The “Yes I Can” Salad
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Sometimes, we are given to ask ourselves: “Can I produce a healthy and tasty salad out of what I have in?” and today we show how, with a well-stocked pantry, the answer is “yes I can”, regardless of what is (or isn’t) in the fridge.
You will need
- 1 can cannellini beans, drained
- 1 can sardines (if vegetarian/vegan, substitute ½ can chickpeas, drained)
- 1 can mandarin segments
- 1 handful pitted black olives, from a jar (or from a can, if you want to keep the “yes I can” theme going)
- ½ red onion, thinly sliced (this can be from frozen, defrosted—sliced/chopped onion is always a good thing to have in your freezer, by the way; your writer here always has 1–6 lbs of chopped onions in hers, divided into 1lb bags)
- 1 oz lemon juice
- 1 tbsp chopped parsley (this can be freeze-dried, but fresh is good if you have it)
- 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tbsp chia seeds
- 1 tsp miso paste
- 1 tsp honey (omit if you don’t care for sweetness; substitute with agave nectar if you do like sweetness but don’t want to use honey specifically)
- 1 tsp red chili flakes
Method
(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)
1) Combine the onion and the lemon juice in a small bowl, massaging gently
2) Mix (in another bowl) the miso paste with the chili flakes, chia seeds, honey, olive oil, and the spare juice from the can of mandarin segments, and whisk it to make a dressing.
3) Add the cannellini beans, sardines (break them into bite-size chunks), mandarin segments, olives, and parsley, tossing them thoroughly (but gently) in the dressing.
4) Top with the sliced onion, discarding the excess lemon juice, and serve:
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:
- Three Daily Servings of Beans?
- We Are Such Stuff As Fish Are Made Of
- Chia: The Tiniest Seeds With The Most Value
Take care!
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Breathe; Don’t Vent (At Least In The Moment)
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Zen And The Art Of Breaking Things
We’ve talked before about identifying emotions and the importance of being able to express them:
Answering The Most Difficult Question: How Are You?
However, there can be a difference between “expressing how we feel” and “being possessed by how we feel and bulldozing everything in our path”
…which is, of course, primarily a problem in the case of anger—and by extension, emotions that are often contemporaneous with anger, such as jealousy, shame, fear, etc.
How much feeling is too much?
While this is in large part a subjective matter, clinically speaking the key question is generally: is it adversely affecting daily life to the point of being a problem?
For example, if you have to spend half an hour every day actively managing a certain emotion, that’s probably indicative of something unusual, but “unusual” is not inherently bad. If you’re managing it safely and in a way that doesn’t negatively affect the rest of your life, then that is generally considered fine, unless you feel otherwise about it.
A good example of this is complicated grief and/or prolonged grief.
But what about when it comes to anger? How much is ok?
When it comes to those around you, any amount of anger can seem like too much. Anger often makes us short-tempered even with people who are not the object of our anger, and it rarely brings out the best in us.
We can express our feelings in non-aggressive ways, for example:
and
Seriously Useful Communication Skills!
Sometimes, there’s another way though…
Breathe; don’t vent
That’s a great headline, but we can’t take the credit for it, because it came from:
Breathe, don’t vent: turning down the heat is key to managing anger
…in which it was found that, by all available metrics, the popular wisdom of “getting it off your chest” doesn’t necessarily stand up to scrutiny, at least in the short term:
❝The work was inspired in part by the rising popularity of rage rooms that promote smashing things (such as glass, plates and electronics) to work through angry feelings.
I wanted to debunk the whole theory of expressing anger as a way of coping with it,” she said. “We wanted to show that reducing arousal, and actually the physiological aspect of it, is really important.❞
And indeed, he and his team did find that various arousal-increasing activities (such as hitting a punchbag, breaking things, doing vigorous exercise) did not help as much as arousal-decreasing activities, such as mindfulness-based relaxation techniques.
If you’d like to read the full paper, then so would we, but we couldn’t get full access to this one yet. However, the abstract includes representative statistics, so that’s worth a once-over:
Caveat!
Did you notice the small gap between their results and their conclusion?
In a lab or similar short-term observational setting, their recommendation is clearly correct.
However, if the source of your anger is something chronic and persistent, it could well be that calming down without addressing the actual cause is just “kicking the can down the road”, and will still have to actually be dealt with eventually.
So, while “here be science”, it’s not a mandate for necessarily suffering in silence. It’s more about being mindful about how we go about tackling our anger.
As for a primer on mindfulness, feel free to check out:
No-Frills, Evidence-Based Mindfulness
Take care!
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Beyond Guarding Against Dementia
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When Age’s Brain-Changes Come Knocking
This is Dr. Amy Friday. She’s a psychologist, specializing in geropsychology and neuropsychological assessments.
In other words, she helps people optimize their aging experience, particularly in the context of brain changes as we get older.
What does she want us to know?
First: be not afraid
Ominous first words, but the fact is, there’s a lot to find scary about the prospect of memory loss, dementia, and death.
However, as she points out:
- Death will come for us all sooner or later, barring technology as yet unknown
- Dementia can be avoided, or at least stalled, or at least worked around
- Memory loss, as per the above, can be avoided/stalled/managed
We’ve written a little on these topics too:
…or if the death is not yours:
As for avoiding dementia, the below-linked feature is about Alzheimer’s in particular (which accounts for more than half of all cases of dementia), but the advice goes for most of the other kinds too:
How To Reduce Your Alzheimer’s Risk
And finally, about memory loss specifically:
How To Boost Your Memory Immediately (Without Supplements)
this one is especially about cementing into one’s brain the kinds of memories that people most fear losing with age. People don’t worry about forgetting their PIN codes; they worry about forgetting their cherished memories with loved ones. So, if that’s important to you, do consider checking out this one!
What is that about managing or working around the symptoms?
If we’re missing a limb, we (usually) get a prosthetic, and/or learn how to operate without that limb.
If we’re missing sight or hearing, partially or fully, there are disability aids for those kinds of things too (glasses are a disability aid! Something being very common does not make it not a disability; you literally have less of an ability—in this case, the ability to see), and/or we learn how to operate with our different (or missing) sense.
Dr. Friday makes the case for this being the same with memory loss, dementia, and other age-related symptoms (reduced focus, increased mental fatigue, etc):
❝We are all screwed up. Here’s my flavor … what’s yours? This is a favorite saying of mine, because we ARE all screwed up in one way or another, and when we acknowledge it we can feel closer in our screwed-up-edness.
We are all experiencing “normal aging,” so that tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon that starts in our thirties and slowly gets worse is REAL. But what if you’re having more problems than normal aging? Is it time to throw in the towel and hide? I’m hoping that there is a group of people who say HELL NO to that idea.
Let’s use lessons from research and clinical practice to help all of us work around our weaknesses, and capitalize on our strengths. ❞
Examples of this might include:
- Writing down the things most important to you (a short list of information and/or statements that you feel define you and what matters most to you), so that you can read it later
- Making sure you have support (partner, family, friends, etc) who are on the same page about this topic—and thus will actually support you and advocate for you, instead of arguing about what is in your best interest without consulting you.
- Labelling stuff around the house, so that you get less confused about what is what and where it is
- Having a named go-to advocate that you can call / ask to be called, if you are in trouble somewhere and need help that you can rely on
- Getting a specialized, simpler bank account; hiring an accountant if relevant and practicable.
The thing is, we all want to keep control. Sometimes we can do that! Sometimes we can’t, and if we’re going to lose some aspect of control, it’ll generally go a lot better if we do it on our own terms, so that we ourselves can look out for future-us in our planning.
Want to know more?
You might enjoy her blog, which includes also links to her many videos on the topic, including such items as:
- Neuroplasticity – #1 Way To Increase Brain Health
- Which Diet PREVENTS Alzheimer’s? | Best Brain Health Diet
- Stop Anxiety About Dementia & Do I Have Dementia?
For the rest, see:
This Beautiful Brain | The Science Of Brain Health
Enjoy!
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What does it mean to be immunocompromised?
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Our immune systems help us fight off disease, but certain health conditions and medications can weaken our immune systems. People whose immune systems don’t work as well as they should are considered immunocompromised.
Read on to learn more about how the immune system works, what causes people to be immunocompromised, and how we can protect ourselves and the immunocompromised people around us from illness.
What is the immune system?
The immune system is a network of cells, organs, and chemicals that helps our bodies fight off infections caused by invaders, such as bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites.
Some important parts of the immune system include:
- White blood cells, which attack and kill germs that don’t belong inside our bodies.
- Lymph nodes, which help our bodies filter out germs.
- Antibodies, which help our bodies recognize invaders.
- Cytokines, which tell our immune cells what to do.
What causes people to be immunocompromised?
Some health conditions and medications can prevent our immune systems from functioning optimally, which makes us more vulnerable to infection. Health conditions that compromise the immune system fall into two categories: primary immunodeficiency and secondary immunodeficiency.
Primary immunodeficiency
People with primary immunodeficiency are born with genetic mutations that prevent their immune systems from functioning as they should. There are hundreds of types of primary immunodeficiencies. Since these mutations affect the immune system to varying degrees, some people may experience symptoms and get diagnosed early in life, while others may not know they’re immunocompromised until adulthood.
Secondary immunodeficiency
Secondary immunodeficiency happens later in life due to an infection like HIV, which weakens the immune system over time, or certain types of cancer, which prevent the body from producing enough white blood cells to adequately fight off infection. Studies have also shown that getting infected with COVID-19 may cause immunodeficiency by reducing our production of “killer T-cells,” which help fight off infections.
Sometimes necessary treatments for certain medical conditions can also cause secondary immunodeficiency. For example, people with autoimmune disorders—which cause the immune system to become overactive and attack healthy cells—may need to take immunosuppressant drugs to manage their symptoms. However, the drugs can make them more vulnerable to infection.
People who receive organ transplants may also need to take immunosuppressant medications for life to prevent their body from rejecting the new organ. (Given the risk of infection, scientists continue to research alternative ways for the immune system to tolerate transplantation.)
Chemotherapy for cancer patients can also cause secondary immunodeficiency because it kills the immune system’s white blood cells as it’s trying to kill cancer cells.
What are the symptoms of a compromised immune system?
People who are immunocompromised may become sick more frequently than others or may experience more severe or longer-term symptoms than others who contract the same disease.
Other symptoms of a compromised immune system may include fatigue; digestive problems like cramping, nausea, and diarrhea; and slow wound healing.
How can I find out if I’m immunocompromised?
If you think you may be immunocompromised, talk to your health care provider about your medical history, your symptoms, and any medications you take. Blood tests can determine whether your immune system is producing adequate proteins and cells to fight off infection.
I’m immunocompromised—how can I protect myself from infection?
If you’re immunocompromised, take precautions to protect yourself from illness.
Wash your hands regularly, wear a well-fitting mask around others to protect against respiratory viruses, and ensure that you’re up to date on recommended vaccines.
Immunocompromised people may need more doses of vaccines than people who are not immunocompromised—including COVID-19 vaccines. Talk to your health care provider about which vaccines you need.
How can I protect the immunocompromised people around me?
You never know who may be immunocompromised. The best way to protect immunocompromised people around you is to avoid spreading illnesses.
If you know you’re sick, isolate whenever possible. Wear a well-fitting mask around others—especially if you know that you’re sick or that you’ve been exposed to germs. Make sure you’re up to date on recommended vaccines, and practice regular hand-washing.
If you’re planning to spend time with someone who is immunocompromised, ask them what steps you can take to keep them safe.
For more information, talk to your health care provider.
This article first appeared on Public Good News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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Behind Book Recommendations
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It’s Q&A Day!
Each Thursday, we respond to subscriber questions and requests! If it’s something small, we’ll answer it directly; if it’s something bigger, we’ll do a main feature in a follow-up day instead!
So, no question/request to big or small; they’ll just get sorted accordingly
Remember, you can always hit reply to any of our emails, or use the handy feedback widget at the bottom. We always look forward to hearing from you!
Q: What’s the process behind the books you recommend? You seem to have a limitless stream of recommendations
We do our best!
The books we recommend are books that…
- are on Amazon—it makes things tidy, consistent, and accessible. And if you end up buying one of the books, we get a small affiliate commission*.
- we have read—we would say “obviously”, but you might be surprised how many people write about books without having read them.
- pertain in at least large part to health and/or productivity.
- are written by humans—bookish people (and especially Kindle Unlimited users) may have noticed lately that there are a lot of low quality AI-written books flooding the market, sometimes with paid 5-star reviews to bolster them. It’s frustrating, but we can tell the difference and screen those out.
- are of a certain level of quality. They don’t have to be “top 5 desert-island books”, because well, there’s one every day and the days keep coming. But they do have to genuinely deliver the value that we describe, and merit a sincere recommendation.
- are varied—we try to not give a run of “samey” books one after another. We will sometimes review a book that covers a topic another previously-reviewed book did, but it must have something about it that makes it different. It may be a different angle or a different writing style, but it needs something to set it apart.
*this is from Amazon and isn’t product-specific, so this is not affecting our choice of what books to review at all—just that they will be books that are available on Amazon.
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5 ways to naturally boost the “Ozempic Effect”
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Dr. Jason Fung is perhaps most well-known for his work in functional medicine for reversing diabetes, and he’s once again giving us sound advice about metabolic hormone-hacking with dietary tweaks:
All about incretin
As you may gather from the thumbnail, this video is about incretin, a hormone group (the most well-known of which is GLP-1, as in GLP-1 agonists like semaglutide drugs such as Ozempic, Wegovy, etc) that slows down stomach emptying, which means a gentler blood sugar curve and feeling fuller for longer. It also acts on the hypothalmus, controlling appetite via the brain too (signalling fullness and reducing hunger).
Dr. Fung recommends 5 ways to increase incretin levels:
- Enjoy dietary fat: this increases incretin levels more than carbs
- Enjoy protein: again, prompts higher incretin levels of promotes satiety
- Enjoy fiber: this is more about slowing digestion, but when it’s fermented in the gut into short-chain fatty acids, those too increase incretin secretion
- Enjoy bitter foods: these don’t actually affect incretin levels, but they can bind to incretin receptors, making the body “believe” that you got more incretin (think of it like a skeleton key that fits the lock that was designed to be opened by a different key)
- Enjoy turmeric: for its curcumin content, which increases GLP-1 levels specifically
For more information on each of these, here’s Dr. Fung himself:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
- Semaglutide for Weight Loss?
- Ozempic vs Five Natural Supplements
- How To Prevent And Reverse Type 2 Diabetes ← this was our “Expert Insights” feature on Dr. Fung’s work
Take care!
Don’t Forget…
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How To Reduce The Harm Of Festive Drinking (Without Abstaining)
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How To Reduce The Harm Of Festive Drinking
Not drinking alcohol is—of course—the best way to avoid the harmful effects of alcohol. However, not everyone wants to abstain, especially at this time of year, so today we’re going to be focusing on harm reduction without abstinence.
If you do want to quit (or even reduce) drinking, you might like our previous article about that:
For everyone else, let’s press on with harm reduction:
Before You Drink
A common (reasonable, but often unhelpful) advice is “set yourself a limit”. The problem with this is that when we’re sober, “I will drink no more than n drinks” is easy. After the first drink, we start to feel differently about it.
So: delay your first drink of the day for as long as possible
That’s it, that’s the tip. The later you start drinking, not only will you likely drink less, but also, your liver will have had longer to finish processing whatever you drank last night, so it’s coming at the new drink(s) fresh.
On that note…
Watch your meds! Often, especially if we are taking medications that also tax our liver (acetaminophen / paracetamol / Tylenol is a fine example of this), we are at risk of having a bit of a build-up, like an office printer that still chewing on the last job while you’re trying to print the next.
Additionally: do indeed eat before you drink.
While You Drink
Do your best to drink slowly. While this can hit the same kind of problem as the “set yourself a limit” idea, in that once you start drinking you forget to drink slowly, it’s something to try for.
If your main reason for drinking is the social aspect, then merely having a drink in your hand is generally sufficient. You don’t need to be keeping pace with anyone.
It is further good to alternate your drinks with water. As in, between each alcoholic drink, have a glass of water. This helps in several ways:
- Hydrates you, which is good for your body’s recovery abilities
- Halves the amount of time you spend drinking
- Makes you less thirsty; it’s easy to think “I’m thirsty” and reach for an alcoholic drink that won’t actually help. So, it may slow down your drinking for that reason, too.
At the dinner table especially, it’s very reasonable to have two glasses, one filled with water. Nobody will be paying attention to which glass you drink from more often.
After You Drink
Even if you are not drunk, assume that you are.
Anything you wouldn’t let a drunk person in your care do, don’t do. Now is not the time to drive, have a shower, or do anything you wouldn’t let a child do in the kitchen.
Hospital Emergency Rooms, every year around this time, get filled up with people who thought they were fine and then had some accident.
The biggest risks from alcohol are:
- Accidents
- Heart attacks
- Things actually popularly associated with alcohol, e.g. alcohol poisoning etc
So, avoiding accidents is as important as, if not more important than, avoiding damage to your liver.
Drink some water, and eat something.
Fruit is great, as it restocks you on vitamins, minerals, and water, while being very easy to digest.
Go to bed.
There is a limit to how much trouble you can get into there. Sleep it off.
In the morning, do not do “hair of the dog”; drinking alcohol will temporarily alleviate a hangover, but only because it kicks your liver back into an earlier stage of processing the alcohol—it just prolongs the inevitable.
Have a good breakfast, instead. Remember, fruit is your friend (as explained above).
Want to know more?
Here’s a great service with a lot of further links to a lot more resources:
With You | How to safely detox from alcohol at home
Take care!
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