#no listen to me. listen. give me access to my meds and caffeine and a week and I’ll have it figured out

[aprikota]

I could fix him (the continuity of doctor who canon)

#doctor who #no listen to me. listen. give me access to my meds and caffeine and a week and I’ll have it figured out #mr RTD pls let me on your team to help sort out wtf is going on literally ever in this universe #actually give me a few months to do nothing but consume all forms of dr who media that currently exist. then a week to compile it all. #I’ll give you good ideas for spin-offs too PLEASE I can’t keep this to my fanfics anymore. I’m dying.

[scientia-rex]

Do you have thoughts about dealing with your ADHD without medication? I'm in Europe where the laws are different and its haaaaard to access meds. (Immigration is very bad for consistent health care)

Yeah, I mean, caffeine. Caffeine in the mornings and propranolol if I overdo it or have too much caffeine after 1pm. Caffeine has a variable half-life depending on your genetics, so for some people they can have caffeine within about 4-5 hours of trying to sleep and for me if I have it within 9 hours of when I want to sleep I'm a little fucked. (5-9 hours is a relatively typical range for half-life.) Caffeine has active metabolites, which means that as your body processes it to break it down it creates different molecules which are still stimulants, so it's not as simple as "caffeine in, break it down, inert molecule out." You also need to be aware that your brain WILL develop tolerance, so taking drug holidays where you have a chaotic, disorganized day will help when you go back to work.

Another alternative is Strattera, generic name atomoxetine, which gets marketed as a "non-stimulant" ADHD medication. In my opinion it does still have stimulant qualities and the classification has more to do with legal status than medical reality. However, it does have a tendency to cause nausea, so I usually start people low (10mg) and ramp up to 80-100mg, which is target range for efficacy for most people. It doesn't seem as effective as the stimulants but it also doesn't have the legal implications of the stimulants.

Wellbutrin, generic name bupropion, is an antidepressant, but it's not the same as SSRIs or SNRIs--it has its own combination of effects on neurotransmitters that makes it a cousin rather than a sibling drug. It can be used (off-label) for ADHD.

In terms of other things I do to help myself cope, setting and maintaining a sleep schedule is critical. I definitely always feel like I'm being asked to wake up at the equivalent of 3am for other people. This means I need to make sure I go to bed and get up at consistent times, including days off. Bed needs to be for sleeping and intimacy and not for being activated--not for reading, not for hanging out. "Sleep hygiene" is about training your brain that when you go to bed, you go to sleep. The bedroom needs to be quiet, cool, and dark. You can Google sleep hygiene for more information on that.

Learning how to learn was critical for surviving med school. I didn't struggle that much with the material even in grad school, though I was more miserable overall in grad school. The sheer volume meant I couldn't just read everything once and figure enough would stick; I had to read, listen, watch, and eventually I figured out that I really needed to draw pictures and make myself flash cards if I wanted to actually force my brain to retain anything. Making sure I was physically comfortable, including that I was fed, hydrated, and didn't have to pee, was also part of the process. Getting there involved lots of tears and failing multiple tests.

Cleaning can't be an all or nothing proposition or nothing ever gets cleaned. When I start cleaning, I just grab whatever I'm walking by that catches my attention. Fuck doing whole tasks at a time consistently. Move those three bowls to the sink, in the kitchen realize I need to take out the recycling, take out the recycling and realize on the way back in that I have a load of laundry to start, start the laundry and realize I need to pee, while I'm in the bathroom realize I need to clean the counter, clean the counter and realize I need to take out the bathroom trash, take out the bathroom trash and realize I still didn't pee, continue until I'm too tired and then sit down and have a snack and a nap. My house is still a black hole but it's infinitely better than my apartments when I was younger.

Accepting that you can't do things the neurotypical way is a big part of it. Giving up on how things "should" be and recognizing what you can do and how you can do it is critical. I will never stop crashing into things so I've bought rounded furniture that hurts less when I crash into it. I'm slowly designing a life and a home where I'm playing to my strengths, and although it's a work in process, I'm slowly becoming happier.

#the attending dr. kristophine

[extremelyblackandwhite]

scrubs - 2.

pairing: doctor!sebastian stan x biomedical scientist!reader

warnings: angst, mentions of death. if you are not comfortable with these warnings please dni. 

< previous chapter

   - Where are you going? - Miriam rose her head from the work bench as Y/N took her gloves and googles off, disposing of both in the yellow bin. - Y/N, where are you going? Don’t leave me alone with the trainees. 

    - I’m going to get dinner. No eating in the lab, remember?

    - Urgh, couldn’t you have gone to dinner when Michael was here? You’re leaving me alone with the trainees ... and the ask so many questions. - she whispered the last part, afraid the trainees would hear her and hit her over the head with their very heavy portfolios. - I’m going next.

    - Hour break, don’t you dare page me. - she pointed her finger menacingly at Miriam before clocking out and heading out for dinner. If they had told her during her sleepless nights spent revising for her least favourite modules the most exciting time of her shifts would be the bland food served by the hospital cafeteria, she would’ve just become a pharmaceutical researcher. Yet again, you need to start at the bottom if you want to get to the top and Y/N was more than ready to climb that moment.

She pressed the button for the lift, leaning against her own hand as she tried to wake herself up. Turns out studying and staying up all night applying for PhD projects and then coming to work at 7AM is not the way to go for energy. Luckily, the black tea she had drank this morning had managed to keep her awake, however the caffeine was starting to slowly leave her system and she still had a few more hours awaiting her. As she was about to fall asleep while waiting for the lift to make it to the lower floors, she heard her name being called out.

      - Y/N? - she looked to her side to see Peter standing next to her. They’ve known each other since freshers and if there was someone who was always wide awake during twenty four hour shifts it was him. He worked currently in the clinical biochemistry laboratory, mostly coming over to visit Y/N whenever they were working on cardiac infection cases together. - I looked at the file you gave me. CRP is actually present but quite low, could be recovery phase from an infection. My guess with abdominal pain would be a UTI. 

     - You reckon it hit recovery phase by itself? 

     - Listen, some pharmacy assistant might’ve given him antibiotics. Who knows but I’d get a urine analysis, do some cultures and see how’s it going but from my point of view, it’s in recovery phase. 

    - You’re a superstar, Peter. - she hugged him just as the lift doors opened. - You’re going up?

    - Yeah, it’s dinner time. I think they’re serving meatballs today. Exciting stuff. - the two stepped onto the lift. - Miriam said Dr. Stan came down today. You’re still giving him hell?

    - I am not giving him hell. He’s just constantly sending samples either mislabelled or misplaced and he expects me to lecture his nursing staff about it. 

    - I don’t know, Y/N. Back at university you spent 2 hours arguing an answer with a lecturer, I just think you like arguing. - he chuckled as the doors opened onto the floor where the cafeteria was. - Or maybe you like arguing with Dr. Stan. 

Before she could complain about the snide comment, Peter took to having a chat with a nurse he was particular sweet on leaving Y/N with her mouth open ready to argue and a finger pointed at him. She rolled her eyes, collecting herself as she released her hair from the ponytail which held it safely high up so her scalp could rest for a few hours before it had to go back up. Walking into the green lit cafeteria, the room was filled with half asleep medical staff digging through the bland food like mindless zombies. She did not blame them, she too sometimes would switch off her brain during breaks but lately all the free time she had was dedicated to applications after applications, despite the fact she kept getting rejections every single day. 

The scientist grabbed a worn out plastic blue tray, getting a batch on weirdly shaped meatballs from the cafeteria lady as well as some odly too yellow noodles. Hey, it is food, her brain told her as she grabbed a diet Pepsi and a slice of apple pie which was the only eatable dessert around. 

     - Didn’t you owe me dinner?

     - You almost made me drop my tray. - she gave the resident doctor a dirty look, gripping tighter onto the tray. - And I’ll be damned if I ever owe you dinner but I do have your blood culture results and we did sort out your weird infection case.

      - It is not my infection case. 

     - Fine, your patient’s infection case. God heavens if any interns knew that you had an infection, that way they wouldn’t fawn over you. - she rolled her eyes at him, setting her tray in the first table she came over. He did the same, placing his tray right in front of hers before sitting in the metal chair with a cocky grin.  - Go away, I’ll send over the report to your office. 

      - Have you not figured it out yet and trying to buy yourself more time? Or are you trying to escape the dinner date you set up with me?

      - That might work on your interns but not on me, Stan. Besides, it is an infection.

       - But there’s no worrying levels CRP besides, what about the abdominal pain? Surely CRP and white blood cells would be off the roof. 

       - Okay, since you probably missed Biochemistry in med school I will explain it to you. The CRP levels are high during initial phases and lower down during resolve. Your patient is probably on recovery phase already. Recovery means it is fixing itself. Do you need me to explain CRP to you?

     - If you pulled that out with any other doctor, you would’ve gotten told off.

     - Other doctors don’t ask me stupid questions. - she pointed her fork at him. - Dr. Mackie never sends the samples in the wrong vials. 

     - What about the blood cultures?

     - Congratulations, Dr. Your patient is not septic. It’s most likely localised but I’d suggest ordering some X-rays if you wanna localise where it actually is. I wash my hands of your troubles. - she shrugged, wrapping her fork in the spaghetti laying on her plate. - Need anything else, Dr. Stan?

      - I remember being promised a dinner date.

      - You should get your ears checked, the only thing I promised you was data and you’re lucky I also gave you a data ana ... - the scientist was interrupted by her pager beeping loudly against her belt. She grumbled, looking down at her belt with a look that would scare  anyone. - Duty calls.

       - How convenient it went off now. 

       - Unlike you, Dr. Stan, I have a team to lead.

       - Sounds complicated, Y/N. You sure you don’t need a babysitter?

She turned around as she was about to leave, raising his middle finger at him before rushing down the hall as her pager beeped uncontrollably. So much for not paging her during dinner time. Someone better be dying, she thought to herself as she slide her card into the door slot to get access. What she came in contact with was not what she was expecting from a laboratory of trained professionals. Miriam was holding one of the trainees head forward whose nose was bleeding all over her worktop bench.

      - Miriam, what the fuck?

      - Don’t look at me. Thomas ... - she squinted at the boy whose head she was holding forward. - Started bleeding when he smelled the knee aspiration.

      - Oh no. - Y/N put some gloves on before walking over to the two. - Okay, Miriam call a code orange. I’ll take Thomas upstairs and get him sorted.

      - It’s so stinky.

      - I know. - Y/N handed them two cotton balls from the jar to her left. - Put  them up your nose.

What would be a day in the laboratory if a newbie didn’t either faint or got nose  bleeds from samples? Definitely not a day in her laboratory. She looked around the busy hospital grounds, trying to find any free, available nurses but they were all overworked. No wonder why, whenever midnight rolled around, people started coming in left and right from club brawls and the grounds were always a nightmare.

      - What you got there, Miss Y/L/N? Is this how you lead your team?

      - Fuck off, Stan. I do not have time to listen to your comments, I need to find a nurse.

      - What happened, kid? - Sebastian looked to the 19 year old medical laboratory assistant holding cotton against his nose. - Lab that bad? Come on, I’ll fix you up.   

      - Thanks. - she mumbled, following the two men into one of the free areas. Thomas sat on the table while Sebastian pulled up a chair to sit in, Y/N remaining up on her feet. 

      - So kid, what happened? Y/N rough you up too much?

      - He got a nosebleed from the smell of a knee fluid from an aspiration. - Y/N replied to him, much to Thomas delight who felt more than embarrassed about the situation he was in. - Is this what you’re doing now, Dr. Stan? Minor cases? Did the chief of medicine finally realised you’re unqualified?

      - No. - he spoke as he pointed out his light at the trainees nose, to look for any specific damage. - One of my patient’s in critical care but it seems to have stabilised for now at least. 

      - Oh ... sorry. What happened to them?

      - Sepsis. - he turned off the lights. - Listen kid, it’s nothing to bad. Just stay sat here and firmly pinch the soft part of your nose, just above your nostrils, for about 15 minutes. Don’t forget to lean forward and breathe through your mouth. Me or one of the nurses will come check on you after to see if it has improved but so far, so good.

     -  I’ll return to the lab. Page me when you’re ready to return, okay? - she gave the young starter a kind smile before pulling the curtains and letting him be. Unfortunately for her, Stan would not let her be. - Keep it.

     - How weak are your staff? How are they gonna react to when they actually see infected body parts?

     - I said keep it. - she crossed her arms, ready to leave and return to the laboratory until she remembered something. She turned around on her heel, passive aggressive smile on her lips as she leaned her head on her shoulder. - Also, Dr. Stan, the infected tissue samples you sent us had the wrong birthdate on them.

     - C’mon Y/N.

     - They’re on hold until you speak with the laboratory manager about them. Good luck.

He opened his mouth to fight with her but she had already gotten into the elevator. The rest of her shift was pretty uneventful with her and a few of her colleagues having to pick up the pace to get everything sorted before they left. Miriam and her fiance left first at 1AM leaving Y/N to count the minutes til 2 AM rolled around. Once the clock read 2AM, like a speeder, she was out of that laboratory and into the elevator before anyone could call her. Walking to her parking spot, the sky was dark, the lot light by harsh yellow barely brightening. As she walked over to the second handed baby blue Fiat 500, she noticed someone hunched over and sat on the top of a black new model Audi, smoke coming out from his cigarette. Normally, she would’ve just avoided it and gotten into her car to go home but the turquoise scrubs were much too familiar at this point.

    - Dr. Stan? - her boots hit the gravel as she stood just a few meters away from him. - Do they not teach you in medical school that smoking increases the chance of lung cancer?

    - Not now, Y/N. - no sarcastic remark? That was a new one. He threw the cigarette butt onto the ground once it was all over, feet rubbing it against the gravel. - Not now.

    - I thought your shift finished at 1:30? Pulling overtime hours? Someone needed your assistance? Death time?

    - My septic patient died. - she immediately wished she hadn’t said anything. Death was not something she particularly dealt with. Surely, some results were awful, specially in cases of ultra resistant bacteria showing up in the blood but that’s what they were, results. She didn’t see the patient, in all honesty all she would know the patient would be by a barcode number. - Sepsis quickly lead to organ failure. I don’t understand ... she was getting better.

    - Sepsis is unpredictable. You did the best you could do. 

    - And you’d know? All you do is be in the laboratory and do tests. What would you know about it?

    - Okay ... - she put her hands on her hips. - Are you on any antibiotics, prescription pain killers, sedative drugs, statins or any antidepressants?

     - I don’t see the point. 

     - The bar nearby has a discount for hospital staff. It’s only a five minute walk and everyone else is so miserable, you don’t feel bad about being miserable.

     - I’m not going to the bar in my scrubs, Y/N.

     - If you’re okay wearing those ... - she pointed at his scrubs. - Then you are okay wearing them at the bar.

She was right, the bar did look miserable. Not in a miserable way which would require regulation to shut down the place but miserable in a way one would just be at home wallowing in their pity with a pint of beer and right now that was all he needed. He sat in a sticky red booth, in front of her with a pint of beer while she picked a cocktail from the menu.

     - You don’t seem like the type of girl who’d come here.

     - And I’m not but they sell really cheap burgers at lunchtime. - she put her hand under her chin. - Besides, I’ve done this before.

     - When did you convince someone to come to the bar because their patient flat lined?

     - You know Dr. Liam Watts?

     - Surgery residency? I’ve heard about him before. - her lips tensed in a straight line as she leaned her head on her shoulder. - No. You’ve been here with Bucktooth Watts before? 

    - Yeah... even after he clearly needed support after he couldn’t save his first patient, he still decided to take me on a date here.

    - I’m sorry, you dated Bucktooth Watts? - he chuckled, downing whatever was left of his pint, signalling the bartender to bring him another one.

   - This is why we don’t hang out. He’s not bucktoothed. 

   - Sure, sure. I see the appeal, I mean over Christmas at least you have someone to cut the carrots. 

The night went onwards with a bunch of maybe irresponsible drinking. Y/N was two mojitos in and she was already tipsy and giggling like a school girl, not really used to drinking. Sebastian was in the same state as her, trying not to laugh at everything as they stepped outside to grab a taxi. At least both of them were conscious enough to decide not to drive.

   - No, you did not get locked in the vroom cupboard during your residency. - she held her belly as she laughed.

   - I did and my senior doctor did not notice I was gone. I was stuck there for 5 hours.

   - Oh god. - she held herself against the wall. - I always knew you were a clutz. You know, you’re the only doctor who hasn’t told off his nurses about the blood  bottles.  

   - Can I tell you a secret? - he whispered mid laughter. - I am afraid of them.

   - Oh my god. - she held her hand on his shoulder covering her mouth with the other one. - See, this is why I constantly argue with you. You’re soft, doctor.

   - Arguing with you is the best part of my day. You look really hot when you’re telling me off.

   - You look terrible when I tell you off. - the two of them stopped laughing, looking into each other eyes for the first time since they’d been out of the laboratory. Maybe it was the alcohol but at that moment, the best idea to the two of them was to lean towards each other, his hands grasping each side of her waist as they connected the space between them, getting together into a hot long kiss.

#sebastian stan #sebastian stan au #sebastian stan/reader #sebastian stan x reader #sebastian stan/you #sebastian stan x you #sebastian stan x y/n #sebastian stan/y/n #sebastian stan doctor au #doctor!sebastian stan #sebastian stan imagine

[mimzy-writing-online]

How To Clean Your Room When You Have ADHD

A huge problem for people with ADHD (or any neuro-divergent condition or physical disability really) is not knowing where to start. You have this big project in front of you and you have no idea what to do first.

This is a guide based on the years of practice I’ve had learning to clean my room even when my mental illness and chronic fatigue is trying to ruin my life (and failing.) These are the steps I take, what helps me best.

This guide is designed to give you a chance to make a large, effective change in your room that positively helps your mental health. You are not expected to be perfect, you are not expected to do everything if it’s outside of your limitations, just do your best (and don’t push yourself too much... but I never listen to that self-advice, oops.)

Most important step: eat breakfast and take your meds. Trust me when I say this will keep you going, both in the energy and focus departments.

Next, try to recruit a friend or family member to help. By help I mean asking them to keep you company and keep you on track. Talking them will help keep you going, and give you someone who can offer an idea or suggestion if your ADHD gets you stuck.

Calling a friend over the phone is a good substitute if you don’t have someone to be in the room with you today.

Music is a good alternative to keep you moving if that’s all that’s available but trust me when I say having another friend with you helps a lot.

Supplies:

Trash bags

Empty hampers

Ideally access to a nearby washing machine and dryer

Micro-fiber clothes

Long duster

Prep:

Open your curtains (ideally) for the vitamin D and focus. Or turn on a lamp with a light quality/intensity you find comfortable.

Strip your bed. Take pillows, blankets, sheets, and pillow cases off. 

Washing sheets and pillow cases is mandatory because 1) it’s sooo so nice to go to bed at the end of the day and smell clean sheets, and 2) clean sheets are good for your skin, especially clean pillowcases if you have problems with acne.

Washing blankets, comforters, and duvet covers are optional. You should do it from time to time, but it’s not a priority like sheets and pillow cases. Some comforters and blankets can only be washed under specific conditions, or possibly only when absolutely necessary (because like, you stilled coffee or soda on it or your pet did something rude on your blankets.) Check wash requirements on the tags.

You can still probably ignore it unless you really want to. Again, this is about making a sizable change that positively affects you, not being perfect.

Put your sheets in the washing machine and put the rest of your bedding back on your bed and leave it there until you’re ready to put the sheet back on.

Next is laundry. Pick up every item of clothing off the floor or on nearby furniture. Every item. Even if you think, “I only wore this for a few hours the other day and there are no stains.” Wash them. 1) they smell like your floor, and that’s not a nice smell, and 2) trying to separate cleanish from definitely dirty is pretty demanding on mental focus spoons.

Just shove all those clothes in a hamper. It’s quicker that way. You’re going to wash them after your sheets.

Next clean up all the trash on your floor. Take a trash bag but don’t put in a trash can. You’re going to be dragging it with you while you work from section to section.

Food trash must go. 

Packaging and plastic wrap must go. 

Old school work can stay if you’re still taking the class or especially proud of that project, but otherwise just toss it. Find a folder or drawer for what’s left and store it away for now.

Start throwing trash on surfaces like desks, nightstands, dressers, and bookcases away.

Do not try to organize the inside of your drawers unless you’re planning to get really thorough. But that’s not today. Today you’re getting the basics done as efficiently as possible so you can feel better in your environment.

Take glasses, plates, mugs, and silverware into the kitchen.

Start working on cleaning up clutter on your desk and nightstand first. Next is dresser and bookcases. 

Use the micro-fiber clothes to pick up dust as you go. It keeps it from piling up, does not brush dust into the air, and goes quick this way. Dust tv and/or computer screens.

Pick non trash or clothing items off the floor. Try to find a permanent spot to either store or display it. If you can’t, maybe find a box to put those items in and revisit this problem later.

By now your sheets should be washed. Throw them in the dryer and wash your blankets if you’re ambitious. If not, wash your clothes next.

Take a break and have a snack, drink some water, maybe have a caffeinated drink.

Look at your room and feel proud, but also a little overwhelmed because it’s not done yet, but it’s getting there. Don’t worry. You can do it, I believe in you.

Procrastinate getting back to work. That’s okay. You have an hour before your sheets are clean, now is a good break time. Set an alarm for when your sheets should be dried and do whatever you want.

Alarm goes off, break over.

Dust the corners and tops of your walls to get rid of cobwebs. Having a taller or sighted person if this task is out of your ability (like it is for me on the eyesight front).

One last check for any dust around your bed. Move drinks away from your bed, nightstand and nearby surfaces.

Sigh, feel tired, and go grab your clean, warm sheets. Move your clothes or blankets from the washer to the dryer.

Come back, push all the blankets onto your (mostly?) cleaned up floor. Put the flat sheet on.

Feel tired and collapse on the covered mattress for a moment. You’re doing so good, and you’re almost there.

Make the rest of your bed.

Be very proud of yourself because you got a fucking lot done and I am sooo so fucking proud of you dude.

Optional things you can after this step:

Fold and put away laundry. This is a little concentration heavy. Make sure your friend/family member is nearby to help you stay on task. 

I highly recommend Marie Kondo’s folding method personally, saved me a lot of space in my dresser. Developing a set method for folding clothing makes it a lot easier to fold and put away in the future because your subconscious brain learns the motions and can practice them without you having to think too closely on it.

(She has several videos on YouTube, shorter than five minutes mostly, very visual with clear instructions, so it’s ADHD friendly, though not super blind friendly)

Now that your room looks a lot better, try putting those items that didn’t have a set place before. Your brain is probably seeing it like a whole new room and feeling refreshed.

That’s it, you’re definitely done now. Rest and relax. 

Turn on your favorite music, start doing your favorite task if you have the spoons, take a nap if you don’t have the spoons. Feel proud of yourself because you did a good fucking job.

It’s like... midnight now, and I’ve been up for two days, (because my ADHD brain was too loud last night to let me sleep. Mood? Mood.) I’m maybe a little too tired to edit this coherently, but you know writing these guides and posting them with minimal editing is so very on brand for my original posts.

Goodnight guys, I am off to bed!

I hope this helps <3 please leave me a comment in the replies or tags because I love going back to see what you guys left on my posts (believe that that I absolutely do this to my How to Write a Blind/Visually Impaired Character guide any time it gets fresh activity.)

Good luck, take care, and goodnight <3

#adhd #actuallyadhd #neuro-divergent #mental health #mental illness #mental health tips #adhd tips #guide #but not of the writing kind #but still important

[i-think-i-love-ya]

Oh My God, They Were Roommates - Part 3

Fuck Buddy Housemates - Masterlist

Jaebeom x Cis!Female Reader/OC

Words: 1406

Tags: Oral (Female receiving), Fingering, lil bit of nipple play, Sex while others are listening, unprotected sex, orgasm denial, cum swallowing.

A/N: IM SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG I WAS ✨UNMOTIVATED✨ but the next part will be posted tomorrow to make up for me being lazy

“I’m home!” You walked in with two drinks from Starbucks. 

“Hey.” You heard Jaebeom’s voice coming from the living room. 

When you walked in he was on the phone. 

“Oh yeah, I guess you never met my housemate. She’s cool. She supply’s me with caffeine all the time.” He said into the phone, taking the latte from you. 

He went silent for a second. 

“Uhh. I don’t know….” he said, looking at you.

“What?”

“He wants to meet you.” He said. 

“Okay… Put him on FaceTime.” You said moving to sit beside JB. 

So he hung up the phone call to switch to FaceTime. 

“His name in your phone is ‘skkrt skkrt’?” You laughed because that was absolutely ridiculous. 

JBs friend answered the phone call and you waved at him. 

“I’m BamBam. Nice to meet you.” He smiled into the camera. 

“My name is yn.”

“Dude you didn’t tell me she was hot.” Bam said, directed at Jaebeom. 

You turned to him. 

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell your friends I’m hot.” You said shaking your head. “That’s just unacceptable behaviour.”

“I should have never let the two of you meet, too much chaotic energy in my life at the same time. Anyways my phone is dying so you hold this while I go get a charger.” JB handed you his phone while he went upstairs to find his charger. 

“Hey uhh yn, you kinda look like you were attacked. Tell your boyfriend to cool it on the marks.” BamBam giggled  

You pulled up the collar on your shirt. 

“I don’t really have a boyfriend.” You said. 

“Girlfriend then?” Bam asked and you shook your head. 

You pointed upstairs and Bambams jaw dropped to the floor. 

“You two aren’t together are you?!” He whispered even though there was no way JB could hear him. 

“No… we have an arrangement.” You explained. 

“Is the arrangement that he rearranges you?!” Bam asked

You burst out into laughter because you couldn’t deny that’s exactly what JB was doing to you. 

“What’s so funny?” JB asked, charger in hand.

You shook your head 

“Nothing. Here.” You handed him back his phone and said bye to BamBam. 

“Dude… Nice.” BamBam said with a thumbs up when you left the room. 

JB looked at his phone confused. 

“She told me about your little ‘arrangement’. Her words.” Bam explained 

“Oh… haha yeah.”

—

You heard a knock on your door and Jaebeoms head poke through. 

“Can I hang?”

You waved him in and pulled the other chair up to your computer desk. 

“Whatcha doing?” He asked

“Playing Among Us with friends.”

“Camera on?”

“Nope.”

”Mic?”

“Only during discussions so we don’t have to type.” You explained. 

JB made a humming noise and leaned back in the chair to watch as you killed someone in the med bay and vented away before anyone could see you. 

“So you uh told BamBam about our situation.” He said after a while. 

“Yeah… should I not have? Sorry I probably should have asked first.” You said. 

“No it’s alright I have no problem with people knowing. I wasn’t telling people cause I wasn’t sure if you wanted to.” He explained. 

“What did he say?” You asked laughing

JB imitated BamBams face after you had left the room and put his thumb up. 

“He’s seriously reconsidering living alone.” He said laughing. 

You laughed into the mic that you had just turned on for discussion time and all your friends asked what was so funny. 

“Oh JB is here beside me, say hi.”

JB leaned into the mic and said hi to all your friends, then covered the mic and gave you a small kiss. 

You were about to tell everyone you had to leave but he stopped you and told you to keep playing. 

After voting someone off you turned your mic back off. 

“So… you told your friends about us?” JB rolled his chair closer to you and started kissing your neck.

You nodded, moving your head to the side to give him more access.

His hands slid up your shirt to play with your nipples.

“Haha… I’ve seen you shirtless so many times yet I keep forgetting you have pierced nipples.” 

You shivered as JB’s thumbs slowly circled your nipples.

“I uhh… normally push your hands away. My nipples are very sensitive. Too sensitive.” You said

JB hummed. One of his hands left your chest to slide down your body. You were wearing a skirt so all he had to do is push your panties out of the way to expose you. 

“Damn baby… already so damn wet.” You moaned as his hands toyed with your breast and pussy simultaneously. 

You lifted one leg over the armrest of your chair to make it easier for him. JB slid two fingers inside right as soon as a meeting was called. 

You turned on your mic to hear the discussion until one of your friends asked why you weren’t saying anything. 

“I… have nothing to add. I was in the middle of doing a sca- ahhh.” JB angled his fingers hitting your g-spot. 

“I’m fine. Stubbed my toe.” You kept quiet and held in your moans until everyone decided to skip the vote. 

Turning off your mic you leaned back in the chair. You moved your character to security so it would look like you're busy. There was still another imposter so they could do the work. 

JB got down on the floor and made his way under your desk. He pulled off your panties and started eating you out. 

Another body was reported so you turned back on your mic but also sent a message into the chat that had all your friends screaming. 

JB could hear that under the desk and asked what happened. 

“Just let my friends know what you’re doing.”

JB hummed and kept licking. You were the last imposter since the other one was voted out and you had to win. 

Your orgasm was also getting very close and you just had to kill two more people so you sabotaged the oxygen and won that way. 

You screamed out as JB lightly ran his teeth along your clit and made you cum.

He hit his head on the desk coming back up and told you to stand up. JB sat down on your chair and pulled you down onto his cock. 

You started a new game of Among Us and you were a crew mate this time. 

“You aren’t gonna move” you asked. 

“Naw… you’ll get to cum again if you win this round.” He said lightly scratching at your thighs. 

During the first discussion Jaebeom heard someone ask what he was doing to you now so he leaned towards the mic. 

“She’s sitting on my cock. She won’t get to cum till the game is over.” He sat back and heard the chorus of screams and squeals through your headset. 

JB filling you up was so distracting that you couldn’t focus on your tasks so the crew mates ended up losing this round. 

You told your friend bye and logged out of your computer. JB pushed you onto the desk when you took off your headset. 

“W-wait… not here. You might hit my tech.” 

So without removing himself from inside you, he lifted you up and carried you to your bed. He put you on your hands and knees and began fucking you. 

You could barely hold yourself up as he was pulling you back into him with so much force. 

You started clenching around him more and more so he could tell you were about to cum. 

He pulled out and walked over to your head. 

“Open.”

You opened your mouth and he rested his cock on your tongue. He began pumping his cock until he came in your mouth. 

You sat back on your feet as he pulled his pants back up his thighs and started leaving your room. 

“You're just gonna leave me hanging.” You were pouting. 

He turned back around and walked up to you. 

“Yup. You lost the game which means you don’t get to finish.” He had a smug smirk on his lips. 

“And yn,” he grabbed your chin and turn your face towards him, “you don’t cum tonight at all… not even by your own hands.” JB left your room. 

When you heard the door close you threw your face into your pillows and groaned. 

#OMGTWR #got7 #got7 smut #jaebeom #im jaeboem #jaebeom smut #writing #mine

[takadasaiko]

Houseguest: Chapter Six

FFN II AO3

Summary: Early morning meetings and broken bones don't mix well.

Chapter Six: Painkillers and Espresso

The sound of loud clanking and an even louder curse drew Steve to the kitchen the next morning rather than heading into the gym like he'd planned on doing. He found Tony Stark, half dressed in what looked like would eventually be a three piece suit, the missing cuff links leaving the sleeves hanging open around his wrists, and hopping awkwardly on his uninjured foot. He swiped for a pill bottle on the counter and dry swallowed one before looking over towards Steve. "Yeah, laugh it up. I know I look funny."

"You should probably see a doctor about your foot if it's hurting that bad this morning."

"He'll just tell me to stay off of it, and I don't have time. It's fine. Not even swollen, just sore." Toast popped up from the toaster and Tony grabbed the slice, taking a bite out of it plain. "You still planning on sticking around?"

Tony changed subjects about as fast as he talked, and sometimes it took Steve just a beat longer to keep up, all the while trying to make sure he hadn't missed something. "As long as you're not kicking me out."

"I thought we covered that last night…. Anyway, I'm heading into the office this morning. If you're game for tagging along I thought we could drop by the site after I'm done."

"You're going in to work?" Steve asked, and he was relatively certain his expression matched his tone.

"Yeah."

"You know you look like you lost a round in a side alley, right?"

Tony reached up, fingers brushing lightly against the visible cuts and bruises on his face. "They know who I am. It's fine. I have an R&D meeting."

Steve opened his mouth to argue, but shut it again. Trying to convince him was pointless and had proven to do more harm than good. He sighed. "You're not going to listen to me if I tell you you'll regret pushing yourself, are you?"

Tony hobbled his way over to the coffee pot that had signaled it was done and poured himself a mug of it to take on the go. "Look at that. You can teach an old man."

"Funny."

"Yep. How quick can you be ready?"

"Give me ten minutes?" He received a wave in response as Tony turned his attention to limping around the kitchen and getting ready. Steve hesitated only half a moment until he was sure the other man wasn't going to land in a heap on the floor before starting back to his room to get ready.

                                               _____________________

For all the strain that his body must have been under, Tony hid it exceptionally well. Steve wasn't sure if he should be impressed or concerned, but whichever it was it didn't change that he looked much sturdier on his feet by the time they were walking into the monstrosity of an office building that was, apparently, Stark Industries' Los Angeles headquarters. The plan was simple: the meeting shouldn't take more than a couple of hours and Steve would use that time to access the footage that could be salvaged from the newly destroyed Stark facility's security cameras as well as the video that Tony's Iron Man suit had recorded during the battle. All of that would be made available on Tony's secure systems in his office that he still kept, even if rarely used.

They met a man that Tony introduced as Happy Hogan at the door who gave Tony a once over before looking like he knew fussing over him would a losing battle. Instead Hogan - Tony and Pepper's personal security, he explained, and yes, he knew how useless it was to be Tony's security these days - led Steve through the lobby, past a giant portrait of a much older Howard Stark than Steve had ever gotten to know, and up the stairs.

The office was bare, a few boxes in the corner and a desk against a wall. There was nothing about the room that indicated that it was ever used at all, except for a computer on the desk that Hogan had to access for him. "Jarvis is linked up, so he should be able to find anything for you that you need."

"Thanks."

Hogan turned to leave, pausing just a few steps away before turning. "You know, when Pepper told me that Tony had a buddy come into town, didn't even cross my mind it could be you. I mean, he hated… uh…"

"Hated me," Steve prompted, not really wanting the confirmation, but the level of awkward radiating from Hogan after sticking his foot in his mouth was painful.

"Not you, necessarily." He glanced towards the door as if making sure Tony hadn't popped up without warning. "His old man used to talk about you all the time, from what he said. Drove him nuts. I guess I just wouldn't have thought you two would click with all of that."

"Well, clicking may be a little overstated, but I, uh… I don't know. He's certainly proved to be more than he looks like at first glance."

"It takes a while to get to know Tony. I've worked for him for over fifteen years. He's a good man."

"I'm starting to see that," Steve acknowledged softly. "He reminds me of his dad."

"I wouldn't tell him that."

Steve barked a laugh, shaking his head. "Yeah, I caught onto that. I feel like we both knew two different Howards. If I hadn't seen the name on the plaque I never would have recognized the portrait of Howard down there. The man I knew was -"

"Younger?"

"Full of life. A little wild. A lot wild," he corrected with another laugh. "And obnoxious. He always knew he was the smartest man in the room and wanted to make sure everybody else knew too." A fond smile tugged at his lips with the memories. "But his heart was in the right place."

"Sounds a lot like Tony," Hogan said, and Steve couldn't help but feel like he'd passed a test of some kind. "Have Jarvis buzz me if you need anything. Well, anything not techy. I'm not great with that."

"You and me both," Steve muttered, half to himself as the other man left him alone. "Okay, Jarvis, let's get started."

                                              _____________________

He didn't typically choose to take pain medication. There wasn't much he could do if he was unconscious when a doctor decided to dose him, but if it was his call, he tended to avoid the fog that the meds soaked his brain in. With the way he'd been limping around that morning, though, he knew he couldn't avoid taking something. If he tried to hop around to avoid putting pressure on his injured foot he felt it through every cracked rib and in his injured wrist when he reached out to catch himself each time that he inevitably lost balance and went tumbling to the side. That was no way to conduct an R&D meeting, so he'd dug through his medicine cabinet until he found a pill bottle that wasn't years out of date and had swallowed a half dose to take the edge off and get him through the day. It worked, and might have even worked as intended if he'd had more than half a piece of toast and a thermos of coffee for breakfast that morning.

Tony felt his head start to swim during the first presentation. Several of his lead engineers were pitching their project ideas to him so he could decide which ones he wanted to sign off on and which ones were dead before they left the gate. He sent an intern for a cup of black coffee by the second, thought he caught most of the third, but it was the fourth that he really started to fade on.

"Mr Stark?"

He blinked hard. Had his eyes been closed? Shit. They had, and they weren't focusing very well now. He blinked rapidly to clear them and the young engineer that was giving his presentation looked part nervous and part irritated. Tony wasn't quite sure which one was going to win out as he straightened in his chair and cleared his throat. "Huh? Right…. Sorry." He'd heard something. He knew he had. Something about a hologram, connecting to the brain…. No. Yes. The hippocampus. Memories. He leaned forward and massaged the bridge of his nose. "So you're wanting to tap into memories…"

"And project them, yes. The applications are limitless. With just the right touch, you could create an entire visible world just from someone's memories, project it, and -"

"Interesting. What was your name again?"

The man - likely the head of his team - looked like Tony had taken a physical swing at him for half a second before regaining his composure. "Beck. Quinton Beck."

"I like it, Beck. Put together your cost projections and -"

"I've got those," Beck cut him off.

"Fantastic. Get them to my secretary and we'll get started." He checked his watch. "Great session, guys. I have another meeting to get to. Anything we didn't cover just… I don't know, leave it on my desk or something." He needed more coffee. Maybe a few shots of espresso. In an energy drink. That sounded like a plan.

Thankfully no one fought him too hard on slipping out early. Tony made a beeline for the coffee cart that he'd had opened in the cafeteria years before, feeling every step from his battered foot up through his still-throbbing head. He ordered a large of the most caffeinated drink that they could make before slowly limping his way up to his office.

He found Steve Rogers with his gaze fixed on the computer screen. The blond looked up as he shuffled across the room, looking him up and down. "You okay?"

"I'll live," Tony answered. "Whatcha got?"

"JARVIS is running a few searches for me, but uh… I'm curious. What's this?"

He turned the screen around and Tony saw something that had absolutely nothing to do with the case they were working on. "Those are the plans for the rebuild of Stark Tower," he said slowly, uncertain how Steve had even managed to stumble into those plans. The man was far from tech savvy, which meant JARVIS had likely steered him in that direction while he waited on something else. He really needed to have a candid talk with his AI system about boundaries.

"These rooms have our names on them," Rogers prompted and Tony delayed the expected response by taking a long drink from his coffee cup. It wasn't like he could drain the whole thing, though. Eventually Cap would expect an answer.

Tony cleared his throat. "That's, uh… What I talked to you guys about. The remodel crew needed an answer so I told them just to go with it. I thought someone would, you know, say something about it. Guess they'll just be neat rooms now. It's fine. No harm."

Blond brows drew together. "What do you mean talked to us about?"

"At lunch after the whole… space invasion… thing. Or dinner. Whatever. Shawarma."

Cap stared at him for a long moment, his gaze becoming more and more confused. "Tony…. I have zero memory of you talking about, well, anything while we were eating."

"I went on for like, ten or fifteen minutes about it!"

"Nothing. Sorry."

"Seriously?"

"We were all exhausted, Tony. A few of us concussed."

"I guess that's fair…" He ran his hand through his dark hair, thinking back on the day. Yeah. He had a few gaping holes in his memory too. If anyone else had said anything while they were eating, he had no idea.

"So you designed… whole living spaces for us in the tower without even knowing if anybody would take you up on it?"

Tony ducked his head. "Yeah, it was stupid. The contractors needed an answer…."

"That's amazing, Tony."

"Huh?"

"You redesigned the entire tower for… us. Even if there isn't an us right now."

"Thought there might be again. Someday. I don't know, it was a dumb idea."

Cap snorted and Tony was having to fight the urge to find any excuse to run out the door. "It's a compliment. I don't know anybody else that would do that."

"We made a good team."

"We did." He could feel Cap's gaze on him and he finally met it. "We still do. It's a good idea."

Tony cleared his throat hard. "What'd you find about my thieves? Anything?"

"Not a lot that it looked like you didn't already have, according to JARVIS." Tony tilted his head in question. "Just some information about our Ms Mira. Should we forward that over to the police -?"

"Nah. They've likely got it all by now. JARVIS didn't find anything in any databases that they couldn't get their hands on."

"Exactly what kind of databases does JARVIS search?" Steve asked, his tone not quite accusatory, but Tony flashed him a charming grin nonetheless, turning for the door.

"All the useful ones. C'mon. I need another espresso and then we can head out. Apparently painkillers make you sleepy. Who knew?"

He paused when he didn't hear Cap follow immediately and found the blond man still seated as his desk, that icy blue gaze fixed on him. "We should at least touch base with the police. Aren't you already stepping on their toes? Captain Ito-"

Tony squared his shoulders a little, doing his best to suppress the grimace that threatened at the movement. "I gave Captain Ito his arrest that he wanted. The rest of it - the weapons that might come out of it - that's my business."

"Tony..."

"Not everything's an alien-invasion level threat, Cap, but if people could get hurt because of a breach in the company's… in my security set up, that's where Iron Man steps in. That's why I built the suit. If you're not comfortable with that, fine. It's my fight. I can get you a ride back to the house."

There was a long moment of silence and just as Tony was ready to call Happy to have him take Steve back to Malibu, the other man heaved a sigh and stood. "I'm not going to leave you without backup."

"I do just fine on my own every other day, Cap."

"But you don't have to. Not today. I told you I'd help and I will."

It wasn't exactly a glowing endorsement of his methods, but there was something to be said about Steve having his back anyway. If Tony wasn't careful, it was something that he could get used to.

"Okay," he murmured softly, pushing hard at the thoughts before they threatened to spill over into visible emotion, and he turned back to the door. "Waiting on you now, Stars and Stripes."

                                              _____________________

TBC

Notes: Funny story, about the time I was trying to figure out what kind of injuries I could give Tony without incapacitating him I dropped something on my foot and broke some of the tiny bones there. Apparently I just needed to vent some of my pain out through Tony :P

Also, anyone notice the up-and-coming (though very prissy) engineer on Tony's team?

Next Time: Tony pushes Captain Ito too far and Ito pushes back.

#MCU fanfiction #Tony Stark #Steve Rogers #Iron Man #Captain America #Happy Hogan #and a brief appearance from #Quinton Beck

[creativityflowfics]

Told You So

I promised this six months ago, why am I like This

Read on Ao3

1.

Peter admits, he hasn't always been there for his team. Especially in the beginning, when he was new and selfish, and still struggling to fit in with the team's dynamic.

But he's learned a lot since then. He's thrown himself into the role of team leader and made it his personal mission to always be there for his friends, no matter what. And he pays attention. He depends on his spidey sense to watch out for him, while Peter himself focuses solely on his teammates.

Like Sam. Sam, who has stupidly stolen a brownie from MJ, who's too busy having a debate over some history question with Ava to notice.

Normally, Peter would let it go. He's just as guilty from taking food when MJ or Harry isn't watching, so, really, he wouldn't have said anything other than a raised eyebrow in Sam's direction.

But he knows that MJ's grandma uses her "secret ingredient" in all of her baking, and everyone knows her secret is several extra scoops of peanuts.

Peter doesn't realize what he's doing until he's already out of his seat and tackling Sam over the lunch table. The brownie goes flying one way as Peter and Sam fall to the floor, and the whole lunch table falls silent as the boy’s stumble over each other, trying to untangle themselves.

"Parker, what the hell?" Sam asks, finally getting fed up and pushing the taller boy off of him.

Peter's face goes red. "You... the brownie... Dude, you have a peanut allergy," he finally stutters out.

A look of realization dawns across Sam's face. "How did you-?"

"Are you two dorks going to get off the floor?" Ava asks, raising her eyebrow.

Peter's face darkens even more, and MJ openly laughs at them. As Sam sits back down, she leans over with a smirk. "Serves you right. Don't steal my brownies next time."

"Don't put peanuts in them next time," he counters. "Anyway, how did you know about my allergy, Parker?"

"Uh, you told me about it?" Peter reminds him. "Like, it was one of the first things you told me when we first met."

Sam looks at him skeptically, but ultimately decides to let it go. Lunch carries on like normal, except MJ slides her brownies to her other side, away from Sam.

2.

"What time are the boys coming over?" Aunt May asks as she pulls on oven mitts. "I want Sam to try out this new recipe I found."

Peter checks his phone, but there are no new messages from Sam, Luke, or Danny, so he shrugs. "Danny said they'd be over around six. But Sam likes to take his time, so I'm guessing around six thirty."

His aunt gives a playful shake of her head as she pulls a batch of cookies out of the oven. "That boy. You told them I was ordering pizza for you guys, right?"

"Yes, Aunt May," Peter sighs as he sneaks a cookie. It's still warm from the oven, the chocolate chips are melting on his tongue, and the peanut butter sticks to the roof of his mouth. It's heaven.

His aunt whacks him with a wooden spoon, and huffs. "Peter, at least pretend like you're trying to restrain yourself from eating all the food."

"It's one cookie," he defends. His phone dings in his hand, and he unlocks it to see a message from Sam, saying they've left the tricarrier.

Peter blinks. Sam. The cookies. Crap.

"Aunt May, you can't let Sam have these cookies."

"And why can't I?" she asks, propping a hand on her hip and looking at Peter expectantly.

"He's allergic," he says, "to peanuts. Wait, didn't he tell you?"

"He never said anything to me, even when he was living here. I guess that explains why he always offered to do the grocery shopping." May looks at the batch of cookies sadly before turning to get the flour, eggs, sugar, and chocolate chips. "Come on, Peter. I want this new batch in the oven before the boys get here."

Peter knows they don't have that much time, and that Luke, Danny, and Sam will be knocking on their door any minute, but he grabs a measuring cup and sets to work anyway.

3.

The team tries their best to have at least one study session a week. Usually, they hang out at Peter's house, lounging around on the sofa and spreading their books across the coffee table, but occasionally, on especially really tough weeks, they go out. They prefer the pizza parlor, but the group is also known to push tables together at the closest Starbucks and get hyped up on caffeine while trying to memorize every detail of whatever they learned in chemistry.

While Ava glares over the top of her science book, Sam and Peter take turns throwing wadded up napkins at each other.

"Shouldn't you be studying?" she asks.

"Uh, I don't know if you know this, Ava, but this is science." Peter makes a show of slamming his textbook closed. "I'm kind of a genius when it comes to this stuff."

"I just don't care," Sam shrugs. “Chemistry is boring.” Peter gasps, over dramatic, and he flips him off, before standing from his seat and grabbing his empty cup. “I’m going for refills. Anyone else want anything?”

Ava perks up and raises her hand. “I could go for a refill,” she says, and shakes her cup so the group can hear the tiniest bit of coffee sloshing around.

“What did you get?” Sam asks, swiping the cup from her hands. “My seasonal favorite is leaving soon, so I need to find a new drink.”

She looks annoyed at having her drink stolen but doesn’t move to take it back. “It’s hazelnut.”

Sam nods and lifts to cup to his lips, and Peter chokes on air for a second before ripping to cup away.

“Are you nuts?” he asks. (He absolutely does not laugh to himself for the unintended pun. He doesn’t.) “You have a peanut allergy, Sam.”

Sam only blinks at him. “Uh, yeah, Web Head, peanuts. Hazelnuts are fine,” he explains. “So are almonds and stuff.”

Ava and Luke smirk at him and Danny gives a soft laugh. “It is very kind of you to have your friend’s wellbeing in mind.”

“Yeah, Webs, it’s awful sweet of you,” Sam smirks.

Peter rolls his eyes and gives the cup back. “Yeah, yeah. It’s the last time, though.”

4.

“Have you noticed that Sam forgets he has a peanut allergy, like, all the time?” Peter asks Director Fury one day after training.

“Nova tends to forget a lot of things when it comes to his wellbeing,” he agrees. “The only reason SHIELD knows about his allergy is because we have access to his medical files.”

“He didn’t even tell SHIELD?” Peter gapes.

“He forgot.” The way he says it sounds like Fury is repeating something he doesn’t believe. “But we’ve made sure to take the proper precautions. He has an EpiPen on him at all times, and we have everything we need here in the med bay.”

Peter nodded in relief. “How serious is it?” he asks. “Every time I ask, he brushes it aside.”

“Not as serious as you’re imagining,” Fury assures him. “But serious enough that we should still be prepared.”

Awesome, Peter thinks, and glances over at the teammate in question. “Is Sam trying to steal Luke’s Snickers bar?”

Beside him, the director of SHIELD gives a long, tired sigh.

5.

Like the time with the brownies, Peter doesn’t think before he acts. At least this time, he doesn’t have to tackle Sam over the table.

A grateful shopkeeper keeps insisting that she has to repay them somehow, and despite Spider-Man insisting that no, she doesn’t, she slips a bag of candy into everyone's hands, and shoos them out the door before they can say a “thank you.”

“It’s nice to not get yelled at for destroying a place for a change,” Sam jokes, swinging his bag of candy as he floats up to the nearest rooftop.

Peter has to agree as he follows him. Of course, they don’t expect or even want the New York citizens to start going crazy over them, but the occasional thank you was always nice. Peter pops one of the candies into his mouth, and bites down on a chocolate covered peanut.

He doesn’t think. Sam hasn’t eaten the candy yet, but he’s reaching into the bag, so Peter quickly smacks it out of his hand.

“Hey!” Sam protests, glaring at the fallen bag, and then at Peter. “What was that for?”

“Uh… peanuts?” he manages and rubs his neck nervously. “I mean, they’re chocolate covered peanuts. And you never pay attention, so… yeah.”

Sam rolls his eyes. “Okay, listen, Webs. It’s nice that you care and pay attention or whatever, but this is ridiculous, okay?” he says. “I’ve gotten along just fine without you for years, I think I can manage my own allergy. I certainly don’t need you jumping over tables and knocking candy out of my hand.”

Peter is tempted to point out the several times he’s had to keeps peanuts away from Sam (he didn’t even tell Aunt May, she had no idea, how was that even possible?), but figures it’s probably best that he doesn’t. Besides, even he can admit when he’s crossed a line, and he has been a little overbearing recently.

He sighs. “You’re right, I’m sorry. I’ll back off.”

Sam gives a small smile. “That’s all I’m asking.”

+1

The Guardians of the Galaxy have taken to visiting Earth a lot more frequently in recent months, whether it just be a social call, or a legitimate, Earth threatening event. During their visits, Sam would disappear for hours at a time, and when he returned, he’d be bouncing on the balls of his feet and laughing his way through whatever antics Rocket had gotten him into.

This time, when he comes back, the Guardians are a panicking mess with Sam being carried in Gamora’s arms.

“What happened?” Peter asks, following the Guardians to the med bay.

“How should I know?” Rocket rants. “You stupid humans are too fragile, all he did was eat some ice cream!”

It’s then that Peter can finally catch a glance of Sam. His face is red and splotchy, and it looks like he’s having a little trouble breathing. He knows immediately what’s wrong, and motions for the Guardians to follow him to the med bay.

“What’s happening to him?” Gamora asks, laying Sam down on the nearest cot.

“’m fine,” Sam says, trying to push himself up.

“Peanut allergy,” Peter answers as a doctor steps over to assist. “What were you saying about being able to manage your own allergy?”

Sam glares and gives him the finger.

“You have a peanut allergy?” Star Lord nearly shrieks. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“You didn’t know?” Peter asks, surprised.

“There aren’t exactly peanuts in space, Spider-Boy.” Star Lord quirks an eyebrow, and Peter kind of wants to correct him, but lets it go.

Peter and the Guardians are quickly ushered out of the room when it’s clear they aren’t planning on helping, so they’re left to wait outside.

“What is a peanut allergy?” Drax eventually asks.

“It just means he can’t eat peanuts,” Peter explains. “His body just reacts to it differently than other people.”

Rocket grumbles about weak humans, and Peter and Star Lord both shoot him offended glares.

By the time the SHEILD doctors allow them back inside, the Guardians are scrambling through the door. Peter allows them to go first and patiently waits in the hallway until he can talk to Sam alone.

As soon he steps into the room, Sam looks like he’s stuck between avoiding his gaze and glaring at him.

“Don’t say it,” he says. “Don’t you dare say it, Parker.”

“Say what?” he asks, feigning innocence.

“I can see it in your eyes,” Sam continues. “If you say ‘I told you so,’ I swear I’ll tell the doctor you hit me, and then you won’t be allowed back in here.”

Peter laughs and sits down on the end of the bed. “I would never,” he says, but has to bite his tongue. “But does this mean I can start tackling you over tables again to stop from being stupid?”

“No,” Sam huffs, and kicks at him. “But I guess it wouldn’t hurt if you, I dunno, helped keep an eye out or whatever.”

“Deal,” he nods and gets up off the bed, heading towards the door. “You should get some rest, Sam.”

“It’s not that big of a deal,” he gripes.

Peter rolls his eyes and stops before leaving the room. “Oh, and Sam? I told you so.”

He ducks out the door before the pillow can hit him.

#usm #peter parker #sam alexander #platonic spideynova #spideynova #my fic

[babblingbat]

Various Characters I meant to post Months ago

Various Characters of mine

I have so many I want to write (some) of them down! This is a suuuuuper long post so more under the cut! Includes a spy, a crime lord/activist, and a bargaining warlock (I have to reblog this later bc tumblr threw a hissy fit about the length)

X

- Kinda in a Bond-esque spy agency, but more of a contractor

- When everything goes to shit, you can count on them to fix it

- Nonbinary protege of whoever is in charge of the tech division (Mezza? Sloane? Dixon? idk, but they have a hell of a shady past and there’s like… noooothing that can keep Sloane out of computer systems)

- X isn’t formally recognized by APO (authorized personnel only, the spy agency) but they do have access to all information because of a backdoor Sloane made

- So I guess the name is Sloane

- Anyways, X goes on the black ops of black ops, typically with either mercenaries or no back-up at all

- Thus trust issues and like the opposite of dependency - they have so much trouble asking for things but are willing to help anyone or offer material assistance - if they have it

- X is nonbinary and really doesn’t have any preferences on pronouns, as long as they aren’t he/him or she/her

- They’re also autistic and shut down if there’s too much loud noise or if they’re just too tired for some reason - sometimes this means going nonverbal or just Not Functioning and their favorite way to feel better is to sit on the ground, wrap themselves in a blanket and listen to music - so in conclusion they don’t really use guns unless there’s a silencer, and they aren’t v good with them

- A huge part of their espionage function is language!

- They speak German, Spanish, Japanese, FSL, and ASL all idiomatically

- They also speak Russian, French, and Afrikaans, but not fluently

- They can swear and count to ten in Korean and Czech

- They’re pursuing a PhD in computational linguistics, though APO gets in the way

- They’re 24, and have a bizarre set of skills because both of their job, previous jobs and jobs they hold as a cover to pretend they pay their taxes, and special interests

- Sloane is only 7 years older than them, and recruited X out of high school

- At first it was small things, like ‘pick up this book from Elm Street and drop it at Main’ but it got bigger after they graduated

- When X turned 18, they went through formal training - protocol, combat, and analysis

- They’d done some martial arts before hand, but not much punching, mostly kicking, throws, and staffs (5 and 6 feet)

- X’s main job is to clean up messy situations, usually by stealing things or extractions, and their own ops are less combat oriented than the clean ones

- X is not the best at math, not by a long shot, but they can see patterns from a mile away

- “I am the fact guardian, guardian of the facts!” “Puzzles quiver before them!” “FUCK OFF”

- They do simple division when bored and solve a lot of math things by finding patterns and using them

- X is both their designation in the agency (as in ‘x factor’) and their actual name- they use an alias for college

- They live with a few people, most of whom complain at their erratic sleep schedule and ask that please, for the love of god, X gets sleep meds and just a solid 8 hours, for once

- Sloane eventually sends X on an op to extract Mel, Sloane’s girlfriend and top operative

- X doesn’t know what to tell Mel, so mostly they just tell them that things will be answered later

- Mel asks Sloane, who reluctantly explains X’s role, and this sets some things into motion of X eventually being brought into the spotlight

- They have several hearings about their activities

- Eventually, Seville (who runs things? I guess) tells them to carry on as they do, reporting directly to Sloane, but they are recognized now by the APO

- There are three other things I want to fit in:

- Goes missing for [period of time], leaving a very close friend behind, comes back after being presumed dead and no memories, apparently solved a conspiracy and now has many illegal friends who all enjoy thievery

- Magic is a thing (because it wouldn’t be my words if it wasn’t lmao) and common enough that people know it exists but rare enough that it’s kinda intimidating and sometimes people will freak out about it, despite plenty of people having it.

X has/develops magic at some point but is terrified to tell anyone and tries to hide it from their team (which is now their family, love that trope) because they don’t want to be barred from the APO, but it comes out accidentally during a mission

- X’s infodumping saves the day somehow

The Celestian

- K so this is more about an organization, but the Celestian lives in a like a 1920s fantasy setting and likes dancing

- They run a social activism group masquerading as a crime network that uses queer bars and stuff as fronts

- To get money, they dance competitively with their bodyguard and d8m8, the BFF (butch femme fatale) who identifies as a nb lesbian

- To get into any of the places where actual political dismantling and activism happens, who have to have very specific patterns on your nails - nail painting is a method of communication and is also a huge teambuilding exercise

- There are different codes for everything

- When cops try and get in (they can only find the places if they have a member of the Queer Folk), the code is “blue denim” and then the person caught tells the police they need nail polish and then laugh as they get caught, as if they were bullshitting the whole thing

- Other things are called “10:50 am” which looks like a sleepy eye

- Or “songbird rhapsody” which is also a popular song that the Celestian sings at clubs

- Or “money” which is just a green splotch on all the nails

- If you’re a member of the Queer Folk, you get a crate monthly of money and nail polish, and special things on birthdays and holidays

- The Queer Folk do everything from organize protests to take kids in and try to pay for their education through crime - as in robbery from different places

- Their crimes always have a certain flair to them - they value creativity and snazziness

- The Celestian is like 5’ 3” (which, to be fair, is 3 inches taller than I am) and the BFF picks them up a lot

- They don’t like alcohol or caffeine but drink herbal tea 24/7

- If they don’t, something is very, very wrong

- They have a prosthetic leg

Red

- Literally in high school

- A warlock! They traded their gender and all “gender identifying features” to a trans demon for magic powers

- The demon mostly asks them to get coffee and stuff because the demon isn’t very good at bargaining and just wanted Red’s gender, but it’s expected of a patron to keep using the warlock for things

- (on the demon phone) “hey so this is super duper important and if you could get it in the next half hour that’s the best thing”

“what is it”

“alright so go to the corner of Lincoln and Greenleaf, turn three times to your right, once to your left, and a door should open behind you. Don’t try to turn towards it, just fall backwards”

“if I fall onto poison ivy or concrete I’m breaking my fucking contract”

“No, no no no, you’ll appear in that good good heaven spot”

“… the coffee shop?”

- Red focuses on science in their school

- Every interaction is a deal. E V E R Y I N T E R A C T I O N

- Breakfast? “I’ll give you the salt if you hand over the pancakes”

- Entering a building? “Hold the door open and I’ll give you praise”

- School? “You want me to tell you what I do in my spare time? Give me an A on my midterm and I’ll tell you”

- The last one has left a lot of teachers confused and more than a little scared of the silly little nerd in their class

- Honestly, they have straight A’s because they make deal after deal about grades. They never cheat on tests, but they make deals, hold people to them, and know what they’re doing

- Red’s demon is getting a little worried with all the deals

- Red is most accustomed to deals rather than anything else because they think that unequal exchange (i.e., gifts) is really suspect

- That said, Red has no problems altering “equal” exchange to benefit them

- If they ever became a business owner, they would be terrifying

- They want everything to turn out the best it can for every one but… are not fans of laws

- They have many Opinions on law, its enforcement, and the government

- That cousin that will tell you constantly about how the government is corrupt and should be rebooted with the youngest people as the primary interest

- Anarchy? Not quite, but revolution? Most definitely

- No angst, just high school silliness and chaos

- Has no idea what’s going on 90% of the time - a kid on a sportsball team did something amazing, people started treating him like shit for adults liking him, and Red had no idea until like 3 months later

- Red just kinda lives in their head

- Did they hear what you just said? Nah, but they sure did hear that wristwatch every time it clicked on the second.

- Likes the sound of adventure, but mostly gets lost in Ikea and makes deals with the eldritch monsters in the mattress section

- SUCH A SHITTY SENSE OF DIRECTION, COULD GET LOST IN A GRID WITH MAPS AT EVERY INTERSECTION

- Charismatic, but mostly in the sense of lying their ass off and persuading people

- Once tried to go a day without making a deal (on a dare), ended by making a deal to not have to ever do that again

- Businesses both hate and love them - they pay for nothing but will bargain away odd things of equivalent value every time and catch shoplifters, dislikes shoplifters because it’s not a fair trade

- Bizarrely good luck with finding things in pockets, particularly to “pay” for things

#my ocs #red (oc) #X (oc) #the celestian #crime #warlock #dnd #d&d #dungeons and dragons #there was another dude that was supposed to be in this collection sort of thing but tumblr screamed at me when I tried to add them so ¯\_(ツ) #my writing #how am i supposed to tag again #please ask me about these kiddos #thanks

[gethealthy18-blog]

305: A Day in the Life: Wellness Mama Health Routines

New Post has been published on https://healingawerness.com/news/305-a-day-in-the-life-wellness-mama-health-routines/

305: A Day in the Life: Wellness Mama Health Routines

Child: Welcome to my Mommy’s podcast.

This episode is sponsored by Fabletics, my go-to source for all types of athletic wear. Fabletics creates clothing that’s made to inspire physical activity in any type of setting. Moreover, Fabletics always aims to create fashionable, on-trend workout clothing at an exceptional price point. Their mantra is ‘Live Your Passion- every day.’ And Fabletics is your ‘one stop shop’ for affordable athletic wear. They have yoga, running, gym gear, sports bras, shoes, accessories and more. In fact, I am wearing leggings and a jacket from them right now as I record this. Here’s how it works… After taking a super quick, 60 second style quiz, you’ll receive a personalized showroom of pieces specifically catered towards your own unique style. This takes the guesswork out of what styles are best suitable for you and with just a few clicks, Fabletics is doing all the homework for you. Right now, you also get 2 leggings for only $24 ($99 value) as a VIP by going to fabletics.com/wellnessmama. I personally love (and am currently wearing) the high waisted powerhold leggings and they have some really cute new patterns with cut outs and designs that I am loving. That price is less than half of just a sports bra and some other brands, and just as good of quality. Also, here is a pro tip – make sure you enter your email address at the end of the quiz, as you’ll receive exclusive monthly discounts and the inside scoop about new collections that haven’t been released yet. You will always get free shipping on all orders $49 or more! There is international shipping available. Best part is that there is NO commitment to purchase monthly. All designs are done in-house so you can’t find these pieces anywhere else and you’re going to get a much cheaper price that most stores and a 45-day workout guarantee – Sweat it out for 45 days and if it doesn’t perform, return it for a full refund! Again, check it all out and grab your leggings at fabletics.com/wellnessmama

This podcast is brought to you by Gaia herbs and their black elderberry syrup! I’ve been a big fan of Elderberry syrup for years and theirs is the best premade one I’ve found unless you want to make your own. You can experience for yourself why it is America’s Favorite Organic Black Elderberry Syrup! It is the #1 best-selling organic Black Elderberry syrup in the U.S. This time of year, it is a medicine cabinet staple and immune season essential. Elderberry will help your family stay feeling well with the delicious immune elixir loved by adults and children alike. It is Certified organic – this powerful syrup concentrates the juice from 14.5 grams of elderberries in a single teaspoon, so it’s highly potent. It is made with just four clean whole-food ingredients and is vegan, dairy-free, gluten-free and soy-free, making it safe for most people. Black Elderberry Syrup is safe for the whole family and is formulated for adults and children age 1 and older. You can save big on Gaia Herbs by going to gaiaherbs.com/wellnessmama and use code WELLNESSMAMA at checkout for 20% off your first purchase.

Welcome to the “Wellness Mama” podcast. I am Katie from wellnessmama.com. And today it’s just me and I’m answering a common question that I’ve gotten online, which is of all the health stuff that I’ve tried over the years, which things do I still do regularly? And it’s a great question. Because with over 1,300 posts on wellnessmama.com, I have tried a lot of stuff over the years, and my views on some of it have really changed. In the last two years, specifically, I have been ruthlessly simplifying my life. And I feel like I have finally found a rhythm of things that are the most effective for me. Now, one thing to note before I jump in is that health is so personalized, and there’s so many aspects of it that are individual. So I’m sharing what’s working for me, these won’t necessarily be the same things for all of us. But after 13 years of trying things, and writing about them, and tweaking, these are the things that are finally very much regularly part of my routine.

I do a lot of other things as well, but these are the ones that are my non-negotiable things I consider most effective. And, of course, also, before we jump in, I just wanna say I always recommend doing your own research and working with a doctor, especially if you have any specific health condition or concern. I personally use SteadyMD and their functional medicine doctors, and I have access to them 24/7 via my phone and app, and I highly recommend that. But I definitely recommend working with a doctor who understands your goals if you have any specific condition whatsoever. Also, before we jump in, I have a small favor to ask. If you have two minutes, I would be so grateful if you would just spend time in whatever app that you listen to podcasts in, whether it be iTunes or Spotify, to leave a rating or review. Please leave me your honest feedback. It helps other people to find this podcast and it helps me to improve hopefully over time. And I always love hearing from all of you and I read every single rating and review. So please and thank you in advance if you do.

So as far as my philosophy on health at this point, I have narrowed it down, like I said, and it’s about simplifying. And for me, it’s about finding the minimum effective dose and doing those things regularly with a goal of metabolic flexibility. And basically taking this minimum effective dose or MED approach to health and wellness, it helps avoid giving up simply because we don’t have enough time or because of being overwhelmed, which has definitely happened to me in the past. So I have some example of that, the statistics say that nutrition accounts for about 80% of a person’s physique and that in most cases 20% of effort creates 80% of results in fitness. Mark Sisson has talked about this on “Mark’s Daily Apple,” Tim Ferriss has talked about this in his podcast and on his blog, he’s also known as the Pareto principle, which I hope I’m saying correctly, I’ve only seen it written. But like, for instance, Tim Ferriss explains, there are two important minimum effective doses or MEDs when it comes to health and fitness. So for instance, to remove stored fat, you want to do the least amount necessary to trigger a fat loss cascade of hormones, and to add muscle, you would wanna do the least amount of things necessary to trigger local and systemic growth mechanisms. So depends on what the goal is. So figuring out the goal and then working backwards to figure out that 80/20, minimum effective dose approach.

To put another way, as an example, water boils at 212 degrees Fahrenheit, that is the MED needed to boil water. Raising the temperature more is not going to make the water more boiled. So it’s simply a waste of energy. Boiling water at 220 degrees is not going to make it any more boiled than 212 degrees. So, again, this is a very individual thing, but that’s been kind of the foundation of this process in my own health over the last couple of years, is figuring out what are for me, those goals and then what are the 80/20 minimum effective dose things, the tangible things that get me to those goals without getting stressed or overwhelmed. And that’ll be another podcast in and of itself is about overwhelm, and mom stress, and mom guilt. But in this one, I’m just focusing on the health stuff.

So in other words, my goal is I wanna be able to eat a wide variety of different things and my body be able to handle it. I want to be able to do different types of activities and exercise, and my body be able to adapt to that. So, in general, I don’t do anything every single day, except for try to get great sleep. I think that’s a non-negotiable. Try to get outside every day and try to move every day even if it’s just walking or playing with my kids. Beyond that, I don’t drink caffeine every single day. I don’t even eat every single day, but there are a lot of things I do regularly that have really made a difference in my health. And just to get vulnerable for a minute, I’ll share much more of the whole story soon, but in the last six months, I have lost I think close to 50 pounds at this point, and the interesting part is it has not been largely because of diet or fitness tweaks at all. I have been doing many of these things I’m gonna talk about today for a decade. I had food dialed in, I had exercise dialed in, I had sleep dialed in, and the part that I ignored was the emotional side thinking that I could just power through it, and that I didn’t need to feel my emotions and I could just be strong. And I would deal with those later. And it turns out that was very much a key for me. And it’s a whole, probably podcast, probably a whole book on its own, about working through past traumas, and working through all those filters, and I will share a lot of that in its own podcast. But I wanted to just put that caveat here. So these things were all part of that process and that transformation for me, but I think it would be remiss if I didn’t say that I think the emotional and mental side is at least as big of a part at that as anything else.

So with that said, these are the physical health things that I do on the regular to be as healthy as possible and that work for me. Again, do your own research, do your own trial and error, work with your doctor, but maybe these will give you a starting point. So the first thing is, I have drastically simplified my diet over the last couple of years. There is so much information out there. I’ve tried pretty much all of it. I have tried pretty much all of the different systems, and diets, and programs, and protocols, and a lot of them have many, many good points. But I reached a point where I knew I was gonna have to simplify. And I’ve said before, that if you tried, you could find evidence for pretty much anything in the world, being both the best thing in the world for you and the worst thing in the world for you. And that goes for everything from broccoli, to beans, to any supplement. I could probably write a paper on either side, either of those. And the problem is if you’re in the research constantly, you get to a point where you’re almost afraid to eat anything because you know the potential downsides to everything. So I knew I had to simplify. I pretty much took the people I respect the most and try to figure out the common factors among their things, line that up with my gene report through Nutrition Genome, which I will link in the show notes, and then figure out what were gonna be the most nutrient dense foods that I actually love with the goal of nourishing the body versus depriving the body and that was a huge mental shift.

I think a lot of us especially if there’s ever a goal of weight loss, we start to get in this really unhealthy dynamic with food where it’s about punishment or avoiding certain foods or food being bad. And that was definitely not something I wanted to pass on to my children. So I wanted to shift my own focus toward having food be nourishing and good. And focusing on the nutrients versus the deprivation and then finding the ways that I could best nourish my body. And that was a huge paradigm shift. Instead of like, what am I allowed to eat? It was, what can I eat to give my body the best nutrition? So that said, I settled on truly my kind of own approach, and I think that’s the key for all of us. It’s our own thing. Where I feel the best and it wouldn’t qualify as Keto, it wouldn’t qualify as Paleo, it is my own variation, even though it shares some of the similarities for some of those things. I will say I don’t feel good at all on Keto, and this seems to be a thing some women feel, mainly the high fat aspect. That’s partially because of some of my own genes, but I have found I feel much better when I avoid saturated fats and so I don’t eat much saturated fat and would definitely not qualify macrowise as Keto. But I do eat a ton of green veggies, protein, healthy fats, and I would say probably I would qualify as low carb-ish most days.

But, again, I don’t do anything every day. So if you want some specifics in general, what my diet looks like is lots of vegetables. And the ones that I make sure to try to get often are things like leafy greens, pretty much any leafy greens, things like onions and garlic, I love leeks and fennel, and I’ll like pretty much chop those two up and just saute them and make that the base of a meal. Avocado, I eat regularly, often okra which I love by itself, etc. Lots of fermented veggies, like sauerkraut. I eat a wide variety of herbs and I’ll make lots of pesto’s with cilantro, or with parsley, or with mint. And then as far as proteins, I don’t actually eat protein every single day. Like I said, some days I don’t even eat at all, but I do try to get clean proteins often, especially because I’m working out quite a bit right now. And that’s things like really clean meats and seafood, lots of sardines. I eat a lot of sardines because they are inexpensive and they’re a great source of calcium and protein, and a lot of micronutrients. Mussels, which Dr. Gundry calls a nature’s multivitamin, and they’re delicious. Things like baruka nuts and macadamias for healthy fats, and then lots of olive oil, which, of course, is a staple in the Mediterranean diet. Dr. Gundry thinks it’s one of the best things we can do for our health is to get enough olive oil and monounsaturated fats, and I’ve noticed I do feel better, my skin is much better when I do that.

As far as drinks, lots of water and then coffee, tea, herbal teas, and mushroom drinks. So anything from Four Sigmatic is a regular part of my life. I use their mushroom coffee regularly. I drink their reishi at night for better sleep, and then I’ll mix in their other stuff during the day as needed. And I find like just having that source of something warm to drink especially in the winter is really comforting as a great way to get in extra nutrients. Another thing I do is I’ll sometimes eat beans now which is a big change for me because I used to avoid them because of the lectins. And one thing Dr. Gundry said in my podcast with him is that if beans are pressure cooked in, for instance, an Instapot that that neutralizes the lectins. It does not neutralize gluten, but it does neutralize lectins in which case beans are a source of protein and carbs. So I will sometimes eat beans or lentils if they are pressure cooked. He also gave the tip that the brand Eden uses BPA-free lining and they use pressure cooking in their preparation and I believe they also sprout their beans. So if you need a convenience food that is relatively safe, that would be an example there.

Another thing is I make sprouts at home which those are really easy, inexpensive way to grow veggies in your own kitchen and they have a lot of potential payoff. So nutrient-wise, to me, this is very much an 80/20 thing. It’s an easy, like I said, easy inexpensive thing to add into a routine, and broccoli sprouts, specifically, I wanna talk about them and geek out for a second. They are especially beneficial because they are a source of sulforaphane, which is a potent cancer fighting and antibacterial compound that’s found in cruciferous vegetables and sprouts. If you haven’t, go listen to pretty much everything by Rhonda Patrick, but she has just several videos about sulforaphane and why it’s so beneficial. But to summarize, sulforaphane is created, we’re gonna get really geeky for one second, then I’ll get back to normal I promise. Sulforaphane is created when there’s an enzyme called myrosinase that transforms the glucosinolate glucoraphanin into sulforaphane. And myrosinase and glucoraphanin are found in different parts of the plant. So this change happens when the plant is damaged, for instance, by chewing, by blending, chopping, etc. And so these two compounds mix and react. Like young brocoli sprouts in a certain age window are particularly good sources of glucoraphanin. More specifically, sulforaphane is part of a group of plant-based disease fighting phytochemicals called, I hope I don’t butcher this, isothiocynates. And in the body, sulforaphane stimulates the production of an important enzymes that neutralize free radicals, you probably heard that word, because inflammation and free radicals get the blame for many types of cancer, so it’s a big deal. In fact, the first time anyone suggested to me eating broccoli sprouts, it was Dr. Christiansen who was my original thyroid doctor years and years ago, probably seven years ago now, as an easy way to help protect because I had at that point, nodules on my thyroid, and to protect them from growing or potentially becoming cancerous. So broccoli sprouts are an easy thing to add in to your diet because the isothiocyanate seems to block certain cancer-activating enzymes in the body. It’s kind of like a double protection. And that’s why sulforaphane, there are studies that show that it might help protect against various types of cancer specifically, I’m remembering the studies things like colon, prostate, breast, lung, and I think some other types of cancer. It may reduce the risk of neurodegenerative disease, ocular disease, heart problems, anything that has a tie to free radicals and inflammation, which is a lot of stuff and also support the brain and digestive system. So I grow broccoli sprouts regularly in our kitchen and I add them to salads. But an easy tip I have found is because the chemical reaction happens when you blend or when those two compounds mix, I will put broccoli sprouts in the blender and gently blend them into smoothie. And then just drink a cup of broccoli sprouts which is an easy way to get it in with less chewing since I also eat a lot of salad, I get tired of doing vegetables.

Another easy tip, no matter what type of diet you are on, that I would recommend is to pre-plan your meal plan and then stick to it. And for a family this can be, you know, pre-planning for weeks at a time in something like Real Plans, which I highly recommend, it’s an app, or even if it’s just jotting down the day before what you’re going to eat the next day, and looking at it as a big picture of how you’re going to get all those nutrients in versus trying to figure it out on the fly. And I found just the act of writing it down and knowing the plan ahead of time makes it way easier to stick to it for one, and it’s just one less thing to think about in the moment during the day. And if I have time, I’ll also sometimes pre-make the food for the family or for myself so that it’s there. But just you writing it down even just jotting it down in a post-it note and stick it on the fridge.

For me, also, getting enough protein was key. And I think this is a very individualized thing as well. Again, because of my own personal genes, I tend to have a higher protein need, I think, and I found I actually put on muscle relatively easily if I’m getting enough protein, but I had to play around with what that ratio was and how much and found that I do better when I eat bigger meal. I’ll talk more about this later in the podcast. But when I eat a bigger meal earlier in the day with more protein, I tend to sleep better and also have better energy levels. So, again, focusing on the good versus the bad in diet, just getting enough protein is one of the things I prioritize. It seems to make a big difference. Another simple not rule, but just guideline that I keep in mind most of the time, again, not every day, is to separate carbs and fat most of the time. And that’s just an easy rule that actually crosses a lot of different dietary approaches, and an easy one to remember. So if you don’t want a lot of rules, and you don’t wanna get caught up in the specifics, just try that one, not eating carbs and fat together. If you think about it. Those two things don’t occur naturally in anything in nature, in the same plant. It’s a very rare thing.

But also, if you just separate those two, you actually meet most of the guidelines of many different types of diets and approaches including, so Keto would just be eating no carbs, pretty much all the times. You’re always separating carbs and fat. Many bodybuilders follow this kind of approach, I think Bright Line might have some of that involved, Trim Healthy Mama, I think, has some of that involved. There’s a lot of approaches that use that in some form. But just doing that alone actually can make a really big difference, it did for me. And it’s an easy thing to remember that like, because think of it like most fried foods are carbs and fats together, most sweets are carbs and fats together. If you just do that, if you separate them, that’ll get you a lot of the way there. And another note just quickly, that’s one of my issues with Keto because I think there’s a lot of potential there, are definitely use cases for Keto, especially with things like seizures. We know there are studies on that.

The problem is for those of us who would just maybe use Keto recreationally or to try to lose weight, in theory, if you follow Keto completely and you’re 100% compliant, because you’ve separated carbs and fat, it can do that. The problem is most people are not 100% compliant, and if you’re eating a lot of fat and then you also eat a lot of sugar, at least from what I can tell from my blood results that will mess up…or even a little bit of sugar. So you’re eating a lot of fat, you eat some carbs, it can really mess with your triglyceride, your cholesterol, all kinds of levels. Mine did not look good when I was trying to be Keto, and I didn’t feel good. Again, it’s very personal, but that’s just one of my concerns with it. All that said, so, I know there was a lot of information. Sometimes I don’t follow any rules. And I will have a day or a meal of eating foods that I would not normally eat, including I do eat gluten once in a while. And this is normally for social reasons or at special events. Or if there’s a food I wouldn’t normally be able to try, or it was cooked by someone I love. Even if I wouldn’t normally eat it, I will make an exception. So if I’m traveling if I’m in another country, if someone that I love has cooked home prepared meal, I won’t not eat it unless it’s an allergy. And I have found that I can even tolerate things like gluten just fine once in a while and that won’t derail me at all. I think, again, this is very individual and that has been a change for me.

But I feel like there’s a balance here. Because if we avoid everything entirely, then over time our body can get actually less able to handle it. So because my goal is to be adaptable and metabolically flexible, I want to be able to handle things sometimes. And I know that this has rollover effects into other aspects of health that I’m still learning how to navigate. For instance, previous podcast guest, Aaron Alexander has, I forget which one it is, like a Google Home, or Siri, or something in his home, and I was surprised by that. And his explanation was that, we can’t avoid EMFs, and WiFi, and Bluetooth entirely in today’s world. It’s definitely not possible and I would agree with that. And so his thought was we actually need to develop kind of a low level of tolerance to it. So that we’re not like living in a Faraday cage and then we get wrecked when we are in normal society where there’s WiFi or there’s Bluetooth, which I can definitely see his point and that makes sense.

I’m still trying to figure out how that integrates into other aspects of life. But I do seem to notice this in diet, that eating small amounts of things, not regularly and with good gut health, that’s another key I’ll talk about later, making sure my gut health was strong first, it seems to make me more adaptable, not less. I think there’s also a mental health benefit to not being so rigid, unless there’s of course an allergy or a health reason that we can ever, you know, have a day off. So, again, very personal, but that’s what is currently working for me.

And lastly, when it comes to diet, just as a quick note is that I’m currently not drinking any alcohol. I don’t think this will be a lifelong change for me by any means, but it’s a right now changed for me just…partially, I mentioned all the inner work that I’m trying to do. I didn’t want alcohol to be a filter, or an escape, or thing that numbed that. But also just as I go through all these like physical transformations, I felt like it was good to give my body a break from alcohol. So, again, nothing against alcohol. I’m not saying I don’t think people should drink alcohol, I’m just saying I’m taking a break from that.

Okay, so that was diet. Maybe it wasn’t quite as quick or simple as I expected. Another very much regular part of my health routine is sauna use. And this is something I’ve done for years and got even more into after visiting Finland last year. And this is something else, again, if you’re not already following Rhonda Patrick, I would highly recommend following Rhonda Patrick, and reading, and listening to all of her research on sauna use. She’s got the best most comprehensive overview of it I have ever seen or read. But to give you an idea of some of the reasons that I consider sauna to be such an important aspect of health and I know that it’s not something that everybody can do, it’s something that I prioritize and our family prioritized. And here’s why. So sauna use, it’s known as an exercise mimetic, which means it’s similar to exercise in that it raises heart rate, body temperature, and cardiac output. This is the reason it has so many of the same benefits as exercise. It does not, of course, replace exercise, but it can actually be a really good thing to use. So I prefer things like high intensity exercise, which I will talk about later on in podcast, which doesn’t have the same cardio benefits necessarily. And so I do that plus sauna. So statistics show that sauna use is good for cardiovascular health. It can reduce blood pressure, for instance, in studies, and raise heart rate variability, which is something I’m really interested in these days. And it’s one of the metrics I like to track because it’s not a negative metric. It’s a positive metric, and improving, and raising your heart rate variability is linked to reduce risk of all cause mortality and basically longevity. So it’s a cool thing to pay attention to, to see what we can do to affect. For me, sauna use is one of those things as is breathing, as is sleep. I’ll go into some more of those things later. And sauna is beneficial in other ways as well. Of course, it induces sweat, which exercise also does. And lots of good things happen when we sweat. A lot of people who have been on this podcast say that sweating is something we should all do daily because it’s a natural detox mechanism of the body. We don’t need to do any crazy detoxes. The body is really good at that on its own, if we just support it, and sweating is one of the great ways to do that.

So to get a little bit more specific, sauna use reduces the risk of a lot of stuff that will kill you. That’s the short version. If you want more specifics, basically, you get a 40% reduced risk of all cause mortality for people who use saunas 4 to 7 times per week. And I’ll get into the specifics of what counts as sauna use, but in the scientific world, in the world of statistics, 40% reduced risk of all cause mortality is drastic, and it’s one of the reasons that saunas are, like I said, very much a daily part of my life. I also sometimes use cold, but not as often as heat. And I think that there are very different and beneficial effects to using them separate and together. So, for me personally, sauna use is almost every day, cold is a couple times a week. And sometimes that cold will be interspersed with sauna use, sometimes it will be on its own. And I usually do not do cold after certain types of hard workouts because it can actually blunt the effects of those types of workout. Whereas studies show using sauna after workout can actually increase the effects. So we’ll talk about that more in a minute as well. So here’s what some of the studies say. Sitting in a sauna for 30 minutes increases heat shock proteins by as much as 50%. And I’m going to quote Rhonda Patrick on this for a minute because like I said, she’s super smart and the best out there on this topic. But the most important thing she explains that heat shock proteins do is they help maintain the structure of cellular proteins. And here’s why that is important, when a proteins three dimensional structure is altered, it tends to sit around for longer than it’s supposed to, instead of being degraded. So this causes it to start forming something called protein aggregates with other proteins. Protein aggregation has been shown to play a causal role in things like neurodegenerative disease, something we don’t want. Heat shock proteins also slow muscular atrophy, which is a wasting way of muscle. So you want these guys in your body, sauna is an easy way to do it. There’s some genetic factors at play. Some people naturally have more heat shock proteins, and they actually live longer. But for those of us who don’t have those fun genes, sitting in a sauna is one way to, like I said, increase your heat shock proteins by as much as 50%. Some other fun statistics.

Men who use sauna 4 to 7 times a week had a 63% lower sudden cardiac death compared to those who use a sauna only once a week or not at all. In the same way, there does seem to be a dose dependent thing. So men who use the sauna 2 to 3 times a week had 23% lower coronary heart disease related deaths compared to men who didn’t use it at all or used it once a week. And the studies were done in men, but a lot of scientists think it’s very much the same for women. So with men same thing, that number jumps to 43% reduce risk when they use the sauna 4 to 7 times a week. So dose-dependent effect. Same with those who use the sauna 2 to 3 times a week had a 27% lower cardiovascular related mortality. When someone uses it 4 to 7 times a week, that number jumped to 50% reduced risk. Using the sauna 4 to 7 times a week also resulted in 61% reduced risk of stroke. So the magic number seems to be four to seven times a week, which is why I say I do this almost daily. I think that’s one of the easiest best things we can do for our health, especially because it’s quiet in the sauna, and you just sit there. It doesn’t require anything really hard. And if you look at the studies, it seems to show that you wanna be at about 170 plus degrees for at least 20 minutes. In my house, I have two types of saunas. I have an infrared sauna and also a Finnish barrel sauna outside and I use them both. My infrared sauna inside can get that hot, not quite as hot, usually about 160. But my head is out, which lets me stay quite a bit longer. So I can stay up to an hour in that one or if I’m in the Finnish outside, it will be 180 degrees-ish, and I’ll stay for about half an hour. And like I said, I aim for at least 4 times a week for that 30 minutes plus in every day if possible. If possible, I also tried to do sauna post exercise, because using the cold, they find, right after exercise it’s great for not being in pain if you do a really hard workout, but it can blunt some of those muscle building effects of exercise whereas sauna use seems to improve them. So try to stick to saunas after working out when possible.

Another easy thing that I have added as part of my regular routine that seems to make a big difference for me, is time restricted eating, or TRE, and there’s a lot of studies about this as well. This is similar to intermittent fasting. There are some differences. And again, I don’t do it every day and I try to mix it up to have metabolic flexibility. But in most cases, I eat within a 4 to 10 hour window each day. Usually it’s around 6 to 8 hours. Sometimes, I will drink black coffee or herbal tea during that window, sometimes I won’t. And my biggest meal is my first one of the day and this is with good reason. So a lot of studies show that your insulin response, and your fat response, and all of your digestive responses tend to be better earlier in the day. So in my case, lunch is almost always my biggest meal of the day. It’ll include a lot of greens, some protein, the most I’m going to eat in the day, and then good fats from avocados and olive oil. If I am going to eat the rest of the day, I will eat one to two smaller meals later in the day. Sometimes one of those is a smoothie, sometimes more often, it’s just a huge salad. Again, mix it up every day. And for time-restricted eating, I use an app called Zero, Z-E-R-O, which just lets me track how long I’ve been fasting. So right now as I record this, for instance, it is 11:00 in the morning my time, and I have been fasting for about 20 hours. But that’s just today, and it’s different every day. And the reason I started using time-restricted eating. So there’s a lot of evidence and studies that show that caloric restriction increases longevity. But there’s two ways to accomplish this. So we can eat less, or we can eat less often, which also accomplishes the same as eating less. There’s some studies to back up this. There’s a lot of researchers to talk about this including Dr. Sachin Panda. One study is the Salks study, which if I’m remembering researchers fed two sets of mice the same high fat, high sugar diet. So, again, they combined fats and carbs, something I don’t do, but the diet was trying to replicate the standard American diet that a lot of people eat. And one group of mice had 24 hour access to food, and the other group could only eat during an eight-hour window at night. So mice are nocturnal, so that would be like us being able to eat during the day.

And after 100 days, the group who had access to the high fat diet all day and all night gained weight, and they developed issues that you would see with the standard American diet, including high cholesterol, high glucose, liver damage, diminished motor control, etc. The group who only had access to food for the eight hour period during the time when they should have been eating, they weighed 28% less than the first group, which if you wanna look at statistics, that’s the difference between our obesity rate and not having an obesity rate. And despite eating the same amount of calories from the same amount of food, the time-restricted eating group did not develop the same health issues. So that, to me, is a huge, huge key and one of the reasons I really started doing this. So basically what that means is, they didn’t eat less, they didn’t eat different, they weren’t eating a different diet, they ate the same amount of calories. So same amount of food, but in a shorter window, the same kind of food, but in a shorter window, and the time-restricted eating group did not develop the same health issues. And I know a lot of people are averse to the idea of fasting or time-restricted eating, but I think it’s important to realize that we all do this every day anyway, because nobody’s eating while they’re asleep. So we all practice time-restricted eating, time-restricted feeding, depending on what you wanna call it. It just depends on how long of a window we’re doing that in.

A study that was conducted in University of California, I believe in San Diego, found similar things. So they had over 2,000 overweight women, divided them into groups, one group fasted for 12 hours at night, the other group fasted for less time. So, again, they both fasted because nobody eats when they’re asleep. The group that fasted for 12 hours or more had better blood sugar levels than those who fasted for shorter periods. We know that blood sugar levels are tied to a lot of aspects of health. I mentioned Dr. Sachin Panda. He has a great YouTube video where he explains that liver genes are more sensitive to the act of eating than to light and I’m gonna talk about light later on. But these are both ways that we can regulate our circadian biology.

One study that I believe he was involved in, found that mice who are fed during the day had liver genes turn on and off at the time when the mice were fed at night were different. So like basically in other words, eating during the day is important for keeping the liver processing food during the day. Fasting at night for humans is important for keeping the liver in repair mode at night. So because of this, the study found that eating during the day can protect against mild age-related fatty liver for humans, and that eating at night can make it worse. So in other words, some of the benefits of time-restricted eating they found in these studies are: things like increasing mitochondrial volume, especially in the liver and brown fat, improving ketone body production, speeding repair processes in body leading to better aerobic endurance improvement, and increasing lean muscle. So some easy things, to me, this is again an 80/20 minimum effective dose.

That said, I also do practice other forms of fasting and I don’t think these are for everyone, this is not something I would have done before I fixed my gut health, before I fixed my thyroid, if I had any sleep issues, if I was pregnant, this is something that is much more recent to me in the last few years, and I found really beneficial, but I’m not recommending. I think this is something you definitely need to work with a doctor on. But personally, I do longer fasts, several times a year, up to five days. And I do start the year with an even more extended water fast. And the reason I did this is I was finding studies that show that this type of fasting can create autophagy in the body, it can lower age-induced inflammation in the body, reduce oxidative damage, it can lower NF-kB activation and it can boost the immune system. And one of the ways it does this is something called autophagy. And research shows that autophagy is a key part of the body’s ability to detoxify and regenerate itself. So things like fasting and high intensity exercise both stimulate autophagy in the body and can lead to positive results for that reason.

Even intermittent fasting or time-restricted eating like we talked about can have the same benefit, but there seems to be a bigger result from longer term fasting, especially anything north of three days. Studies have found that authophagy can lead to a decreased risk of cancer, heart disease, and I believe also Alzheimer’s. And other studies found that autophagy can or is correlated to longevity and reduce risk of all cause mortality. Which, again, two things that I’m hoping for I wanna see my great-grandkids one day. Other studies show that fasting produces pro-inflammatory cytokines…or I’m sorry, fasting reduces pro-inflammatory cytokines and inflammation in the body. And there was a study, I believe it was the Yale School of Medicine that found that a compound called beta-hydroxybutyrate inhibits something called NLRP3. And I know that sounds really geeky, but NLRP3 is a set of proteins called the inflammasome, which drives the inflammatory response in several disorders, including things like autoimmune disease, which was important for me with Hashimoto’s, as well as Type 2 diabetes which runs in my family, Alzheimer’s, heart disease which also runs in my family, and other types of inflammatory disorders. And I think inflammation is a huge key and we know that fasting can reduce inflammation.

The researchers found that beta-hydroxybutyrate is produced by most effectively fasting, also by high intensity exercise, by caloric restriction, low-carb diet, there’s a lot of ways to do it. Fasting seems to be the biggest bang for the buck, most quickly if we’re talking about water fasting. It’s also important to note here that there are things called fasting mimicking diets. Dr. Valter Longo, who has been a guest on this podcast is pioneering that research, you can listen to that episode with him. So if you don’t want to do full out fasting, that’s another way to get a lot of the same. And he would argue that all of the same and potentially more benefits. A 2014 study found that water fasting for only 3 days could regenerate the immune system. And the reason that seems to work is these researchers found that fasting, water fasting specifically, flips a regenerative switch and prompts stem cells to regenerate new white blood cells. So basically, it tells your stem cells, it’s okay to go ahead and begin proliferating and rebuild the entire system. And that’s what Dr. Valter Longo found in his study and you can read all about that also in his book, “The Longevity Diet.” So, again, not recommending it, not getting medical advice, I’m just saying that I, about once a quarter, water fast for 5 days and I start the year, every year with a 10-day water fast, which is as much for the mental and emotional benefits as it is for the physical. I don’t think that that’s right for everybody. But it’s been an important thing for me.

So another thing that is part of my minimum effective dose 80/20 type approach, is when it comes to exercise. And this was a tough one for me because for a lot of years I had this idea that I didn’t like exercise and it was the thing I had to do, and just like with the food, I had to switch my mindset here. And so in general, I tried to do high intensity exercise and just a lot of regular movement. It took me a lot of years to figure out this piece and I’m still not where I would like to be on a fitness level, but I’m making really steady progress right now, which is exciting. And part of the way I’m doing this is through high intensity interval training called HIIT training. And I’m using a device called CAR.O.L, which I believe it stands for cardiovascular optimization, something rather. It’s basically an exercise bike that uses AI to teach your body how to do high intensity interval training the most effective way. And the cool part is it beats cardio in studies, it beats like long term moderate exercise, which is great for me because I can get in a great workout in under nine minutes, which is much better to fit in my day than going for an hour-long run.

Like I said, I’ll combine that with sauna use to get some of the other cardiovascular benefits and just sweat because high intensity interval training, I actually won’t sweat it’s such a short, intense, fast workout. In fact, I’ve seen studies that the health benefits of high intensity exercise beat much longer moderate exercise. it is tough to do correctly to get enough intensity and that’s the reason I do CAR.O.L, because I found if I was just sprinting, it was easy to not push myself that hard and it was hard to know if I was pushing myself enough. So using CAR.O.L, it’s constantly adapting just beyond my ability and pushing me and it’s very motivating that way.

One study using high intensity found, for instance, that those types of sprints increased metabolism over 24 hours, 12 hour period as much as 30 minutes of running. And I’d much rather do sprints for under 9 minutes than run for 30. Studies also show that this type of exercise can reduce body fat, and especially visceral fat, which is the fat around our organs, and one that is tied to some pretty bad health problems. You don’t want a lot of fat around your organs. It also has been shown in studies to improve VO2 max and heart rate variability in my test which I mentioned is something I’m paying attention to and trying to improve. It also, I’ve seen over time, it reduce your resting heart rate and a lot of people see a reduction in blood pressure if they have high blood pressure. There’s other studies showing that it increases mitochondrial biogenesis, which is another great important aspect of health.

So CAR.O.L’s kind of the core of what I’m doing right now, but I also do weight training, like deadlifts, and squats, and like I mentioned, lots of regular slow movement, like walking, stretching, different types of classes that are just slow, comfortable, fun movement. So I do CAR.O.L for the high intensity, and then I go to the gym because I want to, not because I have to, and I’m not working out for weight loss. That’s another important shift that I made mentally, I do it for the health benefits, and I think that has been part of the key to sticking with it for me. But also, it’s important because from my own past experience, and I’ve heard this from others as well, exercising, specifically for weight loss can backfire. Because when you start exercising, you actually get more hungry. So a lot of people will go on a strict diet, do caloric restriction and then add in a bunch of exercise which is great, but you’re signaling your body that you need more calories. So you’re going to be fighting your body the entire time.

I have a friend who years ago lost a lot of weight and she didn’t exercise at all until she had lost the weight because she found it made her more hungry and it made it harder. Again, I think there’s so many benefits to exercise, but I think you wanna look at the 80/20. The effects of weight loss, for me at least, have very much been from food, and emotions, and sleep. Much more than exercise and I’m using the exercise for the health and cardiovascular benefits, but not for the weight loss.

This episode is sponsored by Fabletics, my go-to source for all types of athletic wear. Fabletics creates clothing that’s made to inspire physical activity in any type of setting. Moreover, Fabletics always aims to create fashionable, on-trend workout clothing at an exceptional price point. Their mantra is ‘Live Your Passion- every day.’ And Fabletics is your ‘one stop shop’ for affordable athletic wear. They have yoga, running, gym gear, sports bras, shoes, accessories and more. In fact, I am wearing leggings and a jacket from them right now as I record this. Here’s how it works… After taking a super quick, 60 second style quiz, you’ll receive a personalized showroom of pieces specifically catered towards your own unique style. This takes the guesswork out of what styles are best suitable for you and with just a few clicks, Fabletics is doing all the homework for you. Right now, you also get 2 leggings for only $24 ($99 value) as a VIP by going to fabletics.com/wellnessmama. I personally love (and am currently wearing) the high waisted powerhold leggings and they have some really cute new patterns with cut outs and designs that I am loving. That price is less than half of just a sports bra and some other brands, and just as good of quality. Also, here is a pro tip – make sure you enter your email address at the end of the quiz, as you’ll receive exclusive monthly discounts and the inside scoop about new collections that haven’t been released yet. You will always get free shipping on all orders $49 or more! There is international shipping available. Best part is that there is NO commitment to purchase monthly. All designs are done in-house so you can’t find these pieces anywhere else and you’re going to get a much cheaper price that most stores and a 45-day workout guarantee – Sweat it out for 45 days and if it doesn’t perform, return it for a full refund! Again, check it all out and grab your leggings at fabletics.com/wellnessmama

This podcast is brought to you by Gaia herbs and their black elderberry syrup! I’ve been a big fan of Elderberry syrup for years and theirs is the best premade one I’ve found unless you want to make your own. You can experience for yourself why it is America’s Favorite Organic Black Elderberry Syrup! It is the #1 best-selling organic Black Elderberry syrup in the U.S. This time of year, it is a medicine cabinet staple and immune season essential. Elderberry will help your family stay feeling well with the delicious immune elixir loved by adults and children alike. It is Certified organic – this powerful syrup concentrates the juice from 14.5 grams of elderberries in a single teaspoon, so it’s highly potent. It is made with just four clean whole-food ingredients and is vegan, dairy-free, gluten-free and soy-free, making it safe for most people. Black Elderberry Syrup is safe for the whole family and is formulated for adults and children age 1 and older. You can save big on Gaia Herbs by going to gaiaherbs.com/wellnessmama and use code WELLNESSMAMA at checkout for 20% off your first purchase

So another important aspect and this is one of the few things that I would say I think is universal applies to all of us, and I think most experts and people who have been on this podcast would completely agree with me, and that is sleep.

We know that sleep is important for essentially every aspect of health, we know that if you don’t get enough sleep, you have blood sugar levels like a diabetic, it messes with your hormones, you’re more likely to get all kinds of diseases, problems, have cancer, etc. Sleep is a big deal. I think everybody needs to optimize sleep and I think it’s something Americans especially, are pretty bad at. For me, this means…I found a few factors that really improved it. And I measure it my sleep with an Oura Ring. I’ll talk more about the Oura Ring later, but I’m able to see in real time, essentially, what’s improving my sleep and what’s not. The things that really make a difference, things like light. So I think manipulating light is one of the best things we can do for our sleep. For me, this has several key components. First, getting morning sunlight every day, which means getting outside even if it’s cloudy, as soon as possible after waking up and getting light. Outside, even on a cloudy day, outside light is so much brighter, and so much more spectrum than indoor light. And so there’s really no comparison. You can use, and I’ll talk about it again soon, but 10,000 Lux light, you’re still not gonna get the same benefits of a cloudy day even if it’s cloudy outside. So getting morning sunlight daily, even if it just means going outside, if it’s warm enough being barefoot on the ground drinking your morning tea or coffee outside, or just spending time with family outside.

If I’m gonna use red light, that’s essentially fine. Anytime of day, I like to do it in the afternoon or the evening, and then avoiding blue light after dark. And there’s logic behind that as well. So in nature, the only time you’re going to encounter blue light is during the brightest part of the day. But in modern world, we encounter artificial blue light in many sources from our screens, from certain types of light bulbs, pretty much everywhere that we are almost always in contact with blue light. The body has built in systems like I mentioned that help regulate circadian rhythm. And these rely on outside inputs, including food and light to signal times that the body should be awake versus the time it should be asleep. So there’s, from what I remember, there are about 30,000 cells in the eye that can sense blue light, and these cells signal the brain to turn off melatonin production. You probably know melatonin is important for sleep, and when you suppress melatonin, it might make it difficult to sleep or it can affect sleep quality, and blue light does that. We know dozen studies.

So, blue light wavelengths would, like I said, only be seen in nature during the brightest part of the day and found in sunlight. These wavelengths are not present in things like fire and natural light sources that would have been used at night for most of history. Have you ever sat around a campfire at night, it’s kind of that people will describe natural light sources like fire as being soothing and promoting sleep, a lot of people say they sleep really well when they’re camping, largely because of the lack of blue light. In fact, if I’m remembering there’s a study that showed that people who camped for seven days with no artificial lights, so just fire, candles, etc., were able to totally reset their circadian rhythm in a week which is really drastic, because lights are that important. So at the end of the day, it’s all about the timing. Blue light during the day can be very beneficial. It can help send the correct signals to the brain for melatonin production later in the day, it can promote alertness.

In fact, some people notice more of an effect from light than coffee. It is important for signaling the body to maintain healthy weight and adrenal function. And Dr. Alan Christianson, who I mentioned before, wrote “The Adrenal Reset Diet,” and he’s also a huge proponent of morning light. Those are all vital during the day. And you can use things like blue light and carbohydrate intake to help balance your cortisol and other hormones. It’s a good thing. Blue light is not objectively a bad thing. It’s all about the timing. The problem occurs when we are routinely exposed to blue light in the evening after the sun has set, especially when this happens all the time because, like I said, this signals a reduction in melatonin, which is necessary for sleep.

Harvard medical study has an effect on this or a study on this. It showed that there’s a connection between a blue light and potential diabetes and obesity. The researchers put 10 people on a schedule that gradually shifted the timing of their circadian rhythm and their blood sugar levels increased throwing them into pre-diabetic status. Like I mentioned, if we don’t get enough sleep if you’re pre-diabetic, and it messed with their leptin which is a hormone that helps you feel full after a meal. And apparently even dim light could interfere with a person’s circadian rhythm and melatonin secretion. The study, I believe, showed that a mere 8 Lux of light, which is most table lamps, or even a nightlight, has an effect. So this is something I feel like is really a big thing we can address and the way I dress it in my house is we try to stay off of screens after dark and we have light bulbs that do not have blue light in them that we turn on after dark.

Another thing for me that makes a big difference in sleep is not drinking caffeine after about 11:00 a.m. So I mentioned that it’s about 11:00 a.m. now when I’m recording this, and I will not drink coffee for the rest of the day. I think I’m more sensitive than a lot of people, so my husband can drink caffeine right before bed and be fine. I can’t. If I drink it afternoon especially I will have trouble falling asleep. So I limit caffeine and I only drink it in the morning before 11:00 a.m., and I don’t drink it every day. I also found that, like I mentioned a minute ago with light being such an important factor for sleep, that minimizing and limiting light in the bedroom makes a huge difference. So I have blackout curtains in my room and cover all lights in my room. So that is completely dark in the room, and there’s a lot of studies showing that that can help sleep as well. It’s also been an important factor for my kids. So they have blackout curtains in their room as well and it’s great. They don’t wake up quite as early with the sun coming in their window when they have the blackout curtains.

Temperature is another really important factor when it comes to sleep hygiene and sleep quality. And there’s a lot of studies on this. Some of them disagree a little about what the exact temperatures are, but most seem to settle on the idea that we should be sleeping somewhere between 60 and 67 degrees Fahrenheit, and that if the temperature goes above 75 or below 54 degrees, it can interfere with sleep. So the reason this matters is that our body temperatures naturally peak and decline over a 24 hour period with the highest temperature numbers occurring in the late afternoon, and the lowest ones around 5:00 a.m. So there’s a rhythm to this, just like with food, with hormones, with light. Sleep usually begins when our body temperature drops. So a colder room signals the body to fall asleep faster. Whereas sleeping in a room warmer than 70 degrees can stop your body from releasing melatonin, which we just talked about, and it’s also a very important anti-aging hormone. You want melatonin at night.

In the winter months, I love to sleep with the windows open if possible to hit that temperature. But rather than in the summer running the air conditioner to get that which can use a lot of energy, I have found that using a chillipad is more effective or now there’s one called an OOLER. And basically what this is, this is a very thin pad that goes underneath your sheet on the bed, and it lets you temperature control your bed. And there’s no EMF, it’s just water that runs through the tubes. There’s a low EMF device that causes the water to run through the tubes and its placed several feet from the bed. So I’ve measured it, there’s no measurable EMF effect of that in the bed. It does not interfere with my sleep at all. And it lets me set the temperature of my bed anywhere between 55 and 110 degrees.

I typically sleep at about 62 degrees which, because my bed stays a little bit warmer, I think it stays in that 60 to 67 degree range all night and I see a measurable difference on my Oura Ring, in my sleep scores when I optimize temperature at night. And all these things we’re talking about, I will link to my post about them in the show notes so that you can read more about them. But like I said, I don’t mess around with sleep. I think improving sleep is the single best thing that we can do for other aspects of our health, and it’s one of those things that if you don’t get it right, you can do a lot of the other things and you’re not gonna see the maximum benefit that you could from a healthy diet or from exercise if you don’t have your hormones in the right place with good sleep.

If I need it, say if I’m traveling, I will sometimes take CBD to sleep better at night. I use a brand called Ojai, which I will link in the show notes. It’s a water soluble full spectrum, and I notice its effects within 30 seconds, unlike oils which take a lot longer, and my kids will also take that if they have trouble sleeping. Another thing that makes a huge like measurable difference in my Oura Ring and also in my blood levels when I test is food signaling. So I mentioned that food is another way that we can signal circadian biology. And so I make it a point not to, again, most days, not every day, but most days not to eat after about 5:30 or 6:00 p.m. And to give more time for digestion before I go to sleep, because it lets my body not need to digest while I’m sleeping. So the body can prioritize other things that can happen best like liver repair during sleep. This is called also circadian gut rest. Basically, the idea is just don’t eat when it’s dark outside. That’s all you have to remember if it’s dark, don’t eat. If you want more information on this you can follow FastingMD Dr. Amy Shah on Instagram, and she talks a lot about this, why circadian gut rest is so important. But I would say for me, I have definitely noticed a difference when I do not eat after about 5:30 or 6:00 p.m.

I know this was supposed to be a short podcast, it’s apparently not gonna be. I’ll try to go quickly through the rest of it. Other things I do regularly. I do take supplements regularly. But I don’t take supplements every day either. I don’t take supplements on the weekend, or sometimes when traveling, because again, I want metabolic flexibility. I don’t want the body to ever adjust to getting any nutrient externally or not from food, and I don’t want it to ever like take those nutrients for granted. So things I take almost every day or relatively regularly would be probiotics. I take a spore-based one from Just Thrive. That’ll also be linked in the show notes. We have a discount you guys can use on that one. But it’s a spore-based probiotic, which means it survives through the small intestine and it’s heat stable, temperature stable. So think about it if you have a probiotic that needs to be refrigerated, it’s not gonna make it to the acidity and the heat of your stomach.

This is only probiotic I’ve ever taken that I can see, like I can feel a difference from because it’s heat stable up to 400 degrees. I can put it into food when I cook so my kids if they can’t swallow pills, I can put it into something I bake or cook, or in smoothies. And we’ve noticed a huge difference from that probiotic. I also take vitamin K27 which there’re studies showing that can reduce inflammation, has cardiovascular benefits. Because I’m now in remission, but I had Hashimoto’s, inflammation was a thing I was trying to counteract. So I would take that regularly. And then other things I take based on need, but not everyday, things like vitamin D in the winter based on blood test levels, always test first because that is a fat soluble vitamin. I sometimes take a selenium, zinc, pantothenic acid and here’s what I’ll mention just a little bit of detail on it. There was a podcast episode with Dr. Chris Masterjohn, where he talks about pantothenic acid and its effects on skin health, specifically, and acne. And I’ve noticed during weight loss and as my hormones change, that I was breaking out a little bit. And his reason was a reason teenagers, for instance, break out more is because I think he said was unmetabolized extra cholesterol in the body and things like testosterone can increase that. So teenage boys obviously have a influx of that.

But he said that in his research, that even relatively big doses of pantothenic acid can help reduce that. And I noticed when I take pantothenic acid, it does help with breakouts.

I also sometimes take HCL with high protein meals just because that’s one thing I have not fully optimized yet, and sometimes need an extra little boost. So I’m eating a lot of protein. I do sometimes take fish oil, this is I know controversial one, and I alternate. I don’t take it all the time. There are some sources that say it oxidizes and goes rancid and it can be harmful to the body, there are other sources that say it’s really important and vital. I don’t think we have a definitive answer on this and there’s probably very much a personalized aspect to this, but I don’t take fermented cod liver oil anymore. I just take regular fish oil from really high quality sources. I can link to the one I take in the show notes. I think I’m taking the one right now that Dr. Rhonda Patrick recommends. Again, I think we still don’t officially know, but there’s some really smart people with differing opinions on this one.

I take, like I said about Four Sigmatic, take mushrooms of some form pretty much daily, whether it’s Lion’s Mane, chaga, cordyceps, reishi….. I alternate, but I almost always consumed some type of mushrooms. I add prebiotics to my smoothies that’s also from Just Thrive. I’ll link that in the show notes. I’ll sometimes take aminos, there’s one from Kion. I’ll link in the show notes. I’ll take that pre or post workout. And then I sometimes drink green, or red, or gold drink from Organifi. I’ll link to those as well. These are just all mostly sources of extra nutrients. And then I take magnesium regularly. And I’ll link to my post about this in the show notes as well. Most people do really well taking this at night, I seem to be one of the weird cases where I need to take it in the morning. It’ll keep me up at night. But I do see a big difference when I take magnesium versus when I don’t.

And then occasionally, if I’m in a podcast day like today, I will take something called CILTEP, C-I-L-T-E-P. I’ll link to that as well. It is a nootropic, and it helps me focus without the need for lots and lots of caffeine. Another thing that has had a huge impact on my health, and I think often gets overlooked is the mental emotional shifts, and things like gratitude and breathing. So I won’t go into this a lot because, like I said, I will do a whole podcast just on the emotional side at some point when I can sort it all out and feel brave enough to go that vulnerable. But I do think that having some form of this is really important and it’s gonna be different for everybody. For me, it’s things like focusing on gratitude, having a daily list of things that I’m grateful for. Having gratitude letters, and writing letters to friends and family members, and just thanking them and saying I’m grateful for them, might be doing little acts of kindness that don’t go noticed, but just help with that mental shift or keeping a gratitude journal of things that I’m grateful for.

On the breathing aspect, podcast guest, Gabby Reece talked about the importance of breathing in and out through the nose, and how that signals calm in the body and helps the body go into parasympathetic. So I will try to breathe in as slowly as possible through the nose, and then out as slowly as possible through the nose. At night, I’ll do four, seven, eight breathing, to help fall asleep. Just something to focus on to help me fall asleep, which is breathing in for a count of four, holding for a count of seven, and then breathing out for a count of eight. And that usually a few of those is all it takes for me to fall asleep. So there’s just some easy things to do. And then, like I said, I’ll go into it much more, but just letting go of a lot of the emotional baggage and trauma which is a very individual process. For me, some things that are helpful reminders are the Four Agreements from the book, “The Four Agreements” about not taking things personally and always doing your best. And then “The Untethered Soul,” was a good book about learning how to let things go.

Let’s see, other things that I do. I’ve always been a nerd when it comes to oral health, and I still very much prioritize that. So I do oil pulling regularly, and make sure that I’m eating in a way that supports oral health. I also I believe it will be out by the time you are listening to this. You can go to wellnesse.com, just wellness with an E on the end. I spent years developing a toothpaste that supports oral health naturally and that does not have fluoride, does not have glycerin. It does have things like neem, and green tea, and hydroxyapatite which are all really good for the teeth, and this is finally available after many, many, many years of work. I could not be more excited to share it with you, but I feel like oral health is a huge part of overall health. Because we know that oral health impacts the whole body, and that, for instance, people who are immunocompromised or have a heart condition, often have to take antibiotics during dental work because there’s such a connection between the health of our mouth and the health of the body. So I feel like prioritizing oral health not just helps our teeth look great, but it’s also actually really important for overall health.

And then some other random things I do just related to health, not that maybe necessarily impact my health, but that helped me maintain it are things like tracking. So I’ve mentioned the Oura Ring a couple of times, I will link to that in the show notes. I don’t remember it off the top of my head, but I know I have a discount code I can share with you guys. But it tracks heart rate, sleep, including all the sleep stages, deep sleep, REM, heart rate variability, body temperature, which has been really helpful for fertility tracking, movement, etc. So I wear my Oura Ring all the time. It’s also important to note that the Oura is the only fitness tracker I have found that can go into airplane mode. So there’s no Bluetooth or measurable EMFs when it’s in airplane mode, which you can keep it in airplane mode, except when you’re charging it, so you’re not constantly exposed to that.

I also personally, during this process, have run labs with my doctor every month or so, just to keep an eye on all new markers and make sure everything’s moving in the right direction. I typically run a comprehensive metabolic panel, a thyroid panel, and iron fairs and etc, because my iron tends to run high. So for me personally, again, it’s very personal. I found that getting blood every couple of months is really beneficial to my health to keep my iron levels in the right range because even if I don’t eat a lot of red meat, I still tend to have high iron levels. And I also think this is not just good for me, but hopefully I can help others and maybe even, you know save someone’s life who’s been in the accident. But I also think because I try to work so hard to keep my blood healthy, I’m glad I can hopefully give it to someone else who can use it a lot more than I can.

And then another random thing that seems hard to measure, but good mental difference is to do a digital detox every now and then, and just not be on the phone, not be on a computer, and just be with the real people in my life. So that was going to be a short episode, that got much longer because I love talking about the science. But I hope that all of that is helpful as a starting point. To reiterate what I said in the beginning, I do think that health and nutrition, all of this is extremely personalized. And I’m not trying to give any kind of prescriptive approach, certainly not trying to give medical advice. I’m happy to recommend doctors, I’ll link to my doctor in the show notes and other amazing doctors at StudyMD, who could give medical advice and who are qualified, I am not. So, again, don’t take any of this as medical advice. This is my personal experience and what’s working for me. I hope that maybe it will be a springboard to anybody listening to find those things in your own life. And I would love to hear from you, if you found those minimum effective dose things that you still do all the time in your health that have made a big difference. I would love to hear those from you.

But definitely don’t just follow what I do, use them as a starting point for your own research for your own health. And if you stuck with me this far, first of all, thank you. It’s an honor to have shared this time with you. And I hope that you will consider just taking a couple minutes to leave me some honest feedback on whatever app or device you used to listen to podcast, so that I can improve hopefully, maybe I talk too fast, probably did. Till then I get into science, I get really excited and I talk way too fast. But your feedback helps me improve and it also helps the algorithm helps other moms and other people find this podcast and listen as well.

So as always, thank you so much for sharing your time, which is one of your most valuable treasured assets with me today. I’m so grateful that we got to share this time together, and I hope that you will join me again on the next episode of the “Wellness Mama” podcast.

If you’re enjoying these interviews, would you please take two minutes to leave a rating or review on iTunes for me? Doing this helps more people to find the podcast, which means even more moms and families could benefit from the information. I really appreciate your time, and thanks as always for listening.

Source: https://wellnessmama.com/podcast/day-in-the-life/

[amplifonvictoria]

Seven normal tinnitus questions and their answers

Tinnitus influences 50 million Americans. That is about one of every six of us who report being affected by ringing in the ears. To stamp Tinnitus Awareness Week (February 3-9), our staff audiologists and Chief Health Officer, Dr. Archelle Georgiou, addressed a rundown of every now and again posed inquiries in order to dispel normal misguided judgments and expanding comprehension of the condition, regardless of whether it's to support yourself or a friend or family member hear better and live better.

How would I know whether I have tinnitus?

Tinnitus is the impression of ringing, humming, or murmuring in the ears. The indications are really extraordinary for every individual. Some may possibly hear it when in a tranquil room while others hear those upsetting sounds constantly. However, here is the thing that to recollect: tinnitus is a manifestation, not a determination. It is essential to get it analyzed appropriately by a consultation human services proficient.

Archelle Georgiou, MD

Are there meds that can cause tinnitus?

Indeed, Tinnitus is a potential reaction of numerous prescriptions including ibuprofen, diuretics, antidepressants, chemotherapy drugs, and certain anti-infection agents.

Luis Camacho, Au.D.

I have tinnitus—what would it be advisable for me to do?

Lamentably, there are no solutions for tinnitus, yet there are approaches that make it substantially more tolerable that give heaps of individuals alleviation. They incorporate guiding and sound treatment. The convention is really custom-made to every unique individual since everyone's side effects are extraordinary. The best approach to begin is to ensure that you see a conference human services proficient.

Archelle Georgiou, MD

Take our brisk and free tinnitus test to increase a superior comprehension of your tinnitus. It's only 7 inquiries and takes under 5 minutes!

On the off chance that I have tinnitus, do I additionally have hearing misfortune?

As a rule, tinnitus is a side effect or reaction of hearing misfortune. Nonetheless, it is conceivable to have tinnitus without hearing misfortune. Tinnitus can be the primary pointer of some harm to the sound-related framework.

Luis Camacho, Au.D.

Are there things that aggravate tinnitus?

Components that can expand the impacts of tinnitus incorporate overabundance caffeine, salt, stress, presentation to boisterous clamors, and a few prescriptions.

Luis Camacho, Au.D.

Are listening devices my lone choice for treating tinnitus?

Amplifiers aren't the main alternative to treating Tinnitus. Heaps of times, it's an incredible beginning stage be that as it may, there are loads of different medicines accessible, similar to Tinnitus retraining treatment or diet changes. Somethings you might not have any desire to attempt are those meds you may have seen on the TV. Those are normally not experimentally endorsed and are not overly successful.

Sarah Lewandowski, Au.D.

Does the tinnitus return when I take the portable amplifiers off?

For certain individuals, the tinnitus comes back when they take their listening devices off. For other people, their tinnitus probably won't be as uproarious as it was preceding wearing their portable amplifiers. It's extremely unique for everybody.

Sarah Lewandowski, Au.D.

Visit Amplifon Clinic Burlington for more details.