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When Did You Last Have a Cognitive Health Check-Up?
Plus: how cannabis use affects empathy
The 10almonds Team
November 13, 2023
Today’s almonds have been activated by:
❝Kindness is more important than wisdom, and the recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom❞
⏰ IN A RUSH?
Today’s 30-Second Summary
If you don’t have time to read the whole email today, here are some key takeaways:
Regular health check-ups are an important part of a good health regime, especially as we get older
Cognitive health check-ups are also a good thing to do—or else how soon will we recognize cognitive decline if/when it starts to occur?
Today’s main feature includes a collection of quick, free tests that you take now, and also save and retake later.
Not everyone wants to quit alcohol. So, if you're going to drink, you might as well enjoy your drinks mindfully!
Today’s sponsor, Sunnyside, is an app that helps you change your relationship with alcohol, so that your choice is really your choice—not a mindless habit that you don’t even truly take joy in.
Read on to learn about these things and more…
👀 WATCH AND LEARN
How to Know If You Have Real Friends—And What to Do If You Don't (3:02)
A thought-provoking take on loneliness and isolation:
Want to watch it, but not right now? Bookmark it for later 🔖
🧠 MAIN FEATURE
When Did You Last Have a Cognitive Health Check-Up?
Regular health check-ups are an important part of a good health regime, especially as we get older. But after you’ve been prodded, probed, sampled and so forth… When did you last have a cognitive health check-up?
Keeping on top of things
In our recent Monday Research Review main feature about citicoline, we noted that it has beneficial effects for a lot of measures of cognitive health.
And that brought us to realize: just how on top of this are we?
Your writer here today could tell you what her sleep was like on any night in the past year, what her heart rate was like, her weight, and all that. Moods too! There’s an app for that. But cognitive health? My last IQ test was in 2001, and I forget when my last memory test was.
It’s important to know how we’re doing, or else how to we know if there has been some decline? We’ve talked previously about the benefits of brain-training of various kinds to improve cognition, so in some parts we’ll draw on the same resources today, but this time the focus is on getting quick measurements that we can retest regularly (mark the calendar!)
Some quick-fire tests
These tests are all free, quick, and accessible. Some of them will try to upsell you on other (i.e. paid) services; we leave that to your own discretion, but the things we’ll be using today are free.
Test your verbal memory
This one’s a random word list generator. It defaults to 12 words, but you can change that if you like. Memorize the words, and then test yourself by seeing how many you can write down from memory. If it gets too easy, crank up the numbers.
Test your visual memory
This one’s a series of images; the test is to click to say whether you’ve seen this exact image previously in the series or not.
Test your IQ
This one’s intended to be general purpose intelligence; in reality, IQ tests have their flaws too, but it’s not a bad metric to keep track of. Just don’t get too hung up on the outcome, and remember, your only competition is yourself!
Test your attention / focus
This writer opened this and this three other attention tests (to get you the best one) before getting distracted, noting the irony, and finally taking the test. Hopefully you can do better!
Test your creativity
This one’s a random object generator. Give yourself a set period of time (per your preference, but make a note of the time you allow yourself, so that you can use the same time period when you retest yourself at a later date) in which to list as many different possible uses for the item.
Test your musical sense
This one’s a pitch recognition test. So, with the caveat that it is partially testing your hearing as well as your cognition, it’s a good one to take and regularly retest in any case.
How often should you retest?
There’s not really any “should” here, but to offer some advice:
If you take them too often, you might find you get bored of doing so and stop, essentially burning out.
If you don’t take them regularly, you may forget, lose this list of tests, etc.
Likely a good “sweet spot” is quarterly or six-monthly, but there’s nothing wrong with testing annually either.
It’s all about the big picture, after all.
❤️ OUR SPONSORS MAKE THIS PUBLICATION POSSIBLE
This Isn't Another "Quit Drinking" App
If you're going to drink, you might as well enjoy your drinks mindfully.
That's why Sunnyside takes a different approach to many, and does not pressure you to quit, nor even to be constantly cutting down.
Instead, it helps you change your relationship with alcohol, so that your choice is really your choice—not a mindless habit that you don’t even truly take joy in.
The app features include, amongst others:
Drink planning and tracking tools
Coaching from real humans when you need it
A wealth of helpful resources
On average, members enjoy as side-effects:
30% reduction in weekly drinks in first 30 days
2,500 calories cut in first 30 days
$50+ saved in the first 30 days
So, as well as being good for your health and life, this app might more than pay for itself!
PS: there's a free 15-day trial, so you can get to know how it works before committing 😎
Please do visit our sponsors—they help keep 10almonds free
🌎 AROUND THE WEB
What’s happening in the health world…
Research brings the prospect of injection-free treatment closer for people with diabetes
Does being a caregiver affect older women's longevity?
Does cannabis use affect empathy?
Pharmacogenomics holds promise for personalized dementia therapies
New research reveals an advanced form of meditation impacts the brain and is linked to aspects of well-being
Consuming flavonoids helps fight symptoms of endometriosis, researchers find
The effect of vegetarian diets on sports performance
More to come tomorrow!
📖 ONE-MINUTE BOOK REVIEW
The Borderline Personality Disorder Workbook: An Integrative Program to Understand and Manage Your BPD – by Dr. Daniel Fox
Personality disorders in general get a bad rep. In part, because their names and descriptions often focus on how the disorders affect other people, rather than how they affect the actual sufferer:
"This disorder gives you cripplingly low self-esteem; we call it Evil Not-Quite-Human Disorder"
"This disorder makes you feel unloveable; we call it Abusive Bitch Disorder"
...etc
Putting aside the labels and stigma, it turns out that humans sometimes benefit from help. In the case of BPD, characterized by such things as difficult moods and self-sabotage, the advice in this book can help anyone struggling with those (and related) issues.
The style of the book is both textbook, and course. It's useful to proceed through it methodically, and doing the exercises is good too. We recommend getting the print edition, not the Kindle edition, so that you can check off boxes, write in it (pencil, if you like!), etc.
Bottom line: if you or a loved one suffers from BPD symptoms (whether or not you/they would meet criteria for diagnosis), this book can help a lot.
What did you think of today's newsletter?We always love to hear from you, whether you leave us a comment or even just a click in the poll if you're speeding by! |
Wishing you a restful Sunday, and a cheery Diwali to anyone celebrating tonight,
The 10almonds Team