Category: Health

Health and fitness learnings for February: “There’s concrete evidence that meditation calms your brain similar to valium”

They buried the lede on this new study. It’s not that exercise beats out SSRIs for depression treatment, but that *just* dancing has the largest effect of *any treatment* for depression.
Dancing Depression

Power and benefits of sprinting / HIIT: https://twitter.com/jaguarcadillac/status/1753894907784425618

The right brain is in charge of present-moment awareness, and this is the part of the brain that meditation takes to the gym. Essentially, the longer we meditate, the more we’re able to balance the right and left hemispheres of the brain. The result of this is more attention, awareness, and computing power for the task at hand.

Excessive nose picking can lead to infections and increased likelihood of developing Alzheimers (!!)
https://people.com/nose-picking-linked-to-alzheimers-disease-dementia-report-8558918

one study found that fidgeting or other non-exercise movement (which was more common among lean than obese individuals) could burn up to 350 calories a day (30-50 calories per hour)

There’s concrete evidence that meditation calms your brain similar to valium. Actual structural and measurable changes within brain itself

Herbs are often solely used as garnish but in actuality provide the perfect opportunity to deliver a boost of flavor and nutrients to any dish.
Nutrivore Scores:
Parsley 5491
Chives 3531
Basil 3381
Cilantro 2609

While aerobic exercise elevates neurotransmitters, creates new blood vessels that pipe in growth factors, and spawns new cells, complex activities put all that material to use by strengthening and expanding networks. The more complex the movements, the more complex the synaptic connections. And even though these circuits are created through movement, they can be recruited by other areas and used for thinking. This is why learning how to play the piano makes it easier for kids to learn math.

Now you know how exercise improves learning on three levels: first, it optimizes your mind-set to improve alertness, attention, and motivation; second, it prepares and encourages nerve cells to bind to one another, which is the cellular basis for logging in new information; and third, it spurs the development of new nerve cells from stem cells in the hippocampus.

Of the six areas that the FitnessGram measures, two seem to be particularly important in relation to academic performance. “Body mass index and aerobic fitness really stuck out in our regression equation,” Castelli says. “They were the most significant contributors. I was really surprised it was that clear-cut

Paleolithic man had to walk five to ten miles on an average day, just to be able to eat.

I think the most interesting part of the paper is the finding that walking improves creativity not due to environmental stimulation, but due to walking itself. Whether outdoors or on a treadmill, walking improved the generation of novel and appropriate ideas. Surprisingly, this effect extends to sitting after a walk

Previous updates:

Health and fitness learnings for January: “tea consumption is associated with attenuation of biological aging”

Previous:

January:

Downsides of ashwagandha including acting like an SSRI: https://twitter.com/drcamrx/status/1667999241212686337

PeterAttiaMD: …his physical training program gives him a great VO2 max, his topical treatments give him much-better-than-his-genetics hair and skin, and his NAD+ precursor supplementation improves his rate of DNA repair.

Since at least the time of peripatetic Greek philosophers, many other writers have discovered a deep, intuitive connection between walking, thinking, and writing. (In fact, Adam Gopnik wrote about walking in The New Yorker just two weeks ago.) “How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live!” Henry David Thoreau penned in his journal. “Methinks that the moment my legs begin to move, my thoughts begin to flow.” Thomas DeQuincey has calculated that William Wordsworth—whose poetry is filled with tramps up mountains, through forests, and along public roads—walked as many as a hundred and eighty thousand miles in his lifetime, which comes to an average of six and a half miles a day starting from age five

New study found that tea consumption is associated with attenuation of biological aging.
People who consistently drank >4 cups a day aged 40% slower than those who drank none.

Some studies suggest that people who cook more often, rather than get take-out, have an overall healthier diet. These studies also show that restaurant meals typically contain higher amounts of sodium, saturated fat, total fat, and overall calories than home-cooked meals

Anterior Mid-Cingulate Cortex (aMCC): When you do something you don’t want to do, this brain area gets bigger
aMCC is smaller in obese people, it gets bigger when they diet
aMCC is potentially the “seat” of willpower and will to live

Walnuts are great for the liver — helping with fatty liver diseases due to antioxidants and fatty acid content (omega-3 and omega-6)

Gut Microbiome/Immune Health: consume 2-4 servings low sugar-fermented foods per day such as yogurt, refrigerated sauerkraut, and pickles, kombucha with low sugar

This replicated the encoding benefit and showed that it was predicted by time spent in slow-wave sleep. Our findings suggest that wearing an eye mask during overnight sleep can improve episodic encoding and alertness the next day

Going to the gym when you don’t feel like it gives you the greatest high

Cancer hates mushrooms — 2/3 an ounce a day = 45% lower risk of cancer


“Mushrooms are like the swiss army knife for treating diseases.”

I’ll always remember what Synthesis founder Chrisman Frank told me: “Still haven’t met anyone who has quit drinking and regretted it.”

Health and fitness learnings for December: Eat more cheese, meat, and beans to fill “dopamine pool”

I’m publishing a list of the different health and fitness notes that I accumulated over the course of the month. Here’s November.

—

A week of sleep deprivation can lead to profound insulin resistance

Activity — staying physically and mentally active — is most powerful cure against diabetes

To increase water in your “dopamine pool”: Eat more cheese, meat, beans (Huberman)

Sizzling Sunlight: Bask in both morning and evening sunlight. Even if it’s cloudy and cold. It’s not just about Vitamin D; it’s about regulating your natural circadian rhythms

Dark chocolate is good for leaky gut (Ben Greenfield)

Cold Plunge Mornings: A lot of people have “mental battles” in the morning and low energy but the cold plunge does the trick – after three minutes, there’s a rush of endorphins happening enabling you to train right after

The average American goes their entire life without fasting for a day.
Kind of wild to think about. Every single day for their entire life, food goes in. This was certainly not true for our primal ancestors and I struggle to think we were meant to operate this way. I still remember waking up the morning after my first fast and thinking the entire nutritional system was a scam. Constantly told we had to eat breakfast, eat 3 square meals per day, etc. Merely a marketing ploy (@DickieBush)

“By looking at sunlight through a window, it’s 50, five zero, times less effective than if that window were to be open.” – @hubermanlab
(This is because windows filter out wavelengths of blue light)

When body composition is considered more precisely, fat mass increases mortality and fat-free mass decreases mortality (Chris Masterjohn)

Positive social connections and good social interactions are number one predictor of longevity (IG prof)

All human studies included in the review were randomized controlled trials mainly conducted in high- to middle-income countries which highlighted that both oral and topical collagen supplements help to delay the aging process, with no differences arising between the two types of collagen. The evidence from the reviewed studies suggested that both collagen supplements improve skin moisture, elasticity, and hydration when orally administered. Additionally, collagen reduces the wrinkling and roughness of the skin, and existing studies have not found any side effects of its oral supplements. (paper)

And even when I’m intently concentrating on my computer, it’s somehow nice to be outside—and, yes, it seems to have made my resting heart rate go down. (Stephen Wolfram)

Health and fitness learnings for November: the many benefits of HIIT

Every month, I try to collect interesting health related advice, facts, and stories to remind myself of what’s important / what can be improved / what can be turned into a useful health habit.

Here’s November:

Generally: patients with profound insulin resistance tend to respond best to low-carb restriction (source)

Shimiken exercises 90 minutes a day, four days a week, focusing on heavy weight lifting and deep squats, which he says not only help his thrusts but also build up testosterone (source)

Great thread on creatine: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1720093644051669028.html

Several nights of sleep restriction can throw off blood glucose levels, impair energy production, and disrupt natural body temperature rhythms. However, incorporating high-intensity interval training during this sleep-restricted period can counteract these effects. (source: think it’s a Rhonda Patrick podcast)

HIIT increases testosterone levels significantly more than steady-state cardio (source)

The chest should neither expand nor collapse during proper inhalation or exhalation. (source: The Naked Voice)

At least three times a week, Clark uses a sauna for 20 minutes before a cold shower. While working, she eats 16 ounces of vegetables a day, a mix of raw celery, radishes, carrots, peppers, and blanched broccoli along with a salad or soup (source)

I never wake up out of hunger – but frequently do out of eating the wrong or too much food. Hard to resist though. (source: a tweet, I think)

Mouthwash is the biggest dental scam. Kills your oral microbiota. Avoid (source)

The butt clench

Tldr: a few months ago, I realized that I clench my butt pretty much all the time. Like all day, for no reason. So I’m learning, slowly and rep by rep, how to relax my butt muscles…yup.

Oh and it’s not my outer butt muscles, the glutes. It’s actually the inside, the sphincter muscles. What you use when you gotta poop. But I feel more comfortable just calling it the butt clench :)

It’s partly amusing, kinda frustrating, and mostly weird. I don’t know when I started to do this. I might not be alone in this habit but it feels that way. The behavior can’t be healthy or helpful. It’s simply a bad and stuck habit.

Singing lessons helped me spot the clench. In everyday life, when you exhale, your body likes to squeeze your breathing muscles to get that last bit of oxygen goodness. When you sing, this squeezing and contracting is bad. It wastes air. One way to fight this tendency is to push outward, slightly, as you breathe out. Fight the contracting muscles. This is known as support. Some people say when you’re doing it right, it should feel like taking a poop. Others suggest expanding your stomach like a balloon – in a full circle, and then to maintain that expansion.

The more I practiced support, the more I noticed that my inner butt muscle, my sphincters, would relax. It’s like a tight knot that would unravel when I focused on it. And when the muscles relaxed, it felt good. Like noticeable good – relaxed, less tension, a kinda looseness around my pelvis.

I began to try and spot check throughout the day. I’d think about that inner spot and invariably I’d notice it was clenched. So I’d make a conscious effort to relax and release. But only moments after doing so, if I spot checked again, I’d notice that it tightened up again, like a slinky returning to its default form.

Through practice, it got easier to unclench. Less concentration was required. Occasionally – rarely – I’d do a mental check and notice that the muscle was naturally relaxed. But 98% of the time, it’d be tight and balled up.

How did this start? Why? No clue. Certainly doesn’t feel like a healthy habit, not in the least bit. Imagine flexing your bicep and walking around all day. Your bicep would get exhausted, and you put a lot of strain on your body, and over time your arm might forget what it felt like to really relax.

In addition to the conscious unclenching practice, I should probably do more relaxing stretches and physical activities – like yoga and massage and sauna.

Why am I writing about this? Also no clue. Just wanted to. This experience made me appreciate anew the enormous cumulative effect of tiny habits. If you walk up two flights of stairs every day, 300 days a year, that’s 5-10K steps you’ll take in a year. That’s meaningful exercise. If you write a page of your novel every morning, no matter how bad, you’ll have 300 pages – a full book! – in a year.

But life has a balance to it, and whatever applies to good habits also applies to the harmful ones. Sleep one hour less than you need every night, and your body will crave hundreds of hours of rest and recovery by year’s end. Daily damage to a body that is already fighting an unbeatable battle against father time. When we sleep 10 hours a day over the holidays, it’s because we badly need it. Hibernation isn’t just for bears.

In my case this butt clench. Bit by bit, day by day, it felt better or safer to tighten up, and now I do it all day every day and can’t even feel it! I began to wonder: What other muscles do I unnecessarily tighten? What effort am I exerting that is unhelpful and stressful? How can I relax more? What are the figurative and literal butt clenches in my life?

It all sounds a bit funny and I share it in part because it’s amusing, in a smh kinda way. For years now – maybe for most of my life – I’ve walked around with a clenched butt. Such is life.

2020 update: For the most part, I’ve learned how to relax that butt. Although when I am tense or stressed or have a tummy ache, I can still discover that sometimes I’m clenching out of old habit or forgetfulness. Thanks to everyone who reached out to share their struggles with the same issue. People seem to manifest their emotional stressors in different physical forms: For some it’s a neck crick. For others it might be dull headaches. For me it was the butt clench which was also causing the occasional tummy pain / lower back tightness. Now that my butt has chilled out, maybe my stress will manifest somewhere else?

2020 update 2: Also I’ve realized the child’s pose in yoga is great for noticing what’s going on in that area and helping those nether regions to relax and unclench :-)