Yoga for Better Sleep – by Mark Stephens

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The book has, as you might expect:

  • postural exercises
  • breathing exercises
  • meditation exercises

Instructions given in all of the above categories are clear and easy to follow, and there are photographic illustrations too where appropriate.

What sets it apart from many books of this kind is that it also has chapters dedicated to various specific circumstances; the many actual reasons people seriously struggle to sleep; not just “screentime too late”, but for example deprepression, sleep apnea, hyperarousal, or even just aging.

As well as the comprehensive exercises, there are also many tips, tricks, hacks, and workarounds—it’s a practical guidebook with practical advice.

While the book is about yogic practices, the author also does tackle this holistically, acknowledging that there are many factors going on, and that yogic practices should be one more string to our sleep-improving bow—as we continue with other general good advice for good sleep too, have medical tests if it seems appropriate, that kind of thing. Basically, to have one’s assorted approaches work together with synergistic effect.

Bottom line: this book will quite possibly put you to sleep! But only in the best possible way.

Click here to check out Yoga for Better Sleep, and get those valuable Zs in, healthily!

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Recommended

  • The Squat Bible – by Dr. Aaron Horschig
  • Meditations for Mortals – by Oliver Burkeman
    Transform your days with a 28-day guide—dive into 6-page daily insights to correct life’s bad lessons and embrace principles for better time management.

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  • Chocolate & Health

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    Chocolate & Health: Fact or Fiction?

    “Chocolate Is Good For The Heart”

    “When making chocolate chip cookies, you don’t measure using cups, you measure by heart”

    …but how good is chocolate when it comes to heart health?

    First, what is heart health?

    A healthy heart typically has a low resting pulse rate and a strong, steady beat. This is affected strongly by exercise habits, and diet plays only a support role (can’t exercise without energy from food!).

    It is also important to have blood pressure within a healthy range (with high blood pressure being a more common problem than low, so things that lower blood pressure are generally considered good).

    • Flavanols, flavonoids, and polyphenols in chocolate contribute to lower blood pressure
    • Dark chocolate is best for these, as milk chocolate contains much less cocoa solids and more unhelpful fats
    • White chocolate contains no cocoa solids and is useless for this
    • Some of the fats in most commercial chocolate can contribute to atherosclerosis which raises blood pressure and ultimately can cause heart attacks.
    • If you’re diabetic, you will probably not get the usual heart-related benefits from chocolate (sorry)

    The Verdict: dark chocolate, in moderation, can support good heart health.

    “Chocolate Is Good For The Brain”

    Chocolate has been considered a “brain food”… why?

    • The brain uses more calories than any other organ (chocolate has many calories)
    • The heart benefits we listed above mean improved blood flow—including to your brain
    • Chocolate contains phenylethylamine, a powerful chemical that has a similar effect to amphetamines… But it’s metabolized in digestion and never makes it to the central nervous system (so basically, this one’s a miss; we had a good run with the other two, though!)

    The Verdict: dark chocolate, in moderation, can support good brain health

    “Chocolate Is An Aphrodisiac”

    “If chocolate be the food of love, pass me that cocoa; I’m starving”

    Most excitingly, chocolate contains phenylethylamine, the “molecule of love” or, more accurately, lust. It has an effect similar to amphetamines, and while we can synthesize it in the body, we can also get it from certain foods. But…

    Our body is so keen to get it that most of it is metabolized directly during digestion and doesn’t make it to the brain. Also, chocolate is not as good a source as cabbage—do with that information what you will!

    However!

    Chocolate contains theobromine and small amounts of caffeine, both stimulants and both generally likely to improve mood; it also contains flavonoids which in turn stimulate production of nitric oxide, which is a relaxant. All in all, things that are convivial to having a good time.

    On the other hand…

    That relaxation comes specifically with a reduction in blood pressure—something typically considered good for the health for most people most of the time… but that means lowering blood pressure in all parts of your body, which could be the opposite of what you want in intimate moments.

    Chocolate also contains zinc, which is essential for hormonal health for most people—the body uses it to produce testosterone and estrogen, respectively. Zinc supplements are popularly sold to those wishing to have more energy in general and good hormonal health in particular, and rightly so. However…

    This approach requires long-term supplementation—you can’t just pop a zinc tablet / bar of chocolate / almond before bed and expect immediate results. And if your daily zinc supplementation takes the form of a 3.5oz (100g) bar of chocolate, then you may find it has more effects on your health, and not all of them good!

    The Verdict: dark chocolate, in moderation, may promote “the mood”, but could be a double-edged sword when it comes to “the ability”.

    “Chocolate Is Good During Menstruation”

    The popular wisdom goes that chocolate is rich in iron (of which more is needed during menstruation), and indeed, if you eat 7oz (150g) of dark chocolate made with 85% cocoa, you’ll get a daily a dose of iron (…and nearly 1,000 calories).

    More bang-for-buck dietary sources of iron include chickpeas and broccoli, but for some mysterious reason, these are not as commonly reported as popular cravings.

    The real explanation for chocolate cravings is more likely that eating chocolate—a food high in sugar and fat along with a chemical bombardment of more specialized “hey, it’s OK, you can relax now” molecules (flavanols/flavonoids, polyphenols, phenylamines, even phenylethylamine, etc) gives a simultaneous dopamine kick (the body’s main “reward” chemical) with a whole-body physiological relaxation… so, little wonder we might crave it in times of stress and discomfort!

    The Verdict: it helps, not because it serves a special nutritional purpose, but rather, because the experience of eating chocolate makes us feel good.

    Fun fact: Tiramisu (this writer’s favorite dessert) is literally Italian for “pick-me-up”

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  • Strawberries vs Blackberries – Which is Healthier?

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    Our Verdict

    When comparing strawberries to blackberries, we picked the blackberries.

    Why?

    Shocking nobody, both are very healthy options. However, blackberries do come out on top:

    In terms of macros, the main thing that sets them apart is that blackberries have more than 2x the fiber. Other differences in macros are also in blackberries’ favor, but only very marginally, so we’ll not distract with those here. The fiber difference is distinctly significant, though.

    In the category of vitamins, blackberries lead with more of vitamins A, B2, B3, B5, B9, E, and K, as well as more choline. Meanwhile, strawberries boast more of vitamins B1, B6, and C. So, a 8:2 advantage for blackberries (and some of the margins are very large, such as 9x more choline, 4x more vitamin E, and nearly 18x more vitamin A).

    When it comes to minerals, things are not less clear: blackberries have considerably more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, and zinc. The two fruits are equal in other minerals that they both contain, and strawberries don’t contain any mineral in greater amounts than blackberries do.

    A discussion of these berries’ health benefits would be incomplete without at least mentioning polyphenols, but both of them are equally good sources of such, so there’s no distinction to set one above the other in this category.

    As ever, enjoy both, though! Diversity is good.

    Want to learn more?

    You might like to read:

    Take care!

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  • Thinner Leaner Stronger – by Michael Matthews

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    First, the elephant in the training room: this book does assume that you want to be thinner, leaner, and stronger. This is the companion book, written for women, to “Bigger, Stronger, Leaner”, which was written for men. Statistically, these assumptions are reasonable, even if the generalizations are imperfect. Also, this reviewer has a gripe with anything selling “thinner”. Leaner was already sufficient, and “stronger” is the key element here, so “thinner” is just marketing, and marketing something that’s often not unhealthy, to sell a book that’s actually full of good advice for building a healthy body.

    In other words: don’t judge a book by the cover, however eyeroll-worthy it may be.

    The book is broadly aimed at middle-aged readers, but boasts equal worth for young and old alike. If there’s something Matthews knows how to do well in his writing, it’s hedging his bets.

    As for what’s in the book: it’s diet and exercise advice, aimed at long-term implementation (i.e. not a crash course, but a lifestyle change), for maximum body composition change results while not doing anything silly (like many extreme short-term courses do) and not compromising other aspects of one’s health, while also not taking up an inordinate amount of time.

    The dietary advice is sensible, broadly consistent with what we’d advise here, and/but if you want to maximise your body composition change results, you’re going to need a pocket calculator (or be better than this writer is at mental arithmetic).

    The exercise advice is detailed, and a lot more specific than “lift things”; there are programs of specifically how many sets and reps and so forth, and when to increase the weights and when not to.

    A strength of this book is that it explains why all those numbers are what they are, instead of just expecting the reader to take on faith that the best for a given exercise is (for example) 3 sets of 8–10 reps of 70–75% of one’s single-rep max for that exercise. Because without the explanation, those numbers would seem very arbitrary indeed, and that wouldn’t help anyone stick with the program. And so on, for any advice he gives.

    The style is… A little flashy for this reader’s taste, a little salesy (and yes he does try to upsell to his personal coaching, but really, anything you need is in the book already), but when it comes down to it, all that gym-boy bravado doesn’t take away from the fact his advice is sound and helpful.

    Bottom line: if you would like your body to be the three things mentioned in the title, this book can certainly help you get there.

    Click here to check out Thinner Leaner Stronger, and become thinner, leaner, stronger!

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Related Posts

  • The Squat Bible – by Dr. Aaron Horschig
  • Children with traumatic experiences have a higher risk of obesity – but this can be turned around

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    Children with traumatic experiences in their early lives have a higher risk of obesity. But as our new research shows, this risk can be reduced through positive experiences.

    Childhood traumatic experiences are alarmingly common. Our analysis of data from nearly 5,000 children in the Growing Up in New Zealand study revealed almost nine out of ten (87%) faced at least one significant source of trauma by the time they were eight years old. Multiple adverse experiences were also prevalent, with one in three children (32%) experiencing at least three traumatic events.

    Childhood trauma includes a range of experiences such as physical and emotional abuse, peer bullying and exposure to domestic violence. It also includes parental substance abuse, mental illness, incarceration, separation or divorce and ethnic discrimination.

    We found children from financially disadvantaged households and Māori and Pasifika had the highest prevalence of nearly all types of adverse experiences, as well as higher overall numbers of adversities.

    The consequences of these experiences were far-reaching. Children who experienced at least one adverse event were twice as likely to be obese by age eight. The risk increased with the number of traumatic experiences. Children with four or more adverse experiences were nearly three times more likely to be obese.

    Notably, certain traumatic experiences (including physical abuse and parental domestic violence) related more strongly to obesity than others. This highlights the strong connection between early-life adversity and physical health outcomes.

    PickPik, CC BY-SA

    Connecting trauma to obesity

    One potential explanation could be that the accumulation of early stress in children’s family, school and social environments is associated with greater psychological distress. This in turn makes children more likely to adopt unhealthy weight-related behaviours.

    This includes consuming excessive high-calorie “comfort” foods such as fast food and sugary drinks, inadequate intake of nutritious foods, poor sleep, excessive screen time and physical inactivity. In our research, children who experienced adverse events were more likely to adopt these unhealthy behaviours. These, in turn, were associated with a higher risk of obesity.

    Despite these challenges, our research also explored a promising area: the protective and mitigating effects of positive experiences.

    We defined positive experiences as:

    • parents in a committed relationship
    • mothers interacting well with their children
    • mothers involved in social groups
    • children engaged in enriching experiences and activities such as visiting libraries or museums and participating in sports and community events
    • children living in households with routines and rules, including those regulating bedtime, screen time and mealtimes
    • children attending effective early childhood education.

    The findings were encouraging. Children with more positive experiences were significantly less likely to be obese by age eight.

    For example, those with five or six positive experiences were 60% less likely to be overweight or obese compared to children with zero or one positive experience. Even two positive experiences reduced the likelihood by 25%.

    Children playing with basketballs
    Positive childhood experiences such as playing sports or visiting libraries can lower the risk of obesity. Getty Images

    How positive experiences counteract trauma

    Positive experiences can help mitigate the negative effects of childhood trauma. But a minimum of four positive experiences was required to significantly counteract the impact of adverse events.

    While nearly half (48%) of the study participants had at least four positive experiences, a concerning proportion (more than one in ten children) reported zero or only one positive experience.

    The implications are clear. Traditional weight-loss programmes focused solely on changing behaviours are not enough to tackle childhood obesity. To create lasting change, we must also address the social environments, life experiences and emotional scars of early trauma shaping children’s lives.

    Fostering positive experiences is a vital part of this holistic approach. These experiences not only help protect children from the harmful effects of adversity but also promote their overall physical and mental wellbeing. This isn’t just about preventing obesity – it’s about giving children the foundation to thrive and reach their full potential.

    Creating supportive environments for vulnerable children

    Policymakers, schools and families all have a role to play. Community-based programmes, such as after-school activities, healthy relationship initiatives and mental health services should be prioritised to support vulnerable families.

    Trauma-informed care is crucial, particularly for children from disadvantaged households who face higher levels of adversity and fewer positive experiences. Trauma-informed approaches are especially crucial for addressing the effects of domestic violence and other adverse childhood experiences.

    Comprehensive strategies should prioritise both safety and emotional healing by equipping families with tools to create safe, nurturing environments and providing access to mental health services and community support initiatives.

    At the family level, parents can establish stable routines, participate in social networks and engage children in enriching activities. Schools and early-childhood education providers also play a key role in fostering supportive environments that help children build resilience and recover from trauma.

    Policymakers should invest in resources that promote positive experiences across communities, addressing inequalities that leave some children more vulnerable than others. By creating nurturing environments, we can counterbalance the impacts of trauma and help children lead healthier, more fulfilling lives.

    When positive experiences outweigh negative ones, children have a far greater chance of thriving – physically, emotionally and socially.

    Ladan Hashemi, Senior Research Fellow in Health Sciences, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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  • Comfortable with Uncertainty – by Pema Chödrön

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    This book is exactly what the subtitle claims it to be: 108 teachings on cultivating fearlessness and compassion. They are short extracts, entire of themselves, taken from Chödrön’s wider work and arranged to offer her insights and advices on this one topic, in one place.

    It is worth noting, by the way, that the author is a Buddhist nun, and as such, the principles and practices are Buddhist in origin. If that’s a problem for you, then this book will not be for you. It does not, however, require that the reader be Buddhist to benefit, simply that one has a will to be calm in the face of chaos, and yet not indifferent—rather, to take on the challenges of life with a whole heart.

    And about that compassion? This is about alleviating suffering; your own, and the suffering in the world as a whole, increasingly uncertain as this world is. And being brave enough to do that, in a world that is not always gentle.

    The style is idiosyncratic, and you will likely love it or hate it. If you love it, then you will find this book at once both soothing and empowering; if not, you will put the book down and pick up a book on CBT or something instead.

    Bottom line: this book absolutely does deliver on its title/subtitle promises—provided you, dear reader, internalize it and practise it.

    Click here to check out Comfortable with Uncertainty, and get comfortable with uncertainty!

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  • Loving Life at 50+ – by Maria Sabando

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    What a pleasant mix of a book! Sabando writes about aging with a great blend of light-heartedness and seriousness, and gives extra attention to the important balancing act of:

    1. Indulging sufficiently to enjoy life
    2. Staying well enough to enjoy life

    …because one without the other will not generally result in an enjoyable life! An American proud of her Italian heritage, she blends (as many immigrant families do) cultures and perspectives, aiming where she can for “the best of both” in that regard, too.

    Nor is this just a philosophical book—there’s yoga to be learned here, chapter by chapter, and recipes peppered throughout. The recipes, by the way, are simple and… Honestly, not as healthy as the recipes we share here at 10almonds, but they are good and when it comes to those indulgences we mentioned, her philosophy is that strategic mindful indulgence keeps mindless binge-eating at bay. Which is generally speaking not a bad approach, and is one we’ve written about before as well.

    When it comes to health advice, the author is no doctor or scientist, but her husband (a doctor) had input throughout, keeping things on track and medically sound.

    The style is very casual, like talking to a friend, which makes for a very easy and enjoyable read. Absolutely a book that one could read casually in the garden, put down when interrupted, pick up again, and continue happily where one left off.

    Bottom line: whatever your age (no matter whether your 50th birthday is in your shrinkingly near future or your increasingly distant past), there’s wisdom to be gained here—it’s not a manual (unless you want to treat it as one), it’s more… Thought-provoking, from cover to cover. Highly recommendable.

    Click here to check out Loving Life at 50+, and love life at 50+!

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