10almonds Subcribers Take The Wheel!

It’s Q&A Day here at 10almonds, but that’s not all we have for you! In today’s line-up:

• Dopamine vs Serotonin—what’s the difference?

• Q&A Time!

  • The best salt for neti pots

  • Ginseng for testosterone… and more?

  • We go the extra mile so you don’t have to

  • Modafinil vs adrafinil?

  • Polyphasic sleep (more on this later!)

• Advice To A Younger You?

• Total Fitness After 40—Aging, remastered?

If you have any questions you’d like answered, you can always hit reply to any of our emails or use the feedback widget at the bottom!

👀 WATCH AND LEARN

🧠 Dopamine vs Serotonin?

When it comes to the roles of dopamine and serotonin, it’s easy to get confused. Inka Land, MSc, is here to un-muddle them!

Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!

Timestamps and contents, for your convenience:

• 00:55 Dopamine and serotonin similarities

• 01:40 Derivatives: noradrenaline and melatonin

• 02:03 Motivation vs happiness

• 02:48 Memory and learning, attention, memory consolidation, hippocampus, and long-term memory

• 03:35 Low dopamine vs low serotonin (and: high dopamine vs high serotonin)

• 05:30 Dopaminergic networks vs serotonergic system

• 07:40 Summary

🗣 MAIN FEATURE

❓ Q&A With 10almonds Subscribers!

Q: What kind of salt is best for neti pots?

A: Non-iodised salt is usually recommended, but really, any human-safe salt is fine. By this we mean for example:

• Sodium chloride (like most kitchen salts),

• Potassium chloride (as found in “reduced sodium” kitchen salts), or

• Magnesium sulfate (also known as epsom salts).

Q: You talked about spearmint as reducing testosterone levels, what about ginseng for increasing them?

A: Hormones are complicated and often it’s not a simple matter of higher or lower levels! It can also be a matter of...

• how your body converts one thing into another

• how your body responds (or not) to something according to how the relevant hormone’s receptors are doing

• ...and whether there’s anything else blocking those receptors.

All this to say: spearmint categorically is an anti-androgen, but the mechanism of action remains uncertain.

Panax ginseng, meanwhile, is one of the most well-established mysteries in herbal medicine.

Paradoxically, it seems to improve both male and female hormonal regulation, despite being more commonly associated with the former.

• It doesn’t necessarily increase or decrease testosterone or estrogen levels (but it can, even if indirectly)

• It does improve sexual function

• ...and alleviates symptoms associated with conditions as varied as:

  • Late-onset hypogonadism (common for men during the andropause)

  • Benign prostate hyperplasia (again common for men during the andropause)

  • ...and also counteracts unwanted side-effects of finasteride. Finasteride is often taken by men as a hair loss remedy or, less often but critically, in the case of an enlarged prostate.

But it also…

• Alleviates symptoms of PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome, which effects around 20% of women)

• May even be an effective treatment for PCOS (rat model only so far)

• It also may improve female reproductive fertility more generally (the studies are down to fruit flies now though)

Bottom line: Panax ginseng is popularly taken to improve natural hormone function, a task at which it appears to excel.

Scientists are still working out exactly how it does the many things it appears to do.

Progress has been made, and it clearly is science rather than witchcraft, but there are still far more unanswered questions than resolved ones!

Q: I like that the quizzes (I've done two so far) give immediate results , with no "give us your email to get your results". Thanks!

A: You’re welcome! That’s one of the factors that influences what things we include here! Our mission statement is “to make health and productivity crazy simple”, and the unwritten part of that is making sure to save your time and energy wherever we reasonably can!

Q: Do you know if adrafanil is as good as modafinil? It seems to be a lot cheaper for the same result?

A: Adrafinil is the pro-drug of modafinil. What this means is that if you take it, your own liver will use it to make modafinil inside you. So the end result is chemically the same drug.

As to whether it’s as good, it depends what you need. It’s worth noting that anything that taxes liver function can be harmful if you take too much, and/or your liver is already strained for some reason.

If in doubt, consult a doctor! And if it’s something that’s accessible to you, a recent lipids test (a kind of blood test that checks your liver health) is always a good thing to have.

Q: Would love to see your take on polyphasic sleep!

A: Watch this space 😉

🗣 SUBSCRIBER VIEWS

Thanks, Teri!

We previously asked:

10almonds subscriber Teri writes:

❝SAVE 10% minimum of your income from the very get-go for Long-Time-Future-You. As in money you won’t touch until you are 65. Set and forget savings:

• Save up until you have a minimum of 3 months of expenses - that is for when you lose your job.

• AND save money for emergencies like your car needing a new tire or a flight home to see your dad.

• Even when you are young and very very broke, save a bit every month so you have a cushion.

• And don’t use credit cards to buy ANY wants at all.

• Learn what compound interest can do to your own savings, and what it can do to your debt.

• Then ensure you never have debt for things that you simply wanted. Debt should only be for things you need and can’t get any other legal way.

• Needs are food and shelter. Not fast fashion and alcohol.

Oh, and if you or your friends look to be having a problem with Drugs or alcohol, for heaven’s sake do and say something. Years lost to addiction because folk are afraid they will offend, or will be shunned.❞

Check Out A Free (34 Day!) Trial of “You Need A Budget” Here!

📖 ONE-MINUTE BOOK REVIEW

Total Fitness After 40 - by Nick Swettenham

Time may march relentlessly on, but can we retain our youthful good health?

The answer is that we can… to a degree. And where we can’t, we can and should adapt what we do as we age.

The key, as Swettenham illustrates, is that there are lifestyle factors that will help us to age more slowly, thus retaining our youthful good health for longer. At the same time, there are factors of which we must simply be mindful, and take care of ourselves a little differently now than perhaps we did when we were younger. Here, Swettenham acts guide and instructor.

A limitation of the book is that it was written with the assumption that the reader is a man. This does mean that anything relating to hormones is assuming that we have less testosterone as we’re getting older and would like to have more, which is obviously not the case for everyone. However, happily, the actual advice remains applicable regardless.

Swettenham covers the full spread of what he believes everyone should take into account as we age:

• Mindset changes (accepting that physical changes are happening, without throwing our hands in the air and giving up)

• Focus on important aspects such as:

  • strength

  • flexibility

  • mobility

  • agility

  • endurance

• Some attention is also given to diet—nothing you won’t have read elsewhere, but it’s a worthy mention.

All in all, this is a fine book if you’re thinking of taking up or maintaining an exercise routine that doesn’t stick its head in the sand about your aging body, but doesn’t just roll over and give up either. A worthy addition to anyone’s bookshelf!

Check Out Fitness After 40 On Amazon Today!

Looking for a more women-centric equivalent book? Vonda Wright M.D. has you covered (and her bio is very impressive)!

May all your questions be answered and may you find yet more,

The 10almonds Team