The Mental Health Dangers Of Oversharing
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.
Oversharers can be fun and amiable; the life of the party. In and of itself, this something that can be considered “pro-social” and thus healthy.
But the problem for one’s mental health in the long-run lies in the “over” part of oversharing. Sometimes, if not checking in with the other person’s comfort, oversharing can be “trauma-dumping”, and push people away. Alternatively, if the oversharing exposes an unmet need, it can make the other person feel obliged to try to help in some fashion, which in the long run may also cause awkwardness and withdrawal.
Some potential problems are purely internal, such the feelings of shame or anxiety that can come afterwards; “I should not have been so vulnerable”, “What if my friends think badly of me now?”, etc.
And of course, sometimes those fears are then validated by reality, if “friends” indeed take advantage of that, or withdraw their friendship. That’s a minority occurrence, but it doesn’t make it any less of a crushing thing if it happens.
Sometimes people overshare because of being a bad judge of what’s a socially-approved appropriate amount of sharing; sometimes people overshare out of a need for closeness, and perhaps the hope of hearing what one needed to hear previously.
The dangers of oversharing don’t mean that we should never speak about our experiences and feelings; in fact sometimes, it is the most healthy thing to do—be it because it’s something that needs communicating to a specific person, or because it’s something we just need to “get off our chest”.
In short, it can be good to share! It can also be good to do so judiciously, by conscious decision and not in response to a spur-of-the-moment impulse, and remember to prioritize our own safety.
Below, Alain de Botton explains more of the psychodynamics of this:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
10almonds tip, not included in the video: unsure whether your urge to share is too impulsive or not? Write a letter/email, and wait until the next day to decide whether or not to send it.
Want to read more?
Check out:
Breathe; Don’t Vent (At Least In The Moment)
Take care!
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Recommended
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
-
How To Make Drinking Less Harmful
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.
Making Drinking Less Harmful
We often talk of the many ways alcohol harms our health, and we advocate for reducing (or eliminating) its consumption. However, it’s not necessarily as easy as all that, and it might not even be a goal that everyone has. So, if you’re going to imbibe, what can you do to mitigate the harmful effects of alcohol?
There is no magical solution
Sadly. If you drink alcohol, there will be some harmful effects, and nothing will completely undo that. But there are some things that can at least help—read on to learn more!
Coffee
It’s not the magical sober-upperer that some would like it to be, but it is good against the symptoms of alcohol intoxication, and slightly reduces the harm to your body, because it is:
- Hydrating (whereas alcohol is dehydrating)
- A source of antioxidants (whereas alcohol causes oxidative stress, which has nothing to do with psychological stress, and is a kind of cellular damage)
- A stimulant, assuming it is not decaffeinated (it’s worth noting that its stimulant effects work partly by triggering vasoconstriction, which is the opposite of the vasodilation caused by alcohol)
To this end, the best coffee for anti-alcohol effects should be:
- Caffeinated, and strong
- Long (we love espresso, but we need hydration here and that comes from volume!)
- Without sugar (you don’t want to create an adverse osmotic gradient to leech water from your body)
As for milk/cream/whatever, have it or don’t, per your usual preference. It won’t make any difference to the alcohol in your system.
Antioxidants, polyphenols, flavonoids, and things with similar mechanisms
We mentioned that coffee contains antioxidants, but if you want to really bring out the heavy guns, taking more powerful antioxidants can help a lot. If you don’t have the luxury of enjoying berries and cacao nibs by the handful, supplements that have some similar benefits are a perfectly respectable choice.
For example, you might want to consider green tea extract:
L-theanine 200mg (available on Amazon)
Specialist anti-alcohol drugs
These are somewhat new and the research is still ongoing, but for example:
Dihydromyricetin (DHM) as a novel anti-alcohol intoxication medication
In short, DHM is a flavonoid (protects against the oxidative stress caused by alcohol, and has been found to reduce liver damage—see the above link) and also works on GABA-receptors (reduces alcohol withdrawal symptoms after cessation of drinking, and thus also reduces hangovers).
Once again: the marketing claims of such drugs may be bold, but there’s a lot that’s not known and they’re not a magic pill. They do NOT mean you can take them alongside drinking and drink what you like with impunity. However, they may help mitigate some of the harmful effects of alcohol. If you wish to try them, these can be purchased at pharmacies or online, for example:
Alcohol Defense Capsules (available on Amazon)
Bottom line
Alcohol is bad for your health and none of the above will eliminate the health risks. But, if you’re going to have alcohol, then having the above things as well may at least somewhat reduce the harm done.
Share This Post
-
The Many Health Benefits Of Garlic
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 Many Health Benefits of Garlic
We’re quite confident you already know what garlic is, so we’re going to leap straight in there with some science today:
First, let’s talk about allicin
Allicin is a compound in garlic that gives most of its health benefits. A downside of allicin is that it’s not very stable, so what this means is:
- Garlic is best fresh—allicin breaks down soon after garlic is cut/crushed
- So while doing the paperwork isn’t fun, buying it as bulbs is better than buying it as granules or similar
- Allicin also breaks down somewhat in cooking, so raw garlic is best
- Our philosophy is: still use it in cooking as well; just use more!
- Supplements (capsule form etc) use typically use extracts and potency varies (from not great to actually very good)
Read more about that:
- Short-term heating reduces the anti-inflammatory effects of fresh raw garlic extracts
- Allicin Bioavailability and Bioequivalence from Garlic Supplements and Garlic Foods
Now, let’s talk benefits…
Benefits to heart health
Garlic has been found to be as effective as the drug Atenolol at reducing blood pressure:
It also lowers LDL (bad cholesterol):
Benefits to the gut
We weren’t even looking for this, but as it turns out, as an add-on to the heart benefits…
Benefits to the immune system
Whether against the common cold or bringing out the heavy guns, garlic is a booster:
- Preventing the common cold with a garlic supplement: a double-blind, placebo-controlled survey
- Supplementation with aged garlic extract improves both NK and γδ-T cell function and reduces the severity of cold and flu symptoms: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled nutrition intervention
Benefits to the youthfulness of body and brain
Garlic is high in antioxidants that, by virtue of reducing oxidative stress, help slow aging. This effect, combined with the cholesterol and blood pressure benefits, means it may also reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia:
- Antioxidant health effects of aged garlic extract
- Effects of garlic consumption on plasma and erythrocyte antioxidant parameters in elderly subjects
- Garlic reduces heart disease and dementia risk
There are more benefits too…
That’s all we have time to dive into study-wise today, but for the visually-inclined, here are yet more benefits to garlic (at a rate of 3–4 cloves per day):
An incredible awesome recipe using lots of garlic:
- Take small potatoes (still in their skins), cut in half
- Add enough peeled cloves of garlic so that you have perhaps a 1:10 ratio of garlic to potato by mass
- Boil (pressure-cooking is ideal) until soft, and drain
- Keeping them in the pan, add a lashing of olive oil, and any additional seasonings per your preference (consider black pepper, rosemary, thyme, parsley)
- Put a lid on the pan, and holding it closed, shake the pan vigorously
- Note: if you didn’t leave the skins on, or you chopped much larger potatoes smaller instead of cutting in half, the potatoes will break up into a rough mash now. This is actually also fine and still tastes (and honestly, looks) great, but it is different, so just be aware, so that you get the outcome you want.
- The garlic, which—unlike the potatoes—didn’t have a skin to hold it together, will now have melted over the potatoes like butter
You can serve like this (it’s delicious already) or finish up in the oven or air-fryer or under the grill, if you prefer a roasted style dish (an amazing option too).
Share This Post
- Garlic is best fresh—allicin breaks down soon after garlic is cut/crushed
-
Berberine For Metabolic Health
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.
Is Berberine Nature’s Ozempic/Wegovy?
Berberine is a compound found in many plants. Of which, some of them are variations of the barberry, hence the name.
It’s been popular this past couple of years, mostly for weight loss. In and of itself, something being good for weight loss doesn’t mean it’s good for the health (just ask diarrhoea, or cancer).
Happily, berberine’s mechanisms of action appear to be good for metabolic health, including:
- Reduced fasting blood sugar levels
- Improved insulin sensitivity
- Reduced LDL and triglycerides
- Increased HDL levels
So, what does the science say?
It’s (mostly!) not nature’s Wegovy/Ozempic
It’s had that title in a number of sensationalist headlines (and a current TikTok trend, apparently), but while both berberine and the popular weight-loss drugs Wegovy/Ozempic act in part on insulin metabolism, they mostly do so by completely different mechanisms.
Wegovy and Ozempic are GLP-1 agonists, which mean they augment the action of glucagon-like-peptide 1, which increases insulin release, decreases glucagon release, and promotes a more lasting feeling of fullness.
Berberine works mostly by other means, not all of which are understood. But, we know that it activates AMP-activated protein kinase, and on the flipside, inhibits proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9.
In less arcane words: it boosts some enzymes and inhibits others.
Each of these boosts/inhibitions has a positive effect on metabolic health.
However, it does also have a slight GLP-1 agonist effect too! Bacteria in the gut can decompose and metabolize berberine into dihydroberberine, thus preventing the absorption of disaccharides in the intestinal tract, and increasing GLP-1 levels.
See: Effects of Berberine on the Gastrointestinal Microbiota
Does it work for weight loss?
Yes, simply put. And if we’re going to put it head-to-head with Wegovy/Ozempic, it works about half as well. Which sounds like a criticism, but for a substance that’s a lot safer (and cheaper, and easier—if we like capsules over injections) and has fewer side effects.
- Weight Loss Outcomes Associated With Semaglutide Treatment for Patients With Overweight or Obesity ← Wegovy and Ozempic are both brand names of semaglutide
- The effect of berberine supplementation on obesity parameters: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials ← a good recent research review giving clear data on many factors
- Lipid-lowering effect of berberine in human subjects and rats ← this is an older study, 2012, but it gives 3-month weight loss percentages rather than discrete values in the abstract, so it’s easier to compare to the semaglutide study without grabbing a calculator
❝But more interestingly, the treatment significantly reduced blood lipid levels (23% decrease of triglyceride and 12.2% decrease of cholesterol levels) in human subjects.
However, there was interestingly, an increase in calcitriol levels seen in all human subjects following berberine treatment (mean 59.5% increase)
Collectively, this study demonstrates that berberine is a potent lipid-lowering compound with a moderate weight loss effect, and may have a possible potential role in osteoporosis treatment/prevention.❞
(click through to read in full)
Is it safe?
It appears to be, with one special caveat: remember that paper about the effects of berberine on the gastrointestinal microbiota? It also has some antimicrobial effects, so you could do harm there if not careful. It’s recommended to give it a break every couple of months, to be sure of allowing your gut microbiota to not get too depleted.
Also, as with anything you might take that’s new, always consult your doctor/pharmacist in case of contraindications based on medications you are taking.
Where can I get it?
As ever, we don’t sell it, but you can check out the berberine of one of our sponsors if you like, or else find one of your choosing online; here’s an example product on Amazon, for your convenience.
Enjoy!
Share This Post
Related Posts
-
The Best Foods For Collagen Production
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.
Dr. Andrea Suarez gives us the low-down on collagen synthesis and maintenance. Collagen is the most abundant protein in our body, and it can be fairly described as “the stuff that holds us together”. It’s particularly important for joints and bones too, though many people’s focus on it is for the skin. Whatever your priorities, collagen levels are something it pays to be mindful of, as they usually drop quite sharply after a certain age. What certain age? Well, that depends a lot on you, and your diet and lifestyle. But it can start to decline from the age of 30 with often noticeable drop-offs in one’s mid-40s and again in one’s mid-60s.
Showing us what we’re made of
There’s a lot more to having good collagen levels than just how much collagen we consume (which for vegetarians/vegans, will be “none”, unless using the “except if for medical reasons” exemption, which is probably a little tenuous in the case of collagen but nevertheless it’s a possibility; this exemption is usually one that people use for, say, a nasal spray vaccine that contains gelatine, or a medicinal tablet that contains lactose, etc).
Rather, having good collagen levels is also a matter of what we eat that allows us to synthesize our own collagen (which includes: its ingredients, and various “helper” nutrients), as well as what dietary adjustments we make to avoid our extant collagen getting broken down, degraded, and generally lost.
Here’s what Dr. Suarez recommends:
Protein-rich foods (but watch out)
- Protein is essential for collagen production.
- Sources: fish, soy, lean meats (but not red meats, which—counterintuitively—degrade collagen), eggs, lentils.
- Egg whites are high in lysine, vital for collagen synthesis.
- Bone broth is a natural source of collagen.
Omega-3 fatty acids
- Omega-3s are anti-inflammatory and protect skin collagen.
- Sources: walnuts, chia seeds, flax seeds, fatty fish (e.g. mackerel, sardines).
Leafy greens
- Leafy dark green vegetables (e.g. kale, spinach) are rich in vitamins C and B9.
- Vitamin C is crucial for collagen synthesis and acts as an antioxidant.
- Vitamin B9 supports skin cell division and DNA repair.
Red fruits & vegetables
- Red fruits/vegetables (e.g. tomatoes, red bell peppers) contain lycopene, an antioxidant that protects collagen from UV damage (so, that aspect is mostly relevant for skin, but antioxidants are good things to have in all of the body in any case).
Orange-colored vegetables
- Carrots and sweet potatoes are rich in vitamin A, which helps in collagen repair and synthesis.
- Vitamin A is best from food, not supplements, to avoid potential toxicity.
Fruits rich in vitamin C
- Citrus fruits, kiwi, and berries are loaded with vitamin C and antioxidants, essential for collagen synthesis and skin health.
Soy
- Soy products (e.g. tofu, soybeans) contain isoflavones, which reduce inflammation and inhibit enzymes that degrade collagen.
- Soy is associated with lower risks of chronic diseases.
Garlic
- Garlic contains sulfur, taurine, and lipoic acid, important for collagen production and repair.
What to avoid:
- Reduce foods high in advanced glycation end products (AGEs), which damage collagen and promote inflammation.
- AGEs are found in fried, roasted, or grilled fatty proteinous foods (e.g. meat, including synthetic meat, and yes, including grass-fed nicely marketed meat—although processed meat such as bacon and sausages are even worse than steaks etc).
- Switch to cooking methods like boiling or steaming to reduce AGE levels.
- Processed foods, sugary pastries, and red meats contribute to collagen degradation.
General diet tips:
- Incorporate more plant-based, antioxidant-rich foods.
- Opt for slow cooking to reduce AGEs.
- Since sustainability is key, choose foods you enjoy for a collagen-boosting diet that you won’t seem like a chore a month later.
For more on all of this, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
We Are Such Stuff As Fish Are Made Of ← our main feature research review about collagen
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:
-
Body on Fire – by Dr. Monica Aggarwal and Dr. Jyothi Rao
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.
There are times when you do really need a doctor, not a dietician. But there are also times when a doctor will prescribe something for the symptom, leaving the underlying issue untouched. If only there were a way to have the best of both worlds!
That’s where Drs. Rao and Aggarwal come in. They’re both medical doctors… with a keen interest in nutrition and healthy lifestyle changes to make us less sick such that we have less need to go to the doctor at all.
Best of all, they understand—while some things are true for everyone—there’s not a one-size-fits all diet or exercise regime or even sleep setup.
So instead, they take us hand-in-hand (chapter by chapter!) through the various parts of our life (including our diet) that might need tweaking. Each of these changes, if taken up, promise a net improvement that becomes synergistic with the other changes. There’s a degree of biofeedback involved, and listening to your body, to be sure of what’s really best for you, not what merely should be best for you on paper.
The writing style is accessible while science-heavy. They don’t assume prior knowledge, and/but they sure deliver a lot. The book is more text than images, but there are plenty of medical diagrams, explanations, charts, and the like. You will feed like a medical student! And it’s very much worth studying.
Bottom line: highly recommendable even if you don’t have inflammation issues, and worth its weight in gold if you do.
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:
-
Hanging Exercises For Complete Beginners & Older Adults
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.
Hanging (not the kind with a gallows) is great for the heath, improving not just strength and mobility, but also—critically—looking after spinal health too. Amanda Raynor explains in this video how this exercise is accessible to anyone (unless you have no arms, in which case, sorry, this one is just not for you—though hanging by your legs will also give similar spinal benefits!).
Hanging out
Hanging can be done at home or at a park, with minimal equipment (a bar, a sturdy tree branch, etc).
Note: the greater the diameter of the bar, the more it will work your grip strength, and/but the harder it will be. So, it’s recommend to start with a narrow-diameter bar first.
Getting started:
- Start with a “dead hang”: grip the bar with hands shoulder-width apart, thumb wrapped around.
- Aim to hang without pulling up; build endurance gradually (10–30 seconds is fine at first).
- Work up to holding for 60 seconds in three sets as a fitness goal.
Progression:
- If unable to hang at all initially, use a chair or stool to support some body weight.
- Gradually reduce foot support to increase duration of free hanging.
- Start with 10 seconds, progressing by small increments (e.g: 15, 20, 25 seconds) until reaching 60 seconds.
Advanced variations:
- Move the body while hanging (e.g., circles, knee lifts).
- Experiment with different grips (overhand, underhand) for varied muscle engagement.
- Try scapular pulls or one-arm hangs for additional challenge and strength-building.
For more on all of this plus visual demonstrations, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like:
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:
