Wellknowlogy: 4/21/23

Wellknowlogy is a curious, honest, and caring source of news & thoughts on innovations world of wellness; an efficient way for providers, technologists, investors, and enthusiasts to stay in sync and informed about endeavors to increase wellbeing. For more context surrounding Wellknowlogy, the motives behind it, and its purpose, check out Why Wellknowlogy. For filtered information concerning your particular venture, reach out to [email protected]

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Here is a blurb on a key aspect of maintaining and encouraging your resilience:

Caring for Basic Needs

The second pillar of resilience is one that Wellknowlogy has touched on constantly, and will forever be a focus of this newsletter: habits and practices that attend to your body’s basic systems (check out an intro to HRV and the first pillar, environment). These encompass physical, mental, and emotional aspects of ourselves as, unsurprisingly, resilience is deeply intertwined in our beings.

On the physical side, we cover three fundamental aspects of being alive: drinking water, eating well, and (as mentioned in the previous email) getting quality sleep. As you can probably guess, these are primarily dependent on quality and quantity. On the quantity side, this comes down to a goal of eight hours of sleep per night, drinking plenty of water (~8 cups as a minimum daily standard), and eating the proper amount of food for you.

On the quality side, ensuring high quality sleep with some of the tips in the previous email, drinking quality water free of pollutants, and eating a diet diverse with quality nutrients. I don’t imagine this is all that surprising. The body, to a decent extent, is a mechanism with understood, interrelated parts. As any mechanic knows, keeping something running well is as simple as tending to the important parts and the relationships between them.

What’s cool is that HRV is also responsive to good practices in your mental, emotional, and spiritual life. There’s research showing that good emotional hygiene like gratitude journaling and mindfulness practices like meditation and intentional breathing also have proven links to increases in HRV.

There’s even a study showing religious cancer patients had higher HRVs than their non-religious counterpart. Granted, this study covered a small sample size of 23 women and shouldn’t serve as grounds to draw any conclusions. Regardless, this credible anecdotal example along with the more sizable studies above into mindfulness and emotional wellness resonate with a deeper intuitive narrative surrounding the resilience accompanying faith, both religious and secular that seems too significant to ignore.

Instances like these are why I enjoy looking into this intersection between mechanistic science and a more holistic sense of wellbeing. With different preferences for learning via science, stories, or any other communication style, it's easy to be turned off by something that feels a bit foriegn. For me, showing how they all converge helps lighten the weight of judgement and grow curiosity about what other disciplines might know and what I stand to learn.

With that out of the way, here's some cool recent stuff:

Neat Articles

• What we're missing out on when we don't have intergenerational relationships, personally and collectively

• Digital mental health startups scramble as in-person visit rule looms

• Ayble Health, a virtual care platform aimed at digestive diseases, raises $4.6M

• How the NightWare Apple Watch App aims to reduce PTSD nightmares

• The city without TikTok offers a window to America's potential future

• Misuse of Adderall promotes stigma and mistrust for patients who need it

Fascinating Chart

per the GWI’s new report, “Health, Happiness, and the Wellness Economy: An Empirical Analysis,” the first global study of how spending on wellness (at both the national and sector level) impacts happiness and health outcomes.

Tidbits for You and Yours

• What matcha tea can do for your mental health

• Mapping your gut health

• Gardening is a great form of exercise, according to experts

Closing Kernel of Wisdom

You got to the end! Nice. I don't charge for this, but if you value this enough to give me money, feel free to do so — my venmo is @dsimenz. If you want more, click the button below and check out my site with everything Wellknowlogy has ever published:

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Wishing you a great week to come.

Warmly,

Dayton