This Naked Mind – by Annie Grace
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We’ve all read about the many, many, dangers of drinking. We’ve also probably all read about how to make the change to not drinking. Put things out of sight, tell your friends, have this rule, have this excuse (for not drinking) ready to give to people who challenge you, consider a support group, and so on.
What Annie Grace offers in this #1 bestseller is different:
A blend of mostly psychology and sociology, to examine the “liminal thinking” stages that funnel us to drink in the first place… and where that leads, and how to clamber back out of the pitcher plant we weren’t necessarily aware we were sliding into.
While she kicks off citing Jung, from a psychological perspective more of this book is CBTish, as it pertains a lot to examining the process of:
- belief—held and defended, based on the…
- conclusion—drawn, often irrationally, from the…
- experience—that we had upon acting on an…
- observation—often mistaking an illusion for the underlying…
- reality
…and how we can and often do go wrong at each step, and how little of the previous steps we can perceive at any given time.
What does this mean for managing/treating alcoholism or a tendency towards alchoholism?
It means interrupting those processes in a careful, surgically precise fashion, so that suddenly… The thing has no more power over us.
Whether you or a loved one struggle with a tendency to addiction (any addiction, actually, the advice goes the same), or are just curious about the wider factors at hand in the epidemiology of addiction, this book is for you.
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Nicotine Benefits (That We Don’t Recommend)!
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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!
As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!
So, no question/request too big or small
❝Does nicotine have any benefits at all? I know it’s incredibly addictive but if you exclude the addiction, does it do anything?❞
Good news: yes, nicotine is a stimulant and can be considered a performance enhancer, for example:
❝Compared with the placebo group, the nicotine group exhibited enhanced motor reaction times, grooved pegboard test (GPT) results on cognitive function, and baseball-hitting performance, and small effect sizes were noted (d = 0.47, 0.46 and 0.41, respectively).❞
Read in full: Acute Effects of Nicotine on Physiological Responses and Sport Performance in Healthy Baseball Players
However, another study found that its use as a cognitive enhancer was only of benefit when there was already a cognitive impairment:
❝Studies of the effects of nicotinic systems and/or nicotinic receptor stimulation in pathological disease states such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder and schizophrenia show the potential for therapeutic utility of nicotinic drugs.
In contrast to studies in pathological states, studies of nicotine in normal-non-smokers tend to show deleterious effects.
This contradiction can be resolved by consideration of cognitive and biological baseline dependency differences between study populations in terms of the relationship of optimal cognitive performance to nicotinic receptor activity.
Although normal individuals are unlikely to show cognitive benefits after nicotinic stimulation except under extreme task conditions, individuals with a variety of disease states can benefit from nicotinic drugs❞
Read in full: Effects of nicotinic stimulation on cognitive performance
Bad news: its addictive qualities wipe out those benefits due to tolerance and thus normalization in short order. So you may get those benefits briefly, but then you’re addicted and also lose the benefits, as well as also ruining your health—making it a lose/lose/lose situation quite quickly.
As an aside, while nicotine is poisonous per se, in the quantities taken by most users, the nicotine itself is not usually what kills. It’s mostly the other stuff that comes with it (smoking is by far and away the worst of all; vaping is relatively less bad, but that’s not a strong statement in this case) that causes problems.
See also: Vaping: A Lot Of Hot Air?
However, this is still not an argument for, say, getting nicotine gum and thinking “no harmful effects” because then you’ll be get a brief performance boost yes before it runs out and being addicted to it and now being in a position whereby if you stop, your performance will be lower than before you started (since you now got used to it, and it became your new normal), before eventually recovering:
In summary
We recommend against using nicotine in the first place, and for those who are addicted, we recommend quitting immediately if not contraindicated (check with your doctor if unsure; there are some situations where it is inadvisable to take away something your body is dependent on, until you correct some other thing first).
For more on quitting in general, see:
Addiction Myths That Are Hard To Quit
Take care!
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Woman Petitions Health Insurer After Company Approves — Then Rejects — Her Infusions
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When KFF Health News published an article in August about the “prior authorization hell” Sally Nix said she went through to secure approval from her insurance company for the expensive monthly infusions she needs, we thought her story had a happy ending.
That’s because, after KFF Health News sent questions to Nix’s insurance company, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois, it retroactively approved $36,000 worth of treatments she thought she owed. Even better, she also learned she would qualify for the infusions moving forward.
Good news all around — except it didn’t last for long. After all, this is the U.S. health care system, where even patients with good insurance aren’t guaranteed affordable care.
To recap: For more than a decade, Nix, of Statesville, North Carolina, has suffered from autoimmune diseases, chronic pain, and fatigue, as well as a condition called trigeminal neuralgia, which is marked by bouts of electric shock-like pain that’s so intense it’s commonly known as the “suicide disease.”
“It is a pain that sends me to my knees,” Nix said in October. “My entire family’s life is controlled by the betrayal of my body. We haven’t lived normally in 10 years.”
Late in 2022, Nix started receiving intravenous immunoglobulin infusions to treat her diseases. She started walking two miles a day with her service dog. She could picture herself celebrating, free from pain, at her daughter’s summer 2024 wedding.
“I was so hopeful,” she said.
But a few months after starting those infusions, she found out that her insurance company wouldn’t cover their cost anymore. That’s when she started “raising Cain about it” on Instagram and Facebook.
You probably know someone like Sally Nix — someone with a chronic or life-threatening illness whose doctor says they need a drug, procedure, or scan, and whose insurance company has replied: No.
Prior authorization was conceived decades ago to rein in health care costs by eliminating duplicative and ineffective treatment. Not only does overtreatment waste billions of dollars every year, but doctors acknowledge it also potentially harms patients.
However, critics worry that prior authorization has now become a way for health insurance companies to save money, sometimes at the expense of patients’ lives. KFF Health News has heard from hundreds of people in the past year relating their prior authorization horror stories.
When we first met Nix, she was battling her insurance company to regain authorization for her infusions. She’d been forced to pause her treatments, unable to afford $13,000 out-of-pocket for each infusion.
Finally, it seemed like months of her hard work had paid off. In July, Nix was told by staff at both her doctor’s office and her hospital that Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois would allow her to restart treatment. Her balance was marked “paid” and disappeared from the insurer’s online portal.
But the day after the KFF Health News story was published, Nix said, she learned the message had changed. After restarting treatment, she received a letter from the insurer saying her diagnoses didn’t actually qualify her for the infusions. It felt like health insurance whiplash.
“They’re robbing me of my life,” she said. “They’re robbing me of so much, all because of profit.”
Dave Van de Walle, a spokesperson for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois, said the company would not discuss individual patients’ cases.
“Prior authorization is often a requirement for certain treatments,” Van de Walle said in a written statement, “and BCBSIL administers benefits according to medical policy and the employer’s benefit.”
But Nix is a Southern woman of the “Steel Magnolia” variety. In other words, she’s not going down without a fight.
In September, she called out her insurance company’s tactics in a http://change.org/ campaign that has garnered more than 21,000 signatures. She has also filed complaints against her insurance company with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Department of Labor, Illinois Department of Insurance, and Illinois attorney general.
Even so, Nix said, she feels defeated.
Not only is she still waiting for prior authorization to restart her immunoglobulin infusions, but her insurance company recently required Nix to secure preapproval for another treatment — routine numbing injections she has received for nearly 10 years to treat the nerve pain caused by trigeminal neuralgia.
“It is reprehensible what they’re doing. But they’re not only doing it to me,” said Nix, who is now reluctantly taking prescription opioids to ease her pain. “They’re doing it to other patients. And it’s got to stop.”
Do you have an experience with prior authorization you’d like to share? Click here to tell your story.
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.
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Cucumber Canapés-Crudités
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It’s time to party with these delicious snacks, which are great as an hors d’œuvre, amuse-bouche, or part of a buffet. And like all our offerings, they’re very healthy too—in this case, especially for the gut and heart!
You will need
- 1 cucumber, sliced
- 1 cup pitted Kalamata olives (or other black olives)
- 1 cup sun-dried tomatoes
- 2 oz feta cheese (or vegan equivalent, or pine nuts)
- 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tbsp fresh basil, chopped
- 2 tsp black pepper, coarse ground
Method
(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)
1) Make the first topping by combining the olives, half the olive oil, and half the black pepper, into a food processor and blending until it is a coarse pâté.
2) Make the second topping by doing the same with the tomatoes, basil, feta cheese (or substitution), and the other half of the olive oil and black pepper, again until it is a coarse pâté.
3) Assemble the canapés-crudités by topping the cucumber slices alternately with the two toppings, and serve:
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:
- Making Friends With Your Gut (You Can Thank Us Later)
- Cucumber Extract Beats Glucosamine & Chondroitin… At 1/135th Of The Dose?! ← yes, you can get this benefit by eating cucumber
- Black Olives vs Green Olives – Which is Healthier? ← have a guess!
- Lycopene’s Benefits For The Gut, Heart, Brain, & More ← tomatoes are very rich in lycopene
- Herbs for Evidence-Based Health & Healing ←Basil features here
- Black Pepper’s Impressive Anti-Cancer Arsenal (And More)
Take care!
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Healthy Tiramisu
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Tiramisu (literally “pick-me-up”, “tira-mi-su”) is a delightful dish that, in its traditional form, is also a trainwreck for the health, being loaded with inflammatory cream and sugar, not to mention the cholesterol content. Here we recreate the dish in healthy fashion, being loaded with protein, fiber, and healthy fats, not to mention that the optional sweetener is an essential amino acid. The coffee and cocoa, of course, are full of antioxidants too. All in all, what’s not celebrate?
You will need
- 2 cups silken tofu (no need to press it) (do not substitute with any other kind of tofu or it will not work)
- 1 cup oat cream (you can buy this ready-made, or make it yourself by blending oats in water until you get the desired consistency) (you can also just use dairy cream, but that will be less healthy)
- 1 cup almond flour (also simply called “ground almonds”)
- 1 cup espresso ristretto, or otherwise the strongest black coffee you have facility to make
- ¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder, plus more for dusting
- 1 pack savoiardi biscuits, also called “ladyfinger” biscuits (this was the only part we couldn’t make healthy—if you figure out a way to make it healthy, let us know!) (if vegan, obviously use a vegan substitute biscuit; this writer uses Lotus/Biscoff biscuits, which work well)
- 1 tsp vanilla essence
- ½ tsp almond essence
- Optional: glycine, per taste
- Garnish: roasted coffee beans
Method
(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)
1) Add glycine to the coffee first if you want the overall dish to be sweeter. Glycine has approximately the same sweetness as sugar, and can be used as a 1:1 substitution. Use that information as you see fit.
2) Blend the tofu and the cream together in a high-speed blender until smooth. It should have a consistency like cake-batter; if it is too liquidy, add small amounts of almond flour until it is thicker. If it’s too thick, add oat cream until it isn’t. If you want it to be sweeter than it is, add glycine to taste. When happy with its taste and consistency, divide it evenly into two bowls.
3) Add the vanilla essence and almond essence to one bowl, and the cocoa powder to the other, mixing well (in a food processor, or just by using a whisk)
4) Coat the base of a glass dish (such as a Pyrex oven dish, but any dish is fine, and any glass dish will allow for viewing the pretty layers we’ll be making) with a very thin layer of almond flour (if you want sweetness there, you can mix some glycine in with the almond flour first).
4) One by one, soak the biscuits briefly in the coffee, and use them to line to base of the dish.
5) Add a thin layer of chocolate cream, ensuring the surface is as flat as possible. Dust it with cocoa powder, to increase the surface tension.
6) Add a thin layer of vanilla-and-almond cream, ensuring the surface is as flat as possible. Dust it with cocoa powder, to increase the surface tension.
7) Stop and assess: do you have enough ingredients left to repeat these layers? It will depend on the size and shape dish you used. If you do, repeat them, finishing with a vanilla-and-almond cream layer.
8) Dust the final layer with cocoa powder if you haven’t already, and add the coffee bean garnish, if using.
9) Refrigerate for at least 8 hours, and if you have time to prepare it the day before you will eat it, that is best of all.
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:
- Easily Digestible Vegetarian Protein Sources
- Why You Should Diversify Your Nuts!
- The Bitter Truth About Coffee (or is it?)
- The Sweet Truth About Glycine
- Tiramisu Crunch Bites ← craving tiramisu but not keen on all that effort? Enjoy these!
Take care!
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Buckwheat vs Bulgur Wheat – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing buckwheat to bulgur, we picked the buckwheat.
Why?
First, some things to know up front:
- Bulgur wheat is a kind of cracked wheat product. As such, it contains wheat, and yes, gluten.
- Buckwheat is not a wheat, nor even a grass, but a flowering plant. Buckwheat is as related to wheat as a lionfish is to a lion. It does not contain gluten.
- Buckwheat can be purchased whole or hulled. We went with whole. If you go with hulled, the percentages of vitamins and minerals will be relatively higher, and/but this will be because you lost the fibrous husk, so they’ll be commensurately lower in fiber. If you were to go with hulled, we’d still pick it over bulgur wheat though, just for a different reason (as in that case, the vitamin and mineral contents would be more overwhelmingly in buckwheat’s favor, even though it’d have less fiber).
Ok, now that those things are covered…
Looking at the macronutrients, there’s not a lot between them, except that buckwheat has the much lower glycemic index (this is only the case if you got whole, not hulled—if you got hulled, the glycemic index would be about the same).
In terms of vitamins, buckwheat has more of vitamins B2, B5, B9, E, K, and choline, while bulgur wheat technically has more vitamin A, but the numbers are tiny; a cup of bulgur wheat will give you 0.12% of the RDA. So, an easy win (functionally: 5:0) for buckwheat.
When it comes to minerals, buckwheat has more copper, magnesium, potassium, and selenium, while bulgur wheat has more calcium and manganese. They’re equal on iron and phosphorus, making this a 4:2 win for buckwheat.
Adding up the categories makes this a clear win for buckwheat!
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Take care!
Don’t Forget…
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3 Appetite Suppressants Better Than Ozempic
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Dr. Annette Bosworth gives her recommendations, and explains why:
What and how
We’ll get straight to it; the recommendations are:
- Coffee, black, unsweetened: not only suppresses the appetite but also boosts the metabolism, increasing fat burn.
- Salt: especially for when fasting (as under such circumstances we may lose salts without replenishing them), a small taste of this can help satisfy taste buds while replenishing sodium and—depending on the salt—other minerals. For example, if you buy “low-sodium salt” in the supermarket, this is generally sodium chloride cut with potassium chloride and/or occasionally magnesium sulfate.
- Ketones (MCT oil): ketones can suppress hunger, particularly when fasting causes blood sugar levels to drop. Supplementing with MCT oil promotes ketone production in the liver, training the body to produce more ketones naturally, thus curbing appetite.
For more on these including the science of them, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
- Ozempic vs Five Natural Supplements
- Some Surprising Truths About Hunger And Satiety
- The Fruit That Can Specifically Reduce Belly Fat
Take care!
Don’t Forget…
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Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
