Total Recovery – by Dr. Gary Kaplan
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.
First, know: Dr. Kaplan is an osteopath, and as such, will be mostly approaching things from that angle. That said, he is also board certified in other things too, including family medicine, so he’s by no means a “one-trick pony”, nor are there “when your only tool is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail” problems to be found here. Instead, the scope of the book is quite broad.
Dr. Kaplan talks us through the diagnostic process that a doctor goes through when presented with a patient, what questions need to be asked and answered—and by this we mean the deeper technical questions, e.g. “what do these symptoms have in common”, and “what mechanism was at work when the pain become chronic”, not the very basic questions asked in the initial debriefing with the patient.
He also asks such questions (and questions like these get chapters devoted to them) as “what if physical traumas build up”, and “what if physical and emotional pain influence each other”, and then examines how to interrupt the vicious cycles that lead to deterioration of one’s condition.
The style of the book is very pop-science and often narrative in its presentation, giving lots of anecdotes to illustrate the principles. It’s a “sit down and read it cover-to-cover” book—or a chapter a day, whatever your preferred pace; the point is, it’s not a “dip directly to the part that answers your immediate question” book; it’s not a textbook or manual.
Bottom line: a lot of this work is about prompting the reader to ask the right questions to get to where we need to be, but there are many illustrative possible conclusions and practical advices to be found and given too, making this a useful read if you and/or a loved one suffers from chronic pain.
Click here to check out Total Recovery, and solve your own mysteries!
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Recommended
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
-
Why Adult ADHD Often Leads To Anxiety & Depression
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.
ADHD’s Knock-On Effects On Mental Health
We’ve written before about ADHD in adult life, often late-diagnosed because it’s not quite what people think it is:
In women in particular, it can get missed and/or misdiagnosed:
Miss Diagnosis: Anxiety, ADHD, & Women
…but what we’re really here to talk about today is:
It’s the comorbidities that get you
When it comes to physical health conditions:
- if you have one serious condition, it will (usually) be taken seriously
- if you have two, they will still be taken seriously, but people (friends and family members, as well as yes, medical professionals) will start to back off, as it starts to get too complicated for comfort
- if you have three, people will think you are making at least one of them up for attention now
- if you have more than three, you are considered a hypochondriac and pathological liar
Yet, the reality is: having one serious condition increases your chances of having others, and this chance-increasing feature compounds with each extra condition.
Illustrative example: you have fibromyalgia (ouch) which makes it difficult for you to exercise much, shop around when grocery shopping, and do much cooking at home. You do your best, but your diet slips and it’s hard to care when you just want the pain to stop; you put on some weight, and get diagnosed with metabolic syndrome, which in time becomes diabetes with high cardiovascular risk factors. Your diabetes is immunocompromising; you get COVID and find it’s now Long COVID, which brings about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, when you barely had the spoons to function in the first place. At this point you’ve lost count of conditions and are just trying to get through the day.
If this is you, by the way, we hope at least something in the following might ease things for you a bit:
- Stop Pain Spreading
- Managing Chronic Pain (Realistically!)
- Eat To Beat Chronic Fatigue (While Having The Limitations Of Chronic Fatigue)
- When Painkillers Aren’t Helping, These Things Might
- The 7 Approaches To Pain Management
It’s the same for mental health
In the case of ADHD as a common starting point (because it’s quite common, may or may not be diagnosed until later in life, and doesn’t require any external cause to appear), it is very common that it will lead to anxiety and/or depression, to the point that it’s perhaps more common to also have one or more of them than not, if you have ADHD.
(Of course, anxiety and/or depression can both pop up for completely unrelated reasons too, and those reasons may be physiological, environmental, or a combination of the above).
Why?
Because all the good advice that goes for good mental health (and/or life in general), gets harder to actuate when one had ADHD.
- “Strong habits are the core of a good life”, but good luck with that if your brain doesn’t register dopamine in the same way as most people’s do, making intentional habit-forming harder on a physiological level.
- “Plan things carefully and stick to the plan”, but good luck with that if you are neurologically impeded from forming plans.
- “Just do it”, but oops you have the tendency-to-overcommitment disorder and now you are seriously overwhelmed with all the things you tried to do, when each of them alone were already going to be a challenge.
Overwhelm and breakdown are almost inevitable.
And when they happen, chances are you will alienate people, and/or simply alienate yourself. You will hide away, you will avoid inflicting yourself on others, you will brood alone in frustration—or distract yourself with something mind-numbing.
Before you know it, you’re too anxious to try to do things with other people or generally show your face to the world (because how will they react, and won’t you just mess things up anyway?), and/or too depressed to leave your depression-lair (because maybe if you keep playing Kingdom Vegetables 2, you can find a crumb of dopamine somewhere).
What to do about it
How to tackle the many-headed beast? By the heads! With your eyes open. Recognize and acknowledge each of the heads; you can’t beat those heads by sticking your own in the sand.
Also, get help. Those words are often used to mean therapy, but in this case we mean, any help. Enlist your partner or close friend as your support in your mental health journey. Enlist a cleaner as your support in taking that one thing off your plate, if that’s an option and a relevant thing for you. Set low but meaningful goals for deciding what constitutes “good enough” for each life area. Decide in advance what you can safely half-ass, and what things in life truly require your whole ass.
Here’s a good starting point for that kind of thing:
When You Know What You “Should” Do (But Knowing Isn’t The Problem)
And this is an excellent way to “get the ball rolling” if you’re already in a bit of a prison of your own making:
Behavioral Activation Against Depression & Anxiety
If things are already bad, then you might also consider:
- How To Set Anxiety Aside and
- The Mental Health First-Aid That You’ll Hopefully Never Need ← this is about getting out of depression
And if things are truly at the worst they can possibly be, then:
How To Stay Alive (When You Really Don’t Want To)
Take care!
Share This Post
-
Curious Kids: what are the main factors in forming someone’s personality?
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.
“What are the main factors in forming someone’s personality?” – Emma, age 10, from Shanghai
Hello Emma, and thank you for this very interesting question!
Let’s start by exploring what we mean by personality. Have you noticed no two people are completely alike? We all see, experience, and understand the world in different ways.
For example, some people love spending time with friends and being the centre of attention, whereas other people are more shy and enjoy having time to themselves.
Your unique personality is shaped by your genes as well as various influences in your environment. And your personality plays an important role in how you interact with the world.
The big five
Did you know there are scientists who spend time researching personality? Their research is concerned with describing the ways people differ from each other, and understanding how these differences could be important for other parts of life such as our health and how well we do in school or at work.
There are many different perspectives on personality. A widely accepted viewpoint based on a lot of research is called the five factor model or the “big five”. According to this theory, a great deal of a person’s personality can be summarised in terms of where they sit on five dimensions, called traits:
- the introversion-extraversion trait refers to how much someone is outgoing and social (extroverted) or prefers being with smaller groups of friends or focusing on their own thoughts (introverted)
- agreeableness captures how much someone tends to be cooperative and helps others
- openness to experience refers to how much a person is creative and enjoys experiencing new things
- neuroticism describes a person’s tendency to experience negative feelings, like worrying about things that could go wrong
- conscientiousness encompasses how much a person is organised, responsible, and dedicated to things that are important to them, like schoolwork or training for a sports team.
A person can have high, low, or moderate levels of each of these traits. And understanding whether someone has higher or lower levels of the big five can tell us a lot about how we might expect them to behave in different situations.
So what shapes our personalities?
A number of factors shape our personalities, including our genes and social environment.
Our bodies are made up of many very small structures called cells. Within these cells are genes. We inherit genes from our parents, and they carry the information needed to make our bodies and personalities. So, your personality may be a bit like your parents’ personalities. For example, if you’re an outgoing sort of person who loves to meet new people, perhaps one or both of your parents are very social too.
Our personalities are influenced by the genes we get from our parents.
KieferPix/ShutterstockPersonalities are also affected by our environment, such as our experiences and our relationships with family and friends. For example, some research has shown our relationships with our parents can influence our personality. If we have loving and warm relationships, we may be more agreeable and open. But if our relationships are hurtful or stressful, this may increase our neuroticism.
Another study showed that, over time, young children who were more physically active were less introverted (less shy) and less likely to get very upset when things don’t go their way, compared to children who were less physically active. Although we don’t know why this is for sure, one possible explanation is that playing sport leads to reduced shyness because it introduces children to different people.
While we’re learning more about personality development all the time, research in this area presents quite a few challenges. Many different biological, cultural and environmental influences shape our development, and these factors can interact with each other in complex ways.
Is our personality fixed once we become adults?
Although we develop most of our personality when we are young, and people’s personalities tend to become more stable as they get older, it is possible for aspects of a person’s personality to change, even when they are fully grown.
A good example of this can be seen among people who seek treatment for conditions like anxiety or depression. People who respond well to working with a psychologist can show decreases in neuroticism, indicating they become less likely to worry a lot or feel strong negative feelings when something stressful happens.
Hello, Curious Kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to mailto:[email protected]
Tim Windsor, Professor, Director, Generations Research Initiative, College of Education, Psychology and Social Work, Flinders University and Natalie Goulter, Lecturer, College of Education, Psychology and Social Work, Flinders University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Share This Post
-
Carrots vs Zucchini – 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 carrots to zucchini, we picked the carrots.
Why?
Both have their merits! But…
In terms of macros, carrots have 3x the fiber and carbs, for approximately the same (minimal) protein, winning in this category.
In the category of vitamins, carrots have more of vitamins A, B1, B3, B5, and K, while zucchini have more of vitamins B2, B6, B9, and C, meaning carrots win a second round.
Looking at minerals, carrots have more calcium and potassium, while zucchini have more copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, selenium, and zinc, winning a round finally.
Adding up the sections makes for an overall win for carrots, but by all means do enjoy either or both, as both are great and diversity is good!
Want to learn more?
You might like:
What’s Your Plant Diversity Score?
Enjoy!
Share This Post
Related Posts
-
Death by Sitting – by Carolyne Thompson
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.
You may be wondering: is this a lot of words to say “sit down less”?
And the answer is: there’s a lot more in here than that. Of course, yes, “sit down less” is an important take-away, but there’s a lot about the specific problems caused by sitting in chairs, the health risks are that are increased and how, and the early warning signs to watch out for.
After these chapters of woe, most of the book is given over to solutions; about taking standing and walking breaks, tying movement to productivity, why exercise alone is not enough to offset the damage of sitting, relearning ergonomic posture in the context of mitigating the harm, psychological shifts to break the habit of sitting, redefining social norms around sitting and socializing, rewiring one’s body and retraining better movements as well as postures to always immediately move out of if one finds oneself in, and much much more.
The style is light and easy to read, while still including scientific research as appropriate along with practical, actionable advice.
Bottom line: if you’d like to do better for your body than slowly killing it for however many hours a day, then this book has a wealth of advice far beyond the obvious (but important!) “sit less”.
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:
-
Rewire Your OCD Brain – by Dr. Catherine Pittman & Dr. William Youngs
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.
OCD is just as misrepresented in popular media as many other disorders, and in this case, it’s typically not “being a neat freak” or needing to alphabetize things, so much as having uncontrollable obsessive intrusive thoughts, and often in response to those, unwanted compulsions. This can come from unchecked spiralling anxiety, and/or PTSD, for example.
What Drs. Pittman & Young offer is an applicable set of solutions, to literally rewire the brain (insofar as synapses can be considered neural wires). Leveraging neuroplasticity to work with us rather than against us, the authors talk us through picking apart the crossed wires, and putting them back in more helpful ways.
This is not, by the way, a book of CBT, though it does touch on that too.
Mostly, the book explains—clearly and simply and sometimes with illustrations—what is going wrong for us neurologically, and how to neurologically change that.
Bottom line: whether you have OCD or suffer from anxiety or just need help dealing with obsessive thoughts, this book can help a lot in, as the title suggests, rewiring that.
Click here to check out Rewire Your OCD Brain, and banish obsessive thoughts!
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:
-
How Much Do Financial Decline & Cognitive Decline Go Hand In Hand?
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.
That financial health and physical health are intertwined is a sad fact of our society, but how does it go for cognitive health?
Well, first of all, the brain is also an organ, and so is the heart that feeds it, and so are the lungs that supply the blood with oxygen, and so is the gut that… You get the idea. There is no cognitive health without physical health.
But we can also look at cognitive health somewhat in isolation, if we use clever statistical modelling to control for physical health factors that might be adversely affecting cognitive health.
So, what’s the answer?
When your bank balance is something you’d rather not remember…
Researchers (Dr. Katrina Kezios et al.) did exactly that kind of modelling, analyzing data from 7,676 participants in the Health and Retirement Study between 2010–2020, tracking financial well-being and memory over time.
- How financial well-being was measured: an eight-item index measured both psychosocial strain (stress, dissatisfaction) and material hardship (difficulty paying bills, low income, limited access to necessities)
- How cognitive decline was measured: direct memory assessments (immediate and delayed 10-word recall tasks) and, for those too cognitively impaired to complete direct assessments, proxy assessments of memory function (proxy’s assessment of participants’ memory performance on a 5-point Likert scale and the 16-item Jorm Informant Questionnaire for Cognitive Decline) were used to generate a composite memory score.
What Dr. Kezios and her team found is that worsening financial well-being is linked to poorer memory and faster cognitive decline in adults aged 50+.
How bad is it? In few words, people with significant financial deterioration experienced memory decline comparable to about 5 extra months of aging per year.
And importantly, this was dynamic in nature and a one-way slope: declines in financial well-being were consistently linked to worse memory, but improvements in finances didn’t reliably lead to cognitive gains (in essence, you can’t buy more cognitive function, but you can lose it if your finances are poor).
Why does this happen? There are several possibilities, for example study co-author Dr. Adina Zeki Al Hazzouri hypothesized that prolonged financial strain may overload your mental bandwidth, contributing to cognitive decline. Additionally, the paper notes that chronic stress, reduced access to healthcare and nutrition, and less social engagement may all mediate* the relationship between finances and brain health.
*mediate, in this context, = provide the mechanism of action for, actively facilitate such that it happens, without necessary nailing their colors to the mast of outright declaring it causal (because the scientists acknowledge there could be unknown additional factors at hand, much like how yeast will in technical terms “mediate” bread rising, but it won’t “cause” a thing without the temperature being right)
You can read the paper in full, here: Katrina L Kezios et al, Changes in financial well-being and memory function and decline in middle-aged and older adults ← if you want to read more than just the abstract, you just need to click on the PDF icon!
This is consistent, by the way, with the impact of systemic stress on heart health, which we wrote about here: Heart Health vs Systemic Stress
…and you’ll recall that “what’s good for your heart is good for your brain“, so, do note that the inverse is also true (what’s bad for your heart is bad for your brain)!
See also: What’s Your Vascular Dementia Risk? ← includes actual numbers and a risk calculator tool and things like that 😎
Want to learn more?
You might like this book that we reviewed a while ago:
Growing Young – by Marta Zaraska ← discusses the social factors involved in healthy aging
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:
