How do you feel when you wake up and when you get into bed at night?
How easily you fall asleep says a lot about how you are doing.
Every Sunday I share what I learn about health, money and business. Here is what I learnt last week:
How do you feel when you wake up and when you get into bed at night, and how easily do you fall asleep?
Lessons from the real life story of cops and robbers.
Can adding 1 gram of turmeric and pepper help with diabetes?
You can access previous editions of my weekly emails here. Let’s begin!
(1) How do you feel when you wake up and when you get into bed at night, and how easily do you fall asleep?
“The time in bed in the morning and at night tells you all you need to know. It’s not purely intellectual reasoning. It’s not a pro-and-con list. It’s not a spreadsheet. It’s not a Venn diagram. How do you feel? Are you even aware of how you’re feeling? How much energy have you spent blocking out certain feelings because you don’t want to feel certain things?
To borrow from Tara Brach: “There was a wise old sage who said, ‘There’s really only one question worth considering, and that is: What are you unwilling to feel?’”
Do you wake up with a sense of foreboding and anxiety and a desire to stay in bed? When you go to bed, are you full of anxiety and worries and preoccupation about what happened, or what could happen the next day? I use this question as a systems check-in for identifying things I should stop, lessen, or double down on.”
-- taken from Tim Ferriss, 5-Bullet Friday
(2) Lessons from the real life story of cops and robbers.
This is real life James Bond stuff.
A Russian company stealing corporate results data before they are released to the public made them $96 million in profit. They bought and sold stocks to profit from information they had before anyone else did. This is what's called insider trading. It is illegal.
It's a real life game of cops and robbers. The bad people get arrested but they also get out. Here are three lessons I learnt from this story:
Living a life of ill gotten gains will come back to bite you eventually. You may have gotten away with it multiple times but you will make a mistake at some point in time. That's all it takes to screw up your entire life. And given how human nature works, your feeling of invincibility will cause you to make that mistake.
Living in a manner that you are always watching over your shoulders is a hellish way to live. What's the point of this kind of success if it comes with the fear that you will get caught? All the bad guys eventually get caught.
Connections matter. Despite getting extradited and sentenced to 9 years in prison, the culprit was released in a prisoner exchange without completing a year. Use your connections to be on the right side instead of the wrong side of whatever you do because at the end of the day you need to be accountable to yourself, your family and your community.
(3) Can adding 1 gram of turmeric and pepper can help with diabetes?
In a fascinating study involving 20 healthy young adults, researchers explored how common kitchen spices—black pepper and turmeric—could impact blood sugar levels after breakfast. Each participant, evenly split between men and women with an average age of 22, consumed four different breakfast variations on separate days. These meals consisted of the same base: toasted bread, an egg, and black tea, but with different additions: 1 gram of black pepper, 1 gram of turmeric, a combination of both, or no added spices at all.
The study revealed that the combination of black pepper and turmeric significantly reduced blood sugar levels over a three-hour period after eating, compared to the control meal with no added spices. This suggests that these spices might help in managing post-meal blood sugar spikes, which can be particularly beneficial for those looking to maintain steady energy levels throughout the day or manage conditions like prediabetes.
Interestingly, despite these benefits, the participants didn’t experience any noticeable changes in hunger or digestive discomfort across the different meals. This means that adding these spices to your diet might not only help control blood sugar but also do so without making you feel hungrier or causing stomach issues.
Moreover, the study found that meals with the combination of both spices, or no spices at all, were more enjoyable to eat than those with only one spice. This highlights the importance of balance in flavoring your meals—too much of a single spice might overpower the dish, while a combination can enhance both taste and health benefits.
Practical Takeaways:
Incorporate Spices: Adding a small amount of black pepper and turmeric to your meals might help manage blood sugar levels, especially after carbohydrate-rich meals like breakfast.
Balanced Flavoring: When using spices, consider combining them to enhance the overall taste and enjoyment of your food. A balanced mix could make your meals more enjoyable while also providing health benefits.
Daily Use: These findings suggest simple changes in your daily meals can have a positive impact on your health, making spices like black pepper and turmeric easy, accessible tools for better managing blood sugar naturally.
This study shows how small, everyday ingredients can make a significant difference in health, providing an easy and tasty way to potentially improve your well-being.
Harsh Batra (LinkedIn)
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