Upgrade Your Life – by Pat Divilly
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.
Pat Divilly takes us through the steps to establish what it is we want out of life, adopt daily habits of success, build our self-esteem and confidence, and pursue what’s actually fulfilling, whatever that is for us as individuals.
The general layout of the book is: first, figuring out where you genuinely want to go (not just where people expect you to want to go!), and then seeing about what things you can change, first small and then larger, to get there.
The scope of the book covers work life and personal life, and treats them both as something where you can optimize how things work for you, and those around you. All in all, unless your life is literally perfect in every way imaginable, there’s probably something in this book that will help you to, indeed, “upgrade your life”. And who wouldn’t want that?
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:
PFAS Exposure & Cancer: The Numbers Are High
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.
PFAS & Cancer Risk: The Numbers Are High
Image Credits Mount Sinai This is Dr. Maaike van Gerwen. Is that an MD or a PhD, you wonder? It’s both.
She’s also Director of Research in the Department of Otolaryngology at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, Scientific Director of the Program of Personalized Management of Thyroid Disease, and Member of the Institute for Translational Epidemiology and the Transdisciplinary Center on Early Environmental Exposures.
What does she want us to know?
She’d love for us to know about her latest research published literally today, about the risks associated with PFAS, such as the kind widely found in non-stick cookware:
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) exposure and thyroid cancer risk
Dr. van Gerwen and her team tested this several ways, and the very short and simple version of the findings is that per doubling of exposure, there was a 56% increased rate of thyroid cancer diagnosis.
(The rate of exposure was not just guessed based on self-reports; it was measured directly from PFAS levels in the blood of participants)
- PFAS exposure can come from many sources, not just non-stick cookware, but that’s a “biggie” since it transfers directly into food that we consume.
- Same goes for widely-available microwaveable plastic food containers.
- Relatively less dangerous exposures include waterproofed clothing.
To keep it simple and look at the non-stick pans and microwavable plastic containers, doubling exposure might mean using such things every day vs every second day.
Practical take-away: PFAS may be impossible to avoid completely, but even just cutting down on the use of such products is already reducing your cancer risk.
Isn’t it too late, by this point in life? Aren’t they “forever chemicals”?
They’re not truly “forever”, but they do have long half-lives, yes.
See: Can we take the “forever” out of forever chemicals?
The half-lives of PFOS and PFOA in water are 41 years and 92 years, respectively.
In the body, however, because our body is constantly trying to repair itself and eliminate toxins, it’s more like 3–7 years.
That might seem like a long time, and perhaps it is, but the time will pass anyway, so might as well get started now, rather than in 3–7 years time!
Read more: National Academies Report Calls for Testing People With High Exposure to “Forever Chemicals”
What should we use instead?
In place of non-stick cookware, cast iron is fantastic. It’s not everyone’s preference, though, so you might also like to know that ceramic cookware is a fine option that’s functionally non-stick but without needing a non-stick coating. Check for PFAS-free status; they should advertise this.
In place of plastic microwaveable containers, Pyrex (or equivalent) glass dishes (you can get them with lids) are a top-tier option. Ceramic containers (without metallic bits!) are also safely microwaveable.
See also:
Here’s a List of Products with PFAS (& How to Avoid Them)
Take care!
Share This Post
What to Eat When – by Drs. Michael Roizen and Michael Crupain
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.
Here at 10almonds, we cover a lot of the “what to eat”, but tend to only sometimes touch on the “when”—and indeed, this is a reflection of a popular focus. But what if we were to pay a little more attention to that “when”; what would it get us?
According to Drs. Roizen and Crupain… Quite a bit!
In this work, they take into account the various factors affecting the benefit (or harm!) of what we eat when:
- in the context of our circadian rhythm
- in the context of our insulin responses
- in the context of intermittent fasting
The style throughout is very focused on practical actionable advice. For example, amongst other lifestyle-adjustment suggestions, the authors make the case for front-loading various kinds of food earlier in the day, and eating more attentively and mindfully when we do eat.
They also offer a lot of “quick tips” of the kind we love here at 10almonds! Ranging from “how about this breakfast idea” to “roasting chickpeas like this makes a great snack” to “this dessert is three healthy foods disguised as a sundae”
All in all, if you’d like a stack of small tweaks that can add up to a big difference in your overall health, this is a book for you.
Share This Post
The Good Life – by Robert Waldinger, MD, and Marc Schulz, PhD
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.
For any who have thought “there must be some middle-ground between entirely subjective self-help books advising how to feel better, and sifting through clinical data on what actually affects people’s moods“, this book is exactly that middle-ground!
Drs. Waldinger and Schultz went through the 80-year-long Harvard Study of Adult Development with a fine-toothed comb, and this book details—more readably—what they found.
There are frequent references to data from the study. Not just numbers, though, people’s answers to questions, too. And how different factors about people’s lives affected their answers to the same questions.
We hear from all ages, from young adults to octagenarians, and learn how attitudes (including: of the same people) change over time. Not because people are fickle, but because people grow… or become disillusioned. Or sometimes, both.
We learn about the importance of money… And where that importance ends.
We learn importance of relationships of various kinds, and this is certainly a recurring theme throughout the study—and thus, throughout the book.
The book doesn’t just present data, though, it also presents actionable insights along the way.
Bottom line: the combined wisdom and life-experiences of a lot of people provide a very “big picture” view of life, and what makes us happy, really. We highly recommend it!
Share This Post
Related Posts
Mineral-Rich Mung Bean Pancakes
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.
Mung beans are rich in an assortment of minerals, especially iron, copper, phosphorus, and magnesium. They’re also full of protein and fiber! What better way to make pancakes healthy?
You will need
- ½ cup dried green mung beans
- ½ cup chopped fresh parsley
- ½ cup chopped fresh dill
- ¼ cup uncooked wholegrain rice
- ¼ cup nutritional yeast
- 1 tsp MSG, or 2 tsp low-sodium salt
- 2 green onions, finely sliced
- 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Method
(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)
1) Soak the mung beans and rice together overnight.
2) Drain and rinse, and blend them in a blender with ¼ cup of water, to the consistency of regular pancake batter, adding more water (sparingly) if necessary.
3) Transfer to a bowl and add the rest of the ingredients except for the olive oil, which latter you can now heat in a skillet over a medium-high heat.
4) Add a few spoonfuls of batter to the pan, depending on how big you want the pancakes to be. Cook on both sides until you get a golden-brown crust, and repeat for the rest of the pancakes.
5) Serve! As these are savory pancakes, you might consider serving them with a little salad—tomatoes, olives, and cucumbers go especially well.
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:
- Why You’re Probably Not Getting Enough Fiber (And How To Fix It)
- What’s The Deal With MSG?
- All About Olive Oils: Is “Extra Virgin” Worth It?
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:
Turmeric (Curcumin) Dos and Don’ts With Dr. Kim
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.
Turmeric is a fabulous spice, most well-known for its anti-inflammatory powers; its antioxidant effects benefit all of the body, including the brain. While it fights seemingly everything from arthritis to atherosclerosis to Alzheimer’s and more, it also boosts brain-derived neurotrophic factor, looks after your cardiovascular health, holds back diabetes, reduces the risk of cancer, fights depression, slows aging, and basically does everything short of making you sing well too.
Dr. Leonid Kim goes over the scientific evidence for these, and also talks about some of the practicalities of taking turmeric, and safety considerations.
For the most part, turmeric is very safe even at high doses (up to 8g at least); indeed, at smaller doses (e.g. 500mg) it largely does the same job as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) such as ibuprofen, with fewer problems.
It also does the job of several antidiabetic medications, by increasing uptake of glucose (thus reducing blood sugar levels) while simultaneously decreasing the glucose secretion from the liver. It does this by regulating the AMPK signalling pathway, just like metformin—while again, being safer.
Dr. Kim also looks at the (good!) evidence for turmeric in managing PCOS and undoing NAFLD; so far, so good.
Dosage: he bids us pay attention whether we’re taking it as turmeric itself or as curcumin standardized extract. The latter is the active compound, and in principle more powerful, but in practice it can get metabolized too quickly and easily—before it can have its desired effect. So, turmeric itself is a very good choice.
Absorption: since we do want it to be absorbed well, though, he does recommend taking it with piperine (as in black pepper).
You may be thinking: isn’t this going to cause the same problem you were just talking about, and cause it to be metabolized too quickly? And the answer is: no! How piperine works is almost the opposite; it protects the curcumin in the turmeric from our digestive enzymes, and thus allows them to get absorbed without being broken down too quickly—thus increasing the bioavailability by slowing the process down.
Lipophilia: no, that’s not a disease (or a fetish), rather it means that curcumin is soluble in fats, so we should take it near in time to a meal that contains at least a tablespoon of oil in total (so if you’re cooking a curry with your turmeric, this need is covered already, for example).
Supplement provenance: he recommends picking a supplement that’s been tested by a reputable 3rd party, as otherwise turmeric can be quite prone to impurities (which can include lead and arsenic, so, not great).
Contraindications: for some people, curcumin can cause gastrointestinal issues (less likely if taking with meals), and also, it can interact with blood-thinners. While taking aspirin or curcumin alone might help avoid circulatory problems, taking both could increase the bleeding risk for some people, for example. Similarly, if taking curcumin and metformin while diabetic, one must watch out for the combination being too effective at lowering blood sugar levels, and thus causing hypoglycemia instead. Similar deal with blood pressure medications.
There’s more in the video though (yes really; we know we wrote a lot but it’s information-dense), so do check it out:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically
Want to know more?
You can also check out our related articles:
Why Curcumin (Turmeric) Is Worth Its Weight In Gold
Black Pepper’s Impressive Anti-Cancer Arsenal (And More)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:
As The Summer Gets Hotter Still…
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.
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
❝I would love to see an article about heat dehydrated illness….so much of the US is under hot conditions. I had an fainting sweating episode and now trying to recoup from it. What should we do? Drink water,rest…???❞
We have done some of this, but it’s always a good one to revisit! Last summer (N. Hemisphere summer), we wrote this:
Stay Safe From Heat Exhaustion & Heatstroke!
…and this year, it’s getting hotter still (and is already the hottest summer on record), with certainly much of the US seriously affected, as you say. Next year, it will probably be worse again; climate change is getting predictable like that, and likely will continue until fixed. We are but a health science publication, so we can’t fix the world’s climate, but we can reiterate the above advice, and urge everyone to take it seriously.
Note: heat exhaustion and heatstroke kill. Yes, we’re including heat exhaustion in that, because by the time you get heat exhaustion, you’re often not in the best state of mind to take the correct steps to avoid the heatstroke that follows.
To think otherwise would be akin to thinking “falling never killed anyone; it’s only when you stop falling that it’s dangerous”.
This summer, we did also write this more niche article:
…whose advice won’t apply to everyone, but will be helpful to some, and honestly, some of that advice does go for everyone.
One thing we didn’t write about in those articles that we’ll add here:
Humidity is dangerous:
- Dry heat: you sweat, the sweat evaporates, cooling you. As well as losing heat, you’ve also now lost water and salts, which you’ll need to replenish, but your body is operating correctly.
- Humid heat: you sweat, and now you are just sweaty until further notice. It doesn’t evaporate because the surrounding humidity doesn’t provide the physics for that. Not only are you not losing heat through evaporating sweat, but also, if you’re wearing clothes, that’s now an insulating layer you’re wearing.
…so that means, watch the humidity as carefully as you watch the temperature, and when it’s high, get extra serious about finding ways to keep yourself cool (e.g. shade, rest, cooling showers etc if you can, that kind of thing).
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:
