Beyond Guarding Against Dementia

Today’s almonds have been activated by:

⏰ 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:

• As we get older, our brains can change, and in most respects, it’s often not for the better

  • Today’s main feature brings ideas from Dr. Amy Friday about not just avoiding/stalling dementia, but also about working around it if it comes

  • Her main aim is to take the fear and anxiety out of it, while also keeping a guard up against it to whatever extent is possible

• Today’s sponsor Hims is offering their “hard mints”, a refreshing generic of a drug we can’t mention here, to get things up and going with healthy vigor.

Read on to learn more about these things, or click here to visit our archive

🤫 A WORD TO THE WISE

👀 WATCH AND LEARN

Plant-Based Salmon Recipe

Jenné at Sweet Potato Soul teaches us how to make tasty nutritious vegan salmon from scratch:

You’ll notice that we’re now hosting these videos on our website, so that we can have room to provide a bit more context. Watch and enjoy!

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• Air Purifiers & Sleep

• Heart Attack: His & Hers (Be Prepared!)

• Coughing/Wheezing After Dinner?

🧠 MAIN FEATURE

When Age’s Brain-Changes Come Knocking

This is Dr. Amy Friday. She’s a psychologist, specializing in geropsychology and neuropsychological assessments.

In other words, she helps people optimize their aging experience, particularly in the context of brain changes as we get older.

What does she want us to know?

First: be not afraid

Ominous first words, but the fact is, there’s a lot to find scary about the prospect of memory loss, dementia, and death.

However, as she points out:

• Death will come for us all sooner or later, barring technology as yet unknown

• Dementia can be avoided, or at least stalled, or at least worked around

• Memory loss, as per the above, can be avoided/stalled/managed

We’ve written a little on these topics too:

Managing Your Mortality

…or if the death is not yours:

Bereavement & Managing Grief

As for avoiding dementia, the below-linked feature is about Alzheimer’s in particular (which accounts for more than half of all cases of dementia), but the advice goes for most of the other kinds too:

How To Reduce Your Alzheimer’s Risk

And finally, about memory loss specifically:

How To Boost Your Memory Immediately (Without Supplements)

👆 this one is especially about cementing into one’s brain the kinds of memories that people most fear losing with age. People don’t worry about forgetting their PIN codes; they worry about forgetting their cherished memories with loved ones. So, if that’s important to you, do consider checking out this one!

What is that about managing or working around the symptoms?

If we’re missing a limb, we (usually) get a prosthetic, and/or learn how to operate without that limb.

If we’re missing sight or hearing, partially or fully, there are disability aids for those kinds of things too (glasses are a disability aid! Something being very common does not make it not a disability; you literally have less of an ability—in this case, the ability to see), and/or we learn how to operate with our different (or missing) sense.

Dr. Friday makes the case for this being the same with memory loss, dementia, and other age-related symptoms (reduced focus, increased mental fatigue, etc):

Examples of this might include:

• Writing down the things most important to you (a short list of information and/or statements that you feel define you and what matters most to you), so that you can read it later

• Making sure you have support (partner, family, friends, etc) who are on the same page about this topic—and thus will actually support you and advocate for you, instead of arguing about what is in your best interest without consulting you.

• Labelling stuff around the house, so that you get less confused about what is what and where it is

• Having a named go-to advocate that you can call / ask to be called, if you are in trouble somewhere and need help that you can rely on

• Getting a specialized, simpler bank account; hiring an accountant if relevant and practicable.

The thing is, we all want to keep control. Sometimes we can do that! Sometimes we can’t, and if we’re going to lose some aspect of control, it’ll generally go a lot better if we do it on our own terms, so that we ourselves can look out for future-us in our planning.

Want to know more?

You might enjoy her blog, which includes also links to her many videos on the topic, including such items as:

• Neuroplasticity – #1 Way To Increase Brain Health

• Which Diet PREVENTS Alzheimer’s? | Best Brain Health Diet

• Stop Anxiety About Dementia & Do I Have Dementia?

For the rest, see:

This Beautiful Brain | The Science Of Brain Health

Enjoy!

YOU MAY HAVE MISSED…

• The Stress Prescription (Against Aging!)

• When To Take Electrolytes (And When We Shouldn’t!)

• The Bitter Truth About Coffee (Or Is It?)

❤️ OUR SPONSORS MAKE THIS PUBLICATION POSSIBLE

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Please do visit our sponsors—they help keep 10almonds free

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📖 ONE-MINUTE BOOK REVIEW

Time Smart: How to Reclaim Your Time and Live a Happier Life – by Dr. Ashley Whillans

First, what this is not: it’s not a productivity book.

What is rather: a book of better wellbeing.

There is a little overlap, insofar as getting “time smart” in the ways that Dr. Whillans recommends will give you more ability to also be more productive—if that’s what you want.

She talks us through time traps and the “time poverty epidemic”, as well as steps to finding time and funding time. Perhaps most critical idea-wise is the chapter on building a “time-affluence habit”, making decisions that prioritize your time-freedom where you can—which in turn will allow you to build yet more. Kind of like compound interest really, but for time.

The writing style is a conversational tone, but peppered with bullet-point lists and charts and the like from time to time, and often with citations to back up claims. It makes for a very readable book, and yet one that’s also inspiring of the confidence that it’s more than just one person’s opinion.

Bottom line: if you sometimes feel like you could do everything you want to if you could just find the time, this book can help you get there.

Click here to check out Time Smart, and live your most satisfying life!

Wishing you the best health today and every day,

The 10almonds Team