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The Snooze-Button Controversy
Plus: why pumpkin seeds are a seasonal superfood!
The 10almonds Team
November 01, 2023
Today’s almonds have been activated by:
Is your house going to be visited by a small army of little monsters tonight? You might want to step-up your handwashing if interacting with them and touching things they touch. Handwashing is the best way to keep respiratory illness at bay.
⏰ 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:
Hitting “snooze” may not be bad, and may even be good, for morning cognitive performance
However, there are still better approaches, especially two that involve sunlight (real or artificial)
Monitoring one’s health is an important part of staying healthy (burying one’s head in the sand is no good!)
Today’s sponsor, Together by Renee, is a free app (free to download, free to use, free in all ways) that will monitor many aspects of your health, just by scanning your face and voice—and running these through powerful AI.
Read on to learn about these things and more…
👀 WATCH AND LEARN
Health Benefits Of Pumpkin Seeds (7:23)
Pumpkin seeds may be small, but they’re packed full of valuable nutrients!
The health benefits include improved heart health, prostate health and protection against certain cancers:
Pumpkin menu:
🎃 Want to watch it, but not right now? Bookmark it for later 🔖
🛌 MAIN FEATURE
To Snooze Or Not To Snooze? (Science Has Answers)
This is Dr. Jennifer Kanaan. She’s a medical doctor with a focus on pulmonary critical care, sleep disorders, and sleep medicine.
What does she want to tell us?
She wants us to be wary of the many news articles that have jumped on a certain recent sleep study, such as:
For the curious, here is the paper itself, by Dr. Tina Sundelin et al. It’s actually two studies, by the way, but one paper:
The authors of this study concluded:
❝There were no clear effects of snoozing on the cortisol awakening response, morning sleepiness, mood, or overnight sleep architecture.
A brief snooze period may thus help alleviate sleep inertia, without substantially disturbing sleep, for late chronotypes and those with morning drowsiness.❞
Notably, people tend to snooze because an alarm clock will, if not “smart” about it, wake us up mid sleep-cycle more often than not, and that will produce a short “sleep hangover”. By snoozing, we are basically re-rolling the dice on being woken up between sleep cycles, and thus feeling more refreshed.
What’s Dr. Kanaan’s counterpoint?
Dr. Kanaan says:
❝If you’re coming in and out of sleep for 30 minutes, after the alarm goes off the first time, you’re costing yourself 30 minutes of uninterrupted, quality, restorative sleep. This study doesn’t change that fact.❞
She advises that rather than snoozing, we should prioritize getting good sleep in the first place, and once we do wake up, mid sleep-cycle or not, get sunlight. That way, our brain will start promptly scrubbing melatonin and producing the appropriate wakefulness hormones instead. That means serotonin, and also a spike of cortisol.
Remember: cortisol is only bad when it’s chronically elevated. It’s fine, and even beneficial, to have a short spike of cortisol. We make it for a reason!
If you’d like to hear more from Dr. Kanaan, you might like this interview with her at the University of Connecticut:
Want the best of both worlds?
A great option to avoid getting woken in the middle of a sleep cycle, and also not needing to hit snooze, is a sunrise alarm clock. Specifics of these devices vary, but for example, the kind this writer has starts gently glowing an hour before the set alarm time, and gradually gets brighter and lighter over the course of the hour.
We don’t sell them, but here’s an example sunrise alarm clock on Amazon, for your convenience 😎
❤️ OUR SPONSORS MAKE THIS PUBLICATION POSSIBLE
Monitor Your Health, Without Juggling Lots Of Devices (For Free)
Remember when you needed a separate camera, calculator, notebook, telephone, telephone book, television, and all the other things that a single digital device like your phone can now do?
It's good to have everything we need "together", especially in cases where there isn't a loss of quality along the way.
Together by Renee is a completely free app (free to download, free to use, nothing to pay, ever) that does the job of a...
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It's also been independently tested and found to be more accurate than many commercial devices. It does this by using your phone's camera to detect minute changes in the color of blood vessels in your skin, and running it through powerful AI.
The result? More accurate readings than ever, completely free, all in 60 seconds.
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Please do visit our sponsors—they help keep 10almonds free
🌎 AROUND THE WEB
What’s happening in the health world…
New smartphone attachment could enable low-cost neurological screening for all
PFAS chemicals in water and consumer goods linked to rising thyroid cancer rates
Hello hay fever: why pressing under your nose could stop a sneeze but why you shouldn’t
Central New York bands together to save more women from heart disease and stroke
Eating ultra-processed foods puts your liver at risk, new study warns
3 ways to prepare for bushfire season if you have asthma or another lung condition
Starchy vegetables: a vital vehicle for essential nutrients
More to come tomorrow!
📖 ONE-MINUTE BOOK REVIEW
Yoga Nidra Made Easy – by Dr. Uma Dinsmore-Tuli and Nirlipta Tuli
We've reviewed books about yoga before, and about sleep. This one's different.
It's about a yogic practice that can be used to promote restful sleep—or just be a non-sleeping exercise that nonetheless promotes relaxation and recuperation.
While yoga nidra is as somatic as it is psychological, its corporeal aspects are all explored in a lying-down-on-one's-back state. This isn't a book of stretches and poses and such—those are great, but are simply not needed for this practice.
The authors explain, step-by-step, simply and clearly, how to practice yoga nidra, and get out of it what you want to (there are an assortment of possible outcomes, per your preference; there are options to choose along the way).
A lot of books about yoga, even when written in English, contain a lot of Sanskrit terms. This one doesn't. And, that difference goes a long way to living up to the title of making this easy, for those of us who regrettably don't read even transliterated Sanskrit.
Bottom line: if ever you struggle to relax, struggle to sleep, or struggle to find your get-up-and-go, this book provides all you need to engage in this very restorative practice!
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Wishing you a good health in all ways great and small (and a happy Halloween if you are celebrating!),
The 10almonds Team