The Seven Circles – by Chelsey Luger & Thosh Collins
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At first glance, this can seem like an unscientific book—you won’t find links to studies in this one, for sure! However, if we take a look at the seven circles in question, they are:
- Food
- Movement
- Sleep
- Ceremony
- Sacred Space
- Land
- Community
Regular 10almonds readers may notice that these seven items contain five of the things strongly associated with the “supercentenarian Blue Zones”. (If you are wondering why Native American reservations are not Blue Zones, the answer there lies less in health science and more in history and sociology, and what things have been done to a given people).
The authors—who are Native American, yes—present in one place a wealth of knowledge and know-how. Not even just from their own knowledge and their own respective tribes, but gathered from other tribes too.
Perhaps the strongest value of this book to the reader is in the explanation of noting the size of each of those circles, how they connect with each other, and providing a whole well-explained system for how we can grow each of them in harmony with each other.
Or to say the same thing in sciencey terms: how to mindfully improve integrated lifestyle factors synergistically for greater efficacy and improved health-adjusted quality-of-life years.
Bottom line: if you’re not averse to something that mostly doesn’t use sciencey terms of have citations to peer-reviewed studies peppered through the text, then this book has wisdom that’s a) older than the pyramids of Giza, yet also b) highly consistent with our current best science of Blue Zone healthy longevity.
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Benefits of Different Tropical Fruits
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It’s Q&A Day 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!
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
❝Would very much like your views of the benefits of different tropical fruits. I do find papaya is excellent for settling the digestion – but keen to know if others have remarkable qualities.❞
Definitely one for a main feature sometime soon! As a bonus while you wait, pineapple has some unique and powerful properties:
❝Its properties include: (1) interference with growth of malignant cells; (2) inhibition of platelet aggregation*; (3) fibrinolytic activity; (4) anti-inflammatory action; (5) skin debridement properties. These biological functions of bromelain, a non-toxic compound, have therapeutic values in modulating: (a) tumor growth; (b) blood coagulation; (c) inflammatory changes; (d) debridement of third degree burns; (e) enhancement of absorption of drugs.❞
*so do be aware of this if you are on blood thinners or otherwise have a bleeding disorder, as you might want to skip the pineapple in those cases!
Source: Bromelain, the enzyme complex of pineapple (Ananas comosus) and its clinical application. An update
Enjoy!
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Q&A with the 10almonds Team
Q: Very interested in this article on CBD oil in the states. hope you do another one in the future with more studies done on people and more information on what’s new as far as CBD oil goes
A: We’re glad you enjoyed it! We’ll be sure to revisit CBD in the future—partly because it was a very popular article, and partly because, as noted, there is a lot going on there, research-wise!
And yes, we prefer human studies rather than mouse/rat studies where possible, too, and try to include those where we find them. In some cases, non-human animal studies allow us to know things that we can’t know from human studies… because a research institution’s ethics board will greenlight things for mice that it’d never* greenlight for humans.
Especially: things that for non-human animals are considered “introduction of external stressors” while the same things done to humans would be unequivocally called “torture”.
Animal testing in general is of course a moral quagmire, precisely because of the suffering it causes for animals, while the research results (hopefully) can be brought to bear to reduce to suffering of humans. We’re a health and productivity newsletter, not a philosophical publication, but all this to say: we’re mindful of such too.
And yes, we agree, when studies are available on humans, they’re always going to be better than the same study done on mice and rats.
As a topical aside, did you know there’s a monument to laboratory mice and all they’ve (however unintentionally) done for us?
❝The quirky statue depicts an anthropomorphic mouse as an elderly woman, complete with glasses balanced atop its nose. Emerging from two knitting needles in its hands is the recognizable double-helix of a strand of DNA.❞
~ Smithsonian Magazine
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Bath vs Shower – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing bathing to showering, we picked the shower.
Why?
For the basic task of getting your body clean, the shower is better as it is an entirely one-way process. Clean water hits your body, dirty water leaves it, and no dirt is making its way back.
Baths do not have this advantage, and if you enter a bath dirty, you will then be sitting in dirty water. You will leave it a lot cleaner than you entered it (because a lot of the dirt stayed in the bathwater to be drained away after the bath), but not as clean as if you had showered.
One could argue soap or equivalent will prevent the dirt re-sticking, and that’s true, but it’s true for soap in the shower too, so it doesn’t offset anything.
Additionally, being immersed in water for more than 15 minutes can start to have a (paradoxically) dehydrating effect on the skin; this happens not only because of losing skin oils to the water, but also because of osmosis, the resultant mild edema, the body’s homeostatic response to the mild edema, then getting out the bath and drying, leaving one with the response having now just caused dehydrated skin.
Baths do have some health advantages! And these come primarily from the mental health benefits of relaxation in warm water and/or generally pampering oneself. Additionally, some bath oils or bath salts can be beneficial in a way that couldn’t be administered the same way in the shower.
Best of both worlds?
In some parts of the world (Thailand and Turkey come to mind; doubtlessly there are many others) there are traditions of first taking a shower to get clean, and then taking a bath for the rest of the bathing experience. As a bonus, the bathing experience is then all the more pleasant for the water remaining just as clean as it was to start with.
However, if you do have to pick one (and for the purpose of our “This or That” exercise, we do), then it’s the shower, hands-down.
Want to read more?
You might want to also take into account how it’s still possible to have too much of a good thing:
Enjoy!
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Healthy Harissa Falafel Patties
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You can make these as regular falafel balls if you prefer, but patties are quicker and easier to cook, and are great for popping in a pitta.
You will need
For the falafels:
- 1 can chickpeas, drained, keep the chickpea water (aquafaba)
- 1 red onion, roughly chopped
- 2 tbsp chickpea flour (also called gram flour or garbanzo bean flour)
- 1 bunch parsley
- 1 tbsp harissa paste
- Extra virgin olive oil for frying
For the harissa sauce:
- ½ cup crème fraîche or plant-based equivalent (you can use our Plant-Based Healthy Cream Cheese recipe and add the juice of 1 lemon)*
- 1 tbsp harissa paste (or adjust this quantity per your heat preference)
*if doing this, rather than waste the zest of the lemon, you can add the zest to the falafels if you like, but it’s by no means necessary, just an option
For serving:
- Wholegrain pitta or other flatbread (you can use our Healthy Homemade Flatbreads recipe)
- Salad (your preference; we recommend some salad leaves, sliced tomato, sliced cucumber, maybe some sliced onion, that sort of thing)
Method
(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)
1) Blend the chickpeas, 1 oz of the aquafaba, the onion, the parsley, and the harissa paste, until smooth. Then add in the chickpea flour until you get a thick batter. If you overdo it with the chickpea flour, add a little more of the aquafaba to equalize. Refrigerate the mixture for at least 30 minutes.
2) Heat some oil in a skillet, and spoon the falafel mixture into the pan to make the patties, cooking on both sides (you can use a spatula to gently turn them), and set them aside.
3) Mix the harissa sauce ingredients in a small bowl.
4) Assemble; best served warm, but enjoy it however you like!
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
For those interested in more of what we have going on today:
- Why You’re Probably Not Getting Enough Fiber (And How To Fix It)
- Capsaicin For Weight Loss And Against Inflammation
- Hero Homemade Hummus ← another great option
Take care!
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How To Reduce The Harm Of Festive Drinking (Without Abstaining)
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How To Reduce The Harm Of Festive Drinking
Not drinking alcohol is—of course—the best way to avoid the harmful effects of alcohol. However, not everyone wants to abstain, especially at this time of year, so today we’re going to be focusing on harm reduction without abstinence.
If you do want to quit (or even reduce) drinking, you might like our previous article about that:
For everyone else, let’s press on with harm reduction:
Before You Drink
A common (reasonable, but often unhelpful) advice is “set yourself a limit”. The problem with this is that when we’re sober, “I will drink no more than n drinks” is easy. After the first drink, we start to feel differently about it.
So: delay your first drink of the day for as long as possible
That’s it, that’s the tip. The later you start drinking, not only will you likely drink less, but also, your liver will have had longer to finish processing whatever you drank last night, so it’s coming at the new drink(s) fresh.
On that note…
Watch your meds! Often, especially if we are taking medications that also tax our liver (acetaminophen / paracetamol / Tylenol is a fine example of this), we are at risk of having a bit of a build-up, like an office printer that still chewing on the last job while you’re trying to print the next.
Additionally: do indeed eat before you drink.
While You Drink
Do your best to drink slowly. While this can hit the same kind of problem as the “set yourself a limit” idea, in that once you start drinking you forget to drink slowly, it’s something to try for.
If your main reason for drinking is the social aspect, then merely having a drink in your hand is generally sufficient. You don’t need to be keeping pace with anyone.
It is further good to alternate your drinks with water. As in, between each alcoholic drink, have a glass of water. This helps in several ways:
- Hydrates you, which is good for your body’s recovery abilities
- Halves the amount of time you spend drinking
- Makes you less thirsty; it’s easy to think “I’m thirsty” and reach for an alcoholic drink that won’t actually help. So, it may slow down your drinking for that reason, too.
At the dinner table especially, it’s very reasonable to have two glasses, one filled with water. Nobody will be paying attention to which glass you drink from more often.
After You Drink
Even if you are not drunk, assume that you are.
Anything you wouldn’t let a drunk person in your care do, don’t do. Now is not the time to drive, have a shower, or do anything you wouldn’t let a child do in the kitchen.
Hospital Emergency Rooms, every year around this time, get filled up with people who thought they were fine and then had some accident.
The biggest risks from alcohol are:
- Accidents
- Heart attacks
- Things actually popularly associated with alcohol, e.g. alcohol poisoning etc
So, avoiding accidents is as important as, if not more important than, avoiding damage to your liver.
Drink some water, and eat something.
Fruit is great, as it restocks you on vitamins, minerals, and water, while being very easy to digest.
Go to bed.
There is a limit to how much trouble you can get into there. Sleep it off.
In the morning, do not do “hair of the dog”; drinking alcohol will temporarily alleviate a hangover, but only because it kicks your liver back into an earlier stage of processing the alcohol—it just prolongs the inevitable.
Have a good breakfast, instead. Remember, fruit is your friend (as explained above).
Want to know more?
Here’s a great service with a lot of further links to a lot more resources:
With You | How to safely detox from alcohol at home
Take care!
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Can We Side-Step Age-Related Alienation?
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When The World Moves Without Us…
We’ve written before about how reduced social engagement can strike people of all ages, and what can be done about it:
How To Beat Loneliness & Isolation
…but today we’re going to talk more about a specific aspect of it, namely, the alienation that can come with old age—and other life transitions too, but getting older is something that (unless accident or incident befall us first) all of us will definitely do.
What’s the difference?
Loneliness is a status, alienation is more of a process. It can be the alienation in the sense of an implicit “you don’t belong here” message from the world that’s geared around the average person and thus alienates those who are not that (a lack of accessibility to people with disabilities can be an important and very active example of this), and it can also be an alienation from what we’ve previously considered our “niche” in the world—the loss of purpose many people feel upon retirement fits this bill. It can even be a more generalized alienation from our younger selves; it’s easy to have a self-image that doesn’t match one’s current reality, for instance.
Read more: Estranged by Time: Alienation in the Aging Process
So, how to “un-alienate”?
To “un-alienate”, that is to say, to integrate/reintegrate, can be hard. Some things may even be outright impossible, but most will not be!
Consider how, for example, former athletes become coaches—or for that matter, how former party-goers might become party-hosts (even if the kind of “party” might change with time, give or take the pace at which we like to live our lives).
What’s important is that we take what matters the most to us, and examine how we can realistically still engage with that thing.
This is different from trying to hold on grimly to something that’s no longer our speed.
Letting go of the only thing we’ve known will always be scary; sometimes it’s for the best, and sometimes what we really need is just more of a pivot, like the examples above. The crux lies in knowing which:
- Is our relationship with the thing (whatever it may be) still working for us, or is it just bringing strife now?
- If it’s not working for us, is it because of a specific aspect that could be side-stepped while keeping the rest?
- If we’re going to drop that thing entirely (or be dropped by it, which, while cruel, also happens in life), then where are we going to land?
This latter is one where foresight is a gift, because if we bury our heads in the sand we’re going to land wherever we’re dropped, whereas if we acknowledge the process, we can make a strategic move and land on our feet.
Here’s a good pop-science article about this—it’s aimed at people around retirement age, but honestly the advice is relevant for people of all ages, and facing all manner of life transitions, e.g. career transitions (of which retirement is of course the career transition to end all career transitions), relationship transitions (including B/B/B/B: births, betrothals/break-ups, and bereavements) health transitions (usually: life-changing illnesses and/or disabilities—which again, happens to most of us if something doesn’t get us first), etc. So with all that in mind, this becomes more of a “how to reassess your life at those times when it needs reassessing”:
How to Reassess Your Life in Retirement
But that doesn’t mean that letting go is always necessary
Sometimes, the opposite! Sometimes, the age-old advice to “lean in” really is all the situation calls for, which means:
- Be ready to say “yes” to things, and if nobody’s asking, be ready to “hey, do you wanna…?” and take a “build it and they will come” approach. This includes with people of different ages, too! Intergenerational friendships can be very rewarding for all concerned, if done right. Communities that span age-ranges can be great for this—they might be about special interests (this writer has friends ranging through four generations from playing chess, for instance), they could be religious communities if we be religious, LGBT groups if that fits for us, even mutual support groups such as for specific disabilities or chronic illness if we have such—notice how the very things that might isolate us can also bring us together!
- Be open-minded to new experiences; it’s easy to get stuck in a rut of “I’ve never done that” and mistake that self-assessment for an uncritical assumption of “I’m not the kind of person who does that”. Sometimes, you really won’t be! But at least think about it and entertain the possibility, before dismissing it out of hand. And, here’s a life tip: it can be really good to (within the realms of safety, and one’s personal moral principles, of course) take an approach of “try anything once”. Even if we’re almost certain we won’t like it, and even if we then turn out to indeed not like it, it can be a refreshing experience—and now we can say “Yep, tried that, not doing that again” from a position of informed knowledge. That’s the only way we get to look back on a richly lived life of broad experiences, after all, and it is never too late for such.
- Be comfortable prioritizing quality over quantity. This goes for friends, it goes for activities, it goes for experiences. The topic of “what’s the best number of friends to have?” has been a matter of discussion since at least ancient Greek times (Plato and Aristotle examined this extensively), but whatever number we might arrive at, it’s clear that quality is the critical factor, and quantity after that is just a matter of optimizing.
In short: make sure you’re investing—in your relationships, in your areas of interest, in your community (whatever that may mean for you personally), and most of all, and never forget this: in yourself.
Take care!
Don’t Forget…
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