Friday, August 31, 2018
Should You Take the Bed From Your Single Days Into Your Marriage?
By Veronica Wells
From the time I was born until around middle school, my parents had a huge waterbed. I loved this bed. It was temperature controlled so it was warm in the winter and cool in the summer. If you’ve ever slept in a waterbed, you know that they cradle you. We loved our parents’ waterbed so much that they bought me and my sister twin size ones for our rooms. And then one day, the waterbed, my parents’ waterbed was going.
Continue
My parents drained the water from it, broke down the wooden frame and headboard that came with it. It was a change I wasn’t ready for and when I asked my mom why they decided to get rid of their waterbed, she said,
“It was time. You know that’s the same bed your dad had when he was single. So you already know what was happening on that bed. We should have gotten a new one as soon as we got married.”No doubt. In their case, the marriage bed had been defiled.
After over a decade of marriage, I’m sure there was no residual…anything left on that mattress; still the idea that the bed my father shared with other women would be the one he started his marriage with is—symbolically…off. Still, they made it work.
Fast forward to earlier this week.
My fiancé and I are moving into our first apartment together. And after waking up and getting dressed for work, he asks, “Did your ex ever sleep in this bed?”
My intuition is spot on. I just be knowing. I assumed he was going to ask me this question years ago. But here it was now. I always knew I would tell him the truth, mostly because there was nothing to tell.
“Yeah he did. But we didn’t do anything.”
When I tell y’all nothing. I mean nothing. He slept on top of the covers, I slept underneath them, with my comforter balled up in between us. I had goals I was trying to reach and he was kind enough to accommodate. Nothing happened.
“I think we should get a new bed.”
My fiancé knows the story of my mom and dad and he brought up the similarities. But me abstaining and my dad…not…were two entirely different scenarios. And while he tried to draw a parallel I had to let him know it was a different situation, entirely. He knows that. I reminded him of that.
Still, he said he wanted a new bed.
I was just about to turn up, ask him if he thought I was lying, tell him how much I spent on the bed (I did do that, actually), go in. But I chilled. After all, I’d had that mattress since 2011. It was time for a new one. But I told him that since it was his idea to get a new bed, that he should be the one to pay for it…at least half of it.
He argued a fresh start should come with a fresh bed, and that didn’t have anything to do with who might have slept in the bed before him…So he says...But honestly, I can’t be mad at that.
But the whole thing made me think about the concept of things, particularly things that may have been involved with past relationships. Is it possible to take the loaded meanings out of them? When is our preoccupation with symbolism and the past obsessive versus reasonable?
from Natural Hair Care | Curly Nikki https://ift.tt/2NA4Q4K
All Of That Struggle, and Such a Simple Solution
It’s Friday, everyone! And that means another Primal Blueprint Real Life Story from a Mark’s Daily Apple reader. If you have your own success story and would like to share it with me and the Mark’s Daily Apple community please contact me here. I’ll continue to publish these each Friday as long as they keep coming in. Thank you for reading!
I found Mark’s Daily Apple through a fortuitous and random conversation one morning with the guy I was seeing sometime around 2010. We were lying in bed, dreaming up delicious Sunday breakfast ideas and started talking about bacon, which then led to a heated argument about bacon, cardiovascular disease, dietary fat… oh boy! He name-dropped yours and MDA, and it made me step down from my high horse (I was a recent doctor of physical therapy graduate) and take a whole new look at nutrition that has- no exaggeration- completely changed my life.
Here is my story:
I had been swimming competitively since age 10, so I knew my body. I had always been tall, thin, and full of enthusiasm for whatever I pursued. Back in 2002, as a senior in high school, I started to feel something quite different. If I approached my physical limits, I would feel sluggish and weak and there was no way to push through. Each week, I swam slower. A few months later, I started noticing more and more of my hair falling in the shower drain and in my hair brush. As someone who had always been a night owl, I found it strange that even during matinee movies the second I sat down I would feel tired and fall asleep, like turning a switch. I could sleep ten to twelve hours and still would wake up exhausted. I even passed out a few times for no apparent reason. At this point I felt fatigued constantly, was having trouble finding enough energy to pay attention in class, and I knew something was wrong. I told my mom (a nurse), and we decided to wait out the end of the school semester. After graduation, I took a solid week off and basically slept and rested all day, after which I felt completely normal. I shrugged it off, and headed off to college a few months feeling healthy.
As a frame of reference, my diet at this time was atrocious. I didn’t like most meat, so I would eat processed meat approximately once a week. I hated eggs. I didn’t have much of a taste for any vegetables, so again, maybe once a week one would make it to my plate. I liked bananas, kiwis, and a few fruits. I loved processed food and would primarily eat cereal, bread, crackers, cookies, and pasta. I also struggled with having very little musculature on my body despite being active. At 5’10” my calves were so narrow that speciality narrow boots looked like fishermen’s boots on me! My abdomen fluctuated between being completely concave and sunken or distended to the extent that people would ask me if I was pregnant. My face had a constant red rash and break outs of both acne and rosacea. All of these things made me self-conscious.
When I went off to college, unexplained symptoms struck again. Except this time once I got to the point where I was passing out and fatigued, I kept going. My immune system went nuts. I acquired very bad strep throat, pink eye in both eyes, an ear infection, and a bad UTI all at once. Every week for the rest of the semester I felt worse despite several courses of antibiotics. Fast forward to end of semester: I finished finals, I rested for our 2 week holiday—100% better.
This became the pattern. Three more semesters exactly like this. It started to take a toll on my endurance, and I could not even walk up the stairs to get to my classes without stopping and resting for several minutes. I was embarrassed to be in social situations because I couldn’t focus and didn’t feel like myself physically and mentally. I was struggling in my classes for the first time in my life. I decided that fall semester my junior year would be different: no matter how sick I felt, I would push even harder.
That didn’t go well. I crossed into the next threshold of bodily rebellion. I started feeling sharp abdominal pains as if I were being poisoned followed by bouts of vomiting after taking my birth control, drinking milk, eating anything fatty, taking even a sip of alcohol, and sometimes after indecipherable aggravations. I stopped getting my period. One morning I woke up and could barely open my eyes. I felt confused to the point where I was staring at people talking and pretending to understand what was going on. Morning classes were a blur, and as I sat in my French class, I somehow fell asleep in the front row. My professor woke me up—not too happy—and sent me to the school doctor. Even though there was an entire waiting room full of students, she took me right away. I didn’t question it, but the second she sat me down she explained why: I had yellow skin, yellow eyes, and that awful, unmistakable death-like look of jaundice. She diagnosed me with mono (many of the other times I had been to the health center they suspected mono but the test was always negative). I was put on immediate bed rest until my liver started to cooperate. I could barely stomach eating, so I would munch on saltine crackers and eat unseasoned ramen but little else. My liver enzymes actually tested worse and worse, despite the rest. I got to the point where I could barely eat anything, but then slowly, I started feeling better. Hallelujah.
Spoiler alert, that’s not the end of my story. The very next semester it started happening. Again. Despite being told that you could only get mono once. I was emotionally devastated, scared, and yet determined. I gathered all of my medical records and went to see a doctor off-campus. He was dismissive and cold and told me that I was a woman, and women get depressed. That was his medical advice. End stop.
I was embarrassed to the point I didn’t seek further medical attention and tried to make some changes on my own, this time being a bit kinder to my body. I cut my work hours to almost zero, my class schedule in half, my workouts out altogether, and I just tried to get by. I was able to finish my last few semesters of college with fatigue, constant infections, and poor mental clarity, but I finished! I started working as a physical therapy aid full-time and teaching swim lessons to make money before grad school, and suddenly I was thrown off balance again. I could feel my body crashing as it had before, and I ended up making the radical decision to take 3 months off before physical therapy school to convalesce. This seemed to work, because I made it through 3 years of graduate school with only occasional and much less dramatic periods of illness.
That brings me to 2010, lying in bed, chatting about bacon. This little argument inspired me to read from the amazing Michael Pollen and delve into the wonders of the MDA blog. Mark’s words hit home as I had already begun to understand the importance of rest and recovery, listening to my body instead of overriding its messages (a work in progress), and the way food could make me feel. I drank the kool aid. I was inspired by the large body of evidence in the primal diet and primal lifestyle. Little by little, I started learning how to love vegetables and to prepare them well, to embrace fats, to eliminate grains, and to enjoy delicious meat and eggs. I started eating real food. Relationships don’t change over-night, so neither did mine with food. I had a long way to go, but I could feel a difference in my digestion and my energy. My acne and rosacea disappeared completely, and I felt like I had at least some control in my health.
Unfortunately though, my health continued to decline. It was not exactly the same as it had been before. I was constantly fatigued, but rarely did I have the ear/eye/throat/bladder infection extravaganzas as I had in the past, nor would the symptoms go away anymore with a little extra rest for a week or two. Instead, I started having random, scary symptoms. Over the course of the next four years, several times I would develop excessive water retention, followed by coughing up liquid deep in my chest, followed by pneumonia, followed by waking up in the middle of the night barely able to breathe. I would prop myself up on four pillows so that I was almost sitting up so that I could breathe. I would have fevers in excess of 104 degrees sometimes every Friday after a long week of work and would lie in bed until Monday morning. One time I felt desperately thirsty and was drinking water by the liter until I collapsed with squeezing in my chest. My left arm would randomly swell up. I had strange ulcers in my mouth. Other times my right eye would randomly start dilating, once to the point where I could not see anything out of it for hours. I would have sharp abdominal pain every time I was on my period that caused me to double over. I could keep listing crazy symptoms all day. I lived in fear. In addition, the years of being ill had led to metabolic damage. I could barely eat 1000 calories a day without gaining weight, so I slowly started gaining more and more weight. I had prided myself on being fit, so this crushed my self-confidence.
Doctors led me down many rabbit holes. Some were dismissive, cold, and made me feel embarrassed or crazy for telling them what was happening. Others were compassionate and did what they could to help, but they could only put small pieces of the puzzle together. I tested positive for several antibodies that suggested autoimmune disease and was told it was likely lupus, and steroids seemed to help my “infections” better than antibiotics which was quite telling, but my symptoms never stopped recurring and every day was a struggle.
I also attempted to conquer my body by running marathons, hiking mountains, and portraying a life of a “healthy woman.” These outward goals always led to me being very sick, sometimes for months, but for some reason I continued to fight my body every step of the way. I climbed Mount Whitney, the highest peak in the contiguous United States (with a broken tailbone no-less). Two weeks later I came down with a kidney infection that wouldn’t respond to antibiotics or steroids and kept me in bed for 2 months with fever, fatigue, and brain fog as well a complete loss of appetite. I kept frozen salmon, avocado, fresh orange juice, and almond butter in my kitchen and if I ate ONE of those things each day, I felt accomplished. I became scared that I was losing too much weight, but surprisingly, I felt stronger each day. Slowly, my appetite returned.
Finally, two months later I felt completely healthy, and I decided to go out to celebrate my birthday. My first day out. My first day with food outside of my kitchen. I ate fried chicken, drank beer, and polished it off with a birthday cupcake. The next morning I woke up with 104 fever, vomiting, the works. It started all over again, and I had an emotional break down.
All of these years I had tried to be patient and to trust my doctors, my body, God, and the universe to somehow fix this, but I could no longer handle living my life in constant fear and confusion, and I had reached a breaking point. The merry-go-round of looking for outside help, finding no clear solution, giving up, and then starting all over again was getting old. I truly believed I needed to accept that I would never have the health and energy of a “healthy” person, so I should start adapting my life to live with my limitations as best as possible. I started tracking every symptom each day, I started dialing back my work hours, my social time, and my exercise, and this seemed to help. I started eating much cleaner according to the Primal Blueprint, maybe 90/10. I slept 10 hours every day. I felt “ok,” but I was depressed at the outlook of my future.
One fateful day, June 21, 2014, I decided to try keto, which I had recently read about on Mark’s blog. It was actually easy for me to get into ketosis for the first time, because my diet had been consistently clean for the six months preceding it. I woke up on day 3, and it was crazy. I could see clearly. I felt well-rested in a way that I didn’t remember existed. I felt boundless energy. I was strong. I could breathe better. I still remember that feeling so clearly. I actually feel healthy! Even when I felt “ok,” I didn’t realize I was never actually feeling well. It had been so long. I peed on the stick, and it was purple: ketosis was achieved. After a week of eating keto, which I had never intended to maintain permanently, I decided that I would add one half piece of whole wheat pita bread to my diet (I know not primal at all but I feel lucky I made that random exception to my diet) every other week and to attempt to cycle into and out of ketosis. The next morning I woke up with mouth ulcers, a fever, brain fog, and the beginnings of a UTI.
It hit me. The writing had always been on the wall but I hadn’t I seen it. This was clear, objective measures I couldn’t ignore: Do I have celiac disease? I got back into ketosis over the next few days, and all of the symptoms cleared. Like magic. I grabbed a beer, walked down to my hot tub, and cracked it open. This would be my test (and with bittersweet sadness my final beer). As I enjoyed the crisp, cool refreshing beverage, all of the things I had been through over the past 12 years ran through my mind. Even if you reread my story, it seems so obvious once you know. All of that struggle and such a simple solution. Yes, the ulcers and the fever came back the next day. I did a week of completely primal, gluten free, but not keto to test out my theory. I remained healthy. (I have the genetic marker and antibody for celiac but am unable/unwilling to do a 12 week challenge).
Over the next four years, I gained muscle I never knew I could gain. I can wear narrow boots quite well now, and I have muscle in my core and arms. I live a completely normal life. I can run, jump, and play, so I do! I have slowly forgotten the feeling of that daily struggle and fear. I have continued to change my relationship with food. While I am always gluten-free, I am 90/10 with primal eating and cycle in and out of keto. I can finally say that when my body tells me something, I listen. Whether it’s to fully recover between workouts, to limit chronic cardio, to sleep, to get fresh air and daylight, to eat more, or to reach out and connect socially, I no longer try to fight those impulses for my own ego’s sake. I preach this to all of my patients and all of my friends.
Here is a picture of me on Halloween dressed as the iconic Leia finally with some lean muscle!
Most importantly, I have learned to open the discussion of this diet and lifestyle to people around me. Not everyone has celiac disease, but 1% of the population does and most are not diagnosed. Many people have autoimmune conditions, and we have connected deeply on how similar food journeys have changed their lives. Many people simply have weight to lose and insulin resistance. My next goals in my personal journey are to gain a six pack (something that symbolizes both inner and physical strength to me) and to share this lifestyle with as many people as I can. Keep spreading the light Mark!
– Maureen
The post All Of That Struggle, and Such a Simple Solution appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.
from Mark's Daily Apple https://ift.tt/2wxN5f9
The Best DIY Hair Mask for Definition & Hair Growth! Type 4 Approved!
 |
| NickyBNatural |
Continue
from Natural Hair Care | Curly Nikki https://ift.tt/2LFEFYA
Thursday, August 30, 2018
How to Throw a Low-Carb Barbecue Party—With 20 Recipes
As we move toward September, we might be thinking of Labor Day parties or fall tailgating weekends—events perfect for a barbecue spread. But when you’re eating Primal, keto or otherwise low-carb, traditional barbecue fare isn’t always the ideal choice. Even when you’re throwing a party centered on grilled meat, it’s all too easy for carbs to sneak into the mix. Buns, pasta salads, chips, cheese and crackers, beer, sweet tea, sodas and desserts often make up the bulk of a typical buffet. So, what’s a Primal type to do (or serve)? Here’s how to throw a low-carb barbecue feast everyone will love.
Drinks
Avoid high sugar drinks like juice, soda and tonic, and keep the ice chest filled with refreshing, sugar-free or low-sugar beverages.
- Sparkling water, either plain or flavored
- Sparkling water with flavored ice cubes
- Low sugar kombucha
- Unsweetened ice tea
- Cold brew coffee
Appetizers
Skip the chip and cracker aisle when shopping for a low-carb barbecue party. Instead, serve platters of cheese and nuts, raw vegetables with dip, and protein-rich appetizers.
Spicy Chorizo Keto Stuffed Jalapeños
Marinated Olives and Nuts
Chipotle Lime Avocado Bacon Dip
Almost Deviled Eggs
Bacon Wrapped Hot Dog Bites
Side Dishes
Side dishes at a barbecue can be carb-loaded landmines. Instead of standard barbecue fare like pasta salad, potato salad, fruit salad and corn, load up the buffet up with crunchy coleslaw, colorful green salads and grilled or roasted vegetables.
Don’t ruin healthy low-carb salads with salad dressing or mayonnaise made from unhealthy industrial seed oils and sugar. Instead, whisk together homemade salad dressings. Better yet, make low-carb life easier by keeping Primal Kitchen® dressings and marinades and Mayo varieties on hand.
Keto Cole Slaw
Sausage and Veggie Skewers
Roasted Vegetable Salad
Baby Kale Rainbow Salad
Grilled Kale
Sesame Ginger Slaw
Meats
The most obvious way to avoid carbs at a barbecue is to serve hamburgers and sausages without buns. Even better, serve grilled meat that doesn’t need a bun, like steak, ribs or pork roast.
But beware of carbs lurking in the rubs, marinades and sauces that flavor meat. Sugar is usually the culprit. Read labels to avoid store bought rubs and marinades with sweeteners, or make your own rubs and marinades at home (or use any of the Primal Kitchen® Marinades).
Lime and Basil Marinaded Beef Kebabs
Low Carb BBQ Ribs
Coconut Marinated Short Ribs
Charcoal Roasted Pork Loin
5 Steps to the Perfect Steak
Condiments
Just try hosting a barbecue without ketchup, and wait for the outcry. Luckily, now there’s Primal Kitchen® Unsweetened Ketchup, Spicy Brown Mustard and Mayo to the rescue. Condiments that pack tons of flavor with very few carbs, like pickles, sauerkraut, and hot sauce, are also a must.
Desserts
A bowl of brightly colored berries (perhaps with unsweetened whipped cream on the side?) is an easy summer treat. If you’re willing to put in a little more work, then serve a decadent low-carb dessert.
Keto Coffee Popsicles
Keto Cheesecake Parfait
Avocado Matcha Dairy Free Ice Cream
Feeling inspired yet? Share your favorite barbecue fare below.
The post How to Throw a Low-Carb Barbecue Party—With 20 Recipes appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.
from Mark's Daily Apple https://ift.tt/2PPg4DT
Once a Mean Girl Always a Mean Girl? Evelyn Lozada & the Struggle to "Fix Her Life"
 |
| Evelyn Lozada |
I knew the moment Evelyn Lozada signed on to be an official cast member of Basketball Wives again that the “work” she claimed she put in to “fix her life” with Iyanla was shot to shit. After all, why would you retreat from having your own show that depicted your life as a mom, businesswoman and future wife back to an environment that once involved you belittling your castmates and throwing a wine bottle at a coworker? After the last episode of the franchise in which she made fun of her castmate’s race with a stereotypical name, I was proven right.
Continue
 |
| CeCe Guitierrez |
The apology came too little too late. Fans had already issued a petition to get her kicked off the show. This isn’t the first. After Season 4 featured Evelyn bullying her castmates both verbally and physically- i.e. hitting someone with a clutch upside her head and lunging across the table of that said person amongst other things that happened in previous seasons - fans called for cancellation of the show. An apology wasn’t thought of until the unfortunate domestic violence incident that Evelyn experienced at the hands of her ex-husband. Afterwards, Evelyn went on a campaign of transformation. She left Basketball Wives after Season 5, where she largely cried the entire season and was shown in therapy trying to piece her life back together. She appeared on Fix My Life twice, pre and post the domestic violence incident, where she expressed remorse for her behavior and the desire to change her mean girl ways. Soon enough, she moved to LA and OWN began to document the “new” Evelyn with Living Lozada: a working mom, engaged to a new man (they have since broken up) who was rebuilding her brand and empire. The show was cancelled after two seasons and she headed back to VH1, resurfacing her old ways.
 |
| Jackie Christie |
In previous seasons, Evelyn has always operated within conflict with another. She taunted former castmate Suzie Ketcham after their friendship deteriorated and did the same to Jennifer Williams and Royce Reed. The ever evolving rift between she and Tami Roman was clear from the beginning, with Evelyn never being interested in Tami being apart of their “inner circle” as she viewed her as classless with no fashion sense. So vein. The issue however, is that Evelyn seeks out what she perceives as weaker antagonists. But, once someone hits back slightly harder, she plays victim. And boy she loves to cry.
For Evelyn to even resort to such a low blow with CeCe is unfathomable considering her reaction to Tami’s jab. CeCe didn’t say anything near as damaging to even provoke such an attack. Furthermore, Evelyn has been doing work to raise funds and awareness to those affected during the hurricane in Puerto Rico as she herself is a person of color. So, she should know better.
But none of this surprises me. It’s been brewing for some time and shows that she only lived life in a positive light as an attempt to do damage control for the mess she played a huge part in creating. It was never real but instead a farce. She resorted to her true self once she no longer had the cushion of an athlete’s income and sold her soul for ratings and an extension of the 5 minutes of fame she desperately attempted to hide from after the failure of her marriage and ensuing criticism that came as a result. You Evelyn, never changed. And you’re too old to continue the shits. You have children, a daughter specifically, who watches your every move and is subjected to whatever judgement targeted at her as a direct result of your antics. Give it up.
from Natural Hair Care | Curly Nikki https://ift.tt/2NwUCSG
Make it Last Forever...How to Keep Summer Hair Color Poppin' into Fall
 |
| @naturalhaircolor |
Color is having a moment this summer.
Whether tame or wild, all of your faves are switching up their looks—and we can barely keep up! But while it’s always fun to try a new look, the summer season can be notoriously hard on your hair—think sun, salt and chlorine—especially after your strands have undergone a strenuous chemical process like going blonde. To help manage it all, we caught up with a few A-list stylists whose clientele lists include everyone from Amanda Seales to Jennifer Hudson to give us the tea on how to maintain our color well into fall (and maybe even longer!)
Continue
from Natural Hair Care | Curly Nikki https://ift.tt/2N0RFwB
Wednesday, August 29, 2018
What Can Heat Do For Your Health?
A few months ago, I explored the benefits and applications of cold therapy. Today, I’m going to talk about the benefits and applications of heat therapy—one of the most ubiquitous and ancestral therapies in the history of humankind. You name a culture and—as long as they didn’t live in perpetual tropical heat—they probably had some form of heat therapy. Native Americans had the sweat lodge, those of Central America the temazcal. The Romans had the thermae, which they picked up and refined from the Greeks. Other famous traditions include Finnish saunas, Russian banyas, Turkish hammams, Japanese sentó (or the natural spring-fed onsen), and the Korean jjimjilbang. People really like the heat.
Right off the bat, that’s one major benefit to heat therapy compared to cold: It’s an easy sell. “You can luxuriate in a sauna for half an hour or lower your naked body, genitals first, into a bathtub filled with ice water. Your choice.” People are far more likely to sit in the hot room for 20 minutes than they are to sit in an ice bath for 3 minutes or even take a cold shower. Short-term heat exposure is generally regarded as pleasant. Cold exposure is generally regarded as torture. If heat therapy offers legit health benefits, this is a major point in its favor. So, does it?
Oh, yes.
In a recent review of the available observational studies, controlled trials, and interventions, researchers found evidence that sauna usage has an impressive array of beneficial effects on health and wellness:
- Increased lifespan and decreased early mortality.
- Reduced cardiovascular disease.
- Lowered blood pressure.
- Improved cognitive function and reduced the risk of neurodegenerative disease.
- Improved arthritis symptoms.
What’s going on here? How could sitting in a hot room do so many good things?
Stress, in a word. One of the coolest things about us is that encountering, facing down, and then growing resistance to one type of stress tends to make us better at dealing with stress from other sources. A 30-minute sauna session at 174 ºF/80 ºC raises body temperature by almost 1 degree C, spikes your flight-or-flight hormones, raises cortisol, and triggers a powerful hormetic response by the rest of your body. That’s a stressor. After such a session, subjects report feeling “calm” and “pleasant.” This isn’t a surprise. Intense exercise also raises cortisol in the short term. And like regular exercise, longer term sauna usage (daily for four weeks in one study) actually reduces stress hormones. It’s a classic hormetic response, where acute doses of the stressor increase oxidative stress enough to provoke a compensatory adaptation by the organism.
What does this sauna-induced hormetic stress do for us?
Benefits of Heat Therapy
It reduces oxidative stress. Short term, it increases stress (that’s why we see the transient spike in cortisol and other stress hormones). Long term, it reduces oxidative stress. Long-term sauna use has an inverse association with levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), a “catch-all” biomarker for oxidative stress and inflammation. The more often you use the sauna, the lower your CRP.
It may reduce mortality. The more frequently a person visits the sauna, the lower his risk of premature death from heart attack and all causes. There is a dose-response relationship happening here, which has me leaning toward “causal.” Those using the sauna two to three times a week had a 23% lower risk of fatal heart attack compared to men who used it just once a week. Men who used the sauna four to seven times a week had a 48% reduced risk of fatal heart attack compared to once-a-weekers. The more frequently men used the sauna, the greater the protection (for other causes of mortality, too).
It improves vascular function. A single bout of sauna (or exercise, for that matter) reduces vascular resistance—the amount your blood vessels “resist” blood flow—in hypertensive patients for up to two hours.
It’s good against type 2 diabetes. Sauna use has been shown to improve almost every marker related to type 2 diabetes, including insulin sensitivity, fasting blood sugar, glycated hemoglobin, and body fat levels.
It can improve depression scores. Patients with depression who underwent heat therapy saw improvements in their Hamilton Depression Rating.
If you’re an athlete, or exercise at all, you should try the sauna. Training magnifies the benefits of the sauna.
Finally, pairing exercise and heat therapy together is a boon for cardiovascular health. For instance, people who frequent the sauna and the gym have a drastically lower risk of heart attack death than people who do either alone. That combo also reduces 24-hour blood pressure in hypertensive patients and confers special protection against all-cause mortality above and beyond either variable alone.
Post-Workout Benefits
Post-workout sauna sessions improve endurance performance in runners: For three weeks, endurance runners sat in 89° C (+/- 2° C) humid saunas for 31 minutes following training sessions. This amounted to an average of 12.7 sauna sessions per runner. Relative to control (no sauna), sauna use increased time to exhaustion by 32%, plasma cell volume by 7.1%, and red cell volume by 3.2% (both plasma cell and red cell volume are markers of increased endurance performance).
Post-workout sauna use increases plasma volume in male cyclists: Following training sessions, cyclists sat in 87° C, 11% humidity saunas for 30 minutes. Just four sessions were sufficient to expand plasma volume. This is important because increasing plasma volume improves heat dissipation, thermoregulation, heart rate, and cardiac stroke volume during exercise.
Post-workout sauna—either dry or steam—can also alleviate muscle fatigue.
How About Pre-Workout?
The effects are more mixed. In one study, pre-workout sauna reduced strength endurance and 1 rep max leg press, had no effect on 1 rep max bench press, and improved maximum power (vertical leap). Another study found that in female athletes but not in males, maximum power decreases after sauna use. It’s possible that these performance disturbances are caused by dehydration rather than the heat itself, so make sure you rehydrate if you’re planning on training after a sauna session.
If you want to apply heat pre-workout without overdoing it, I’ve always liked a nice hot bath to help limber up, mobilize my joints, and clear out any stiffness for the coming workout session.
Oh, and It Can Help You Detox
I was going to write the full word “detoxification,” but I figured I’d write “detox” just to trigger the hardcore skeptics reading this…. Heat exposure can augment your natural detoxification capacities by at least two mechanisms.
First, exposure to extreme heat increases something called heat shock proteins, or HSPs. HSPs are responsible for many of the benefits of heat therapy, including enacting beneficial hormetic effects on our detoxification capacity. They trigger compensatory adaptations and activate antioxidant defenses in the blood of healthy volunteers. They even increase regeneration of the body’s main detoxifying organ—the liver—after it’s been damaged.
Second, contrary to popular belief, sweating can aid detoxification. Sweat itself contains bioaccumulated toxins, including BPA—even when it doesn’t show up in the blood or urine. Sweat also contains certain phthalate compounds and their metabolites, none of which we want. Sweat also contains arsenic and lead in people exposed to high levels of the metals. Sweating may even improve the function of another important detoxification organ—the kidney—by restoring nitrogen excretion in people with kidney disease. In one study, police officers with chronic illnesses caused by exposure to high levels of meth lab chemicals experienced major improvements after sauna therapy.
What If You Don’t Have Access To a Sauna?
There are other options.
Steam rooms work. Only problem with them is it’s difficult to remain in one long enough to trigger the necessary stress response. Saunas, with their dry heat, are easier to stick with. Steam rooms feel different enough that I wonder if there’s something unique about them. Not enough evidence to go on, unfortunately. Perhaps I can revisit this later.
Jacuzzis and hot baths work. A recent paper found that taking regular hot baths at home improved insulin sensitivity and increased nitric oxide synthase activity about as much as working out. Another found that, compared to showering, bathing improved mood, perceived stress, blood flow, and accumulation of metabolic waste products.
You could probably sit in a black car on a hot day with the windows rolled up and get an effect.
Just get hot, as hot as you can stand. Then stay a little longer. (As always, be sure to talk to your doctor. Certain conditions and scenarios, like pregnancy, require extra caution with saunas or other forms of heat therapy.)
Have you used the sauna? Are you a regular attendee? Or do you use other means of heat therapy? I’m curious to hear your experiences, tips, and stories below.
References:
Laukkanen JA, Laukkanen T, Kunutsor SK. Cardiovascular and Other Health Benefits of Sauna Bathing: A Review of the Evidence. Mayo Clin Proc. 2018;93(8):1111-1121.
Leppäluoto J. Human thermoregulation in sauna. Ann Clin Res. 1988;20(4):240-3.
Sutkowy P, Wo?niak A, Rajewski P. Single whole-body cryostimulation procedure versus single dry sauna bath: comparison of oxidative impact on healthy male volunteers. Biomed Res Int. 2015;2015:406353.
Laukkanen JA, Laukkanen T. Sauna bathing and systemic inflammation. Eur J Epidemiol. 2018;33(3):351-353.
Laukkanen T, Khan H, Zaccardi F, Laukkanen JA. Association between sauna bathing and fatal cardiovascular and all-cause mortality events. JAMA Intern Med. 2015;175(4):542-8.
Krause M, Ludwig MS, Heck TG, Takahashi HK. Heat shock proteins and heat therapy for type 2 diabetes: pros and cons. Curr Opin Clin Nutr Metab Care. 2015;18(4):374-80.
Laukkanen JA, Laukkanen T, Khan H, Babar M, Kunutsor SK. Combined Effect of Sauna Bathing and Cardiorespiratory Fitness on the Risk of Sudden Cardiac Deaths in Caucasian Men: A Long-term Prospective Cohort Study. Prog Cardiovasc Dis. 2018;60(6):635-641.
Kunutsor SK, Khan H, Laukkanen T, Laukkanen JA. Joint associations of sauna bathing and cardiorespiratory fitness on cardiovascular and all-cause mortality risk: a long-term prospective cohort study. Ann Med. 2018;50(2):139-146.
Gayda M, Paillard F, Sosner P, et al. Effects of sauna alone and postexercise sauna baths on blood pressure and hemodynamic variables in patients with untreated hypertension. J Clin Hypertens (Greenwich). 2012;14(8):553-60.
Hedley AM, Climstein M, Hansen R. The effects of acute heat exposure on muscular strength, muscular endurance, and muscular power in the euhydrated athlete. J Strength Cond Res. 2002;16(3):353-8.
Gutiérrez A, Mesa JL, Ruiz JR, Chirosa LJ, Castillo MJ. Sauna-induced rapid weight loss decreases explosive power in women but not in men. Int J Sports Med. 2003;24(7):518-22.
Genuis SJ, Birkholz D, Rodushkin I, Beesoon S. Blood, urine, and sweat (BUS) study: monitoring and elimination of bioaccumulated toxic elements. Arch Environ Contam Toxicol. 2011;61(2):344-57.
Genuis SJ, Beesoon S, Birkholz D, Lobo RA. Human excretion of bisphenol A: blood, urine, and sweat (BUS) study. J Environ Public Health. 2012;2012:185731.
Khodarev VN, Zhemchuzhnova NL, Olempieva EV, Kuz’menko NV. [The influence of general infrared sauna on the antioxidant systems in the blood of volunteers]. Vopr Kurortol Fizioter Lech Fiz Kult. 2013;(5):10-3.
Shi Q, Dong Z, Wei H. The involvement of heat shock proteins in murine liver regeneration. Cell Mol Immunol. 2007;4(1):53-7.
Mccarty MF, Barroso-aranda J, Contreras F. Regular thermal therapy may promote insulin sensitivity while boosting expression of endothelial nitric oxide synthase–effects comparable to those of exercise training. Med Hypotheses. 2009;73(1):103-5.
Goto Y, Hayasaka S, Kurihara S, Nakamura Y. Physical and Mental Effects of Bathing: A Randomized Intervention Study. Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2018;2018:9521086.
The post What Can Heat Do For Your Health? appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.
from Mark's Daily Apple https://ift.tt/2wwE6e8
With Friends Like This...Is Your "Friend" Secretly Your Biggest Hater?
By Sonya Eskridge
Among the pages and pages of Instawisdom and motivational pics on the gram is an oft-replicated adage that advises, “Make sure everyone in your boat is rowing and not drilling holes.” To me, this is a shoutout to all the people on social media with shifty friends in their circle. Having been through a few toxic friendships, this spoke to the core of my spirit. How’s a girl supposed to unwind with her friends when she’s not sure she can trust everyone in her orbit? Looking back over my life, I’m astounded at the number of people who I thought were friends but were actually enemies in disguise. Sometimes it's hard to spot them in the moment, but there are red flags to watch out for.
Continue
from Natural Hair Care | Curly Nikki https://ift.tt/2MCCGcP
Tuesday, August 28, 2018
10-Year-Old Boy Grows Out Hair to Shoulder-Length to Donate to Cancer Patient
 |
| Image Credit: Angie Polus (Moore's mom) |
According to the World Health Organization, cancer is the second largest killer in the world with millions of deaths being reported per year. The sad thing is that the disease affects both the young and old. Although it can be treated, especially when detected in its early stages, most types of treatment tend to take a toll on the patient. Perhaps one of the most known side effects of cancer treatment is hair loss which is mainly attributed to chemotherapy and radiation therapy. To most people, hair is an important part of their identity, so hair loss due to cancer treatment is devastating, especially to young kids.
This brings us to the story of Thomas Moore. When he was 8 years old he found his mother watching a video of a little girl losing her hair during chemotherapy. His mom went on to explain to him that the 5-year-old girl, Kyssi Andrew, was suffering from cancer and the treatment was responsible for her hair loss. At that moment, Moore was inspired to do something about it. He told his mother that he would grow out his hair and give it to Kyssi.
 |
| Image Credit: Angie Polus (Moore's mom) |
As another added bonus, for his selfless act, Moore received an Act of Kindness Award in October 2016, given to him by retired NBA player Derek Anderson's foundation, Stamina.
 |
| Image Credit: Angie Polus (Moore's mom) |
from Natural Hair Care | Curly Nikki https://ift.tt/2MxAzHf
The Hypocrisy of the Braxton's Family Values
 |
| Photo Courtesy of WE TV |
Nothing irritates me more than seeing black kinfolk treating each other like enemies on any public space while we and non-coloreds (i.e. white people) sit and consume their familial drama for entertainment. We have enough outsiders preying on our downfall for us to partake in the mess, especially publically. Unfortunately, this has become the case for my beloved Braxton family.
Continue
I’ve been a stan since the show premiered on WeTV in 2011. Five black sisters who were beautiful, had solid bonds and who could all sing...I thought to myself, this is the second, female, coming of the Jackson 5! Or at minimum, they were the Kardashians but WITH talent. It was refreshing to see a successful black family on television that displayed positivity. But, all good things come to an end.
Any BFV fan will tell you that there have always been internal issues. Their parents split after over three decades of marriage as a result of their philandering pastoral father’s ways. It was discovered later that the girl's broken home, despite them being adults when their parents divorced, led to issues amongst them.
Toni has been vocal about feeling as if she’s always had to share her successes with her equally talented sisters out of guilt that she was chosen by LaFace over them. Traci was often treated as an outcast from the rest of the sisters. She became pregnant when they were due to sign a record contract and her sisters went on without her, leaving her bitter and resentful for not being able to fulfill her dream as a singer with her family. Towanda, Trina and Tamar released music as a trio sans Traci, but that was short-lived due to what they felt were mediocre songs and marketing, with record labels not knowing what to do with the sisters of a megastar and in-fighting between the sisters. Tamar went solo and it wasn’t until the reality show that all 5 of them worked on any type of project together, on or off stage.
What’s perceived as the downfall of The Braxton’s has been a long time coming. Since season 1, we’ve watched the sisters fight and argue and whether they want to admit it or not, all of their issues are magnified when it included any type of creative endeavor, as a collective or individually. It took 6 years after trying and failing dozens of times to produce a Braxton album and even then, it wasn’t in the form that fans expected. Instead, we received an 8-track Christmas album, mainly featuring the vocals of Trina, Towanda and Toni and only two with all five because of scheduling conflicts and attitudes. There was an issue when Tamar accepted a spin-off with her husband, which according to the sisters, she was not forthcoming about. They haven’t always supported each other’s careers, most notably Traci, who was kicked off of Toni’s latest tour- which many suspect Tamar, who was also on the roster, had a say in. And let’s not forget about the time when Tamar allegedly threw her sisters and mother out of a venue after she was pissed that her sisters joined her on stage. They stay in each other’s marital and relationship business, secretly hated one sisters husband and spilled all the tea once things came to a head, downgrade each other’s business ventures, and separate into sub-cliques when the majority are on the outs with another.
You have to remember we are dealing with sisters here, not a random ensemble cast that were put together for the sake of a show. They know each other's strengths and weaknesses and play off of such when fighting. I’m sure words they spew at one another cut deeper than a social media thug/outsider. In the first two seasons, the fighting was tolerable; but, its escalated to the point of no return.
Just recently, filming came to a halt after the sisters, with the exception of Traci, decided to boycott because of pay disputes. This spilled over to the gram after the others, most notably Tamar, disapproved of her decision to continue to work.
Say what you want about the Kardashians, but they put on a united front. Despite the magnitude of hate thrown their way, they have yet to turn on one another. Take the whole Rob and Blac Chyna fiasco. When the relationship ended, due to loyalty and respect for her brother, Kim has made it a point to never speak ill of Chyna or any other sibling’s significant other as children are involved. I need the Braxtons to take notes.
You would think therapy would be a valuable resource, but that’s worked to no avail. They over-talked Dr. Sherry for the first 4 seasons and even God’s own disciple Bishop TD Jakes could only do so much healing. The simple answer would be to turn the cameras off until they did the work to save their family. But, they have opted out of doing so. It’s been reported that they have called on Iyanla Vanzant for her help and they are scheduled to appear on an episode of Fix My Life. If Iyanla’s methods of laying her client’s heads in her big bosoms and grabbing them by the hands while she endearingly calls them beloved and forces them to face their truths doesn’t work, then I don’t know what will. Because if we can’t get back to the Braxtons who harmonized on que at the snap of a finger, the fun shade they gave each other and even Tamar’s outlandishness (at minimal), then cancel the damn show.
from Natural Hair Care | Curly Nikki https://ift.tt/2MZJUXC
Are Your Children Sleep-Deprived?
It’s about that time: the start of the school year. Bleary-eyed kids everywhere are dragged from bed, thrown into clothing, handed an energy bar and glass of juice, and shuttled off to spend hours sitting at a desk. They come home, do hours of homework, squeeze in some screen time, squeeze some vaguely edible goo into their mouths, update their Facebook status, post a few Instagram pics, and climb into bed by 10 PM sharp, Snapchatting their way to the land of Nod. Then it starts all over again.
I’m exaggerating, a bit. Things aren’t this bad—childhood Facebook usage is actually down! But too many children aren’t getting enough sleep.
How Much Sleep Do Kids Need?
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that:
Infants 4 months to 12 months should sleep 12 to 16 hours per 24 hours (including naps) on a regular basis to promote optimal health.
Children 1 to 2 years of age should sleep 11 to 14 hours per 24 hours (including naps) on a regular basis to promote optimal health.
Children 3 to 5 years of age should sleep 10 to 13 hours per 24 hours (including naps) on a regular basis to promote optimal health.
Children 6 to 12 years of age should sleep 9 to 12 hours per 24 hours on a regular basis to promote optimal health.
Teenagers 13 to 18 years of age should sleep 8 to 10 hours per 24 hours on a regular basis to promote optimal health.
How Are Kids Doing?
According to a 2004 study of American kids’ sleep habits commissioned by the National Sleep Foundation:
- Infants get 12.7 hours—low end of normal.
- 1 to 3 year olds get 11.7 hours—low end of normal.
- Preschoolers get 10.4 hours—low end of normal.
- Elementary school kids get 9.5 hours—low end of normal.
That was 2004, before smartphones, tablets, and the meteoric rise of digital technology. Seeing as how the presence of technology in the homes and bedrooms of our children can reduce the amount of sleep they get, I’d wager that sleep has only gotten worse. It has.
But just because kids are getting less sleep on average doesn’t mean your kids are. The average of the population doesn’t say anything about the individual. It’s just an indication that the problem is widespread—and that it’s something you should honestly assess to make sure you’re not contributing to the trend.
What you can do short of tracking their sleep with an Oura ring is to watch for the obvious symptoms of inadequate sleep.
They shouldn’t be yawning all the time, or blatantly drowsy and exhausted.
They should be alert, engaged. Not every kid will bounce off the walls or be a constant blur of energy, of course.
They shouldn’t have trouble getting up in the morning.
They shouldn’t fall asleep immediately.
They should be prone to meltdowns over nonsense.
Parents know when their kids haven’t had enough sleep. Deep down, they know.
Just How Important Is Sleep?
We adults know. If we don’t get enough sleep, we get horrible brain fog. We have trouble forming complete sentences. We feel confused and anxious for no apparent reason. We forsake the gods of our ancestors to prostrate ourselves before coffee. In fact, the most serious consequences and symptoms of sleep deprivation are all mental and psychological.
During sleep, we clear out old memories to make room for new ones. Without sleep, we forget what we’ve just learned. We arguably don’t learn without sleep. The memories simply don’t take.
During sleep, we prune errant connections between neurons. Without sleep, we can’t prune the brain plaque that can eventually lead to Alzheimer’s and dementia.
If sleep deprivation interferes with an adult’s brain function to such a degree, what does sleep deprivation do to a brain that’s still developing?
It can cause profound neuronal loss. When a kid is sleep deprived for long enough, their brains actually shrink.
It promotes aberrant connectivity patterns in the fronto-limbic, a region of the brain involved in emotion regulation (tantrums, anyone?).
It impairs performance in the classroom.
Because that’s the most important part of childhood. Heck, it’s why human childhood takes so long—we need time to develop that impressive brain. A baby giraffe might pour out of his mother and instantly clamber to his feet, able to walk. He’s clumsy, but he can walk.
As humans, our brains are almost everything. They’re our most powerful tools. They allow us to manipulate language, numbers, reality itself. Without our brains, we’re rather unimpressive relative to other animals. Our strength, agility, explosiveness, and speed can’t compare. Your average black bear could outrun Usain Bolt, outfight Conor McGregor, and outswim Michael Phelps. We need our brains. As a parent, it’s important that you do everything you can to encourage and enable your kid’s brain development, or at least remove the barriers that impede it. Bad sleep is the biggest impediment there is.
Sleep doesn’t just affect brain development and function. There are metabolic effects, too. Just as poor sleep can increase insulin resistance and lead to obesity in adults, poor sleep can make your kids insulin resistant and overweight.
What Can You Do?
Limit Their Blue Light Exposure At Night
This could take the form of candles and warm lighting. This could mean no TV or screens at night. This could mean buying a pair of child-size blue blocking shades. Or maybe it’s all three at once. Whatever you do, make sure your kids aren’t bathing in blue light toward the end of the day—it can throw off your circadian rhythm and make getting to sleep at a reasonable time harder.
Candle lighting could be a great way to expose your kids to safe fire behavior, by the way. Letting them light the candles will get them involved, get them enthusiastic about the new practice, and teach them how to handle themselves around fire. Win, win, win.
Increase Their Blue Light Exposure During the Day
The flip-side of blue light avoidance at night is the fact that our bodies expect it during the day, and that getting a lot of natural light (which includes significant portions of blue) in the morning and afternoon also establishes a healthy circadian rhythm. In fact, daytime light exposure increases their resistance to blue light at night.
With recess taking a huge hit these days, kids are spending fewer and fewer hours outside immersed in natural light. That should change.
Give Your Kids a Diet High In Carotenoids
Certain carotenoids don’t convert to retinol, instead making their way to the eye to protect against blue light absorption. They are astaxanthin, lutein, and zeaxanthin.
Salmon, shrimp, and krill oil for astaxanthin. Wild salmon astaxanthin is more bioavailable than farmed, but farmed is still pretty good.
For lutein and zeaxanthin, you’ll want to incorporate leafy greens and orange egg yolks. Kale, spinach, collards, chard, and mustard greens are among the best sources, while darker yolks are also great sources. Eat both; I suspect yolks might be easier to incorporate into a picky kid’s diet than kale.
Give Your Kids Plenty of Opportunities To Move, Play, Exercise, and Be Engaged With the World
Although the research is mixed on this topic, with some studies finding that the most active kids actually sleep a little less than the most sedentary kids, I’m going with a parent’s intuition. Whenever my kids were particularly active, they had no trouble getting to bed at a reasonable time. It wasn’t just physical, either. If we had a party at the house and the kids spent all day interacting with friends and other children, they were very easy to put to bed.
Have a Bedtime Routine
The routine itself doesn’t really matter. What matters is that you have one and stick to it. That alone has been shown to reduce problematic sleep behavior in babies and toddlers, improve night waking, help children fall asleep faster and stay asleep longer, and—not insignificantly—reduce maternal stress.
Be Consistent
The human body is made of biological clocks. Everything you do, from eating and exercising to sleeping, works better when you have a schedule. That way, your cellular clocks know what to expect and can assemble the physiological mise en place rather than rush around in panic mode because you’re completely unpredictable.
Set a bedtime and stick to it. Studies show that kids with parents who establish bedtimes and actually enforce them get more sleep. Furthermore, irregular sleep habits make it harder to establish a healthy circadian rhythm.
Exceed the Minimum
Common isn’t normal. Many things are common, like cooking with seed oils and watching five hours of TV every day. But they aren’t normal—they aren’t congruent with our biology. Kids deserve the opportunity to sleep as much as they can. If they’ll go an hour more than what the experts say they need, so be it. They probably need it.
Let Sleep Ensue Naturally
If you’re doing everything right (proper light exposure, good sleep hygiene, good diet, plenty of activity during the day, a routine), your kid will probably get sleepy at about the right time. The beauty of establishing a consistent bedtime and bedtime routine is that it will train your kid to naturally get sleepy at the around the same time each day. What you establish becomes the “right time.”
What you should avoid are struggles over sleep.
Naps Count
Naps count toward a child’s daily sleep requirement, so let them happen. Just be cautious about timing. In my experience, under-2s can take a nap whenever without ruining their bedtime; after age 2, nap timing becomes very crucial.
If you were paying attention, you probably noticed that most of the content in today’s post applies equally well to adults. By all means, take these tips and apply it to your life, too. But definitely make sure your kids are getting enough sleep. It could quite literally help determine their trajectory through life and realize their potential. Good sleep is foundational.
Thanks for reading, everyone! Do your kids (or you) get enough sleep? What methods, tips, and tricks have worked for you and your family?
References:
Hale L, Guan S. Screen time and sleep among school-aged children and adolescents: a systematic literature review. Sleep Med Rev. 2015;21:50-8.
Jan JE, Reiter RJ, Bax MC, Ribary U, Freeman RD, Wasdell MB. Long-term sleep disturbances in children: a cause of neuronal loss. Eur J Paediatr Neurol. 2010;14(5):380-90.
Robinson JL, Erath SA, Kana RK, El-sheikh M. Neurophysiological differences in the adolescent brain following a single night of restricted sleep – A 7T fMRI study. Dev Cogn Neurosci. 2018;31:1-10.
Beebe DW, Field J, Milller MM, Miller LE, Leblond E. Impact of Multi-Night Experimentally Induced Short Sleep on Adolescent Performance in a Simulated Classroom. Sleep. 2017;40(2)
Schalch W, Cohn W, Barker FM, et al. Xanthophyll accumulation in the human retina during supplementation with lutein or zeaxanthin – the LUXEA (LUtein Xanthophyll Eye Accumulation) study. Arch Biochem Biophys. 2007;458(2):128-35.
Pesonen AK, Sjöstén NM, Matthews KA, et al. Temporal associations between daytime physical activity and sleep in children. PLoS ONE. 2011;6(8):e22958.
Mindell, J. A., Telofski, L. S., Wiegand, B., & Kurtz, E. S. (2009). A Nightly Bedtime Routine: Impact on Sleep in Young Children and Maternal Mood. Sleep, 32(5), 599–606.
Phillips AJK, Clerx WM, O’brien CS, et al. Irregular sleep/wake patterns are associated with poorer academic performance and delayed circadian and sleep/wake timing. Sci Rep. 2017;7(1):3216.
The post Are Your Children Sleep-Deprived? appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.
from Mark's Daily Apple https://ift.tt/2MQntEv