The Wandering Mind – by Dr. Michael Corballis

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 mind’s tendency to wander can be a disability, but could it also be a superpower? Dr. Corballis makes the case for such.

While many authors focus on, well, how to focus, Dr. Corballis argues in this book that our wandering imagination can be more effective at problem-solving and creative tasks, than a focused, blinkered mind.

The book’s a quick read (184 pages of quite light reading), and yet still quite dense with content. He takes us on a tour of the brain, theory of mind, the Default Mode Network (where a lot of the brain’s general ongoing organization occurs), learning, memory, forgetting, and creativity.

Furthermore, he cites (and explains) studies showing what kinds of “breaks” from mental work allow the wandering mind to do its thing at peak efficiency, and what kinds of breaks are counterproductive. Certainly this has practical applications for all of us!

Bottom line: if you’d like to be less frustrated by your mind’s tendency to wander, this is a fine book to show how to leverage that trait to your benefit.

Click here to check out The Wandering Mind, and set yours onto more useful tracks!

Don’t Forget…

Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!

Recommended

  • Breaking Free from Emotional Eating – Geneen Roth
  • Egg Whites vs Whole Eggs – Which is Healthier?
    Whole eggs over egg whites: yolks contain essential nutrients, choline for brain health, and fat that doesn’t equal bad. Choose wisely.

Learn to Age Gracefully

Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:

  • Mushrooms vs Eggplant – 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 mushrooms to eggplant, we picked the mushrooms.

    Why?

    First, you may be wondering: which mushrooms? Button mushrooms? White mushrooms? Chestnut mushrooms? Portobello mushrooms? And the answer is yes. Those (and more; it represents most mushrooms that are commonly sold fresh in western supermarkets) are all the same species at different ages; namely, Agaricus bisporus—not to be mistaken for fly agaric, which despite the name, is not even a member of the Agaricus genus, and is in fact Amanita muscari. This is an important distinction, because fly agaric is poisonous, though fatality is rare, and it’s commonly enjoyed recreationally (after some preparation, which reduces its toxicity) for its psychoactive effects. It’s the famous red one with white spots. Anyway, today we will be talking instead about Agaricus bisporus, which is most popular western varieties of “edible mushroom”.

    With that in mind, let’s get down to it:

    In terms of macros, mushrooms contain more than 3x the protein, while eggplant contains nearly 2x the carbs and 3x the fiber. We’ll call this a tie for macros.

    As for vitamins, mushrooms contain more of vitamins B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B7, B9, B12, D, and choline, while eggplant contains more of vitamins A, E, and K. Most notably for vegans, mushrooms are a good non-animal source of vitamins B12 and D, which nutrients are not generally found in plants. Mushrooms, of course, are not technically plants. In any case, the vitamins category is an easy win for mushrooms.

    When it comes to minerals, mushrooms have more copper, iron, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc, while eggplant has more calcium, magnesium, and manganese. Another easy win for mushrooms.

    One final thing worth noting is that mushrooms are a rich source of the amino acid ergothioneine, which has been called a “longevity vitamin” for its healthspan-increasing effects (see our article below).

    Meanwhile, in the category of mushrooms vs eggplant, mushrooms don’t leave much room for doubt and are the clear winner here.

    Want to learn more?

    You might like to read:

    The Magic of Mushrooms: “The Longevity Vitamin” (That’s Not A Vitamin)

    Take care!

    Share This Post

  • Your Science-Based Guide To Losing Fat & Toning Up

    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.

    This health coach researched the science and crunched the numbers so that you don’t have to:

    Body by the numbers

    Let’s get mathematical:

    Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) consists of:

    • Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR): 70% of daily calorie burn (basic body functions, of which the brain is the single biggest calorie-burner)
    • Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT): 15% (the normal movements that occur as you go about your daily life)
    • Exercise Activity: 5% (actual workouts, often overestimated)
    • Thermic Effect of Food (TEF): 10% (energy needed for digestion)

    Basic BMR estimate:

    • Women: body weight (kg) × 0.9 × 24
    • Men: body weight (kg) × 24

    But yours may differ, so if you have a fitness tracker or other gadget that estimates it for you, go with that!

    Note: muscle burns calories just to maintain it, making muscle mass crucial to increasing one’s BMR.

    And now some notes about running a caloric deficit:

    • Safe caloric deficit: no more than 500 calories/day.
    • Absolute minimum daily intake: 1,200 calories (women), 1,500 calories (men) (not sustainable long-term).
    • Tracking calories is useful but not always accurate.
    • Extreme calorie restriction slows metabolism and can lead to binge-eating.
    • Your body will adjust to calorie deficits over time, making long-term drastic deficits ineffective.

    Diet for fat loss & muscle gain:

    • Protein Intake: 1.5–2g per pound of body weight.
    • Aim for 30g of protein per meal (supports muscle & satiety).
    • Protein has a higher thermic effect (20-30%) than carbs (5-10%) & fats (2-4%), meaning more calories are burned digesting protein.
    • Fats are essential for hormone health & satiety (0.5–1g per kg of body weight).
    • Carbs should be complex (whole grains, vegetables, fruits, etc.).
    • Avoid excessive simple carbs (sugar, white bread, white pasta, etc) to maintain stable hunger signals.
    • Hydration is key for appetite control & metabolism (often mistaken for hunger).

    Exercise for fat loss & muscle gain:

    • Resistance training (3-5x per week) is essential for toning & metabolism.
    • Cardio is NOT necessary for fat loss but good for overall health.
    • NEAT (non-exercise movement) burns significant calories (walking, taking stairs, fidgeting, etc.).
    • “Hot girl walks” & daily movement can significantly aid weight loss.
    • Women won’t get “bulky” from weight training unless they eat like a bodybuilder (i.e. several times the daily caloric requirement).

    Some closing words in addition:

    Poor sleep reduces fat loss by 50% and increases hunger. High stress levels lead to fat retention and cravings for unhealthy foods. Thus, managing stress & sleep is as important as diet & exercise for body transformation!

    For more on all of this (plus the sources for the science), enjoy:

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

    Want to learn more?

    You might also like to read:

    How To Lose Weight (Healthily) ← our own main feature about such; we took a less numbers-based, more principles-based, approach. Both approaches work, so go with whichever suits your personal preference more!

    Take care!

    Share This Post

  • Kidney Beans or Black Beans – 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 black beans, we picked the black beans.

    Why?

    First, do note that black beans are also known as turtle beans, or if one wants to hedge one’s bets, black turtle beans. It’s all the same bean. As a small linguistic note, kidney beans are known as “red beans” in many languages, so we could have called this “red beans vs black beans”, but that wouldn’t have landed so well with our largely anglophone readership. So, kidney beans vs black beans it is!

    They’re certainly both great, and this is a close one today…

    In terms of macros, they’re equal on protein and black beans have more carbs and/but also more fiber. So far, so equal—or rather, if one pulls ahead of the other here, it’s a matter of subjective priorities.

    In the category of vitamins, they’re equal on vitamins B2, B3, and choline, while kidney beans have more of vitamins B6, B9, C, and K, and black beans have more of vitamins A, B1, B5, and E. In other words, the two beans are still tied with a 4:4 split, unless we want to take into account that that vitamin E difference is that black beans have 29x more vitamin E, in which case, black beans move ahead.

    When it comes to minerals, finally the winner becomes apparent; while kidney beans have a little more manganese and zinc, on the other hand black beans have more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, and selenium. However, it should be noted that honestly, the margins aren’t huge here and kidney beans are almost as good for all of these minerals.

    In short, black beans win the day, but kidney beans are very close behind, so enjoy whichever you prefer, or better yet, both! They go great together in tacos, burritos, or similar, by the way.

    Want to learn more?

    You might like to read:

    Take care!

    Share This Post

Related Posts

  • Breaking Free from Emotional Eating – Geneen Roth
  • Fasting Cancer – by Dr. Valter Longo

    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’ve previously reviewed Dr. Longo’s “The Longevity Diet”, and whereas that one was about eating, this one is (superficially, at least) about not eating. Nor is this any kind of dissonance, because, in fact, it’s important to do both!

    That said, he discusses not just fasting per se, but also the use of a personalized fast-mimicking diet, to accomplish the same goal of not overloading the metabolism—as overloading the metabolism results in metabolic disease, and cancer is, ultimately, a metabolic disease of immune dysfunction with genetic disorder*—which makes for quite a deadly trifecta.

    *not in the sense of “hereditary”, though certainly genes can influence cancer risk, but rather, in the sense of “your gene-copying process becomes disordered”.

    The first three chapters (after the introduction, which we’ll comment on shortly) are devoted to explaining the principles at hand:

    1. Fasting cancer while feeding patients
    2. Genes, aging, and cancer
    3. Fasting, nutrition, and physical activity in cancer prevention

    In those chapters, he details a lot of the science for exactly how and why it is possible to “feed the patient and starve the cancer” at the same time.

    After that, the rest of the book—another nine chapters, not counting appendices etc—are given over to fasting and nutrition in the context of nine main types of cancer, one chapter per type. These are not hyperspecific, though, and are rather categorizations, such as “blood cancers”, and “gynecological cancers” and so forth. It’s comprehensive, and while it could be argued that it may mean chapters feel irrelevant to some people (à la “I have never smoked and have no pressing concern about my lung cancer risk” etc), the reality is that it’s good to know how to avoid them all, because if nothing else, it’d be super embarrassing to get a cancer you “thought you couldn’t get”. So, it’s honestly worth the time to read each chapter.

    In the category of criticism, he did open the introduction with a handful of anecdotes to defend the consumption of (well-established group 1 carcinogens) red meat and alcohol as “secondary concerns that might not be such a big deal”, even discussing how surprised his colleagues in the field are that he has this view. Suffice it to say, it’s contrary to the overwhelming body of evidence, and reads suspiciously like a man who simply doesn’t want to give up his steak and wine despite his own longevity diet forswearing them.

    The style is self-indulgently autobiographical and very complimentary, and (in this reviewer’s opinion) it can be tedious to wade through that to get to the science, but at the end of the day, his self-accolades might be needless fluff, but they don’t actually remove anything from the science in question.

    Bottom line: as you can see, there are good and bad things to say about this book, but the information contained in the good makes it well worth reading through the stylistically questionable to get it.

    Click here to check out Fasting Cancer, and starve cancer cells while nourishing your healthy ones!

    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:

  • “Unfuck Your Body” In Under 10 Minutes A Day!

    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.

    There’s a lot that can go wrong with mobility, but fortunately, a few compound exercises will take care of most parts of it:

    Full Body Mobility Routine

    Eleven exercises, 10 minutes, follow-along video if you want it!

    Kneeling side bend stretch:

    • Targets obliques, lats, hip flexors, and spinal mobility.
    • 10 reps total, focusing on stability and core engagement.

    Seated ankle stretch:

    • This one’s for ankle mobility and deep squat comfort.
    • 10 reps, adjust intensity by leaning forward or pressing on knees.

    Deep squat with prayer stretch:

    • Improves hip, ankle, and lower back flexibility.
    • 10 reps, maintain an upright chest and push knees outward.

    Deep squat with high reach:

    • Boosts thoracic mobility, hip, and ankle flexibility.
    • 5 reps per side, focus on spinal rotation and open chest.

    Deep shoulder stretch:

    • Improves overhead mobility and shoulder tension relief.
    • 10 reps in a child’s pose position with a forward reach.

    Frog rocks:

    • Opens hip abductors, groin, and inner thighs.
    • 10 reps, keep spine neutral and adjust knee position if needed.

    World’s greatest stretch” (with variations):

    • This is great for hip, spine, and shoulder mobility.
    • 5 reps per side, integrates a deep lunge and rotational movements.

    Hamstring stretch (from lunge position):

    • Focus on hamstring and calf flexibility.
    • 5 reps, maintain hands on the ground and shift hips back.

    Pigeon stretch with forward crawl:

    • Opens hips, glutes, and lower back.
    • 5 reps per side, adjust foot placement if knee discomfort occurs.

    Cat-cow stretch:

    • Mobilizes spine, improves posture, and relieves back tension.
    • 10 reps, synchronize movement with breath.

    Couch stretch:

    • Targets hip flexors and quadriceps mobility.
    • 5 reps per side, add a forward lunge for a deeper stretch.

    For more on each of these plus visual demonstrations, enjoy:

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

    Want to learn more?

    You might also like:

    5 Exercises That Fix 95% Of Your Problems

    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

    Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:

  • 4 Ways Vaccine Skeptics Mislead You on Measles and More

    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.

    Measles is on the rise in the United States. In the first quarter of this year, the number of cases was about 17 times what it was, on average, during the same period in each of the four years before, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Half of the people infected — mainly children — have been hospitalized.

    It’s going to get worse, largely because a growing number of parents are deciding not to get their children vaccinated against measles as well as diseases like polio and pertussis. Unvaccinated people, or those whose immunization status is unknown, account for 80% of the measles cases this year. Many parents have been influenced by a flood of misinformation spouted by politicians, podcast hosts, and influential figures on television and social media. These personalities repeat decades-old notions that erode confidence in the established science backing routine childhood vaccines. KFF Health News examined the rhetoric and explains why it’s misguided:

    The No-Big-Deal Trope

    A common distortion is that vaccines aren’t necessary because the diseases they prevent are not very dangerous, or too rare to be of concern. Cynics accuse public health officials and the media of fear-mongering about measles even as 19 states report cases.

    For example, an article posted on the website of the National Vaccine Information Center — a regular source of vaccine misinformation — argued that a resurgence in concern about the disease “is ‘sky is falling’ hype.” It went on to call measles, mumps, chicken pox, and influenza “politically incorrect to get.”

    Measles kills roughly 2 of every 1,000 children infected, according to the CDC. If that seems like a bearable risk, it’s worth pointing out that a far larger portion of children with measles will require hospitalization for pneumonia and other serious complications. For every 10 measles cases, one child with the disease develops an ear infection that can lead to permanent hearing loss. Another strange effect is that the measles virus can destroy a person’s existing immunity, meaning they’ll have a harder time recovering from influenza and other common ailments.

    Measles vaccines have averted the deaths of about 94 million people, mainly children, over the past 50 years, according to an April analysis led by the World Health Organization. Together with immunizations against polio and other diseases, vaccines have saved an estimated 154 million lives globally.

    Some skeptics argue that vaccine-preventable diseases are no longer a threat because they’ve become relatively rare in the U.S. (True — due to vaccination.) This reasoning led Florida’s surgeon general, Joseph Ladapo, to tell parents that they could send their unvaccinated children to school amid a measles outbreak in February. “You look at the headlines and you’d think the sky was falling,” Ladapo said on a News Nation newscast. “There’s a lot of immunity.”

    As this lax attitude persuades parents to decline vaccination, the protective group immunity will drop, and outbreaks will grow larger and faster. A rapid measles outbreak hit an undervaccinated population in Samoa in 2019, killing 83 people within four months. A chronic lack of measles vaccination in the Democratic Republic of the Congo led to more than 5,600 people dying from the disease in massive outbreaks last year.

    The ‘You Never Know’ Trope

    Since the earliest days of vaccines, a contingent of the public has considered them bad because they’re unnatural, as compared with nature’s bounty of infections and plagues. “Bad” has been redefined over the decades. In the 1800s, vaccine skeptics claimed that smallpox vaccines caused people to sprout horns and behave like beasts. More recently, they blame vaccines for ailments ranging from attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder to autism to immune system disruption. Studies don’t back the assertions. However, skeptics argue that their claims remain valid because vaccines haven’t been adequately tested.

    In fact, vaccines are among the most studied medical interventions. Over the past century, massive studies and clinical trials have tested vaccines during their development and after their widespread use. More than 12,000 people took part in clinical trials of the most recent vaccine approved to prevent measles, mumps, and rubella. Such large numbers allow researchers to detect rare risks, which are a major concern because vaccines are given to millions of healthy people.

    To assess long-term risks, researchers sift through reams of data for signals of harm. For example, a Danish group analyzed a database of more than 657,000 children and found that those who had been vaccinated against measles as babies were no more likely to later be diagnosed with autism than those who were not vaccinated. In another study, researchers analyzed records from 805,000 children born from 1990 through 2001 and found no evidence to back a concern that multiple vaccinations might impair children’s immune systems.

    Nonetheless, people who push vaccine misinformation, like candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., dismiss massive, scientifically vetted studies. For example, Kennedy argues that clinical trials of new vaccines are unreliable because vaccinated kids aren’t compared with a placebo group that gets saline solution or another substance with no effect. Instead, many modern trials compare updated vaccines with older ones. That’s because it’s unethical to endanger children by giving them a sham vaccine when the protective effect of immunization is known. In a 1950s clinical trial of polio vaccines, 16 children in the placebo group died of polio and 34 were paralyzed, said Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and author of a book on the first polio vaccine.

    The Too-Much-Too-Soon Trope

    Several bestselling vaccine books on Amazon promote the risky idea that parents should skip or delay their children’s vaccines. “All vaccines on the CDC’s schedule may not be right for all children at all times,” writes Paul Thomas in his bestselling book “The Vaccine-Friendly Plan.” He backs up this conviction by saying that children who have followed “my protocol are among the healthiest in the world.”

    Since the book was published, Thomas’ medical license was temporarily suspended in Oregon and Washington. The Oregon Medical Board documented how Thomas persuaded parents to skip vaccines recommended by the CDC, and reported that he “reduced to tears” a mother who disagreed.  Several children in his care came down with pertussis and rotavirus, diseases easily prevented by vaccines, wrote the board. Thomas recommended fish oil supplements and homeopathy to an unvaccinated child with a deep scalp laceration, rather than an emergency tetanus vaccine. The boy developed severe tetanus, landing in the hospital for nearly two months, where he required intubation, a tracheotomy, and a feeding tube to survive.

    The vaccination schedule recommended by the CDC has been tailored to protect children at their most vulnerable points in life and minimize side effects. The combination measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine isn’t given for the first year of a baby’s life because antibodies temporarily passed on from their mother can interfere with the immune response. And because some babies don’t generate a strong response to that first dose, the CDC recommends a second one around the time a child enters kindergarten because measles and other viruses spread rapidly in group settings.

    Delaying MMR doses much longer may be unwise because data suggests that children vaccinated at 10 or older have a higher chance of adverse reactions, such as a seizure or fatigue.

    Around a dozen other vaccines have discrete timelines, with overlapping windows for the best response. Studies have shown that MMR vaccines may be given safely and effectively in combination with other vaccines.

    ’They Don’t Want You to Know’ Trope

    Kennedy compares the Florida surgeon general to Galileo in the introduction to Ladapo’s new book on transcending fear in public health. Just as the Roman Catholic inquisition punished the renowned astronomer for promoting theories about the universe, Kennedy suggests that scientific institutions oppress dissenting voices on vaccines for nefarious reasons.

    “The persecution of scientists and doctors who dare to challenge contemporary orthodoxies is not a new phenomenon,” Kennedy writes. His running mate, lawyer Nicole Shanahan, has campaigned on the idea that conversations about vaccine harms are censored and the CDC and other federal agencies hide data due to corporate influence.

    Claims like “they don’t want you to know” aren’t new among the anti-vaccine set, even though the movement has long had an outsize voice. The most listened-to podcast in the U.S., “The Joe Rogan Experience,” regularly features guests who cast doubt on scientific consensus. Last year on the show, Kennedy repeated the debunked claim that vaccines cause autism.

    Far from ignoring that concern, epidemiologists have taken it seriously. They have conducted more than a dozen studies searching for a link between vaccines and autism, and repeatedly found none. “We have conclusively disproven the theory that vaccines are connected to autism,” said Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, an epidemiologist at the University of Wollongong in Australia. “So, the public health establishment tends to shut those conversations down quickly.”

    Federal agencies are transparent about seizures, arm pain, and other reactions that vaccines can cause. And the government has a program to compensate individuals whose injuries are scientifically determined to result from them. Around 1 to 3.5 out of every million doses of the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine can cause a life-threatening allergic reaction; a person’s lifetime risk of death by lightning is estimated to be as much as four times as high.

    “The most convincing thing I can say is that my daughter has all her vaccines and that every pediatrician and public health person I know has vaccinated their kids,” Meyerowitz-Katz said. “No one would do that if they thought there were serious risks.”

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

    Subscribe to KFF Health News’ free Morning Briefing.

    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: