The Seven Sins Of Memory – by Dr. Daniel Schacter

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As we get older, we often become more forgetful—despite remembering many things clearly from decades past. Why?

Dr. Daniel Shacter takes us on a tour of the brain, and also through evolution, to show how memory is not just one thing, but many. And furthermore, it’s not just our vast memory that’s an evolutionary adaptation, but also, our capacity to forget.

He does also discusses disease that affect memory, including Alzheimer’s, and explores the biological aspects of memory too.

The “seven sins” of the title are seven ways our (undiseased, regular) memory “lets us down”, and why, and how that actually benefits us as individuals and as a species, and/but also how we can modify that if we so choose.

The book’s main strength is in how it separates—or bids us separate for ourselves—what is important to us and our lives and what is not. How and why memory and information processing are often at odds with each other (and what that means for us). And, on a practical note, how we can tip the scales for or against certain kinds of memory.

Bottom line: if you’d like to better understand human memory in all its glorious paradoxes, and put into place practical measures to make it work for you the way you want, this is a fine book for you.

Click here to check out The Seven Sins of Memory, and get managing yours!

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Recommended

  • Just One Heart – by Dr. Jonathan Fisher
  • Anchovies vs Sardines – Which is Healthier?
    Sardines trump anchovies with higher omega-3, vitamins A, B1, B6, B12, E, K, and essential minerals like calcium and selenium.

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  • 7-Minute Face Fitness For Lymphatic Drainage & Youthful Jawline

    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.

    Valeriia Veksler is a registered nurse with a background in cosmetic medicine. She’s been practicing for 7 years, and on the strength of that, is going to teach us how to give our face some love for 7 minutes:

    The routine, step by step

    Preparation: clean your face and apply your usual moisturizer. Breathe deeply: Inhale through the nose, exhale to release tension.

    Neck massage: use fingertips in circular motion from the bottom of the neck to the hairline and back for 30 seconds. This helps promote blood flow to the face.

    Sternocleidomastoid massage: use knuckles to massage in circles from the sternal area up to the jawline and down to the collarbone for 30 seconds. Keep posture straight, shoulders down, and relax muscles.

    Collarbone pressure: apply and release pressure with fingertips above the collarbones for 30 seconds. This stimulates lymphatic flow and helps reduce puffiness.

    Under-chin massage: use knuckles to massage side-to-side under the chin for 30 seconds. Relax the under-chin area and promote lymphatic drainage.

    Jawline massage: with knuckles, massage from the chin towards the ears in circular motion for 30 seconds. Relax the jaw.

    Nasolabial fold and nose massage: place index fingers near nostrils and move mouth in a “O” shape, then massage around the nostrils and up the nose for 30 seconds.

    Smile line lift: press palms on the smile lines and slide hands up towards the temples for 30 seconds. This helps lift the face and sculpt cheekbones.

    Under-eye massage: use index fingers in a hook shape, massaging under the eyes along the bone structure for 30 seconds. This promotes blood flow and lymphatic drainage.

    Temple lift: use fingertips to lift the area near the left temple for 30 seconds, then assist with the opposite hand to lift further. Repeat on the other side. This reduces crow’s feet and lifts the corners of the eyes.

    Forehead lift: place hands on the forehead, lock fingers, and gently elevate the skin upwards. Glide fingers towards the hairline for 30 seconds. This promotes blood flow and smooths the forehead.

    Relax 11 Lines: place fingers at the center of the forehead, gently press into the tissue, and let them glide away from each other towards the eyebrows for 30 seconds.

    Bonus:

    • Ensure good posture throughout.
    • Relax, stay mindful, and breathe deeply during the exercises.
    • Feel the warmth and energy from improved circulation, after the routine.

    For more on all of this plus a visual demonstration of everything, enjoy:

    Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!

    Want to learn more?

    You might also like to read:

    Top 10 Foods That Promote Lymphatic Drainage and Lymph Flow

    Take care!

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  • Why Adult ADHD Often Leads To Anxiety & Depression

    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.

    ADHD’s Knock-On Effects On Mental Health

    We’ve written before about ADHD in adult life, often late-diagnosed because it’s not quite what people think it is:

    ADHD… As An Adult?

    In women in particular, it can get missed and/or misdiagnosed:

    Miss Diagnosis: Anxiety, ADHD, & Women

    …but what we’re really here to talk about today is:

    It’s the comorbidities that get you

    When it comes to physical health conditions:

    • if you have one serious condition, it will (usually) be taken seriously
    • if you have two, they will still be taken seriously, but people (friends and family members, as well as yes, medical professionals) will start to back off, as it starts to get too complicated for comfort
    • if you have three, people will think you are making at least one of them up for attention now
    • if you have more than three, you are considered a hypochondriac and pathological liar

    Yet, the reality is: having one serious condition increases your chances of having others, and this chance-increasing feature compounds with each extra condition.

    Illustrative example: you have fibromyalgia (ouch) which makes it difficult for you to exercise much, shop around when grocery shopping, and do much cooking at home. You do your best, but your diet slips and it’s hard to care when you just want the pain to stop; you put on some weight, and get diagnosed with metabolic syndrome, which in time becomes diabetes with high cardiovascular risk factors. Your diabetes is immunocompromising; you get COVID and find it’s now Long COVID, which brings about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, when you barely had the spoons to function in the first place. At this point you’ve lost count of conditions and are just trying to get through the day.

    If this is you, by the way, we hope at least something in the following might ease things for you a bit:

    It’s the same for mental health

    In the case of ADHD as a common starting point (because it’s quite common, may or may not be diagnosed until later in life, and doesn’t require any external cause to appear), it is very common that it will lead to anxiety and/or depression, to the point that it’s perhaps more common to also have one or more of them than not, if you have ADHD.

    (Of course, anxiety and/or depression can both pop up for completely unrelated reasons too, and those reasons may be physiological, environmental, or a combination of the above).

    Why?

    Because all the good advice that goes for good mental health (and/or life in general), gets harder to actuate when one had ADHD.

    • “Strong habits are the core of a good life”, but good luck with that if your brain doesn’t register dopamine in the same way as most people’s do, making intentional habit-forming harder on a physiological level.
    • “Plan things carefully and stick to the plan”, but good luck with that if you are neurologically impeded from forming plans.
    • “Just do it”, but oops you have the tendency-to-overcommitment disorder and now you are seriously overwhelmed with all the things you tried to do, when each of them alone were already going to be a challenge.

    Overwhelm and breakdown are almost inevitable.

    And when they happen, chances are you will alienate people, and/or simply alienate yourself. You will hide away, you will avoid inflicting yourself on others, you will brood alone in frustration—or distract yourself with something mind-numbing.

    Before you know it, you’re too anxious to try to do things with other people or generally show your face to the world (because how will they react, and won’t you just mess things up anyway?), and/or too depressed to leave your depression-lair (because maybe if you keep playing Kingdom Vegetables 2, you can find a crumb of dopamine somewhere).

    What to do about it

    How to tackle the many-headed beast? By the heads! With your eyes open. Recognize and acknowledge each of the heads; you can’t beat those heads by sticking your own in the sand.

    Also, get help. Those words are often used to mean therapy, but in this case we mean, any help. Enlist your partner or close friend as your support in your mental health journey. Enlist a cleaner as your support in taking that one thing off your plate, if that’s an option and a relevant thing for you. Set low but meaningful goals for deciding what constitutes “good enough” for each life area. Decide in advance what you can safely half-ass, and what things in life truly require your whole ass.

    Here’s a good starting point for that kind of thing:

    When You Know What You “Should” Do (But Knowing Isn’t The Problem)

    And this is an excellent way to “get the ball rolling” if you’re already in a bit of a prison of your own making:

    Behavioral Activation Against Depression & Anxiety

    If things are already bad, then you might also consider:

    And if things are truly at the worst they can possibly be, then:

    How To Stay Alive (When You Really Don’t Want To)

    Take care!

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  • HRT: Bioidentical vs Animal

    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.

    HRT: A Tale Of Two Approaches

    In yesterday’s newsletter, we asked you for your assessment of menopausal hormone replacement therapy (HRT).

    • A little over a third said “It can be medically beneficial, but has some minor drawbacks”
    • A little under a third said “It helps, but at the cost of increased cancer risk; not worth it”
    • Almost as many said “It’s a wondrous cure-all that makes you happier, healthier, and smell nice too”
    • Four said “It is a dangerous scam and a sham; “au naturel” is the way to go”

    So what does the science say?

    Which HRT?

    One subscriber who voted for “It’s a wondrous cure-all that makes you healthier, happier, and smell nice too” wrote to add:

    ❝My answer is based on biodentical hormone replacement therapy. Your survey did not specify.❞

    And that’s an important distinction! We did indeed mean bioidentical HRT, because, being completely honest here, this European writer had no idea that Premarin etc were still in such wide circulation in the US.

    So to quickly clear up any confusion:

    • Bioidentical hormones: these are (as the name suggests) identical on a molecular level to the kind produced by humans.
    • Conjugated Equine Estrogens: such as Premarin, come from animals. Indeed, the name “Premarin” comes from “pregnant mare urine”, the substance used to make it.

    There are also hormone analogs, such as medroxyprogesterone acetate, which is a progestin and not the same thing as progesterone. Hormone analogs such as the aforementioned MPA are again, a predominantly-American thing—though they did test it first in third-world countries, after testing it on animals and finding it gave them various kinds of cancer (breast, cervical, ovarian, uterine).

    A quick jumping-off point if you’re interested in that:

    Depot medroxyprogesterone acetate and the risk of breast and gynecologic cancer

    this is about its use as a contraceptive (so, much lower doses needed), but it is the same thing sometimes given in the US as part of menopausal HRT. You will note that the date on that research is 1996; DMPA is not exactly cutting-edge and was first widely used in the 1950s.

    Similarly, CEEs (like Premarin) have been used since the 1930s, while estradiol (bioidentical estrogen) has been in use since the 1970s.

    In short: we recommend being wary of those older kinds and mostly won’t be talking about them here.

    Bioidentical hormones are safer: True or False?

    True! This is an open-and-shut case:

    ❝Physiological data and clinical outcomes demonstrate that bioidentical hormones are associated with lower risks, including the risk of breast cancer and cardiovascular disease, and are more efficacious than their synthetic and animal-derived counterparts.

    Until evidence is found to the contrary, bioidentical hormones remain the preferred method of HRT. ❞

    Further research since that review has further backed up its findings.

    Source: Are Bioidentical Hormones Safer or More Efficacious than Other Commonly Used Versions in HRT?

    So simply, if you’re going on HRT (estrogen and/or progesterone), you might want to check it’s the bioidentical kind.

    HRT can increase the risk of breast cancer: True or False?

    Contingently True, but for most people, there is no significant increase in risk.

    First: again, we’re talking bioidentical hormones, and in this case, estradiol. Older animal-derived attempts had much higher risks with much lesser efficaciousness.

    There have been so many studies on this (alas, none that have been publicised enough to undo the bad PR in the wake of old-fashioned HRT from before the 70s), but here’s a systematic review that highlights some very important things:

    ❝Estradiol-only therapy carries no risk for breast cancer, while the breast cancer risk varies according to the type of progestogen.

    Estradiol therapy combined with medroxyprogesterone, norethisterone and levonorgestrel related to an increased risk of breast cancer, estradiol therapy combined with dydrogesterone and progesterone carries no risk❞

    In fewer words:

    • Estradiol by itself: no increased risk of breast cancer
    • Estradiol with MDPA or other progestogens that aren’t really progesterone: increased risk of breast cancer
    • Estradiol with actual progesterone: back to no increased risk of breast cancer

    Source: Estradiol therapy and breast cancer risk in perimenopausal and postmenopausal women: a systematic review and meta-analysis

    So again, you might want to make sure you are getting actual bioidentical hormones, and not something else!

    However! If you are aware that you already have an increased risk of breast cancer (e.g. family history, you’ve had it before, you know you have certain genes for it, etc), then you should certainly discuss that with your doctor, because your personal circumstances may be different:

    ❝Tailored HRT may be used without strong evidence of a deleterious effect after ovarian cancer, endometrial cancer, most other gynecological cancers, bowel cancer, melanoma, a family history of breast cancer, benign breast disease, in carriers of BRACA mutations, after breast cancer if adjuvant therapy is not being used, past thromboembolism, varicose veins, fibroids and past endometriosis.

    Relative contraindications are existing cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease and breast cancer being treated with adjuvant therapies❞

    Source: HRT in difficult circumstances: are there any absolute contraindications?

    HRT makes you happier, healthier, and smell nice too: True or False?

    Contingently True, assuming you do want its effects, which generally means the restoration of much of the youthful vitality you enjoyed pre-menopause.

    The “and smell nice too” was partly rhetorical, but also partly literal: our scent is largely informed by our hormones, and higher estrogen results in a sweeter scent; lower estrogen results in a more bitter scent. Not generally considered an important health matter, but it’s a thing, so hey.

    More often, people take menopausal HRT for more energy, stronger bones (reduced osteoporosis risk), healthier heart (reduced CVD risk), improved sexual health, better mood, healthier skin and hair, and general avoidance of menopause symptoms:

    Read more: Skin, hair and beyond: the impact of menopause

    We’d need another whole main feature to discuss all the benefits properly; today we’re just mythbusting.

    HRT does have some drawbacks: True or False?

    True, and/but how serious they are (beyond the aforementioned consideration in the case of an already-increased risk of breast cancer) is a matter of opinion.

    For example, it is common to get a reprise of monthly cramps and/or mood swings, depending on how one is taking the HRT and other factors (e.g. your own personal physiology and genetic predispositions). For most people, these will even out over time.

    It’s also even common to get a reprise of (much slighter than before) monthly bleeding, unless you have for example had a hysterectomy (no uterus = no bleeding). Again, this will usually settle down in a matter of months.

    If you experience anything more alarming than that, then indeed check with your doctor.

    HRT is a dangerous scam and sham: True or False?

    False, simply. As described above, for most people they’re quite safe. Again, talking bioidentical hormones.

    The other kind are in the most neutral sense a sham (i.e. they are literally sham hormones), though they’re not without their merits and for many people they may be better than nothing.

    As for being a scam, biodentical hormones are widely prescribed in the many countries that have universal healthcare and/or a single-payer healthcare system, where there would be no profit motive (and considerable cost) in doing so.

    They’re prescribed because they are effective and thus reduce healthcare spending in other areas (such as treating osteoporosis or CVD after the fact) and improve Health Related Quality of Life, and by extension, health-adjusted life-years, which is one of the top-used metrics for such systems.

    See for example:

    Menopausal Hormone Replacement Therapy and Reduction of All-Cause Mortality and Cardiovascular Disease

    Our apologies, gentlemen

    We wanted to also talk about testosterone therapy for the andropause, but we’ve run out of room today (because of covering the important distinction of bioidentical vs old-fashioned HRT)!

    To make it up to you, we’ll do a full main feature on it (it’s an interesting topic) in the near future, so watch this space

    Ladies, we’ll also at some point cover the pros and cons of different means of administration, e.g. pills, transdermal gel, injections, patches, pessaries, etc—which often have big differences.

    That’ll be in a while though, because we try to vary our topics, so we can’t talk about menopausal HRT all the time, fascinating and important a topic it is.

    Meanwhile… take care, all!

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Related Posts

  • Just One Heart – by Dr. Jonathan Fisher
  • Mental illness, psychiatric disorder or psychological problem. What should we call mental distress?

    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.

    We talk about mental health more than ever, but the language we should use remains a vexed issue.

    Should we call people who seek help patients, clients or consumers? Should we use “person-first” expressions such as person with autism or “identity-first” expressions like autistic person? Should we apply or avoid diagnostic labels?

    These questions often stir up strong feelings. Some people feel that patient implies being passive and subordinate. Others think consumer is too transactional, as if seeking help is like buying a new refrigerator.

    Advocates of person-first language argue people shouldn’t be defined by their conditions. Proponents of identity-first language counter that these conditions can be sources of meaning and belonging.

    Avid users of diagnostic terms see them as useful descriptors. Critics worry that diagnostic labels can box people in and misrepresent their problems as pathologies.

    Underlying many of these disagreements are concerns about stigma and the medicalisation of suffering. Ideally the language we use should not cast people who experience distress as defective or shameful, or frame everyday problems of living in psychiatric terms.

    Our new research, published in the journal PLOS Mental Health, examines how the language of distress has evolved over nearly 80 years. Here’s what we found.

    Engin Akyurt/Pexels

    Generic terms for the class of conditions

    Generic terms – such as mental illness, psychiatric disorder or psychological problem – have largely escaped attention in debates about the language of mental ill health. These terms refer to mental health conditions as a class.

    Many terms are currently in circulation, each an adjective followed by a noun. Popular adjectives include mental, mental health, psychiatric and psychological, and common nouns include condition, disease, disorder, disturbance, illness, and problem. Readers can encounter every combination.

    These terms and their components differ in their connotations. Disease and illness sound the most medical, whereas condition, disturbance and problem need not relate to health. Mental implies a direct contrast with physical, whereas psychiatric implicates a medical specialty.

    Mental health problem, a recently emerging term, is arguably the least pathologising. It implies that something is to be solved rather than treated, makes no direct reference to medicine, and carries the positive connotations of health rather than the negative connotation of illness or disease.

    Therapist talks to young man
    Is ‘mental health problem’ actually less pathologising? Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock

    Arguably, this development points to what cognitive scientist Steven Pinker calls the “euphemism treadmill”, the tendency for language to evolve new terms to escape (at least temporarily) the offensive connotations of those they replace.

    English linguist Hazel Price argues that mental health has increasingly come to replace mental illness to avoid the stigma associated with that term.

    How has usage changed over time?

    In the PLOS Mental Health paper, we examine historical changes in the popularity of 24 generic terms: every combination of the nouns and adjectives listed above.

    We explore the frequency with which each term appears from 1940 to 2019 in two massive text data sets representing books in English and diverse American English sources, respectively. The findings are very similar in both data sets.

    The figure presents the relative popularity of the top ten terms in the larger data set (Google Books). The 14 least popular terms are combined into the remainder.

    Relative popularity of alternative generic terms in the Google Books corpus. Haslam et al., 2024, PLOS Mental Health.

    Several trends appear. Mental has consistently been the most popular adjective component of the generic terms. Mental health has become more popular in recent years but is still rarely used.

    Among nouns, disease has become less widely used while illness has become dominant. Although disorder is the official term in psychiatric classifications, it has not been broadly adopted in public discourse.

    Since 1940, mental illness has clearly become the preferred generic term. Although an assortment of alternatives have emerged, it has steadily risen in popularity.

    Does it matter?

    Our study documents striking shifts in the popularity of generic terms, but do these changes matter? The answer may be: not much.

    One study found people think mental disorder, mental illness and mental health problem refer to essentially identical phenomena.

    Other studies indicate that labelling a person as having a mental disease, mental disorder, mental health problem, mental illness or psychological disorder makes no difference to people’s attitudes toward them.

    We don’t yet know if there are other implications of using different generic terms, but the evidence to date suggests they are minimal.

    Dark field
    The labels we use may not have a big impact on levels of stigma. Pixabay/Pexels

    Is ‘distress’ any better?

    Recently, some writers have promoted distress as an alternative to traditional generic terms. It lacks medical connotations and emphasises the person’s subjective experience rather than whether they fit an official diagnosis.

    Distress appears 65 times in the 2022 Victorian Mental Health and Wellbeing Act, usually in the expression “mental illness or psychological distress”. By implication, distress is a broad concept akin to but not synonymous with mental ill health.

    But is distress destigmatising, as it was intended to be? Apparently not. According to one study, it was more stigmatising than its alternatives. The term may turn us away from other people’s suffering by amplifying it.

    So what should we call it?

    Mental illness is easily the most popular generic term and its popularity has been rising. Research indicates different terms have little or no effect on stigma and some terms intended to destigmatise may backfire.

    We suggest that mental illness should be embraced and the proliferation of alternative terms such as mental health problem, which breed confusion, should end.

    Critics might argue mental illness imposes a medical frame. Philosopher Zsuzsanna Chappell disagrees. Illness, she argues, refers to subjective first-person experience, not to an objective, third-person pathology, like disease.

    Properly understood, the concept of illness centres the individual and their connections. “When I identify my suffering as illness-like,” Chappell writes, “I wish to lay claim to a caring interpersonal relationship.”

    As generic terms go, mental illness is a healthy option.

    Nick Haslam, Professor of Psychology, The University of Melbourne and Naomi Baes, Researcher – Social Psychology/ Natural Language Processing, The University of Melbourne

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

    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:

  • Kidney Beans vs Chickpeas – Which is Healthier?

    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.

    Our Verdict

    When comparing kidney beans to chickpeas, we picked the chickpeas.

    Why?

    Both are great! But there’s a clear winner here today:

    In terms of macros, chickpeas have more protein, carbs, and fiber, making them the more nutrient-dense option in this category.

    In the category of vitamins, kidney beans have more of vitamins B1, B3, and K, while chickpeas have more of vitamins A, B2, B5, B6, B7, B9, C, E, and choline, taking the victory again here.

    When it comes to minerals, it’s a similar story: kidney beans have more potassium, while chickpeas have more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, selenium, and zinc. Another easy win for chickpeas.

    Adding up the three wins makes chickpeas the clear overall winner, but of course, as ever, enjoy either or both; diversity is good!

    Want to learn more?

    You might like to read:

    What’s Your Plant Diversity Score?

    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

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  • A Peek Behind The 10almonds Curtain

    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 10almonds we give a lot of health information, so you may wonder: how much do we (the 10almonds team) put into practice? Is it even possible to do all these things? Do we have an 80:20 rule going on?

    So, here’s what someone who thinks, reads, and writes about health all day, does for her health—and how it ties in with what you read here at 10almonds.

    Hi, it’s me, a member of the 10almonds team and regular writer here, and I’m going to do the rest of this article in the first-person, since it’s using me as an example!

    (PS: yes, the thumbnail is a digital impression of my appearance, though I would correct it that my hair is much longer, and my eyes are more gray; I must admit though it captured my smile, not to mention my collarbones-that-you-could-sit-on)

    Dietary habits

    Before we get to foods, let’s talk intermittent fasting. I practise 16:8 intermittent fasting… Approximately. That is to say, I’m mostly not religious about it, but I will generally breakfast around 12 noon, and have finished eating dinner before 8pm, with no food outside of those hours.

    See also: Intermittent Fasting: What’s the truth?

    Importantly, while I feel free to be a little flexible around start and finish times, I do very consciously decide “I am now fasting” and “I will now break the fast”.

    Note my imperfection: it would be ideal to have the eating period earlier in the day, and have a bigger breakfast and small dinner. However, that doesn’t really work for me (leisurely evening meal is an important daily event in this household), so this is how I do it instead.

    Foods!

    It gets an exclamation mark because a thing about me is that I do love foods.

    Breakfast: a typical breakfast for me these past months is a couple of ounces of mixed nuts with about 1oz of goji berries.

    The mixed nuts are in equal proportions: almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts, cashews. Why those four? Simple, it’s because that’s what Aldi sells as “mixed nuts” and they are the cheapest nuts around, as well as containing absolute nutritional heavyweights almonds and walnuts in generous portions.

    Often, but not always, I’ll have some dates with it, or dried apricots, or prunes.

    I go through phases; sometimes I’ll enjoy overnight oats as my breakfast for a month or two at a time. I really just follow my gut in this regard.

    See for example: Spiced Pear & Pecan Polyphenol Porridge

    Lunch: I don’t really lunch per se, but between breakfast and dinner I’ll usually snack on a 3–5 organic carrots (I literally just cut the tops off and otherwise eat them like Bugs Bunny—peeling them would be extra work just to lose fiber). Note my imperfection: I don’t buy all of my vegetables organic, but I do for the ones where it makes the biggest difference.

    If I’m feeling like it, I may lunch on a selection of herbs sabzi khordan style (see: Invigorating Sabzi Khordan), though I’m vegan so for simplicity I just skip the cheeses that are also traditional with that dish. On the other hand, for protein and fat I’ll usually add a cup of beans (usually black beans or kidney beans), seasoned with garlic and black pepper in an olive oil and balsamic vinegar dressing (that I make myself, so it’s just those ingredients). See also: Kidney Beans vs Black Beans – Which Is Healthier?

    Dinner: this is my main sit-down meal of the day, and it’s enjoyed in a leisurely fashion (say, 40 minutes average with a normal distribution bell curve running between 20 and 60 minutes) with my son who lives with me. I mention all of this, because of the importance of relaxed mindful eating. In the instances of it being nearer the 20 minutes end, it’s not because of rushing, but rather because of a lighter meal some days.

    See also: How To Get More Nutrition From The Same Food

    Regular recurrences in the menu include:

    I’ll often snack on something probiotic (e.g. kimchi) while I’m cooking.

    See also: Make Friends With Your Gut! (You Can Thank Us Later)

    In terms of what’s not in my diet: as mentioned, I’m vegan, so animal products are out. I don’t drink alcohol or use other recreational drugs, and I mostly drink decaffeinated coffee, but I’ll have a caffeinated one if I’m out somewhere. I’m not a puritan when it comes to sugar, but also, I simply don’t like it and I know well its health effects, so it doesn’t really form part of my diet except insofar as it’s in some ready-made condiments I may sometimes use (e.g. sriracha, teriyaki sauce). I’m also not a puritan when it comes to wheat, but it’s not something I consume daily. Usually on a weekly basis I’ll have a wholegrain pasta dish, and a dish with some kind of wholegrain flatbread.

    See also:

    Exercise!

    First, some things that are lifestyle factors:

    • I do not own a car, and I dislike riding in cars, buses, etc. So, I walk everywhere, unless it’s far enough that I must take the train, and even then I usually stand between carriages rather than sitting down.
    • I have a standing desk setup, that hasn’t been lowered even once since I got it. I highly recommend it, as someone who spends a lot of time at my desk.
    • You may imagine that I spend a lot of time reading; if it’s books (as opposed to scientific papers etc, which I read at my desk), then I’ll most of the time read them while perched like a gargoyle in a sitting squat (Slav squat, Asian squat, resting squat, deep squat, etc) on a balance ball. Yes, it is comfortable once you’re used to it!

    About that latter, see also: The Most Anti Aging Exercise

    In terms of “actual” exercise, I get 150–300 minutes “moderate exercise” per week, which is mostly composed of: 

    • Most days I walk into town to get groceries; it’s a 40-minute round trip on foot
    • On days I don’t do that, even if I do walk to a more local shop, I spend at least 20 minutes on my treadmill.

    See also: The Doctor Who Wants Us To Exercise Less, & Move More

    Strength and mobility training, for me, comes mostly in what has been called “exercise snacking”, that is to say, I intersperse my working day with brief breaks to do Pilates exercises. I have theme days (lower body, core, upper body) and on average one rest day (from Pilates exercises) per week, though honestly, that’s usually more likely because of time constraints than anything else, because a deadline is looming.

    See also: Four Habits That Drastically Improve Mobility

    You may be wondering about HIIT: when I’m feeling extra-serious about it, I use my exercise bike for this, but I’ll be honest, I don’t love the bike, so on a daily basis, I’m much more likely to do HIIT by blasting out a hundred or so Hindu squats, resting, and repeating.

    See also: How To Do HIIT (Without Wrecking Your Body)

    Supplements

    First I’ll mention, I do have HRT, of which the hormones I have are bioidentical estradiol gel in the morning, and a progesterone pessary in the evening. They may not be for everybody, but they’ve made a world of difference to me.

    See also: HRT: A Tale Of Two Approaches

    In terms of what one usually means when one says supplements, many I use intermittently (which is good in some cases, as otherwise the body may stop using them so well, or other problems can arise), but regular features include:

    Why weekends only for Fisetin? See: The Drug & Supplement Combo That Reverses Aging ← the supplement is fisetin, which outperforms quercetin in this role, and/but it only needs be taken for two days every two weeks, as a sort of “clearing out” of senescent cells. There is no need to take it every day, because if you just cleared out your senescent cells, then guess what, they’re not there now. Also, while sensescent cells are a major cause of aging, on a lower level they do have some anti-tumor effects, so it can be good to let some live a least for a while now and again. In short, cellular sensescence can help prevent tumors on a daily level, but it doesn’t hurt that capacity to have a clearing-out every couple of weeks; so says the science (linked above). Note my imperfection: I take it at weekends instead of for two days every two weeks (as is standard in studies, like those linked above), because it is simpler than remembering to count the weeks.

    Cognitive exercise

    Lest we forget, exercising our mind is also important! In my case:

    • I’m blessed to have work that’s quite cognitively stimulating; our topics here at 10almonds are interesting. If it weren’t for that, I’d still be reading and writing a lot.
    • I play chess, though these days I don’t play competitively anymore, and play rather for the social aspect, but this too is important in avoiding cognitive decline.
    • I am one of those people who compulsively learns languages, and uses them a lot. This is very beneficial, as language ability is maintained in a few small areas of the brain, and it’s very much “use it or lose it”. Now, while I may not need my French or Russian or Arabic to keep the lights on in this part of the brain or that, the fact that I am pushing my limits every day is the important part. It’s not about how much I know—it’s about how much I engage those parts of my brain on a daily basis. Thus, even if you speak only one language right now, learning even just one more, and learning even only a little bit, you will gain the brain benefits—because you’re engaging it regularly in a new way, and that forces the brain to wire new synapses and also to maintain volume in those parts.

    See also: How To Reduce Your Alzheimer’s Risk

    And about language-learning specifically: An Underrated Tool Against Alzheimer’s ←this also shows how you don’t have to be extreme about language learning like I admittedly am.

    How’s all this working out for me?

    I can say: it works! My general health is better now than it was decades ago. I’ve personally focused a lot on reducing inflammation, and that really pays dividends when it comes to the rest of health. I didn’t talk about it above, but focusing on my sleep regularity and quality has helped a lot too.

    In terms of measurable results, I recently had a general wellness checkup done by means of a comprehensive panel of 14 blood tests, and various physical metrics (BMI, body fat %, blood pressure, etc), and per those, I could not be in better health; it was as though I had cheated and written in all the best answers. I say this not to brag (you don’t know me, after all), but rather to say: it can be done!

    Even without extreme resources, and without an abundance of free time, etc, it can be done!

    Caveat: if you have some currently incurable chronic disease, there may be some limits. For example, if you have Type 1 Diabetes, probably your HbA1c* is going to be a little off even if you do everything right.

    *HbA1c = glycated hemoglobin, a very accurate measure of what your blood glucose has been on average for the past 2–3 months—why 2–3 months? Because that’s the approximate lifespan of a red blood cell, and we’re measuring how much hemoglobin (in the red blood cells) has been glycated (because of blood glucose).

    In summary

    The stuff we write about at 10almonds can be implemented, on a modest budget and while juggling responsibilities (work, family, classes, etc).

    I’m not saying that my lifestyle should be everyone’s template, but it’s at least an example of one that can work.

    • Maybe you hate walking and love swimming.
    • Maybe you have no wish to give up fish and eggs, say (both of which are fine/good in moderation healthwise).
    • Maybe you have different priorities with supplements.
    • Maybe you find language-learning uninteresting but take singing lessons.
    • And so on.

    In the absolute fewest words, the real template is:

    1. Decide your health priorities (what matters most for you)
    2. Look them up on 10almonds
    3. Put the things into action in a way that works for you!

    Take care!

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