The Two-Second Advantage – by Vivek Ranadive and Kevin Maney
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The titular “two-second advantage” can in some cases be literal (imagine you got a two-second head-start in a boxing match!), in other cases can refer to being just a little ahead of things in a way that can confer a great advantage, often cumulatively—as anyone who’s played Monopoly can certainly attest.
Vivek Ranadivé and Kevin Maney give us lots of examples from business, sports, politics, economics, and more, in a way that seeks to cultivate a habit of asking the right questions in order to anticipate the future and not just be ahead of the competition—some areas of life don’t have competition for most people, like health, for example—but to generally have things “in hand”.
When it comes to personal finances, health, personal projects, and the like, those tiny initial advantages that lead to incremental further improvements, can be the difference between continually (and frantically) playing catch-up, or making the jump past breaking even to going from strength to strength.
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Human Connection In An All-Too-Busy World
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Many of us, in many ways, have more discretionary time than ever… On paper.
But rather than the 8-hour block of work of yesteryear, nowadays the things that take our time often come in a series of short bursts that punctuate our day.
This means that while in theory, we have n hours of “free” time per day, we actually have 9 minutes here, 23 minutes there, 1 hour 6 minutes somewhere else, and so on.
Social commitments, meanwhile, tend to require not only that we have time in a block, but also, that the time around that block also be sufficiently free, for travelling, preparation, etc.
The result? “We must do this again, and not leave it so long next time!” we say, sincerely, to the friend whom we will next see again in approximately 17 months’ time.
The problem is how our many theoretically-small obligations reduce the rest of our time to “time confetti”, and that happens on the large scale like we saw above, as well as on the small scale of “Ah, I have an hour to relax between these two things” and then suddenly the time is gone, once again reduced to time confetti:
Time Confetti and the Broken Promise of Leisure
So, how to maintain human connection with people beyond those with whom we live?
Some is infinitely better than none
Let’s say you want to call a friend or relative. There may be generational differences in how much one is expected to arrange this by text first, vs just calling, but either way, you don’t have to have an open-ended block of time, and sometimes, it’s better if you don’t.
Establish, at the start of the call, “Before we get into catching up, how are we for time, by the way? For my part, I’ll have to go by such-and-such a time”, and then work with that.
The benefit of doing this is that you’ll both know enough about the time constraints to use the time appropriately; you won’t run out the clock on smalltalk before getting to something big, and you’ll both come away feeling satisfied that you shared and were shared-with in a meaningful fashion.
In contrast, guessing at time constraints can leave big things clipped off, or else result in someone “looking for a way to politely end this conversation that stopped being interesting a while ago but it’ll seem rude if I say I have to go now”, of the kind that results in someone not being so open to a call next time.
Don’t rush to dismiss texts as a medium for meaningful connection
When text messages were first a thing, you’ll remember how we were all working within a very short character limit and a cost-per-message. It was telegrams for the modern age, basically.
Nowadays, that isn’t so; we can write as much or as little as we like, and this has two benefits:
- We can have longer, meaningful conversations around the other stuff in our life. We can reply in seconds, or after making a cup of tea and thinking about it, or after our grocery-chopping trip, or whenever suits us. Suddenly, time confetti isn’t such a barrier to human connection. Writer’s example: my prime social time in this manner is when I’m cooking dinner (which is often about an hour). There’s no way I could have a phonecall while doing that; my bad hearing notwithstanding, I just have my hands full too often with much else going on. But texting? I can do that in the several-minute gaps between assorted culinary tasks, while I’m waiting for the kettle to boil or the onions to brown or whatever.
- Sometimes, the brevity makes it easier. A quick text saying “Hey, just to let you know I’m thinking of you, and hope your day is going well!”, or “Unrelated to anything: I was just thinking about how I’m glad to have you in my life; you’re a good friend, and I appreciate that more than I often remember to say. Anyway, that’s all; it was just on my mind. I hope your day is going well!”
(The cheery closing words in those last two text message examples help signify: “don’t worry, I’m fine and am not looking for anything from you”, which will help the recipient to relax, and counterintuitively, more likely to reply with some kind words of their own, knowing that they’re not signing up for a potentially deep talk when they also have time confetti issues going on)
Seize the moment (and also let it go)
You probably have many small interactions with strangers, most days. In the store, walking the dog, at the doctor’s office, etc. So, two things:
- Make smalltalk. And if you’re not one for traditional smalltalk topics (weather etc), or even if you are, a level-up is:
- Compliment sincerely. Straight out of “How To Win Friends And Influence People”, of course, but it creates a moment of genuine connection; you say a thing, their day is improved, they smile, you complete your business with a smile of your own and go about your day.
(of course, do steer clear of anything that could be interpreted as flirting, if that is not your intent, and really it should never be your intent when it comes to the captive audience of someone who will get fired if they’re not nice to you)
But, with a little practice, these little moments add up to a lot more human connection than if we treat the strangers with whom we interact as though they were merely part of the scenery.
Want more than that?
Check out:
How To Beat Loneliness & Isolation
Take care!
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Burned Out By Tuesday?
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Avoiding Burnout, The Active Way
This is Dr. Claudine Holt. She’s double board-certified, in Occupational & Environmental Medicine, and Lifestyle Medicine.
In short: preventative medicine in all parts of our life.
Hopefully, you are reading this bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and ready to take on another exciting day in this wonderful, beautiful world!
On the other hand, it’s possible that you’re reading this semi-focussed, looking for a crumb of dopamine as much as you are looking for information.
If you’ve ever had the “What a week!” / “It’s only Tuesday” moment, this one’s for you.
What does Dr. Holt want us to know?
You can recover from burnout without guilt
Sometimes, we overreach ourselves. Sometimes, life overreaches us! Sometimes it’s not that we overcommitted—it’s just that we were taking each day as it comes, but sometimes several days gang up on us at once.
Sometimes, even, we can feel exhausted when it seems like we haven’t done anything.
Note: if you feel exhausted and it seems like you haven’t done anything, then be aware: you are exhausted for a reason!
What that reason might be may vary, but contrary to popular belief, energy does not just vanish. It went somewhere.
This goes double if you have any chronic illness(es), even if you’re not aware of having had a flare-up, chances are you were just exceptionally busy (on a cellular level).
And it’s easy to think that “mere” cellular activity shouldn’t be exhausting, but that is 100% of where our energy transactions happen—whether or not we are consciously aware of them!
See also: Eat To Beat Chronic Fatigue ← yes, this also covers when you are too exhausted to shop and cook like a TV chef
Dr. Holt specializes in working with burned out medical professionals (and also specifically specializes in working with women), but there are lessons for everyone in her advice. For example:
Fiction: ”Medicine is my calling–it’s who I am.”
Fact: You are more than medicine! Remember that your career is just one aspect of your life. Don’t forget to create your big-picture vision and tend the garden of the other areas of your life too.
Read more: Dr. Claudine Holt | Burnout: Fact vs Fiction
This same thing can go for whatever part of your identity frequently follows “I’m a…”, and is somewhere that you put a lot of your energy; it could equally be a non-professional job like “homemaker”, or a relational status like “husband”, or a cultural identifier like “Christian”, or a hobby like “gardener” (assuming that is not also your profession, in which case, same item, different category).
Indeed, a lot of women especially get hit by “the triple burden” of professional work, housework, and childcare. And it’s not even necessarily that we resent any of those things or feel like they’re a burden; we (hopefully) love our professions, homes, children. But, here’s the thing:
No amount of love will add extra hours to the day.
So what does she recommend doing about it, when sometimes we’re juggling things that can’t be dropped?
Start simple, but start!
Dr. Holt recommends to start with a smile (yes even if, and sometimes especially when, the circumstances do not feel like they merit it), and deploy some CBT tools:
Two Hacks to Quickly Rise Above Burnout (Or Any Circumstance)
We’ve expanded on this topic here:
With a more level head on, it becomes easier to take on the next step, which creating healthy boundaries—and that doesn’t just mean with other people!
It also means slaying our own perfectionism and imposter syndrome—both things that will have us chasing our tails 36 hours per day if we let them.
See also:
- Perfectionism, And How To Make Yours Work For You
- Imposter Syndrome (And Why Almost Everyone Has It)
❝Burnout is the culture of our times. A culture that expects us to do more and think our way out of everything. A culture that asks for more than the body can bear. Unfortunately, even though the situation might not be of our creation, burnout culture is our inheritance.
An inheritance we can either perpetuate—or change—depending on what we embody.❞
Source: The Embodied MD on Burnout with Dr Claudine Holt
That “embodiment” is partly our choices and actions that we bring and own just as we bring and own our body—and it’s partly our relationship with our body itself, and learning to love it, and work with it to achieve wonderful things, instead of just getting through the day.
Which yes, does also mean making space for good diet, exercise, sleep and so forth, per:
These Top Five Things Make The Biggest Difference To Health
Want to know more?
You might like to check out Dr. Holt’s website:
The Embodied M.D. | Burnout Coach
…where she also offers resources such as a blog and a podcast.
Enjoy!
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The Metabolism Reset Diet – by Alan Christianson
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The liver is an incredible organ that does a very important job, but what’s not generally talked about is how we can help it… Beyond the obvious “try to not poison it too much with alcohol, tobacco, etc”. But what can we do that’s actually positive for it?
That’s what Alan Christianson offers in this book.
Now, usually when someone speaks of a “four week cleanse” as this book advertises on its front cover, it’s a lot of bunk. The liver cleanses itself, and the liver and kidneys between them (along with some other organs and processes) detoxify your body for you. No amount of celery juice will do that. However, this book does better than that:
What it’s about, is not really about trying to do a “detox” at all, so much as supporting your liver function by:
- Giving your liver what it needs to regenerate (mostly: protein)
- Not over-taxing your liver while it does so
The liver is a self-regenerating organ (the mythological story of Prometheus aside, here in real life it can regenerate up to 80% of itself, given the opportunity), so whatever the current state of your liver, it’s probably not too late to fix it.
Maybe you’ve been drinking a little too much, or maybe you’ve been taking some meds that have hobbled it a bit (some medications strain the liver rather), or maybe your diet hasn’t been great. Christianson invites you to draw a line under that, and move forwards:
The book gives an overview of the science involved, and explains about the liver’s role in metabolism (hence the promised weight loss benefits) and our dietary habits’ impact on liver function. This is about what we eat, and also about when we eat it, and how and when our body metabolizes that.
Christianson also provides meal ideas and recipes. If we’re honest (and we always are), the science/principles part of the book are worth a lot more than the meal-plan part of the book, though.
In short: a great book for understanding how the liver works and how we can help it do its job effectively.
Click here to check out “The Metabolism Reset Diet” on Amazon today!
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10 Ways To Balance Blood Sugars
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“Let Them Eat Cake”, She Said…
This is Jessie Inchauspé, a French biochemist and author. She’s most known for her best-selling “Glucose Revolution: The Life-Changing Power Of Balancing Your Blood Sugar”.
It’s a great book (which we reviewed recently) and you absolutely should read it, but meanwhile, we’re going to distill at least the most critical core ideas, 10almonds style. In this case, her “ten hacks”:
Eat foods in the right order
The order is:
- Fiber first
- Protein and fat second
- Starches and sugars last
What happens here is… the fiber perks up the gut bacteria, the protein and fat will then be better-digested next, and the starches and sugars will try to jump the line, but they can’t because the fiber is a physical speedbump and the proteins and fats are taking the prime place for being digested. So instead, the starches and sugars—usually responsible for blood sugar spikes—get processed much more gradually, resulting in a nice even curve.
Add a green starter to all your meals
We know what you’re thinking: “that’s just the first one again”, but no. This is an extra starter, before you get to that. If you’re the cook of the household, this can absolutely simply mean snacking on green ingredients while cooking.
Stop counting calories
Especially, she advises: stop worrying about extra calories from fats, such as if doing an oil-and-vinegar dressing for salad—which she also recommends, because all three components (the oil, the vinegar, and the salad) help even out blood sugar levels.
Flatten your breakfast curve
For many, breakfast is the starchiest meal of the day, if not the sugariest. Inchauspé recommends flipping this (ideally) or softening it (if you really must have a carb-based breakfast):
- Top choices include: a warm vegetable salad, fish, or eggs (or tofu if you don’t do animal products).
- Next-best include: if you must have toast, make sure to have butter (and/or the aforementioned egg/tofu, for example) to give your digestion an extra thing to do.
- Also: she recommends skipping the juice in favour of home-made breakfast smoothies. That way, instead of basically just sugar with some vitamins, you’re getting a range of nutrients that, if you stack it right, can constitute a balanced meal itself, with fiber + protein + fat + carbs.
Have any type of sugar—they’re all the same
They’re technically not, but the point is that your body will immediately take them apart and then they will be just the same. Whether it’s the cheapest white sugar or the most expensive organic lovingly hand-reared free-range agave nectar, your body is going to immediately give it the chop-shop treatment (a process so quick as to be practically instantaneous) and say “this is now glucose”.
Pick a dessert over a sweet snack
Remember that about the right order for foods? A dessert, when your body is already digesting dinner, is going to make much less of a glucose spike than, say, a blueberry muffin when all you’ve had this morning is coffee and juice.
Reach for the vinegar before you eat
We recently did a whole main feature about this, so we’ll not double up today!
After you eat, move
The glucose you eat will be used to replace lost muscle glycogen, before any left over is stored as fat… and, while it’s waiting to be stored as fat, just sitting in your bloodstream being high blood sugars. So, this whole thing will go a lot better if you are actively using muscle glycogen (by moving your body).
Inchauspé gives a metaphor: imagine a steam train worker, shoveling coal into the furnace. Meanwhile, other workers are bringing more coal. If the train is moving quickly, the coal can be shoveled into the furnace and burned and won’t build up so quickly. But if the train is moving slowly or not at all, that coal is just going to build up and build up, until the worker can shovel no more because of being neck-deep in coal.
Same with your blood sugars!
If you want to snack, go low-sugar
In the category of advice that will shock nobody: sugary snacks aren’t good for avoiding blood sugar spikes! This one probably didn’t need a chapter devoted to it, but anyway: low sugar is indeed the way to go for snacks.
Put some clothes on your carbs
This is about olive oil on pasta, butter on potatoes, and so forth. Basically, anything starchy is going to be broken down quickly to sugar and sent straight into the bloodstream, if there’s nothing to slow it down. If you’re wondering what to do with rice: adding a tablespoon of chia seeds to the rice while cooking (so they’re cooked together) will add very healthy fats to your rice, and (because they’ve been cooked) will not seem like eating seeds, by the way. In terms of texture and appearance, it’ll be as though you threw some black pepper in*
*which you should also do for many reasons, but that’s beyond the scope of this “about blood sugars” feature!
Wanting to know more about the science of this?
We’ve done all we have room for here today, but Inchauspé is, as ever, happy to explain it herself:
Prefer text? Check out:
The Science Behind Glucose GoddessDon’t Forget…
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Which gut drugs might end up in a lawsuit? Are there really links with cancer and kidney disease? Should I stop taking them?
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Common medicines used to treat conditions including heartburn, reflux, indigestion and stomach ulcers may be the subject of a class action lawsuit in Australia.
Lawyers are exploring whether long-term use of these over-the-counter and prescription drugs are linked to stomach cancer or kidney disease.
The potential class action follows the settlement of a related multi-million dollar lawsuit in the United States. Last year, international pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca settled for US$425 million (A$637 million) after patients made the case that two of its drugs caused significant and potentially life-threatening side effects.
Specifically, patients claimed the company’s drugs Nexium (esomeprazole) and Prilosec (omeprazole) increased the risk of kidney damage.
Doucefleur/Shutterstock Which drugs are involved in Australia?
The class of drugs we’re talking about are “proton pump inhibitors” (sometimes called PPIs). In the case of the Australian potential class action, lawyers are investigating:
- Nexium (esomeprazole)
- Losec, Asimax (omeprazole)
- Somac (pantoprazole)
- Pariet (rabeprazole)
- Zoton (lansoprazole).
Depending on their strength and quantity, these medicines are available over-the-counter in pharmacies or by prescription.
They have been available in Australia for more than 20 years and are in the top ten medicines dispensed through the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.
They are used to treat conditions exacerbated by stomach acid. These include heartburn, gastric reflux and indigestion. They work by blocking the protein responsible for pumping acid into the stomach.
These drugs are also prescribed with antibiotics to treat the bacterium Helicobacter pylori, which causes stomach ulcers and stomach cancer.
This class of drugs is also used with antibiotics to treat Helicobacter pylori infections. nobeastsofierce/Shutterstock What do we know about the risks?
Appropriate use of proton pump inhibitors plays an important role in treating several serious digestive problems. Like all medicines, there are risks associated with their use depending on how much and how long they are used.
When proton pump inhibitors are used appropriately for the short-term treatment of stomach problems, they are generally well tolerated, safe and effective.
Their risks are mostly associated with long-term use (using them for more than a year) due to the negative effects from having reduced levels of stomach acid. In elderly people, these include an increased risk of gut and respiratory tract infections, nutrient deficiencies and fractures. Long-term use of these drugs in elderly people has also been associated with an increased risk of dementia.
In children, there is an increased risk of serious infection associated with using these drugs, regardless of how long they are used.
How about the cancer and kidney risk?
Currently, the Australian consumer medicine information sheets that come with the medicines, like this one for esomeprazole, do not list stomach cancer or kidney injury as a risk associated with using proton pump inhibitors.
So what does the evidence say about the risk?
Over the past few years, there have been large studies based on observing people in the general population who have used proton pump inhibitors. These studies have found people who take them are almost two times more likely to develop stomach cancer and 1.7 times more likely to develop chronic kidney disease when compared with people who are not taking them.
In particular, these studies report that users of the drugs lansoprazole and pantoprazole have about a three to four times higher risk than non-users of developing chronic kidney disease.
While these observational studies show a link between using the drugs and these outcomes, we cannot say from this evidence that one causes the other.
Researchers have not yet shown these drugs cause kidney disease. crystal light/Shutterstock What can I do if I’m worried?
Several digestive conditions, especially reflux and heartburn, may benefit from simple dietary and lifestyle changes. But the overall evidence for these is not strong and how well they work varies between individuals.
But it may help to avoid large meals within two to three hours before bed, and reduce your intake of fatty food, alcohol and coffee. Eating slowly and getting your weight down if you are overweight may also help your symptoms.
There are also medications other than proton pump inhibitors that can be used for heartburn, reflux and stomach ulcers.
These include over-the-counter antacids (such as Gaviscon and Mylanta), which work by neutralising the acidic environment of the stomach.
Alternatives for prescription drugs include nizatidine and famotidine. These work by blocking histamine receptors in the stomach, which decreases stomach acid production.
If you are concerned about your use of proton pump inhibitors it is important to speak with your doctor or pharmacist before you stop using them. That’s because when you have been using them for a while, stopping them may result in increased or “rebound” acid production.
Nial Wheate, Professor and Director – Academic Excellence, Macquarie University; Joanna Harnett, Senior Lecturer – Sydney Pharmacy School, Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney, and Wai-Jo Jocelin Chan, Pharmacist and Associate Lecturer, University of Sydney
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Reversing Alzheimer’s – by Dr. Heather Sandison
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The title here is bold, isn’t it? But, if the studies so far are anything to go by, she is, indeed, reversing Alzheimer’s. By this we mean: her Alzheimer’s patients have enjoyed a measurable reversal of the symptoms of cognitive decline (this is not something that usually happens).
The science here is actually new, and/but references are given aplenty, including Dr. Sandison’s own research and others—there’s a bibliography of several hundred papers, which we love to see.
Dr. Sandison’s approach is of course multivector, but is far more lifestyle medicine than pills, with diet in particular playing a critical role. Indeed, it’s worth mentioning that she is a naturopathic doctor (not an MD), so that is her focus—though she’s had a lot of MDs looking in on her work too, as you may see in the book. She has found best results in a diet low in carbs, high in healthy fats—and it bears emphasizing, healthy ones. Many other factors are also built in, but this is a book review, not a book summary.
Nor does the book look at diet in isolation; other aspects of lifestyle are also taken into account, as well as various medical pathways, and how to draw up a personalized plan to deal with those.
The book is written with the general assumption that the reader is someone with increased Alzheimer’s risk wishing to reduce that risk, or the relative of someone with Alzheimer’s disease already. However, the information within is beneficial to all.
The style is on the hard end of pop-science; it’s written for the lay reader, but will (appropriately enough) require active engagement to read effectively.
Bottom line: if Alzheimer’s is something that affects or is likely to affect you (directly, or per a loved one), then this is a very good book to have read
Click here top check out Reversing Alzheimer’s, and learn how to do it!
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