Why Not To Be A Night Owl After 40
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It’s often assumed that being an “early bird” or a “night owl” is purely a matter of genetic predisposition, and… There is indeed a genetic influence, but as it is said, “genes predispose; they don’t predetermine“.
We discussed this in detail, here: Early Bird Or Night Owl? Genes vs Environment
With that in mind, being a night owl is, for most of us, largely a modifiable thing. Some people, of course, will have things going on in their life that preclude getting an early night’s sleep, but if that’s not the case for you, then we do recommend considering shifting your chronotype to being an “early bird”, if it’s not already there.
For more about chronotypes in general, see: 5 Sleep Phenotypes, By Actual Science (Sleep Tracking, For Five Million Nights)
Why does it matter?
A team of researchers (Dr. Ana Wenzler et al.) did a large (n=23,798) study and found that night owls face a higher risk of cognitive decline compared to morning people.
As to why “after 40”, there are two reasons:
- Biological clocks shift throughout life: people tend to be morning types in childhood, shift to evening types in adolescence, and most, but far from all, return to morning preference by around age 40.
- Cognitive decline naturally begins most commonly after age 40, and lifestyle factors influence this process.
For this reason, the study used data from people over the age of 40, to analyze people’s chronotypes (natural sleep patterns) and their behavior over a 10-year period.
As to how much being a night owl affects the risk of cognitive decline; it was broken down by demographics, but for example in the group with the highest education level:
❝each one-hour increase in chronotype corresponded to a 0.80-point decline in cognition per decade (95 % CI: -1.34, -0.26)❞
The “night owl” chronotype was also associated with greater decline in non-verbal fluency and executive functioning among higher educated participants, highlighting the importance of targeted prevention strategies.
In terms of potentially confounding (although also relevant) factors, night owls tend to engage more in unhealthy behaviors such as smoking, drinking, poor diet, and lack of exercise—especially in the evening.
You may be thinking: “I don’t do those things”, in which case, great! But the researchers also calculated that those behaviors explain only about 25% of the cognitive decline risk among night owls.
You can read the paper in full, here: Chronotype as a potential risk factor for cognitive decline: The mediating role of sleep quality and health behaviours in a 10-year follow-up study
How should we fix it?
If you’re currently a night owl, chances are you physically cannot currently sleep earlier than you do—your brain just isn’t ready to sleep yet at the earlier hour.
What you can control, however, is your getting-up time. So, shift that earlier—gently! 15 minutes earlier per day is great—and your “getting sleepy time” in the evening will naturally shift commensurately earlier.
For reference, see also: Calculate (And Enjoy) The Perfect Night’s Sleep
Take care!
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Bulletproof Squat: Flow That Improves Depth & Stability
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Marina Sarenac, mobility coach, shows how to get there:
Let’s get down to it
First of all, we must register our astonishment about this:
❝A few months ago, I couldn’t even hit parallel in my squats. My hips felt tight, weak, and painful.❞
How did this happen? She is a mobility coach; what went wrong?! Was she injured? She doesn’t mention an explanation.
She does go on to say:
❝And honestly, I almost gave up on squats completely. But then I found a simple flow of four exercises that changed everything. My hips opened up, my depth improved, and now I feel stronger and even more stable than ever. And I’m going to show you exactly how you can do it, too.❞
So, maybe, notwithstanding the use of the word “honestly”, it’s possible there was actually a little dishonesty there; that is to say: perhaps she is telling a story she hopes will be relatable in order to get people on board and understand that they can do it too. This is sometimes called “the advertising hero’s journey”, as it’s often used in long-form ads for things, telling “I, dear reader, was just like you, and…” explaining what they were getting wrong, how they learned better, how it changed their life, and how you can do it too, for the low low price of whatever they’re selling.
However! Whether her story is true or not, the exercise are good, so here they are:
- Bear rock: you’ve heard of classic rock, glam rock, and punk rock; now here’s bear rock! Or rather, a bear rock-back. Focus on putting your hips backwards, like you’re rocking into the bottom of a squat. Feel the stretch in your adductors and keep your spine natural.
- “World’s greatest stretch” with a jump switch: step into a deep lunge, put your elbow on the floor, open your chest and put your hand up, then switch sides with a jump.
- Cossack squat with internal hip rotation: set your feet well part, and squat down with one leg or the other, creating a lung-like result, holding a weight in front you (a kettlebell is great for this, but any medium-sized manageable weight is fine) to work that internal hip rotation.
- Squat-knee-hinge flow: start in the lowest squat you can currently do, shift into a kneeling position, then hinge your hips back, and repeat.
For more on all of these plus visual demonstrations, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like:
The Secret To Better Squats: Foot, Knee, & Ankle Mobility
Take care!
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Arugula vs Chard – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing arugula to chard, we picked the chard.
Why?
In terms of macros, there’s really nothing between them. They’re identical on fiber down to one decimal place (both in the USDA database as 1.6g/100g), they have the same carbs down to a rounding error (technically chard is in the same database as having +0.06 g/100g), and no meaningful difference in protein (per the same database again, it’s 0.78g/100g difference, but let’s be serious, your saliva has more protein than that*). So, we can comfortably call this round a tie.
*Ish. It depends on various factors including how hydrated you are, whether you are on any meds that thicken your saliva, and whether you have any medical conditions that increase/decrease your amylase production (that’s the enzyme that breaks down starch, and like most enzymes, it’s a protein, and in saliva, its the one that makes up most of the protein count). But generally speaking, saliva is usually considered to be a little under 1% protein.
In the category of vitamins, arugula has more of vitamins B5 and B9, while chard has more of vitamins A, B3, B6, C, E, and K, by quite some margins of difference, and it’s worth noting that chard is a particularly good source of vitamin K. Thus, an easy win for chard in this round.
Looking at minerals, arugula has more calcium, phosphorus, and zinc, while chard has more copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, and selenium, winning its second round in a row.
In other considerations, chard has more polyphenols, including a good offering of kaempferol and quercetin, so that’s another point in chard’s favor.
Adding up the sections makes for a clear overall win for chard, but by all means do enjoy either or both, as diversity is great!
Want to learn more?
You might like:
- What Does Kaempferol Do, Anyway?
- Fight Inflammation & Protect Your Brain, With Quercetin
- 21 Most Beneficial Polyphenols & What Foods Have Them
Enjoy!
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How Your Emotions Affect GLP-1 Drug Results!
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GLP-1 receptor agonist drugs (such as Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, and others) have a good reputation for working well, and the most talked-about downside is that they often have unpleasant side effects:
Most People Who Start GLP-1 RAs Quit Them Within A Year (Here’s Why) ← there are 4 main reasons
…and of course, some do work better than others: Better Than Ozempic?
As with almost any drug, some people are simply “non-responders”, meaning that for some reason (often a genetic factor, often not known for sure why), the drug will simply not work as it does for most people.
For GLP-1 receptor agonists, there is a portion of the general population for whom they simply will not work, and so far there is no known way of predicting it (probably at someone point it’ll be figured out, and this writer’s money would be on it being either a SNP mutation or a microbiome thing). So, you roll the dice, you take the GLP-1 drug, you wait and see, and there’s a 15% chance (that doesn’t sound like a lot, but it’s about 1 in 6, in other words, the same probability as rolling a “1” on a fair, six-sided die).
You can read about how that can go, here: Ozempic didn’t work for me. I was furious—and ashamed
But why?
The key is in why you are overeating in the first place (and if you’re looking to lose weight and/but are not overeating, then probably GLP-1 drugs are not for you, since that is primarily how they work).
In few words:
- If you are overeating in response to the sight and/or smell of tasty food, then probably you will benefit well from GLP-1 RAs in the long-term
- If you are overeating for emotional reasons (e.g. because of depression, or as a coping strategy to deal with stress/anxiety, for example) then probably GLP-1 RAs cannot be replied on to help you.
By “cannot be relied on” does not mean you will necessarily be a “non-responder” as described above, but it does mean that it’s likely your results will be intermittent at best. Which, after all, is not a big improvement on regular yo-yo dieting, an approach that is famously Not Good™.
Indeed, per the categories in the study we’re about to cite:
- Emotional eaters (eating due to negative feelings, not hunger) responded best to glp-1 drugs, showing greater weight loss and better blood sugar improvements
- External eaters (eating because food looks or smells appealing) were less likely to benefit in the long term
- Restrained eaters (deliberately restricting diet to lose weight) exercised more restraint temporarily, but returned to baseline by 12 months
Notably, all three categories of eaters here were people with type 2 diabetes—in other words, the very people that GLP-1 drugs were first developed to help, before they took off as weight-loss drugs.
So in theory, these should be the people for whom GLP-1 RAs work best—and yet, as we see, it’s still not always so, and is highly dependent on what goes on between one’s ears.
You can read this paper in full, here: Association between eating behavior patterns and the therapeutic efficacy of GLP-1 receptor agonists in individuals with type 2 diabetes: a multicenter prospective observational study
Want a different approach?
It is possible to get many of the effects of GLP-1 RAs without taking GLP-1 RAs, by enjoying foods that increase incretin, a hormone group (the most well-known of which is GLP-1) that slows down stomach emptying, which means a gentler blood sugar curve and feeling fuller for longer. It also acts on the hypothalamus, controlling appetite via the brain too (signalling fullness and reducing hunger).
For what foods to focus on, see: 5 Ways To Naturally Boost The “Ozempic Effect” ← this is from Dr. Jason Fung, who 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!
Or to curb emotional eating specifically, check out: Emotional Eating And The Five Pillars Of Craving Control
Or for a deeper dive, you might like this book we reviewed not long back:
Breaking Free from Emotional Eating – by Geneen Roth
Take care!
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Anti-Cholesterol Cardamom & Pistachio Porridge
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This tasty breakfast’s beta-glucan content binds to cholesterol and carries it out of the body; there are lots of other nutritional benefits too!
You will need
- 1 cup coconut milk
- ⅓ cup oats
- 4 tbsp crushed pistachios
- 6 cardamom pods, crushed
- 1 tsp rose water or 4 drops edible rose essential oil
- Optional sweetener: drizzle of honey or maple syrup
- Optional garnishes: rose petals, chopped nuts, dried fruit
Method
(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)
1) Heat the coconut milk, adding the oats and crushed cardamom pods. Simmer for 5–10 minutes depending on how cooked you want the oats to be.
2) Stir in the crushed pistachio nuts, as well as the rose water.
3) Serve in a bowl, adding any optional toppings:
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:
- The Best Kind Of Fiber For Overall Health? ← it’s beta-glucan, which is fund abundantly in oats
- Pistachios vs Pecans – Which is Healthier? ← have a guess
- Can Saturated Fats Be Healthy? ← coconut can!
Take care!
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Are Brain Chips Safe?
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Ready For Cyborgization?
In yesterday’s newsletter, we asked you for your views on Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs), such as the Utah Array and Neuralink’s chips on/in brains that allow direct communication between brains and computers, so that (for example) a paralysed person can use a device to communicate, or manipulate a prosthetic limb or two.
We didn’t get as many votes as usual; it’s possible that yesterday’s newsletter ended up in a lot of spam filters due to repeated use of a word in “extra ______ olive oil” in its main feature!
However, of the answers we did get…
- About 54% said “It’s bad enough that our phones spy on us, without BCI monitoring our thoughts as well!”
- About 23% said “Sounds great in principle, but I don’t think we’re there yet safetywise”
- About 19% said “Sign me up for technological telepathy! I am ready for assimilation”
- One (1) person said “Electrode outside the skull are good; chips on the brain are bad”
But what does the science say?
We’re not there yet safetywise: True or False?
True, in our opinion, when it comes to the latest implants, anyway. While it’s very difficult to prove a negative (it could be that everything goes perfectly in human trials), “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”, and so far this seems to be lacking.
The stage before human trials is usually animal trials, starting with small creatures and working up to non-human primates if appropriate, before finally humans.
- Good news: the latest hot-topic BCI device (Neuralink) was tested on animals!
- Bad news: to say it did not go well would be an understatement
The Gruesome Story of How Neuralink’s Monkeys Actually Died
The above is a Wired article, and we tend to go for more objective sources, however we chose this one because it links to very many objective sources, including an open letter from the Physicians’ Committee for Responsible Medicine, which basically confirms everything in the Wired article. There are lots of links to primary (medical and legal) sources, too.
Electrodes outside the skull are good; chips on/in the brain are bad: True or False?
True or False depending on how they’re done. The Utah Array (an older BCI implant, now 20 years old, though it’s been updated many times since) has had a good safety record, after being used by a few dozen people with paralysis to control devices:
How the Utah Array is advancing BCI science
The Utah Array works on the same general principle as Neuralink, but the mechanics of its implementation are very different:
- The Utah Array involves a tiny bundle of microelectrodes (held together by a rigid structure that looks a bit like a nanoscale hairbrush) put in place by a brain surgeon, and that’s that.
- The Neuralink has a dynamic web of electrodes, implanted by a little robot that acts like a tiny sewing machine to implant many polymer threads, each containing its own a bunch of electrodes.
In theory, the latter is much more advanced. In practice, so far, the former has a much better safety record.
I am right to be a little worried about giving companies access to my brain: True or False?
True or False, depending on the nature of your concern.
For privacy: current BCI devices have quite simple switches operated consciously by the user. So while technically any such device that then runs its data through Bluetooth or WiFi could be hacked, this risk is no greater than using a wireless mouse and/or keyboard, because it has access to about the same amount of information.
For safety: yes, probably there is cause to be worried. Likely the first waves of commercial users of any given BCI device will be severely disabled people who are more likely to waive their rights in the hope of a life-changing assistance device, and likely some of those will suffer if things go wrong.
Which on the one hand, is their gamble to make. And on the other hand, makes rushing to human trials, for companies that do that, a little more predatory.
Take care!
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Deskbound – by Kelly Starrett and Glen Cordoza
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We’ve all heard that “sitting is the new smoking”, and whether or not that’s an exaggeration (the jury’s out), one thing that is clear is that sitting is very bad.
Popular advice is “here’s how to sit with good posture and stretch your neck sometimes”… but that advice tends to come from companies that pay people to sit for a long time. They might not be the a very unbiased source.
Starrett and Cordoza offer better. After one opening chapter covering the multifarious ways sitting ruins our health, the rest of the book is all advice, covering:
- The principles of how the body is supposed to be
- The most important movements that we should be doing
- A dynamic workstation setup
- This is great, because “get a standing desk” tends to present more questions than answers, and can cause as much harm as good if done wrong
- The authors also cover how to progressively cut down on sitting, rather than try to go cold-turkey.
- They also recognize that not everyone can stand at all, and…
- Optimizing the sitting position, for when we must sit
- Exercises to maintain our general mobility and compensate about as well as we can for the body-unfriendly nature of modern life.
The book is mostly explanations, so at 682 pages, you can imagine it’s not just “get up, lazybones!”. Rather, things are explained in such detail (and with many high-quality medical diagrams) so that we can truly understand them.
Most of us have gone through life knowing we should have “better posture” and “move more”… but without the details, that can be hard to execute correctly, and worse, we can even sabotage our bodies unknowingly with incorrect form.
This book straightens all that out very comprehensively, and we highly recommend it.
Don’t Forget…
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