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Daily Edition • Monday, Sept 14
SPONSORED BY
Daily Edition • Monday, Sept 14
SPONSORED BY
Think you get enough fruits and veggies in your diet? Well, even if you’re hitting the recommended five daily servings, you might still be missing an important group of compounds linked to heart health: flavanols. Eating foods rich in flavanols is associated with a lower risk of heart disease, but a recent study found that fewer than one in five people get enough of them in their diet. Want to get more flavanols and their antioxidant benefits? Check out this list of the fruits and vegetables that deliver the most of this heart-protective compound.
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Fitness
Creatine Has Big Benefits — Even If You Don’t Exercise
Alex Saks/Unsplash
Big Benefits: The list of creatine benefits keeps growing longer. It’s well-known for its positive impact on strength, power, and overall athletic performance, but those benefits have historically been associated with resistance training exercise. New research challenges the idea that creatine is only for exercisers, showing that supplementation may actually offer similar benefits even if you don’t work out.
The Study: Thistrial examined whether creatine could help adults preserve muscle, improve fitness, and potentially support cognitive function. Researchers enrolled 73 healthy, sedentary adults ages 45 to 65; 64 completed the 12-week study. Participants either remained inactive or followed an exercise and diet program. Within each group, participants received either creatine monohydrate or a placebo. Those taking creatine consumed 10 grams daily.
Supplementation increased lean tissue mass, strength, and muscular endurance, including among those who didn’t exercise. When combined with exercise and weight loss, creatine helped participants lose a greater percentage of body fat.
The Takeaway: Creatine supplementation offers health benefits without exercise, but exercising appears to increase its efficacy. Creatine may also help preserve lean mass during periods of weight loss.
Keep in Mind: This study focused on middle-aged and older adults, so it’s unclear if the same benefits would appear in younger folks who don’t exercise.
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Courtesy: Money Group
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Cognitive Health
Your Social Media Feed Could Be Reading Your Mood Before You Do
Artem Beliaikin/Unsplash
Caught in a Loop: Apparently, those videos in your feed of someone ranting about their spouse or petty friendship dramas may not be as random as they seem. In a new pilot study, researchers observed young adults’ brain activity as they watched videos pulled from their TikTok and Instagram accounts, then compared the results against each person’s score on a mood questionnaire. People with more depressive symptoms saw fewer positive relationship videos and more negative ones, and their brains responded differently to that personalized content. So researchers think social media feeds may be reflecting and reinforcing a negative outlook, rather than causing it.
How to Break Out of the Cycle: If you want to break the cycle, focus on how you feel after scrolling. Then unfollow certain accounts that trigger you to replay recent arguments in your head or prompt you to begin doubting your relationships. Conversely, like or comment on videos that leave you feeling grounded or informed.
The Benefits: This kind of intentional engagement encourages your feed to show you content that lifts you up instead of bringing you down. Feeds don’t really transform overnight, but repeated signals will force change in the long term.
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Mindfulness
Somatic Therapy Is on the Rise. Can It Really Help With Trauma?
Diana Light/Unsplash
The Trend: Nervous system “resets,” TikTok sages, and a “Workout Witch” who teaches movements designed to release “trapped emotions” are bringing somatic practices to the mainstream. The ideas behind somatic therapy aren’t new, but they’ve found new life recently as Americans increasingly seek out care beyond traditional medical institutions. Unlike talk therapy, which focuses on your thinking patterns, behaviors, and experiences, somatic therapy focuses on the body and the physical manifestations of trauma. Workouts like somatic yoga are linked to these principles, using slow movement and focusing on paying attention to physical sensations as they arise.
What People Are Saying: Many people were first introduced to somatics from the book The Body Keeps the Score, which explores the idea that trauma is held in the body. Somatic therapy uses a body-first “bottoms up” approach — the goal is to release the emotions from the body, which practitioners say can relieve pain and muscle tension, improve sleep, and generally allow the brain and the body to let go of lingering trauma.
What to Know: Somatic therapy hasn’t been as widely researched as other therapy modalities, but it does show promise for helping people with PTSD, anxiety, grief, and depression. Finding an experienced practitioner, however, could be more challenging than a traditional therapist.
Get Things Moving — Eating this veggie before a meal could help with digestion.
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What We're Cooking
Green Goddess Chicken Salad
Courtesy: Better Plates
Serves: 4 | Cook Time: 15 minutes
This Green Goddess chicken salad is built for days when even turning on the stove feels like too much work. Rotisserie chicken gets tossed in a creamy avocado-and-Greek-yogurt dressing, then finished with sliced almonds for a little crunch. It comes together in just 15 minutes, packs plenty of protein, and works just as well stuffed into lettuce wraps as it does piled onto bread or crackers.
By clicking, you are agreeing to receive a daily recipe from Better Plates.
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This, Not That
Don’t Let Dinner Start at 9 P.M.
THIS
NOT THAT
Quilia/Unsplash, Janaya Dasiuk/Unsplash
This: Eat a real afternoon snack Not That: Trying to survive on coffee until dinner
If you’re starving by the time dinner rolls around, the whole night gets harder. A snack with protein, fiber, or fat — yogurt, nuts, fruit, hummus, cheese, eggs — can keep hunger from turning into a hostile takeover. Think of it as a bridge, not a bonus meal.
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HEALTHY HABIT
Give Lunch a Vegetable Job
Lunch is a great place to sneak in a little more produce without making a big production of it. Add greens to a sandwich, cucumbers to a bowl, leftover roasted vegetables to eggs, or a side salad to takeout. One vegetable is not a full lifestyle overhaul. That’s why it works.
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Final Thought
There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.”
