The Toe-Tapping Tip For Better Balance
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Balance is critical for health especially in older age, since it’s amazing how much else can go dramatically and suddenly wrong after a fall. So, here’s an exercise to give great balance and stability:
How to do it
You will need:
- Something to hold onto, such as a countertop
- A target on the floor, such as a mark or a coin
The steps:
- Lift one leg up, bring your foot forward, and tap the object in front of you.
- Then, bring that foot back to where it started.
- Next, switch to the other leg and tap.
- Alternate between your right and left legs, shifting back and forth.
- Your goal is to do this for 10 repetitions on each leg without holding on.
How it works:
Whenever you tap, you have to lift one leg up and reach it out in front of you. Doing this requires you to stand on one leg while moving a weight (namely: your other leg), which is something many people, especially upon getting older, are hesitant to do. If you’re unable to stand on one leg, let alone move your center of gravity (per the counterbalance of the other leg) while doing so, you may end up shuffling and walking with your feet sliding across the ground—something you really want to avoid.
For more on all of this plus a visual demonstration, enjoy:
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Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
Fall Special ← this is about not falling, or, failing that, minimizing injury if you do
Take care!
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Self-Care That’s Not Just Self-Indulgence
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Self-Care That’s Not Just Self-Indulgence
Self-care is often seen as an excuse for self-indulgence. Worse, it’s often used as an excuse for self-indulgence—in ways that can end up making us feel worse.
It’s a bit like dietary “cheat days”. If your diet needs cheat days, your diet probably isn’t right for you!
How to recognize the difference between self-care and self-indulgence?
Statistically, the majority of our subscribers are parents (whose children are now mostly grown up, but still, the point is that parenting experience has been gleaned), and/or are or have been caregivers of some form or other.
When a small child is ill, we (hopefully!) look after them carefully:
- We don’t expect too much of them, but…
- …we do expect them to adhere to things consistent with their recovery.
Critically: an important part of self-care is that it actually should be care.
Let’s spell something out: neglect is not care!
How this works for physical and mental health
If you overdo it in physical exercise, it’s right and correct to take a break to recover, and during that time, do things that will hasten one’s recovery. For example:
Overdone It? How To Speed Up Recovery After Exercise
But it’s well-known that if you just do nothing, your condition will likely deteriorate. Also, “a break to recover” is going to be as short as is necessary to recover. Then you’ll ease back into exercise, but you will get back to it.
For mental health it’s just the same. If we for whatever reason need to take a step back, it’s right and correct to do take a break to recover, and during that time, do things that will hasten one’s recovery.
Sometimes, if for example it’s just a case of burnout, rest is the best medicine, and even rest can be an active process. See for example:
How To Rest More Efficiently (Yes, Really)
So the question to ask, when it comes to self-care vs self-indulgence, is:
“Is this activity helping me to get better?”
Some examples:
Probably not great self-care activities:
- Oversleeping (unless you were sleep-deprived, in which case, it’s better to get an earlier night than a later morning, if possible)
- Overeating (comfort-eating is a thing, but your actual problems will still be there)
- Mindless activities (mindless scrolling, TV-watching, game-playing, etc)
Probably better self-care activities:
- Enjoyable physical activity (whatever that may be for you)
- Preparing your favorite food, and then enjoying it mindfully
- Engaging in a personal project that might not be that important, but it’s fulfilling to you (hobbies etc can fall into this category)
- Scheduling some time, and committing some resources, to tackling whatever problem(s) you are facing that’s prompting you to need this self-care.
- Doing the tasks you want to hide away from, but making them fun.
What’s your go-to self-care? We love to hear from you, so feel free to hit “reply” to this email, or use the handy feedback form at the bottom!
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6 Ways To Look After Your Back
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Back To Back
When people think about looking after their back, often thought does not go much further than sitting with good posture, and perhaps even standing with good posture. And those things are important, but:
1) People’s efforts to have good posture often result in overcorrecting creating an anterior pelvic tilt that causes lower back problems.
Quick tip: if you’re sticking your butt out, you’re doing it wrong (no matter how great your butt is). Instead, to find the correct posture, go up on your tip-toes for a moment, then imagine a plumb-line down the center of your body, thus perpendicular to the floor, going all the way down to the ground. Now, slowly return your heels to the ground, but as you do so, keep your spine aligned to the plumb-line, so you’re not moving backwards as you drop, just directly down. This will land you in perfect posture.
Unless you have scoliosis. In which case, it’ll get you as close to good posture as is likely attainable from any quick tip.
2) There’s a lot more to looking after our back than just good posture!
Here are 5 other important things to do:
Be strong
Do strength-training for your back. How to do that is beyond the scope of today’s feature, but there are many good guides and also personal trainers that can be found.
Start off easy and work up, but do start. The stronger your back is, the less likely a momentary lapse in concentration is to throw out your back because you picked something up with imperfect form.
See also: Resistance Is Useful! (Especially As We Get Older)
Stretch intentionally
Many back injuries occur as a result of stretching and/or twisting awkwardly, so if you ensure your basic mobility and range of motion is good, the less likely it is that unthinkingly twisting around 270° to see where that wasp was going will slip a disk.
The more you stretch intentionally (carefully, please), the more you will be able to stretch unintentionally without injury.
See also: Building & Maintaining Mobility
Stand when you can, walk when you can
We humans have outrun our evolution in a lot of ways, and/but one thing our bodies are definitely not well-adapted for is sitting. Unless we are sitting in a low squat the way you might often see an orang-utan sitting, sitting is not a good way of being for us. Even sitting seiza-style or cross-legged is passable for a short while, not for too long.
So, while there sure are times we need to sit (especially if you’re driving!) minimizing those times is ideal. There are a lot of activities that are traditionally done sitting, where there’s no need for it to be so. For example, your writer here sits for the day’s main meal, but takes any smaller meal standing (and when guests visit for a coffee or such, I’ll offer them the couch while I myself prop up the fireplace). Standing desks are also great if you spend a lot of time at the computer for any reason.
See also: The Doctor Who Wants Us To Exercise Less & Move More
Rest when you need to
You can’t stand all the time! But know this: if you want to rest your legs, lying down is a lot better for your back (and internal organs) than sitting.
Taking a 5 minute break lying on your couch, or bed, or floor, is a perfectly good option and only social convention says otherwise.
If you want a compromise option, though? A recliner chair, in the reclined position, is a better for your back than being scrunched up in the Economy Class Flight position.
PS: About that bed situation…
What Mattress Is Best, By Science?
Kill pain before it kills you
Painkillers aren’t great for the health per se, but pain (or rather, our bodily responses to such) can be worse. Half the time, when it comes to musculoskeletal problems, things get a lot worse a lot more quickly because of how we overcompensate due to the pain. So, take your pain seriously, and remember, the right amount of pain is zero.
If you’re thinking “but pain relief option xyz isn’t good for me”, we strongly recommend checking out:
The 7 Approaches To Pain Management
Take care!
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7 Days Of Celery Juice: What’s The Verdict?
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Laura “Try” tries many popular trends, and reports on the benefits (or problems, or both). In this case, it’s 7 days of celery juice… Not as a fast, though, i.e. she doesn’t just have celery juice for 7 days, but rather, it’s how she kicks off each morning, with half a liter (16oz) on an empty stomach.
What she found
First, she bought a masticating juicer and organic celery. So, those are expenses to consider, especially the one-off expense of the juicer, and the ongoing expense of organic celery—estimated $90/month).
In terms of taste, she was surprised it wasn’t as bitter as expected, but from the second day onwards, she did use the juicer’s filter to remove the frothy sludge, and she also switched to juicing only the stalks, not the leaves—which are more bitter.
10almonds note: the leaves are more bitter because that’s where the polyphenols are more densely concentrated. The leaves are better for you than the stalks. Enjoy the leaves. Really: if you chop them finely you can use them as herbs in your cooking, and if you’re making a salad, just chop them into that too.
The reason she picked the quantity of half a liter is because this is what she found recommended to coat the stomach lining—on the promise of increased stomach acid production, reduced bacteria overgrowth, as well as antiviral, antifungal, and anti-inflammatory properties. As she’s just one woman without a personal lab, she couldn’t test and thus verify any of these though—but she did still have benefits to report:
She did experience clearer skin, more energy, and better sleep after a few days.
Ultimately, she decided to continue to do it just at the weekends, due to its positive effects, despite the cost and time consumption.
For more personal insights, enjoy:
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Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
Enjoy Bitter Foods For Your Heart & Brain
Take care!
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How Mood Drugs & Sleep Problems Affect Women’s Hormones
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…and other items from this week’s health news:
Sleep, drugs, and mixed messages
Most people know that irregular sleep, shift work, jet lag, and artificial light at night can disturb one’s circadian rhythm, but menstrual cycles? Yes, that too!
How this happens: it’s because the timing systems are deeply connected; the brain’s “master clock” interacts with reproductive systems, linking daily and monthly cycles. Furthermore, shorter daylight lengthens reproductive cycles, while longer daylight shortens them, showing sensitivity to seasonal changes—or anything your body might reasonably mistake for a seasonal change (given the ubiquity of bright lights these days).
The same study also found that mood stabilizers have hormonal side effects: lithium, used for bipolar disorder, can lengthen circadian rhythms and disrupt hormonal cycles.
You may be wondering: is this of any relevance to me, postmenopause? And the answer is: it depends, because if you’re on HRT, chances are your body will still adapt to a monthly cycle—even without ova to ovulate (and so forth), the hypothalamus will still regulate the metabolism of your estrogen, no matter whether that estrogen came from your ovaries or a pharmacy. However, the symptoms should be much less severe, and you shouldn’t experience bleeding after the first 6 months or so.
Read in full: How disrupted sleep and mood drugs impact women’s hormonal and mental health
Related: The Other Circadian Rhythms
Long COVID extra bad for many women
Long COVID, short end of the stick? It certainly seems so:
Researchers (Dr. Jacqueline Maybin et al.) have found that women with long COVID face higher risk of abnormal uterine bleeding, with symptoms like fatigue, headaches, and muscle pain worsening during perimenstrual and proliferative phases.
How this happens: Dr. Maybin and her team found a cluster of immune cells in the endometrium of affected women, pointing to inflammation as a likely mechanism rather than ovarian hormone disruption. Which is not too shocking, all things considered (long COVID being an ongoing systemic response to an infection long after it should have been necessary), but it’s good to know.
And, in terms of “what we know”, the science for this one is about as sure as science ever is about anything, as it came from three approaches—data from 12,187 women, a three-month clinical follow-up of women with long COVID, and an analysis of blood and endometrial samples.
Since long COVID affects 3–7% of the global population and is twice as common in women, this is pretty important—not just as trivia, but for practical reasons too; it means that menstrual cycle phases should be factored into long COVID biomarkers (something the researchers also called for in their paper).
Read in full: Study reveals bidirectional relationship between long COVID and menstrual disorders
Related: What Can Be Done About Long COVID?
A reasonable, yet unexpected, extra cancer risk
Researchers (Dr. Mariah Bilalaga et al.) found that nonadherence to cervical screenings (i.e., simply not getting it done when invited/recommended to do so by healthcare providers) went up since the pandemic—most likely a side effect of people initially consciously avoiding unnecessarily going to places where one might get infected, and then developing a new habit around same, whether or not the habit is consciously upheld or just habit now for many.
However, while COVID does continue to be risk, so is cancer, and recommendations are to go get screenings when invited/recommended all the same.
Somehow, awareness of the HPV vaccine (that helps prevent cervical cancer, because most cervical cancer is caused by that virus) also dropped, which hasn’t helped cervical cancer numbers stay under control, either:
Read in full: Nonadherence to cervical cancer screening increased after COVID-19 pandemic
Related: Everything you need to know about cervical cancer
Take care!
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Surprising New (Healthy!) Compounds Found In Cannabis Leaves
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…and other items from this week’s health science news:
The other cannabis chemicals
Researchers (Dr. Magriet Muller et al.) found the first evidence of rare flavoalkaloids in cannabis leaves, revealing previously overlooked medicinal compounds in plant material that’s often treated as waste.
In particular, Dr. Muller and her team identified 79 phenolic compounds across three cannabis strains, including 25 never before reported in cannabis and 16 rare flavoalkaloids that are seldom found in nature.
As regular 10almonds readers will know, flavonoids and related polyphenols are important for antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anticancer reasons, so these newly-detected compounds look set to expand cannabis’s biomedical relevance beyond cannabinoids.
But it goes further than that in this case because of the rare flavoalkaloids, although those were concentrated mainly in the leaves of one strain, showing that chemical composition can differ dramatically even among a small number of cannabis varieties.
Read in full: Don’t toss cannabis leaves: Scientists found rare compounds with medical potential
Related: Cannabis Myths vs Reality
Back up your brain
Ok, so it’s not quite like in science fiction yet! These digital “brain twins” aren’t conscious or sentient replicas, but rather are used as predictive tools designed to model disease progression, test treatments virtually, and improve scientific understanding without direct risk to the person.
More specifically, they’re personalized computational models built from an individual’s brain data (including such things as MRI-scanned anatomy, functional activity, and connectivity maps) to simulate how that specific brain functions and changes over time. This means that instead of relying on broad population averages, clinicians can test interventions on a patient’s digital twin first, improving safety, precision, and treatment outcomes (and, once the tech is rolled out, saving costs, too).
A current example is how epilepsy research is already using patient-specific digital brain models to identify seizure origins and help guide surgery.
That said, the brain’s complexity across multiple spatial and temporal scales demands enormous computing power, making whole-brain high-resolution simulation extremely difficult for now.
Read in full: A virtual copy of your brain? Scientists say it’s closer than you think
Related: Are Brain Chips Safe?
What climate change will do to your brain health
A lot of older people consider that climate change is a younger people’s problem, if indeed a problem at all. However, researchers (Dr. Anna Ranta et al.) have found that climate change is becoming a major global brain health threat because environmental changes (especially increases in heat) raise both stroke risk and stroke mortality.
This is because increased heat can not only dehydrate your body, but also thicken your blood and increase clot formation, all of which raise the risk of ischemic stroke.
It’s not just the heat itself, though; many things that are becoming increasingly common as climate change progresses, such as rapid temperature swings, humidity shifts, barometric pressure changes, wildfires, and dust or sandstorms can elevate blood pressure, strain your cardiovascular system, and damage blood vessels, again raising stroke risk and increasing the severity when stroke does occur.
Notably, more than 20% of global strokes are attributed to air pollution, with wildfire smoke and particulate matter contributing by damaging blood vessel walls after entering your lungs and, from there, your bloodstream.
In other words, as the researchers show, climate change is increasingly a neurological and cardiovascular public health emergency, making stroke prevention partly dependent on climate change mitigation.
Read in full: Climate change a global threat to brain health, stroke experts say
Related: Stay Safe From Heat Exhaustion & Heatstroke!
Take care!
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What To Eat, Take, & Do Before & After A Surgery
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It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!
Have a question or a request? We love to hear from you!
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!
No question/request too big or small 😎
❝Am about to have hip operation. Have been told to avoid various health supplements, but would be in interested to know your thoughts on what it is actually good to eat! Subject for an article, maybe? Keep up the good work!❞
Thank you, and indeed!
In the category of supplements, you’ve probably been warned off vitamins B7 and E, and in general supplements and/or medications that affect blood clotting (with garlic extract likely being on the list, as well as aspirin, warfarin, etc), and anti-inflammatories (be they supplements or medications). Less common specific vetoes (being generally considered under the umbrella of “things with anti-inflammatory properties”) include fish oil and glucosamine, with a similar rationale.
You may be wondering: why don’t we want anti-inflammatories?
And the answer is: because inflammation, annoying as it may be, is the initial part of the healing process, so we don’t want to compromise that (yet, at least; later becomes more reasonable again).
These supplements are best avoided for at least two weeks before surgery.
You may also have been advised to eat a “low-residual diet” for one or more days before you have to fully fast for the operation. The idea of this is to clear out your gastrointestinal tract as much as is reasonably and safely possible, because general anesthetic does not discriminate, which means various sphincters (including your esophageal sphincter and your anal sphincters*) will relax, and the surgeon doesn’t want any of the contents going where it shouldn’t (probably you don’t, either).
*yes, anal sphincters in the plural. There’s an upper and lower, or inner and outer if you prefer, sphincter. The first is entirely autonomic, and when it opens, nerves near the lower/outer sphincter signal to your brain that it’s time to go. The second is consciously controlled, except in cases where someone has a malady that prevents such.
Anyway, the low-residual diet can be simplified as: no dairy, and as little fiber as possible.
So, this latter injunction results in the opposite of a lot of normal health advice, because suddenly the recommendation list is rife with such things as white bread, plain mashed potatoes, honey/syrup, etc.
However, if you prefer, you can simply water fast beforehand if you prefer, stopping water too for the required number of hours prior to your anesthesia, of course.
In the weeks before that
Aside from the above considerations, a normal healthy diet should be fine until you get to the low residual diet phase.
However, if you want to particularly optimize things, then there are several considerations:
You want to prioritize gut health. If your gut is going to be near-emptied prior to the operation, that’s going to leave it vulnerable to pathogens. Now, the hospital will surely give you antibiotics, but those aren’t exactly great for your gut microbiome either, so prioritizing gut health (so: high fiber, consider probiotics, minimal processed food), right up until you have to switch to the low-residual diet is sensible, as it gives your gut the best chance of a swift recovery afterwards. Look at it this way: if >95% of your gut microbes are going to be nuked by antibiotics and perhaps even enemas, you want whatever’s left to have the best possible percentage of good bacteria, because that’s what’s going to be there there to repopulate.
See also: Antibiotics? Think Thrice ← which also brings up “Four Ways Antibiotics Can Kill You”; seriously, the risks of antibiotics are not to be underestimated, including the risks associated only with them working exactly as intended—let alone if something goes wrong. Now, in the case of a surgery, antibiotics are a necessary evil, but we do want to mitigate the harm as much as possible.
On which note, see: Minimize The Harm Of Antibiotics ← this was also in response to a question about a hip surgery, by the way
For more on helping things work as they should, see: Stop Sabotaging Your Gut
And we imagine regular 10almonds readers are already familiar with the more foundational: Making Friends With Your Gut (You Can Thank Us Later), but for anyone who’s not, here you go.
You want good circulation. Healing can’t happen without it, and a hip surgery carries the risk of thrombosis. Likely your hospital will be very much on top of that, but if you want to prepare yourself to minimize your risk as much as possible, then you want to:
- keep your blood pressure in a healthy range (see for example: How To Lower Your Blood Pressure (Cardiologists Explain))
- keep moving as much as you reasonably can, especially your lower body (see also: The Doctor Who Wants Us To Exercise Less, & Move More and The Best Home Exercise To Improve Circulation In Your Legs)
- consider supplementing with rutin: Rutin For Your Circulation & More but if you do, STOP at least 2 weeks before your operation, for the same reason as avoiding blood thinners and such)
After the operation
You’ll want to skip the anti-inflammatories for at least a short while after the op, but once inflammation has occurred and healing begins, you’ll probably want to dial down the inflammation.
If you’re picking something to start with, you might want to consider bromelain, as while it is an anti-inflammatory, its anti-inflammatory properties are unique to it, work by a different mechanism than others, and can even actually hasten healing once healing is occurring.
For more about this paradoxical supplement, see: Bromelain vs Inflammation & Much More
As for the rest… Rest! And get in gentle movements to rebuild your mobility. The help of a physiotherapist can work wonders in that regard.
Lastly, we’ll leave you with: How To Heal Injuries More Quickly
We also recommend checking out: Nobody Likes Surgery, But Here’s How To Make It Much Less Bad: The Insider’s Guide To Making Hospital As Comfortable As Possible
…and that featured expert’s book: Calm For Surgery – by Dr Chris Bonney
Take care, and may your op (and recovery) go smoothly!
Don’t Forget…
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