Make Overnight Oats Shorter Or Longer For Different Benefits!

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:

• Today’s main feature answers reader questions (do send us questions; we love those!)

  • We examine just how “overnight” overnight oats need to be, and what happens if we use less time or more time

  • We examine the pros and cons of body scrubs, and what natural alternatives there are to potentially harmful commercial products

• As we age, our collagen levels tend to get depleted more easily. Collagen is important not just for youthful good looks, but also for the health of bones and joints

  • Today’s sponsor NativePath are offering high-quality collagen without additives or harmful impurities

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

🤫 A WORD TO THE WISE

👀 WATCH AND LEARN

TED-Ed | How Sugar Affects The Brain | Dr. Nicole Avena (5:02)

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

Want to watch it, but not right now? Bookmark it for later 🔖

YOU MAY HAVE MISSED…

• The 7 Approaches To Pain Management

• Do Probiotics Work For Weight Loss?

❓ MYSTERY ITEM

Now You See It…

Hint: today’s mystery item will be completely invisible to you when in use!

YOU MAY HAVE MISSED…

• The Science of Hunger, And How To Sate It

• Wouldn’t It Be Nice To Have Regenerative Superpowers?

❓ MAIN FEATURE

It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!

Have a question or a request? We love to hear from you!

In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!

As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!

So, no question/request too big or small 😎

❝How long do I have to soak oats for to get the benefits of "overnight oats”?❞

The primary benefit of overnight oats (over cooked oats) is that they are soft enough to eat without having been cooked (as cooking increases their glycemic index).

So, if it’s soft, it’s good to eat 😋 A few hours should be sufficient.

Bonus information

If, by the way, you happen to leave oats and milk (be it animal or plant milk) sealed in a jar at room temperature for a 2–3 days (less if your “room temperature” is warmer than average), it will start to ferment.

• Good news: fermentation can bring extra health benefits!

• Bad news: you’re on your own if something pathogenic is present

For more on this, you might like to read:

Fermenting Everything: How to Make Your Own Cultured Butter, Fermented Fish, Perfect Kimchi, and Beyond

❝I was wondering whether I should be using a body scrub in the shower, rather than just soap.  What should guide me in the choice of a body scrub, and are there any risks to be aware of?❞

Body scrubs are great for giving skin a healthy glow, but are best used sparingly—over-exfoliation leads to the opposite effect (unhappy skin, premature skin aging, etc).

As for contents:

• microplastics are now banned in most places, but you might want to check any products (and their containers!) are BPA-free, pthalate free, etc.

• fragrances in body scrubs are usually a bad idea, and many essential oils have been shown to be endocrine-disruptors, which you do not want:

About the microplastics, harmful artificial chemicals in general, and what constitutes “etc”:

Consumer behavior and exposure to parabens, bisphenols, triclosan, dichlorophenols, and benzophenone-3: Results from a crowdsourced biomonitoring study

About the fragrances’ (including “natural” essential oils’) endocrine-disrupting shenanigans:

Endocrine-disrupting chemicals: an Endocrine Society scientific statement

So, what might you want to use instead?

If you’re feeling adventurous, you might like to try treating yourself to a pineapple-based mask instead (a muslin cloth soaked in pineapple juice will work just fine; please don’t waterboard yourself though), as the bromelain enzymes (found very generously in pineapple juice) break down dead cells without the need for scrubbing.

Another option is a homemade salt- or sugar-scrub. Put your salt or sugar into a jar, add enough warm water to cover it, leave it for about a day, adding more water if it seems in danger of drying out, until it recrystallizes with a high water content keeping it malleable to the touch; congratulations, you now have a very simple scrub. This should still not be used more than, say, once per week, though.

Last but not least, you might consider investing in a konjac sponge; they gently remove dead skin without damaging living skin. Here’s an example product on Amazon, for your convenience 😎

For more on gentle-yet-effective skincare, you might like to read:

Clean: The New Science of Skin and the Beauty of Doing Less

Enjoy!

YOU MAY HAVE MISSED…

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

• The Surprising Link Between Type 2 Diabetes & Alzheimer’s

❤️ OUR SPONSORS MAKE THIS PUBLICATION POSSIBLE

NativePath Collagen

Pop quiz: What’s the body’s most abundant protein?

The answer: Collagen.

NativePath's Certified Grass-Fed Collagen Powder is made from grass-fed, pasture-raised cows and contains 18 grams of protein per suggested serving.

Start incorporating it daily to support skin elasticity, joint health, bone strength, and muscle growth and maintenance.

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

Browse By Category

📖 ONE-MINUTE BOOK REVIEW

6-Minute Core Strength: Simple Core Exercises to Improve Posture, Build Balance, and Relieve Back Pain – by Dr. Jonathan Su

We don't normally do author biographies here, but in this case it's worth noting that Dr. Su is a physiotherapist, military rehab expert, and an IAYT yoga therapist. So, these things together certainly do lend weight to his advice.

About the “6-minute” thing: this is in the style of the famous “7-minute workout” and “5 Minutes’ Physical Fitness” etc, and refers to how long each exercise session should take. The baseline is one such session per day, though of course doing more than one set of 6 minutes each time is a bonus if you wish to do so.

The exercises are focused on core strength, but they also include hip and shoulder exercises, since these are after all attached to the core, and hip and shoulder mobility counts for a lot.

A particular strength of the book is in troubleshooting mistakes of the kind that aren’t necessarily visible from photos; in this case, Dr. Su explains what you need to go for in a certain exercise, and how to know if you are doing it correctly. This alone is worth the cost of the book, in this reviewer’s opinion.

Bottom line: if you want core strength and want it simple yet comprehensive, this book can guide you.

Click here to check out 6-Minute Core Strength, and strengthen yours!

May you find every reason to love the skin you’re in,

The 10almonds Team