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Planning Festivities Your Body Won't Regret
Plus: the benefits of running in the cold
The 10almonds Team
December 03, 2023
Together with
Sometimes laughter really is the best medicine. Laughing can lower stress hormones, decrease inflammation in your arteries, and raise your levels of HDL ("good") cholesterol.
⏰ 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:
This time of year sees a lot of unhealthy temptations multiplying around us. But with a little mindful planning, we can enjoy the season without compromising our health.
Key ideas include making mindful choices, picking one’s battles, time-restricted indulgence eating/drinking, positive dieting, and keeping moving!
Dancing is a very healthful activity; it’s good for cardiovascular fitness, mobility, stability, and mental health too.
Today’s sponsor, Date Night Dancing, offers at-home lessons for you and yours to learn in privacy and comfort!
Read on to learn about these things and more…
👀 WATCH AND LEARN
BBC Ideas | What does reading on screens do to our brains? (6:21)
We’re reading more than ever before—but much of it is on phone screens rather than physical books. Is it changing the way our brains work?
Reading menu:
Prefer text? So do we, but ironically, they didn’t provide that option. To include the same information, we’d need to do a main feature sometime, so maybe we will.
In the meantime, we’ll link back to our previous writing on the topic of reading in bed, from paper books vs e-readers vs tablets:
Want to watch it, but not right now? Bookmark it for later 🔖
🍊 MAIN FEATURE
The Festive Dilemma
For many, Christmas is approaching. Other holidays abound too, and even for the non-observant, it’d be hard to escape seasonal jollities entirely.
So, what’s the plan?
Eat, drink, and be merry, and have New Year’s Resolutions for the first few days of January before collapsing in a heap?
Approach the Yuletide with Spartan abstemiousness and miss all the fun while simultaneously annoying your relatives?
Let’s try to find a third approach instead…
What’s festive and healthy?
We’re doing this article this week, because many people will be shopping already, making plans, and so forth. So here are some things to bear in mind:
Make your own mindful choices
Coca-Cola company really did a number on Christmas, but it doesn’t mean their product is truly integral to the season. Same goes for many other things that flood the stores around this time of year. So much sugary confectionary! But remember, they’re not the boss of you. If you wouldn’t buy it ordinarily, why are you buying it now? Do you actually even want it?
If you really do, then you do you, but mindful choices will invariably be healthier than “because there were three additional aisles of confectionary now so I stopped and looked and picked some things”.
Pick your battles
If you’re having a big family gathering, likely there will be occasions with few healthy options available. But you can decide what’s most important for you to avoid, perhaps picking a theme, e.g:
No alcohol this year, or
No processed sugary foods, or
Eat/drink whatever, but practice intermittent fasting
Some resources:
Fight inflammation
This is a big one so it deserves its own category. In the season of sugar and alcohol and fatty meat, inflammation can be a big problem to come around and bite us in the behind. We’ve written on this previously:
Positive dieting
In other words, less of a focus on what to exclude, and more of a focus on what to include in your diet. Fruity drinks and sweets are common at this time of year, but you know what’s also fruity? Fruit!
And it can be festive, too! Berries are great, and those tiny orange-like fruits that may be called clementines or tangerines or satsumas or, as Aldi would have it, “easy peelers”. Apple and cinnamon are also a great combination that both bring sweetness without needing added sugar.
And as for mains? Make your salads that bit fancier, get plenty of greens with your main, have hearty soups and strews with lentils and beams!
Your gut will thank us later!
Get moving!
That doesn’t mean you have to beat the New Year rush to the gym (unless you want to!). But it could mean, for example, more time in your walking shoes (or dancing shoes! With a nod to today’s sponsor) and less time in the armchair.
Lastly…
Remember it’s supposed to be fun! And being healthy can be a lot more fun than suffering because of unfortunate choices that we come to regret.
Take care!
❤️ OUR SPONSORS MAKE THIS PUBLICATION POSSIBLE
Spice Up Your Date Nights at Home
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🌎 AROUND THE WEB
What’s happening in the health world…
Brain inflammation linked to neuropsychiatric symptoms in Alzheimer's
Mindfulness training can help doctors improve well-being and communication, study finds
Stem cell-based treatment controls blood sugar in people with Type 1 Diabetes
How to check your mouth for cancer when getting to see a dentist is hard
Not only is virtual care safe, patients and providers use it effectively, new research finds
Benefits of running in the cold outweigh warm weather running, says expert
Research demonstrates the potential of natural compounds to treat gastrointestinal disorders
More to come tomorrow!
📖 ONE-MINUTE BOOK REVIEW
The Teenage Brain: A neuroscientist’s survival guide to raising adolescents and young adults – by Dr. Frances Jensen
We realize that we probably have more grandparents of teenagers than parents of teenagers here, but most of us have at least some teenage relative(s). Which makes this book interesting.
There are a lot of myths about the teenage brain, and a lot of popular assumptions that usually have some basis in fact but are often misleading.
Dr. Jensen gives us a strong foundational grounding in the neurophysiology of adolescence, from the obvious-but-often-unclear (such as the role of hormones) to less-known things like the teenage brain's general lack of myelination. Not just "heightened neuroplasticity" but, if you imagine the brain as an electrical machine, then think of myelin as the insulation between the wires. Little wonder some wires may get crossed sometimes!
She also talks about such things as the teenage circadian rhythm's innate differences, the impact of success and failure on the brain, and harder topics such as addiction—and the adolescent cortisol functions that can lead to teenagers needing to seek something to relax in the first place.
In criticism, we can only say that sometimes the author makes sweeping generalizations without acknowledging such, but that doesn't detract from what she has to say on the topic of neurophysiology.
Bottom line: if there's a teenager in your life whose behavior and/or moods are sometimes baffling to you, and whose mysteries you'd like to unravel, this is a great book.
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 happy and healthy weekend,
The 10almonds Team