The Seven-Day Sleep Prescription – by Dr. Aric Prather

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You probably already know about sleep hygiene. So, what does this book have to offer?

Dr. Aric Prather offers seven days’ worth of adjustments, practices to take up, from when you get up in the morning to when you lay your head down at night.

Some you’ll surely be familiar with, like avoiding blue light and social media at night.

Others, you might not be familiar with, like scheduling 15 minutes for worrying in the daytime. The rationale for this one is that when you find yourself inclined to worry at a time that will keep you awake, you’ll know that you can put off such thoughts to your scheduled “worrying time”. That they’ll be addressed then, and that you can thus sleep soundly meanwhile.

Where the book really comes into its own is in such things as discussing how to not just manage sleep debt, but how to actually use it in your favour.

Nor does Dr. Prather shy away from the truths of our world… That the world these days is not built for us to sleep well. That there are so many other priorities; to get our work done, to succeed and achieve, to pay bills, to support our kids and partners. That so many of these things make plenty of sense in the moment, but catch up with us eventually.

Bottom line: what this book aims to give is a genuinely sustainable approach to sleeping—controlling what we can, and working with what we can’t. If you’d like to have a better relationship with sleep, this book is an excellent choice.

Click here to check out the Seven-Day Sleep Prescription, and improve yours!

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Recommended

  • The Worry Trick – by Dr. David Carbonell
  • On This Bright Day – by Dr. Susan Thompson
    This book tackles emotional eating and unhealthy choices, offering daily reminders for mindful eating. Perfect for those who enjoy daily reader books.

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  • 14 Powerful Strategies To Prevent Dementia

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    Dementia risk starts climbing very steeply after the age of 65, but it’s not entirely predetermined. Dr. Brad Stanfield, a primary care physician, has insights:

    The strategies

    We’ll not keep them a mystery; they are:

    • Cognitive stimulation: which means genuinely challenging mental activities using a variety of mental faculties. This will usually mean that anything that is just “same old, same old” all the time will stop giving benefits after a short while once it becomes rote, and you’ll need something harder and/or different.
    • Hearing health: being unable to participate in conversations increases dementia risk; hearing aids can help.
    • Eyesight health: similar to the above; regular eye tests are good, and the use of glasses where appropriate.
    • Depression management: midlife depression is linked to later life dementia, likely in large part due to social isolation and a lack of stimulation, but either way, treating depression earlier reduces later dementia risk.
    • Exercising regularly: what’s good for the heart is good for the brain; the brain is a hungry organ and the blood is what feeds it (and removes things that shouldn’t be there)
    • Head injury avoidance: even mild head injuries can cause problems down the road. Protecting one’s head in sports, and even while casually cycling, is important.
    • Smoking cessation: just don’t smoke; if you smoke, make it a top priority to quit unless you are given direct strong medical advice to the contrary (there are cases, few and far between, whereby quitting smoking genuinely needs to be deferred until after something else is dealt with first, but they are a lot rarer than a lot of people who are simply afraid of quitting would like to believe)
    • Cholesterol management: again, healthy blood means a healthy brain, and that goes for triglycerides too.
    • Weight management: obesity, especially waist to hip ratio (indicating visceral abdominal fat specifically) is associated with many woes, including dementia.
    • Diabetes management: once again, healthy blood means a healthy brain, and that goes for blood sugar management too.
    • Blood pressure management: guess what, healthy blood still means a healthy brain, and that goes for blood pressure too.
    • Alcohol reduction/cessation: alcohol is bad for pretty much everything, and for most people who drink, quitting is probably the top thing to do after quitting smoking.
    • Social engagement: while we all may have our different preferences on a scale of introversion to extroversion, we are fundamentally a social species and thrive best with social contact, even if it’s just a few people.
    • Air pollution reduction: avoiding pollutants, and filtering the air we breathe where pollutants are otherwise unavoidable, makes a measurable difference to brain health outcomes.

    For more information on all of these (except the last two, which really he only mentions in passing), enjoy:

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    You might also like to read:

    How To Reduce Your Alzheimer’s Risk ← our own main feature on the topic

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  • Feta Cheese vs Mozzarella – Which is Healthier?

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    Our Verdict

    When comparing feta to mozzarella, we picked the mozzarella.

    Why?

    There are possible arguments for both, but there are a couple of factors that we think tip the balance.

    In terms of macronutrients, feta has more fat, of which, more saturated fat, and more cholesterol. Meanwhile, mozzarella has about twice the protein, which is substantial for a cheese. So this section’s a fair win for mozzarella.

    In the category of vitamins, however, feta wins with more of vitamins B1, B2, B3, B6, B9, B12, D, & E. In contrast, mozzarella boasts only a little more vitamin A and choline. An easy win for feta in this section.

    When it comes to minerals, the matter is decided, we say. Mozzarella has more calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, and potassium, while feta has more copper, iron, and (which counts against it) sodium. A win for mozzarella.

    About that sodium… A cup of mozzarella contains about 3% of the RDA of sodium, while a cup of feta contains about 120% of the RDA of sodium. You see the problem? So, while mozzarella was already winning based on adding up the previous categories, the sodium content alone is a reason to choose mozzarella for your salad rather than feta.

    That settles it, but just before we close, we’ll mention that they do both have great gut-healthy properties, containing healthy probiotics.

    In short: if it weren’t for the difference in sodium content, this would be a narrow win for mozzarella. As it is, however, it’s a clear win.

    Want to learn more?

    You might like to read:

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  • The Longevity Code – by Dr. Kris Verburgh

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    Notwithstanding the subtitle claim of “secrets from the leading edge of science”, we’ll note up front that this book was published in 2015, and what was new then, isn’t now. However, what was new then is still important now, so we think the book merits attention just the same.

    The book examines why certain creatures (like humans) seem programmed to grow old and die, and why others (few others, but enough to make a list) either simply do not age, or else do age but can become younger when they hit a certain point. If this is the first you’re hearing of biologically immortal creatures, we’ll mention: they can and do die, just, their cause of death is usually by being eaten. But on a cellular and structural level, they don’t age. They grow to maturity and then just stay that way until one day they get eaten (or fall to some similar external circumstance).

    Tackling the question of “why do we age?” (not as a philosophical question, but rather as an engineering question) is important to tackle the critical question of “…and could we not?”, and that’s what much of this book is about.

    The real reason that compared to other mammals, humans live (for example) slightly longer than bats but not as long as naked mole rats, comes down mostly to genes, which makes it sound like things are set in stone, but rather, even without outright gene-editing technologies like CRISPR, gene expression is often quite modifiable, and often modifiable not just by drugs, but also by supplements, and indeed by nutraceuticals, which means also by diet, plus diet-adjacent things like fasting.

    While this is mostly an explanatory book rather than a how-to, there’s enough to make practical use of, and even a recipes section.

    The style is very gripping pop-science—or at least, if you’re anything like this reviewer, you’ll find it a page-turner. While being light on citations as we go (not like some authors who will mark several citations per page, or in the extreme, for every declarative sentence made), there is a reassuring bibliography at the back.

    Bottom line: if you’re interested in the “under the hood” of aging, then you will love this book.

    Click here to check out The Longevity Code, and slow down the aging process to live well for longer!

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Related Posts

  • The Worry Trick – by Dr. David Carbonell
  • Older Men’s Connections Often Wither When They’re on Their Own

    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.

    At age 66, South Carolina physician Paul Rousseau decided to retire after tending for decades to the suffering of people who were seriously ill or dying. It was a difficult and emotionally fraught transition.

    “I didn’t know what I was going to do, where I was going to go,” he told me, describing a period of crisis that began in 2017.

    Seeking a change of venue, Rousseau moved to the mountains of North Carolina, the start of an extended period of wandering. Soon, a sense of emptiness enveloped him. He had no friends or hobbies — his work as a doctor had been all-consuming. Former colleagues didn’t get in touch, nor did he reach out.

    His wife had passed away after a painful illness a decade earlier. Rousseau was estranged from one adult daughter and in only occasional contact with another. His isolation mounted as his three dogs, his most reliable companions, died.

    Rousseau was completely alone — without friends, family, or a professional identity — and overcome by a sense of loss.

    “I was a somewhat distinguished physician with a 60-page resume,” Rousseau, now 73, wrote in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society in May. “Now, I’m ‘no one,’ a retired, forgotten old man who dithers away the days.”

    In some ways, older men living alone are disadvantaged compared with older women in similar circumstances. Research shows that men tend to have fewer friends than women and be less inclined to make new friends. Often, they’re reluctant to ask for help.

    “Men have a harder time being connected and reaching out,” said Robert Waldinger, a psychiatrist who directs the Harvard Study of Adult Development, which has traced the arc of hundreds of men’s lives over a span of more than eight decades. The men in the study who fared the worst, Waldinger said, “didn’t have friendships and things they were interested in — and couldn’t find them.” He recommends that men invest in their “social fitness” in addition to their physical fitness to ensure they have satisfying social interactions.

    Slightly more than 1 in every 5 men ages 65 to 74 live alone, according to 2022 Census Bureau data. That rises to nearly 1 in 4 for those 75 or older. Nearly 40% of these men are divorced, 31% are widowed, and 21% never married.

    That’s a significant change from 2000, when only 1 in 6 older men lived by themselves. Longer life spans for men and rising divorce rates are contributing to the trend. It’s difficult to find information about this group — which is dwarfed by the number of women who live alone — because it hasn’t been studied in depth. But psychologists and psychiatrists say these older men can be quite vulnerable.

    When men are widowed, their health and well-being tend to decline more than women’s.

    “Older men have a tendency to ruminate, to get into our heads with worries and fears and to feel more lonely and isolated,” said Jed Diamond, 80, a therapist and the author of “Surviving Male Menopause” and “The Irritable Male Syndrome.”

    Add in the decline of civic institutions where men used to congregate — think of the Elks or the Shriners — and older men’s reduced ability to participate in athletic activities, and the result is a lack of stimulation and the loss of a sense of belonging.

    Depression can ensue, fueling excessive alcohol use, accidents, or, in the most extreme cases, suicide. Of all age groups in the United States, men over age 75 have the highest suicide rate, by far.

    For this column, I spoke at length to several older men who live alone. All but two (who’d been divorced) were widowed. Their experiences don’t represent all men who live alone. But still, they’re revealing.

    The first person I called was Art Koff, 88, of Chicago, a longtime marketing executive I’d known for several years. When I reached out in January, I learned that Koff’s wife, Norma, had died the year before, leaving him hobbled by grief. Uninterested in eating and beset by unremitting loneliness, Koff lost 45 pounds.

    “I’ve had a long and wonderful life, and I have lots of family and lots of friends who are terrific,” Koff told me. But now, he said, “nothing is of interest to me any longer.”

    “I’m not happy living this life,” he said.

    Nine days later, I learned that Koff had died. His nephew, Alexander Koff, said he had passed out and was gone within a day. The death certificate cited “end stage protein calorie malnutrition” as the cause.

    The transition from being coupled to being single can be profoundly disorienting for older men. Lodovico Balducci, 80, was married to his wife, Claudia, for 52 years before she died in October 2023. Balducci, a renowned physician known as the “patriarch of geriatric oncology,” wrote about his emotional reaction in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, likening Claudia’s death to an “amputation.”

    “I find myself talking to her all the time, most of the time in my head,” Balducci told me in a phone conversation. When I asked him whom he confides in, he admitted, “Maybe I don’t have any close friends.”

    Disoriented and disorganized since Claudia died, he said his “anxiety has exploded.”

    We spoke in late February. Two weeks later, Balducci moved from Tampa to New Orleans, to be near his son and daughter-in-law and their two teenagers.

    “I am planning to help as much as possible with my grandchildren,” he said. “Life has to go on.”

    Verne Ostrander, a carpenter in the small town of Willits, California, about 140 miles north of San Francisco, was reflective when I spoke with him, also in late February. His second wife, Cindy Morninglight, died four years ago after a long battle with cancer.

    “Here I am, almost 80 years old — alone,” Ostrander said. “Who would have guessed?”

    When Ostrander isn’t painting watercolors, composing music, or playing guitar, “I fall into this lonely state, and I cry quite a bit,” he told me. “I don’t ignore those feelings. I let myself feel them. It’s like therapy.”

    Ostrander has lived in Willits for nearly 50 years and belongs to a men’s group and a couples’ group that’s been meeting for 20 years. He’s in remarkably good health and in close touch with his three adult children, who live within easy driving distance.

    “The hard part of living alone is missing Cindy,” he told me. “The good part is the freedom to do whatever I want. My goal is to live another 20 to 30 years and become a better artist and get to know my kids when they get older.”

    The Rev. Johnny Walker, 76, lives in a low-income apartment building in a financially challenged neighborhood on Chicago’s West Side. Twice divorced, he’s been on his own for five years. He, too, has close family connections. At least one of his several children and grandchildren checks in on him every day.

    Walker says he had a life-changing religious conversion in 1993. Since then, he has depended on his faith and his church for a sense of meaning and community.

    “It’s not hard being alone,” Walker said when I asked whether he was lonely. “I accept Christ in my life, and he said that he would never leave us or forsake us. When I wake up in the morning, that’s a new blessing. I just thank God that he has brought me this far.”

    Waldinger recommended that men “make an effort every day to be in touch with people. Find what you love — golf, gardening, birdwatching, pickleball, working on a political campaign — and pursue it,” he said. “Put yourself in a situation where you’re going to see the same people over and over again. Because that’s the most natural way conversations get struck up and friendships start to develop.”

    Rousseau, the retired South Carolina doctor, said he doesn’t think about the future much. After feeling lost for several years, he moved across the country to Jackson, Wyoming, in the summer of 2023. He embraced solitude, choosing a remarkably isolated spot to live — a 150-square-foot cabin with no running water and no bathroom, surrounded by 25,000 undeveloped acres of public and privately owned land.

    “Yes, I’m still lonely, but the nature and the beauty here totally changed me and focused me on what’s really important,” he told me, describing a feeling of redemption in his solitude.

    Rousseau realizes that the death of his parents and a very close friend in his childhood left him with a sense of loss that he kept at bay for most of his life. Now, he said, rather than denying his vulnerability, he’s trying to live with it. “There’s only so long you can put off dealing with all the things you’re trying to escape from.”

    It’s not the life he envisioned, but it’s one that fits him, Rousseau said. He stays busy with volunteer activities — cleaning tanks and running tours at Jackson’s fish hatchery, serving as a part-time park ranger, and maintaining trails in nearby national forests. Those activities put him in touch with other people, mostly strangers, only intermittently.

    What will happen to him when this way of living is no longer possible?

    “I wish I had an answer, but I don’t,” Rousseau said. “I don’t see my daughters taking care of me. As far as someone else, I don’t think there’s anyone else who’s going to help me.”

    We’re eager to hear from readers about questions you’d like answered, problems you’ve been having with your care, and advice you need in dealing with the health care system. Visit http://kffhealthnews.org/columnists to submit your requests or tips.

    KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

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    Subscribe to KFF Health News’ free Morning Briefing.

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  • Doctors From 15 Specialties Tell The Worst Common Mistakes People Make

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    Whatever your professional background, you probably know many things about it that are very obvious to you, but that most people don’t know. So it is for doctors too; here are the things that doctors from 15 specialties would never do, and thus advise people against doing:

    Better safe than sorry

    We’ll leap straight into it:

    1. General Surgery: avoid rushing into musculoskeletal or spinal surgery unless absolutely necessary; conservative treatments like physical therapy are often effective.
    2. Interventional Gastroenterology: avoid long-term, around-the-clock use of anti-inflammatory pain medications (e.g. Ibuprofen and friends) to prevent stomach ulcers.
    3. Podiatry: never place feet on the car dashboard due to the risk of severe injuries from airbag deployment.
    4. Rheumatology: avoid daily use of high heels to prevent joint and foot deformities, bunions, and pain.
    5. Otorhinolaryngology: never smoke, as it can lead to severe consequences like laryngectomy and other life-altering conditions.
    6. Pediatrics: avoid dangerous activities for children, such as swimming alone, eating choking hazards, biking or skiing without a helmet, or consuming raw meat/fish/dairy. Also, be cautious with firearms in homes.
    7. Orthopedic Surgery: avoid riding motorcycles and handling fireworks due to high risks of accidents.
    8. Emergency Medicine: never drink and drive or ride ATVs. Always use eye protection during activities like woodworking.
    9. Ophthalmology: always wear safety glasses during activities like grinding metal or woodworking. Sunglasses are essential to prevent UV damage even on cloudy days.
    10. Urology: avoid shaving pubic hair if diabetic or immunocompromised to prevent severe infections like Fournier’s gangrene.
    11. Gastroenterology: do not use gut health supplements as they lack proven efficacy and are often a waste of money*
    12. Plastic Surgery: avoid contour threads (barbed sutures for facial rejuvenation) and butt implants due to risks like infection, complications, and poor outcomes.
    13. Psychiatry: never take recreational drugs from unknown sources to avoid accidental overdoses, especially from substances laced with fentanyl. Carry Narcan for emergencies.
    14. Dermatology: use sunscreen daily to prevent skin cancer, aging, pigmentation issues, and texture problems caused by UV exposure.
    15. Cardiology: avoid the carnivore diet as it increases heart disease risks due to its negligible fiber content and high saturated fat intake.

    *We had an article about this a while back; part of the problem is that taking probiotics without prebiotics can mean your new bacteria just die in about 20 minutes, which is their approximate lifespan in which to multiply or else die out. Similar problems arise if taking them with sugar that feeds their competitors instead. See: Stop Sabotaging Your Gut!

    For more on each of these, in the words of the respective doctors, enjoy:

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    Want to learn more?

    You might also like to read:

    Health Hacks from 20 Doctors

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  • The Immunostimulant Superfood – 

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    First, what this book is not: a “detox cleanse” book of the kind that claims you can flush out the autism if you just eat enough celery.

    What it rather is: an overview brain chemistry, gut microbiota, and the very many other bodily systems that interact with these “two brains”.

    She also does some mythbusting of popular misconceptions (for example with regard to tryptophan), and explains with good science just what exactly such substances as gluten and casein can and can’t do.

    The format is less of a textbook and more a multipart (i.e., chapter-by-chapter) lecture, in pop-science style though, making it very readable. There are a lot of practical advices too, and options to look up foods by effect, and what to eat for/against assorted mental states.

    Bottom line: anyone who eats food is, effectively, drugging themselves in one fashion or another—so you might as well make a conscious choice about how to do so.

    Click here to check out This Is Your Brain On Food, and choose what kind of day you have!

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