression increases the likelihood of emotional eating. TommyStockProject/Shutterstock So what do you do?
First, know that fluctuations in eating are normal. However, if you find that the way you eat in response to difficult emotions is not working for you, there are a few things you can do.
Starting with small things that are achievable but can have a huge impact, such as prioritising getting enough sleep and eating regularly.
Then, you can start to think about how you handle your emotions and hunger cues.
Expand your emotional awareness
Often we label emotions as good or bad, and this can result in fear, avoidance, and unhelpful coping strategies such as emotional eating.
But it’s also important to differentiate the exact emotion. This might be feeling isolated, powerless or victimised, rather than something as broad as sad.
By noticing what the emotion is, we can bring curiosity to what it means, how we feel in our minds and bodies, and how we think and behave in response.
Tap into your feelings of hunger and fullness
Developing an intuitive way of eating is another helpful strategy to promote healthy eating behaviours.
Intuitive eating means recognising, understanding and responding to internal signals of hunger and fullness. This might mean tuning in to and acknowledging physical hunger cues, responding by eating food that is nourishing and enjoyable, and identifying sensations of fullness.
Intuitive eating encourages flexibility and thinking about the pleasure we get from food and eating. This style of eating also allows us to enjoy eating out with friends, and sample local delicacies when travelling.
It can also reduce the psychological distress from feeling out of control with your eating habits and the associated negative body image.
Try to be flexible in thinking about the pleasure of food and eating with friends. La Famiglia/Shutterstock When is it time to seek help?
For some people, the thoughts and behaviours relating to food, eating and body image can negatively impact their life.
Having the support of friends and family, accessing online resources and, in some instances, seeing a trained professional, can be very helpful.
There are many therapeutic interventions that work to improve aspects associated with emotional eating. These will depend on your situation, needs, stage of life and other factors, such as whether you are neurodivergent.
The best approach is to engage with someone who can bring compassion and understanding to your personal situation, and work with you collaboratively. This work might include:
- unpacking some of the patterns that could be underlying these emotions, thoughts and behaviours
- helping you to discover your emotions
- supporting you to process other experiences, such as trauma exposure
- developing a more flexible and intuitive way of eating.
One of the dangers that can occur in response to emotional eating is the temptation to diet, which can lead to disordered eating, and eating disorder behaviours. Indicators of a potential eating disorder can include:
- recent rapid weight loss
- preoccupation with weight and shape (which is usually in contrast to other people’s perceptions)
- eating large amounts of food within a short space of time (two hours or less) and feeling a sense of loss of control
- eating in secret
- compensating for food eaten (with vomiting, exercise or laxatives).
Evidence-based approaches can support people experiencing eating disorders. To find a health professional who is informed and specialises in this area, search the Butterfly Foundation’s expert database.
If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14, or the Butterfly Foundation on 1800 ED HOPE (1800 33 4673).
Inge Gnatt, PhD Candidate, Lecturer in Psychology, Swinburne University of Technology
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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