When the Body Says No – by Dr. Gabor Maté
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We know that chronic stress is bad for us because of what it does to our cortisol levels, so what is the rest of this book about?
Dr. Gabor Maté is a medical doctor, heavily specialized in the impact of psychological trauma on long term physical health.
Here, he examies—as the subtitle promises—the connection between stress and disease. As it turns out, it’s not that simple.
We learn not just about the impact that stress has on our immune system (including increasing the risk of autoimmune disorders like rheumatoid arthritis), the cardiovascular system, and various other critical systems fo the body… But also:
- how environmental factors and destructive coping styles contribute to the onset of disease, and
- how traumatic events can warp people’s physical perception of pain
- how certain illnesses are associated with particular personality types.
This latter is not “astrology for doctors”, by the way. It has more to do with what coping strategies people are likely to employ, and thus what diseases become more likely to take hold.
The book has practical advice too, and it’s not just “reduce your stress”. Ideally, of course, indeed reduce your stress. But that’s a) obvious b) not always possible. Rather, Dr. Maté explains which coping strategies result in the least prevalence of disease.
In terms of writing style, the book is very much easy-reading, but be warned that (ironically) this isn’t exactly a feel-good book. There are lot of tragic stories in it. But, even those are very much well-worth reading.
Bottom line: if you (and/or a loved one) are suffering from stress, this book will give you the knowledge and understanding to minimize the harm that it will otherwise do.
Click here to check out When The Body Says No, and take good care of yourself; you’re important!
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How climate change is fueling tickborne diseases and how to protect yourself
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What you need to know
- Some ticks carry dangerous diseases that can cause long-term health problems or even death.
- As global temperatures rise, ticks are spreading into new regions and putting more communities at risk.
- If a tick bites you, remove it with tweezers right away, then watch for symptoms like a rash, fever, or body aches.
Ticks are tiny parasites that typically feed on the blood of mammals, birds, and other animals. They live in many parts of the world, and some species can spread serious diseases. While most tick bites do not lead to illness, climate change is creating conditions that help ticks thrive—providing more opportunities for risky bites and infections.
Here’s what to know about symptoms and how to protect yourself.
How do ticks spread disease?
A tick latches onto a host—like a deer, bird, or person—and feeds on its blood through the skin. It can stay attached for hours or even days.
Not every tick carries germs. But in those that do, their saliva can contain bacteria, viruses, or parasites that enter the body while they feed.
What types of diseases can ticks spread?
Ticks can spread several illnesses, and most can be treated with medication when caught early. The most common tickborne disease in the U.S. is Lyme disease, a bacterial infection that can cause arthritis, brain swelling, or heart problems. In the U.S., about 476,000 people are treated for it each year. Early symptoms often include a rash that looks like a bullseye, fatigue, fever, headache, joint pain, and swollen lymph nodes.
Some tickborne diseases can be fatal if not treated quickly, including Rocky Mountain spotted fever (a bacterial infection), Powassan virus (which kills one in 10 people who develop severe symptoms), and babesiosis (a parasite that infects red blood cells). Older adults and people with weakened immune systems may face a higher risk of severe illness.
“Most [tickborne] diseases can lead to a variety of long-term health problems if not diagnosed and treated,” Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease specialist at the University of California, San Francisco, tells Public Good News. “In up to 15 percent of patients with Lyme disease, musculoskeletal pain, fatigue, and cognitive difficulties can persist for months or years, even after treatment (called post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome).”
A tick bite can also trigger other long-term health impacts, too, like alpha-gal syndrome, a lifelong allergy to red meat and some dairy products.
Why are tickborne diseases increasingly common?
Ticks are most active in warm months, typically April through September. But climate change is creating longer warm seasons and fewer hard freezes, allowing ticks to survive in more places and longer each year. As a result, more people are coming into contact with them.
What are the signs of a tickborne disease?
Common early symptoms of a tickborne disease may include:
- Rash
- Fever or chills
- Body aches
- Fatigue
What should I do if a tick bites me?
If you find a tick attached to your skin, remove it as soon as possible. The safest way to remove a tick is to grasp it with fine-tipped tweezers as close to the skin as possible. Then, pull the tick away from the skin without twisting.
Avoid crushing the tick with your fingers. Dispose of it by wrapping it in tape and throwing it away, flushing it down the toilet, or placing it in rubbing alcohol.
Clean the bite area with soap and water and watch for symptoms over the next several weeks.
If symptoms develop after spending time in a wooded or grassy area or after a confirmed or suspected tick bite, talk to a health care provider.
“The next steps may be further testing (e.g., antibody tests) and treatment with antibiotics [for a bacterial infection],” Chin-Hong says.
How can I prevent tickborne diseases?
Preventing tick bites is the best way to protect against tickborne diseases:
- Avoid wooded or grassy areas, and keep your pets out of these areas.
- If you plan to spend time outside, especially in areas with lots of trees and tall grass, wear long sleeves, long pants, tall socks, and a hat.
- Treat your outdoor clothing and shoes with permethrin, a long-lasting tick repellent for fabrics.
- Check yourself and your pets for ticks after outdoor activities. Remember that ticks can be very small and may hide behind knees, in armpits, on the scalp, or on pets’ ears and paws.
- Remove ticks as soon as possible.
For more information about symptoms or prevention, talk to your health care provider.
This article first appeared on Public Good News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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What Age Is Your Sleep?
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We’ve written before about the topic of age and sleep, and most notably, how (contrary to popular belief) we don’t need less sleep in older age: Why You Probably Need More Sleep ← a lot of people mistake getting 6 hours sleep per night for only needing 6 hours sleep per night.
Sure, you may still be alive after regularly getting 6 hours, but (unless you have a rare mutation of the ADRB1 gene) it will be causing harm, and yes, that includes later in life; we don’t stop needing so much sleep, even if we stop getting it.
It’s also noteworthy that sleep-deprived people usually underestimate how sleep-deprived they are. This is for the same reason as why drunk people usually underestimate how drunk they are—to put it in words that go for both situations: a cognitively impaired person lacks the cognitive function to realize how cognitively impaired they are. Here’s the science on that: How Sleep-Deprived Are You, Really?
But today, it’s about a different aspect of age that has a different effect on sleep:
How old do you feel?
Researchers (Dr. Julia Boyle et al.) surveyed 3,177 adults with a mean average age of 42.8 years, of whom 49% were women, and examined how the gap between how old people feel (subjective age) and how old they actually are (chronological age) was related to sleep and health outcomes.
What they found, in few words: those who felt older than their chronological age reported more insomnia symptoms, greater sleep-related daytime impairment, poorer overall sleep health, and less regular sleep patterns.
Now, you may be thinking “well, that tracks; someone with a bunch of adverse health conditions is going to feel older and sleep worse, so what’s the news here?” and that’d be valid in a vacuum, but as it turns out, the aforementioned associations remained significant even after accounting for chronological age, sex, race, depression, and anxiety, meaning that the subjective age itself appears to have a direct relationship with the worse sleep outcomes.
Notably, feeling older was also associated with poorer self-rated physical health, and the correlational and regressional analyses suggested that this relationship was partly explained by the worse sleep, particularly greater insomnia severity, poorer sleep regularity, and more daytime impairment.
Dr. Boyle and her team conclude:
❝Results suggest that the age you feel, not just the age you are, shapes sleep and health. Feeling older than your years predicts more insomnia, poorer sleep regularity, and greater sleep-related impairment, with downstream effects on physical health. These results reinforce the need to challenge negative perceptions of aging, not only in clinical care but also through education and public health messaging. Put simply, how old you feel is an important predictor of sleep and health across the lifespan.❞
You can read the paper in full, here: Feeling Older Than You Are: Links Between Subjective Age and Sleep Outcomes ← to see the whole paper rather than just the abstract, you’ll need to click on “PDF”
But watch out! Because of: How Anxiety About Aging Accelerates Aging
And to understand the relationships between the different kinds of aging, see: Age & Aging: What Can (And Can’t) We Do About It?
Want to boost your sleep?
Some sleep aids can help, but many are harmful and/or do not really work as such; here’s a rundown of examples of those: Safe Effective Sleep Aids For Seniors?
And when it comes to napping, timing is everything: How To Nap Like A Pro (No More “Sleep Hangovers”!)
Want to learn more?
For a much more in-depth treatment of the topic, you might like this book that we reviewed a while back:
Why We Sleep – by Dr Matthew Walker
Basically, if you will read only one book on sleep, that’s the book.
Sweet dreams!
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What is air hunger, and can it be treated?
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Can you hold your breath until you’re almost bursting to take another breath in? This urgent feeling that you need to get more air is called “air hunger”.
You may feel this sensation when you exercise intensely and push to your limit. Your breath will usually return to normal quickly once you’ve stopped exerting yourself.
But some people – such as those living with lung conditions or severe anxiety – experience air hunger frequently in their day-to-day lives. Air hunger, which is sometimes described as “drowning” or “suffocating” from a lack of air, can be incredibly distressing.
And it can be hard not to panic.
So, what helps if you experience air hunger? And when should you get help?
Olga Pankova/Getty What is air hunger?
Many conditions can cause shortness of breath (also called dyspnoea). These commonly include heart diseases and lung conditions such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or long COVID.
Although the terms are sometimes used interchangeably, air hunger is not the same as shortness of breath.
Air hunger is an extreme and distinct feature of breathlessness: the feeling you can’t get enough air or take a full breath in.
This sensation can make people take bigger breaths or breathe faster, to try and get more oxygen. But this can actually make the feeling of breathlessness worse. Some people may also find they yawn or sigh a lot as they try to get more air.
For some people, an episode may be brief and resolve on its own. Others may pass out and need immediate medical attention to regain their breath.
In addition to difficulty breathing, symptoms can include chest tightness, sweating, dizziness and coughing. If you experience any of these symptoms, especially for the first time, you should seek immediate medical attention by calling triple 0.
Identifying the cause
The key to treating air hunger is understanding what’s behind it. So a doctor will first try to identify the underlying cause.
Air hunger may happen as part of an acute condition that causes breathlessness. For example, if you have a chest infection, you may struggle to breathe deeply and get enough oxygen. When you recover from the illness, you may no longer experience the feeling that you’re unable to fill your lungs.
But air hunger can also be a feature of a chronic condition. Those who live with severe heart or lung conditions – such as congestive cardiac failures or interstitial lung diseases – may never feel they can breathe deeply or fully fill their lungs. This can significantly limit their ability to exercise or participate in everyday activities.
Living with mental health conditions such as an anxiety or panic disorder can also mean frequent episodes of air hunger.
Even when air hunger resolves by itself, you should still see your doctor for further assessment, to identify the cause and work out how to manage it.
What a doctor will look at
Your doctor will typically observe your breathing rate and ask about your symptoms, how often you experience air hunger, and how much distress it causes.
They may also ask you to rate your shortness of breath using a Borg scale, which involves picking a number on the scale to best describe how short of breath you feel.
Your doctor will also measure vital signs such as your pulse rate and oxygen saturation levels. Oxygen saturation means how much oxygen is actually making it into your bloodstream, and can be measured with a device called a pulse oximeter.
If you’ve felt short of breath regularly over at least six weeks, you may need to do further testing. A lung function test or an exercise stress test can provide a comprehensive report on your lung capacity and how well your lungs and heart function under stress. Your doctor may also be refer you to a specialist.
What helps?
Depending on the cause, you may be prescribed medication, such as inhalers or oxygen for a lung condition. Opioids (morphine) or benzodiazepines (diazepam) may alleviate symptoms, but these would only be used in the short term, due to the risk of becoming dependent.
Apart from medications, breathing and relaxation techniques may help some people manage the unpleasant sensation. These include:
- pursed lip breathing: pucker your lips and focus on blowing the air out slowly, until you are able to take a big breath in
https://www.youtube.com/embed/7kpJ0QlRss4?wmode=transparent&start=0 Pursed lip breathing can help you stay calm and slow the pace of your breathing.
- mindful breathing: find a relaxed resting position where you can draw your attention to your breath and focus on regaining control of your rate of breathing
https://www.youtube.com/embed/-YHRb2S4uvg?wmode=transparent&start=0 Videos like this may also help you regain control of your breathing.
- timed breathing: while moving, time your breath with your body. For example, focus on breathing out when stepping with your right leg and breathing in when you step out with your left
- the cool fan technique: blow a fan (electric or hand-held) directly onto your face. The cool air stimulates the nerves in the face to reduce the sensation of breathlessness. A cool washer on your face may help create the same effect.
When to seek help
To manage air hunger episodes, you should follow your health professional’s advice about how and when to take medications.
Your doctor will also provide you with a management plan to guide you and your loved ones on what to do when you have an air hunger episode. Check in with your doctor regularly, as the plan may need updating if or when your condition changes.
In an emergency, or if you are experiencing air hunger for the first time, always call triple 0.
Clarice Tang, Senior Lecturer in Physiotherapy, Victoria University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Midlife Left You Exhausted? 3 Habits To Restore Your Energy
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Dr. Ruth Machin has recommendations, and none of them require making very drastic changes to your life:
As easy as 1-2-3?
In Dr. Machin’s view, simple is best as we’re most likely to actually do it (and stick with it!):
- Upgrade your breakfast: start your day with a protein-rich breakfast to maintain steady energy and avoid mid-morning crashes. Skip sugary cereals and ultraprocessed breads (including 99% of bagels, muffins, etc) for options like Greek yogurt, eggs, tofu, or whole grain toast with nut butter. Add seeds (especially: hemp, flax, chia) for extra protein and healthy fats. Making your breakfast a balanced meal with protein, fiber, and good fats keeps you full and focused longer.
- Take movement breaks: sitting for long stretches can drain energy and harm long-term health, even if you exercise. Combat this by standing or moving even just briefly every hour—walk, stretch, etc. These frequent breaks help regulate blood sugar, reduce cravings, and boost your mood and energy throughout the day.
- Stay hydrated: not groundbreaking we know, but most people are dehydrated most of the time, and even mild dehydration is a common but overlooked cause of fatigue. Aim to drink 200–250ml (8 oz) of water every hour over an eight-hour period or roughly eight glasses a day. Feel free to add flavors (lemon, cucumber, etc) if plain water isn’t something you enjoy, and make sure you always have a drink to hand.
For more on each of these, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like:
Menopause, & When Not To Let Your Guard Down ← detailing why “postmenopause” is a misnomer, and how changes will continue occurring in your body (because the body is always rebuilding itself, and in untreated menopause will now be doing so with several missing pieces), and what to do about that
Take care!
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How to Do the Work – by Dr. Nicole LaPera
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We have reviewed some self-therapy books before, and they chiefly have focused on CBT and mindfulness, which are great. This one’s different.
Dr. Nicole LaPera has a bolder vision for what we can do for ourselves. Rather than giving us some worksheets for unraveling cognitive distortions or clearing up automatic negative thoughts, she bids us treat the cause, rather than the symptom.
For most of us, this will be the life we have led. Now, we cannot change the parenting style(s) we received (or didn’t), get a redo on childhood, avoid mistakes we made in our adolescence, or face adult life with the benefit of experience we gained right after we needed it most. But we can still work on those things if we just know how.
The subtitle of this book promsies that the reader can/will “recognise your patterns, heal from your past, and create your self”.
That’s accurate, for the content of the book and the advice it gives.
Dr. LaPera’s focus is on being our own best healer, and reparenting our own inner child. Giving each of us the confidence in ourself; the love and care and/but also firm-if-necessary direction that a (good) parent gives a child, and the trust that a secure child will have in the parent looking after them. Doing this for ourselves, Dr. LaPera holds, allows us to heal from traumas we went through when we perhaps didn’t quite have that, and show up for ourselves in a way that we might not have thought about before.
If the book has a weak point, it’s that many of the examples given are from Dr. LaPera’s own life and experience, so how relatable the specific examples will be to any given reader may vary. But, the principles and advices stand the same regardless.
Bottom line: if you’d like to try self-therapy on a deeper level than CBT worksheets, this book is an excellent primer.
Click here to check out How To Do The Work, and empower yourself to indeed do the work!
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Ageless Aging – by Maddy Dychtwald
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Maddy Dychtwald, herself 73, has spent her career working in the field of aging. She’s not a gerontologist or even a doctor, but she’s nevertheless been up-to-the-ears in the industry for decades, mostly as an organizer, strategist, facilitator, and so forth. As such, she’s had her finger on the pulse of the healthy longevity movement for a long time.
This book was written to address a problem, and the problem is: lifespan is increasing (especially for women), but healthspan has not been keeping up the pace.
In other words: people (especially women) are living longer, but often with more health problems along the way than before.
And mostly, it’s for lack of information (or sometimes: too much competing incorrect information).
Fortunately, information is something that a woman in Dychtwald’s position has an abundance of, because she has researchers and academics in many fields on speed-dial and happy to answer her questions (we get a lot of input from such experts throughout the book—which is why this book is so science-based, despite the author not being a scientist).
The book answers a lot of important questions beyond the obvious “what diet/exercise/sleep/supplements/etc are best for healthy aging” (spoiler: it’s quite consistent with the things we recommend here, because guess what, science is science), questions like how best to prepare for this that or the other, how to get a head start on preventative healthcare for some things, how to avoid being a burden to our families (one can argue that families are supposed to look after each other, but still, it’s a legitimate worry for many, and understandably so), and even how to balance the sometimes conflicting worlds of health and finances.
Unlike many authors, she also talks about the different kinds of aging, and tackles each of them separately and together. We love to see it!
Bottom line: this book is a very good one-stop-shop for all things healthy aging. It’s aimed squarely at women, but most advice goes for men the same too, aside from the section on hormones and such.
Click here to check out Ageless Aging, and plan your future!
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