The Real Reason Your Neck & Shoulders Feel Tight
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Dr. Alyssa Kuhn tells us why tension keeps returning:
Movement matters
When it comes to neck stiffness, lasting relief doesn’t come from holding a perfect posture, but rather from regularly moving your neck and shoulders, strengthening supportive muscles, and changing positions often.
You might want to make a habit of these:
- Neck rolls: gently circle your head through a comfortable range of motion in both directions, to restore movement, stretch tight tissues, and increase blood flow to your neck.
- Look up and down: slowly lift your gaze upwards and then lower your chin towards your chest, pausing briefly at each end of the range, to stretch the front and back of your neck, and improve mobility.
- Shoulder rows: bend your elbows to 90° with your thumbs up, reach your arms forwards, then draw your elbows back while squeezing your shoulder blades together (keeping your shoulders away from your ears) to build upper back strength and stability.
- Shoulder extension: straighten your arms by your sides with your palms facing backwards, press your hands behind you while keeping your shoulders down, and then return to neutral, to activate the muscles beneath your shoulder blades and improve shoulder mobility.
- Shoulder release: shrug your shoulders up towards your ears with tension, then fully relax and let them drop while exhaling, to encourage muscle relaxation and reset excess tension.
For more on all of this plus visual demonstrations, enjoy:
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Want to learn more?
You might also like:
3 Unconventional Ways To Fix Your Stiff Neck (Without Stretching)
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Every Woman Should Be Able To Do A Pull-Up
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Cori Lefkowitz, of “Strong At Every Age”, talks us through what’s actually important (and why):
It’s not about the pull-up
The important part here is to challenge self-imposed limits, rather than literally apply to every individual circumstance. If, for example, you do not have arms, then quite possibly pull-ups are indeed not the ideal target exercise for you!
There’s a common mental barrier that applies to [this and] a lot of things: people often treat a single failed attempt as proof they’ll never succeed, instead of recognizing that strength skills (just like most other skills) require progressive training.
And then it gets worse, because avoiding challenging movements over time is (of course!) one of the major things that contributes to declining strength with age.
But let’s say you do want to do pull-ups, specifically. A laudable goal! And an intrinsically worthy one too, because working towards a pull-up can reduce neck, shoulder, elbow, and upper-back discomfort by improving posture and joint function.
With that in mind…
- Mobility first: improving chest, lat, and spinal mobility through foam rolling, stretching, and movement prep is essential before building strength.
- Scapular control next: developing the ability to move your shoulder blades (retraction, depression, elevation, and protraction) is key for both strength and injury reduction.
- Progressive strengthening thereafter: exercises like lat pulldowns, assisted variations, and pull-up holds help build the specific strength needed over time.
This isn’t exactly a detailed how-to, so we’ll link a more detailed “how-to” in the “learn more” section below.
Meanwhile, the most important thing to learn from today’s video is: instead of asking “can I do it now,” the better question is “what can I do to work towards it?”
For more on all of this and surprisingly little in the category of visual demonstrations, enjoy:
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Want to learn more?
You might also like:
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Grapes vs Watermelon – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing grapes to watermelon, we picked the watermelon.
Why?
In terms of macros, there’s really nothing between them; grapes have slightly more carbs and fiber, but the difference are minimal and they effectively cancel each other out anyway, so the fairest conclusion for this first round is a tie.
In the category of vitamins, grapes have more of vitamins B1, B2, B6, and K, while watermelon has more of vitamins A, B5, B7, and C, for a 4:4 tie.
Looking at minerals, grapes have more calcium, iron, manganese, and potassium, while watermelon has more copper, magnesium, phosphorus, selenium, and zinc, for a marginal win in this round.
When it comes to antioxidants, both fruits are good, but watermelon is the more potent source. Grapes famously contain resveratrol, and they also contain quercetin, albeit you’d have to eat quite a lot of grapes to get a large portion. Now, having to eat a lot of grapes might not sound like a terrible fate (who else finds that the grapes are gone by the time the groceries are put away?), but we are comparing the fruits here, and on a list of “100 best foods for quercetin”, for example, grapes took 99th place. Watermelon’s main antioxidant meanwhile is lycopene, and watermelon is one of the best sources of lycopene in existence (better even than tomatoes). So this round’s another win for watermelon.
Adding up the sections makes for a modest overall win for watermelon, but by all means do enjoy either or both, as diversity is best!
Want to learn more?
You might like:
- Lycopene’s Benefits For The Gut, Heart, Brain, & More
- Can We Drink To Good Health? ← while there are polyphenols such as resveratrol that makes it through the process of turning into red wine that per se would boost heart health, there’s so little per glass that you may need 100–1000 glasses per day to get the dosage that provides benefits in mouse studies*.
*If you’re not a mouse, you might even need more than that!
To this end, many people prefer resveratrol supplementation ← link is to an example product on Amazon, but there are plenty more so feel free to shop around 😎
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Losing Visceral Fat Cuts Diabetes Risk By 28% (Even If You Regain The Weight!)
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We have previously written about Visceral Belly Fat & How To Lose It, and while we’re a lot less enthusiastic than many about weight loss in general as a panacea (it’s usually not), it is unequivocally true that visceral belly fat specifically has important health impacts, and for most people most of the time, having less of it is better than having more.
Today, we’ll talk about its impacts on diabetes.
Now, one of the main troubles many people find with weight loss in general is weight regain. In this case, that’s not such an issue, because of…
Long-lasting metabolic benefits
In this case, the research shows that it can last even if the weight loss doesn’t.
Specifically, people regained all of their lost body weight on average, but certain health benefits persisted, showing how weight regain doesn’t necessarily erase all of the metabolic gains from a period of having lost visceral belly fat.
And the visceral fat truly is what matters the most in this regard, since visceral fat was the only fat depot whose reduction consistently predicted a lower future risk of type 2 diabetes, over the course of following 366 participants from two 18-month diet and exercise trials for up to 10 years.
In numbers: every 5% reduction in visceral fat during the original intervention was associated with a 17% lower future diabetes risk, a 10% reduction with a 28–30% lower risk, a 15% reduction with a 40% lower risk, and a 20% reduction with a 50% lower risk.
Further, there was a “metabolic legacy” effect: each 10% reduction in visceral fat was independently associated with a 28% lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes during long-term follow-up, even after accounting for later weight changes, diet quality, physical activity, and other clinical factors.
Despite full weight regain, waist circumference and abdominal fat depots remained below baseline levels; liver fat returned to baseline, while pancreatic fat rose above baseline levels.
You can read the paper in full, here: Lifestyle-Induced Visceral Fat Loss as a Key Target for Durable Cardiometabolic Health: MRI-Assessed 5- and 10-Year Follow-Up After 2 Clinical Trials
What to do about it
Firstly, do see our previously-mentioned article: Visceral Belly Fat & How To Lose It for the dos and don’ts of getting healthier visceral fat levels (which for most people means: lower) .
Next up, see also: Body Fat & Pelvic Floor Problems: What Matters Most Is Where The Fat Is for the science behind “apple or pear” distributions, and how to switch it up.
You may also be wondering: Can We Do Fat Redistribution? And the answer is yes, and we are doing it all the time whether we want to or not, so we might as well know what things affect our fat distribution in various body parts. The article we just linked there shows how.
While we’re at it, one other place you really don’t want excess fat, for metabolic reasons, is your liver. So: How To Unfatty A Fatty Liver
Want to learn more?
You might like this book that we reviewed a while ago:
Why We Get Sick – by Dr. Benjamin Bikman ← this is about insulin resistance, and, importantly, the invisible insulin resistance that precedes blood sugar imbalances by many years (it goes unnoticed because the pancreas will dutifully keep cranking out more and more insulin to keep the blood sugars stable, until one day it just can’t keep up anymore, and then and only then does prediabetes get diagnosed).
Enjoy!
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When You “Can’t Complain”
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A Bone To Pick… Up And Then Put Back Where We Found It
In today’s Psychology Sunday feature, we’re going to be flipping the narrative on gratitude, by tackling it from the other end.
We have, by the way, written previously about gratitude, and what mistakes to avoid, in one of our pieces on positive psychology:
How To Get Your Brain On A More Positive Track (Without Toxic Positivity)
“Can’t complain”
Your mission, should you choose to accept it (and come on, who doesn’t like a challenge?) is to go 21 days without complaining (to anyone, including yourself, about anything). If you break your streak, that’s ok, just start again!
Why?
Complaining is (unsurprisingly) inversely correlated with happiness, in a self-perpetuating cycle:
Pet Peeves and Happiness: How Do Happy People Complain?
And if a stronger motivation is required, there’s a considerable inverse correlation between all-cause happiness and all-cause mortality, even when potential confounding factors (e.g., chronic health conditions, socioeconomic status, etc) are controlled for, and especially as we get older:
Investing in Happiness: The Gerontological Perspective
How?
You may have already formulated some objections by this point, for example:
- Am I supposed to tell my doctor/therapist “I’m fine thanks; how are you?”
- Some things are worthy of complaint; should I be silent?
But both of these issues (communication, and righteousness) have answers:
On communication:
There is a difference between complaining, and giving the necessary information in answer to a question—or even volunteering such information.
For example, when our site went down yesterday, some of you wrote to us to let us know the links weren’t working. There is a substantive difference (semantic, ontological, and teleological) between:
- ❝The content was great but the links in “you may have missed” did not work.❞ ← a genuine piece of feedback we received (thank you!)
- ❝Wasted my time, couldn’t read your articles! Unsubscribing, and I hope your socks get wet tomorrow!❞ ← nobody said this; our subscribers are lovely (thank you)
- Note that the former wasn’t a complaint, it was genuinely helpful feedback, without which we might not have noticed the problem and fixed it.
- The latter was a complaint, and also (like many complaints) didn’t even address the actual problem usefully.
What makes it a complaint or not is not the information conveyed, but the tone and intention. So for example:
“You’ve only done half the job I asked you to!” → “Thank you for doing the first half of this job, could you please do the other half now?”
Writer’s anecdote: my washing machine needs a part replaced; the part was ordered two weeks ago and I was told it would take a week to arrive. It’s been two weeks, so tomorrow I will not complain, but I will politely ask whether they have any information about the delay, and a new estimated time of arrival. Because you know what? Whatever the delay is, complaining won’t make it arrive last week!
On righteousness:
Indeed, some things are very worthy of complaint. But are you able to effect a solution by complaining? If not, then it’s just hot air. And venting isn’t without its own merits (we touched on the benefits of emotional catharsis recently), but that should be a mindful choice when you choose to do that, not a matter of reactivity.
Complaining is a subset of criticizing, and criticizing can be done without the feeling and intent of complaining. However, it too should definitely be measured and considered, responsive, not reactive. This itself could be the topic for another main feature, but for now, here’s a Psychology Today article that at least explains the distinction in more words than we have room for here:
React vs Respond: What’s the difference?
This, by the way, also goes the same for engaging in social and political discourse. It’s easy to get angry and reactive, but it’s good to take a moment to pick your battles, and by all means fight for what you believe in, and/but also do so responsively rather than reactively.
Not only will your health thank you, but you’re also more likely to “win friends and influence people” and all that!
What gets measured, gets done
Find a way of tracking your streak. There are apps for that, like this one, or you could find a low-tech method you prefer.
Bonus tip: if you do mess up and complain, and you realize as you’re doing it, take a moment to take a breath and correct yourself in the moment.
Take care!
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What’s the difference between physical and chemical sunscreens? And which one should you choose?
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Sun exposure can accelerate ageing, cause skin burns, erythema (a skin reaction), skin cancer, melasmas (or sun spots) and other forms of hyperpigmentation – all triggered by solar ultraviolet radiation.
Approximately 80% of skin cancer cases in people engaged in outdoor activities are preventable by decreasing sun exposure. This can be done in lots of ways including wearing protective clothing or sunscreens.
But not all sunscreens work in the same way. You might have heard of “physical” and “chemical” sunscreens. What’s the difference and which one is right for you?
How sunscreens are classified
Sunscreens are grouped by their use of active inorganic and organic ultraviolet (UV) filters. Chemical sunscreens use organic filters such as cinnamates (chemically related to cinnamon oil) and benzophenones. Physical sunscreens (sometimes called mineral sunscreens) use inorganic filters such as titanium and zinc oxide.
These filters prevent the effects of UV radiation on the skin.
Organic UV filters are known as chemical filters because the molecules in them change to stop UV radiation reaching the skin. Inorganic UV filters are known as physical filters, because they work through physical means, such as blocking, scattering and reflection of UV radiation to prevent skin damage.
Nano versus micro
The effectiveness of the filters in physical sunscreen depends on factors including the size of the particle, how it’s mixed into the cream or lotion, the amount used and the refraction index (the speed light travels through a substance) of each filter.
When the particle size in physical sunscreens is large, it causes the light to be scattered and reflected more. That means physical sunscreens can be more obvious on the skin, which can reduce their cosmetic appeal.
Nanoparticulate forms of physical sunscreens (with tiny particles smaller than 100 nanometers) can improve the cosmetic appearance of creams on the skin and UV protection, because the particles in this size range absorb more radiation than they reflect. These are sometimes labelled as “invisible” zinc or mineral formulations and are considered safe.
So how do chemical sunscreens work?
Chemical UV filters work by absorbing high-energy UV rays. This leads to the filter molecules interacting with sunlight and changing chemically.
When molecules return to their ground (or lower energy) state, they release energy as heat, distributed all over the skin. This may lead to uncomfortable reactions for people with skin sensitivity.
Generally, UV filters are meant to stay on the epidermis (the first skin layer) surface to protect it from UV radiation. When they enter into the dermis (the connective tissue layer) and bloodstream, this can lead to skin sensitivity and increase the risk of toxicity. The safety profile of chemical UV filters may depend on whether their small molecular size allows them to penetrate the skin.
Chemical sunscreens, compared to physical ones, cause more adverse reactions in the skin because of chemical changes in their molecules. In addition, some chemical filters, such as dibenzoylmethane tend to break down after UV exposure. These degraded products can no longer protect the skin against UV and, if they penetrate the skin, can cause cell damage.
Due to their stability – that is, how well they retain product integrity and effectiveness when exposed to sunlight – physical sunscreens may be more suitable for children and people with skin allergies.
Although sunscreen filter ingredients can rarely cause true allergic dermatitis, patients with photodermatoses (where the skin reacts to light) and eczema have higher risk and should take care and seek advice.
What to look for
The best way to check if you’ll have a reaction to a physical or chemical sunscreen is to patch test it on a small area of skin.
And the best sunscreen to choose is one that provides broad-spectrum protection, is water and sweat-resistant, has a high sun protection factor (SPF), is easy to apply and has a low allergy risk.
Health authorities recommend sunscreen to prevent sun damage and cancer. Chemical sunscreens have the potential to penetrate the skin and may cause irritation for some people. Physical sunscreens are considered safe and effective and nanoparticulate formulations can increase their appeal and ease of use.
Yousuf Mohammed, Dermatology researcher, The University of Queensland and Khanh Phan, Postdoctoral research associate, Frazer Institute, The University of Queensland
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Widen the Window – by Dr. Elizabeth Stanley
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Firstly, about the title… That “window” that the author bids us “widen” is not a flowery metaphor, but rather, is referring to the window of exhibited resilience to stress/trauma; the “window” in question looks like an “inverted U” bell-curve on the graph.
In other words: Dr. Stanley’s main premise here is that we respond best to moderate stress (i.e: in that window, the area under the curve!), but if there is too little or too much, we don’t do so well. The key, she argues, is widening that middle part (expanding the area under the curve) in which we perform optimally. That way, we can still function in a motivated fashion without extrinsic threats, and we also don’t collapse under the weight of overwhelm, either.
The main strength of this book, however, lies in its practical exercises to accomplish that—and more.
“And more”, because the subtitle also promised recovery from trauma, and the author delivers in that regard too. In this case, it’s about widening that same window, but this time to allow one’s parasympathetic nervous system to recognize that the traumatic event is behind us, and no longer a threat; we are safe now.
Bottom line: if you would like to respond better to stress, and/or recover from trauma, this book is a very good tool.
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