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No-Frills, Evidence-Based Mindfulness
Plus: 12 foods that help against anxiety and depression
The 10almonds Team
May 28, 2023
Today’s almonds have been activated by:
Loading Screen Tip: You can’t let your failures define you. You have to let your failures teach you.
⏰ 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:
Some foods help fight depression and anxiety. They include:
Walnuts
Fermented foods
Cherry tomatoes
Leafy greens
Apples
Beans
Berries
Oats
Mushrooms
Avocados
Dark chocolate
Pumpkin seeds
The benefits of mindfulness are many, and include:
reducing stress
reducing pain
improving quality of life
reducing fatigue
providing relief from digestive disorders
reducing symptoms of sleep disorders
improving immune response
providing support for caregivers
Electric bikes are cheaper, cleaner, and less stressful than cars or public transportation.
Today’s sponsor, Upway, is offering substantial discounts on a wide range of highest quality e-bike brands; you should definitely check them out below!
Read on to learn about these things and more…
👀 WATCH AND LEARN
12 Foods That Fight Depression and Anxiety
Food has a significant impact on our physical, psychological, and emotional well-being. Unhelpfully, if you are struggling with depression, anxiety, or another type of mood disorder, it can be especially challenging to think about what you're eating.
But if you can (make even just small tweaks here and there!), then adopting a healthier diet rich in certain foods can certainly improve brain function and overall mental health:
The 12 Foods:
😌 MAIN FEATURE
What’s on your mind, really?
We hear a lot about “the evidence-based benefits of mindfulness”, but what actually are they? And what is the evidence? And, perhaps most importantly: how do we do it?
What are the benefits?
The benefits of mindfulness are many, and include:
reducing stress
reducing pain
improving quality of life
reducing fatigue
providing relief from digestive disorders
reducing symptoms of sleep disorders
improving immune response
providing support for caregivers
The evidence is also abundant, and includes:
Sounds great… What actually is it, though?
Mindfulness is the state of being attentive to one’s mind. This is at its heart a meditative practice, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you have to be sitting in the lotus position with candles—mindfulness can be built into any daily activity, or even no activity at all.
An exercise you can try right now:
Take a moment to notice everything you can hear. For this writer, that includes:
The noise of my keystrokes as I type
The ticking of the clock on the wall
The gentle humming of my computer’s processor
The higher-pitched noise of my computer’s monitor
Birdsong outside
Traffic further away
My own breathing
The sound of my eyelids as I blink
Whatever it is for you, notice how much you can notice that you had previously taken for granted.
You can repeat this exercise with other senses, by the way! For example:
Notice five things you can see in your immediate environment that you’ve never noticed before. If you’re at home reading this, you probably think you’re very familiar with everything around you, but now see that mark on the wall you’d never noticed before, or a quirk of some electrical wiring, or the stitching on some furnishing, for example.
Notice the textures of your clothes, or your face, or perhaps an object you’ve never paid attention to touching before. Your fingertips, unless you have some special reason this doesn’t apply to you, are far more sensitive than you probably give them credit for, and can notice the tiniest differentiation in textures, so take a moment to do that now.
Mindful eating can be an especially healthful practice because it requires that we pay every attention to what we’re putting in our mouth, tasting, chewing, swallowing. No more thoughtlessly downing a box of cookies; every bite is now an experience. On the one hand, you’ll probably eat less at a sitting. On the other hand, what a sensory experience! It really reminds one that life is for living, not just for zipping through at a speed-run pace!
What about mindfulness as a meditative practice?
Well, those are meditative practices! But yes, mindfulness goes for more formal meditation too. For example:
Sit comfortably, with good posture, whatever that means to you. No need to get too caught up in the physical mechanics here—it’d take a whole article. For now, if you’re sitting and comfortable, that’s enough.
Notice your breathing. No need to try to control it—that’s not what this is about today. Just notice it. The in, the out, whether you breathe to your chest or abdomen, through your nose or mouth, don’t worry about doing it “right”, just notice what you are doing. Observe without judgement.
Notice your thoughts—no need to try to stop them. Notice noticing your thoughts, and again, observe without judgement. Notice your feelings; are you angry, hopeful, stressed, serene? There are no wrong answers here, and there’s nothing you should try to “correct”. Just observe. No judgement, only observe. Watch your thoughts, and watch your thoughts go.
Did you forget about your breathing while watching your thoughts? Don’t worry about that either if so, just notice that it happened. If you have any feelings about that, notice them too, and carry on observing.
We go through so much of our lives in “autopilot”, that it can be an amazing experience to sometimes just “be”—and be aware of being.
❤️ OUR SPONSORS MAKE THIS PUBLICATION POSSIBLE
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🌏 AROUND THE WEB
What’s happening in the health world…
More to come tomorrow!
📖 ONE-MINUTE BOOK REVIEW
Retrain Your Brain: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in 7 Weeks: A Workbook for Managing Depression and Anxiety - by Dr. Seth Gillihan
"15-Minute Arabic", "Sharpen Your Chess Tactics in 24 Hours", "Change Your Life in 7 Days", "Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in 7 weeks"—all real books from this reviewer's shelves.
The thing with books with these sorts of time periods in the titles is that the time period in the title often bears little relation to how long it takes to get through the book. So what's the case here?
You'll probably get through it in more like 7 days, but the pacing is more important than the pace. By that we mean:
Dr. Gillihan starts by assuming the reader is at best "in a rut", and needs to first pick a direction to head in (the first "week") and then start getting one's life on track (the second "week").
He then gives us, one by one, an array of tools and power-ups to do increasingly better. These tools aren't just CBT, though of course that features prominently. There's also mindfulness exercises, and holistic / somatic therapy too, for a real "bringing it all together" feel.
And that's where this book excels—at no point is the reader left adrift with potential stumbling-blocks left unexamined. It's a "whole course".
Bottom line: whether it takes you 7 hours or 7 months, "Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in 7 Weeks" is a CBT-and-more course for people who like courses to work through. It'll get you where you're going... Wherever you want that to be for you!
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Wishing you a mindful day,
The 10almonds Team