Podcast appearances and mentions of megan roberts

Listen to Compeer's Economic Minute for clear, practical insights on the ag economy and the economic forces shaping your farm's future. Inflation and interest rates are shifting rapidly, and Compeer Agricultural Economist Dr. Megan Roberts delves into the Emergency Commodity Assistance Program (ECAP), which was introduced in legislation in March, as well as the USDA's planting intentions report from March 31st. Learn more about their impact on farmers' operations and how tariffs will affect the ag industry.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

As the leading financial services provider for agriculture and rural communities in Illinois, Minnesota and Wisconsin, Compeer's financial advisors understand agriculture, the challenges and the opportunities. Megan Roberts, Principal Quantitative Analyst with Compeer Financial, talks with Pam Jahnke about an upcoming webinar designed to help avoid the potential pitfalls of succession planning on a farm. With their team of experts, from financial advisors to economists, who provide ongoing education, reports or one-on-one advice, Compeer is all about helping clients make the best decisions for their operation. Part of that ongoing education includes a series of webinars. The next AgriMindset Webinar: Succession Planning Webinar Details: Registration: compeer.com/events - then “Succession Planning” Date: March 12 Time: 9:00am Location: Virtual Live Q&A following – BRING YOUR QUESTIONS! A recording of this virtual event will be sent to all registrants, so be sure to register event if you aren't able to attend live! Featured Guest: Brooke Didier Starks, Legacy Legal, estate planning attorney with first-hand farm transition experience. She brings a candid, down-to-earth style that will help you get unstuck and move toward creating the legacies you want to leave for your family and community. Nothing about succession planning is easy. It’s often difficult to take the next steps in the process – whatever that may mean for you, your family and your farm. This webinar is great starting point in your succession or transition planning journey Officially putting pen to paper and documenting your plan carries a lot of responsibility.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dairy farmers are waiting to witness the impact of revisions to the Federal Milk Marketing Orders (FMMO) beginning in June. How can you best prepare your farm for some of the risk that comes with these changes? Leonard Polzin is a dairy economist with the Division of Extension. He’ll be walking us through the what-ifs of 2025 wiuth Stephanie Hoff. But first, he reminds us that the Dairy Margin Coverage enrollment is open now! (Jan. 29-March 31) Foggy start to a Friday morning. Stu Muck says the mild weather we enjoyed Thursday is over for a little while. Today the movie "Green and Gold" opens nationwide. The film about a dairy farmer that bets the farm on the Green Bay Packers, was largely filmed in Wisconsin and specifically, Door County. John Sawyer is just a regular guy in Egg Harbor. He used to milk cows, today he raises beef along with selling real estate. He became a critical partner to the movie's directors and producers by bringing in fields of crops, farming equipment, dairy equipment and livestock from the area to create the 90's era setting for the film. He talks about the experience with Pam Jahnke. Craig T. Nelson stars as "Buck" the dairy farmer at the center of "Green and Gold". He shares with Pam Jahnke his admiration of today's farmers, and how he hopes the movie portrays them. Feb. 1st has been touted as the day that the Trump Administration will begin deploying tariffs. No one knows what or where these tariffs will impact, but agriculture has to be ready. How do you get your mind around that kind of business altering adjustment? Megan Roberts, Principal Quantitative and Economic Analyst at Compeer Financials speaks with Pam Jahnke about an upcoming webinar designed to help farms prepare. Paid for by Compeer Financial.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Megan Roberts is the Principal Quantitative and Economic Analyst for Compeer Financial. Her background as an agriculture economist has included teaching at the college level, as well as work through extension. Now, she's preparing for a Feb. 19th webinar that will help update producers on the changing terrain of policy in Washington, DC, and how it can impact their operations. Educating clients is a priority for Compeer Financial. As the leading financial services provider for agriculture and rural communities in Illinois, Minnesota and Wisconsin, their financial advisors understand agriculture, the challenges and the opportunities, and work with our clients to ensure their operation is financially viable for years to come. Compeer has assembled a team of experts, from financial advisors to economists, who provide ongoing education, reports or one-on-one advice, to help our clients make the best decisions for their operation. Part of that ongoing education includes a series of webinars. Megan Roberts will be moderating an upcoming Agri-Mindset webinar on Navigating Regulatory and Policy Changes: Webinar Details: Registration: Compeer.com/events Date: February 19 Time: 1:00pm Location: Virtual Live Q&A following speakers Webinar Highlights: A new presidential administration and Congress = a wave of federal policies and politics into Washington, D.C. Macro view of overall food and ag related policy (The Direction’s Group Dave Juday) Deep dive into specific policy issues (Compeer Financial’s Ben Duncanson)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Psalm 46 is a psalm for our moment, and its encouraging message is amplified when read in Hebrew. The psalm reminds us that amidst the nations in uproar, and battles, and devastations, and mountains falling into the sea, the God of Jacob is our high fortress, lifting us above the chaos. Our instinct in turmoil is to tighten our grip on things. The psalmist advises us to let go and know that the Lord is God. Dr. Megan Roberts is an alumna of the M.A. in Biblical Exegesis at Wheaton College, and Professor of Old Testament and Program Director of Bible/Theology at Prairie College, Alberta, Canada. Her dissertation, Memory Formation in Isaiah 40–55: Healing to Accomplish Comfort, is forthcoming with Brill. Check out related programs at Wheaton College: B.A. in Classical Languages (Greek, Latin, Hebrew): https://bit.ly/3As5Gxy  M.A. in Biblical Exegesis: https://bit.ly/4der6wI 

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: The Pearly Gates, published by lsusr on May 30, 2024 on LessWrong. St. Peter stood at a podium before the Gates of Heaven. The gates were gold, built on a foundation of clouds. A line of people curved and winded across the clouds, beyond what would be a horizon if this plane of existence was positively-curved. Instead, they just trailed away into Infinity, away from the golden wall securing Heaven. The worthy would enter eternal paradise. The unforgiven would burn in Hell for just as long. Infinite judgment for finite lives. "Next please," said St. Peter. The foremost man stepped forward. He had freckles and brilliant orange hair. "Tell me about yourself," said St. Peter. "Me name's Seamus O'Malley, sure, and I was - or still am, begorrah - an Irish Catholic," said Seamus. "How did you die?" said St. Peter. "Jaysus, I went and blew meself to bits tryin' to cobble together an auld explosive to give those English occupiers a proper boot, so I did," said Seamus. "You were a good Catholic," said St. Peter, "You're in." Seamus entered the Pearly Gates with his head held high. "Next please," said St. Peter. A Floridian woman stepped forward. "My name is Megan Roberts. I worked as a nurse. I couldn't bear to tell people their family members were going to die. I poisoned them so they would die when a less empathetic nurse was on watch," said the nurse. "That's a grave sin," said St. Peter. "But it's okay because I'm a Christian. Protestant," said Megan. "Did you go to church?" said St. Peter. "Mostly just Christmas and Easter," said Megan, "But moments before I died, I asked Jesus for forgiveness. That means my sins are wiped away, right?" "You're in," said St. Peter. "Next please," said St. Peter. A skinny woman stepped forward. "My name is Amanda Miller. I'm an Atheist. I've never attended church or prayed to God. I was dead certain there was no God until I found myself in the queue on these clouds. Even right now, I'm skeptical this isn't a hallucination," said Amanda. "Were you a good person?" asked St. Peter. "Eh," said Amanda, "I donated a paltry 5% of my income to efficient public health measures, resulting in approximately 1,000 QALYs." "As punishment for your sins, I condemn you to an eternity of Christians telling you 'I told you so'," said St Peter, "You're in." "Next please," said St. Peter. A bald man with a flat face stepped forward. "My name is Oskar Schindler. I was a Nazi," said Oskar. "Metaphorical Nazi or Neo-Nazi?" asked St Peter. "I am from Hildesheim, Germany. I was a card-carrying member of the Nazi Party from 1935 until 1945," said Oskar. "Were you complicit in the war or just a passive bystander?" asked St. Peter. "I was a war profiteer. I ran a factory that employed Jewish slave labor to manufacture munitions in Occupied Poland," said Oskar. "Why would you do such a thing?" asked St. Peter. "The Holocaust," said Oskar, "Nobody deserves that. Every Jew I bought was one fewer Jew in the death camps. Overall, I estimate I saved 1,200 Jews from the gas chambers." St. Peter waited, as if to say go on. "I hired as many workers as I could. I made up excuses to hire extra workers. I bent and broke every rule that got in my way. When that didn't work, I bought black market goods to bribe government officials. I wish I could have done more, but we do what we can with the limited power we have," said Oskar, "Do you understand?" St. Peter glanced furtively at the angels guarding the Gates of Heaven. He leaned forward, stared daggers into Oskar's eyes and whispered, "I think I understand you perfectly." "Next please," said St. Peter. A skinny Indian man stepped forward. "My name is Siddhartha Gautama. I was a prince. I was born into a life of luxury. I abandoned my duties to my kingdom and to my people," said Siddhartha. St. Peter read from his scroll. "It says ...

Link to original articleWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: The Pearly Gates, published by lsusr on May 30, 2024 on LessWrong. St. Peter stood at a podium before the Gates of Heaven. The gates were gold, built on a foundation of clouds. A line of people curved and winded across the clouds, beyond what would be a horizon if this plane of existence was positively-curved. Instead, they just trailed away into Infinity, away from the golden wall securing Heaven. The worthy would enter eternal paradise. The unforgiven would burn in Hell for just as long. Infinite judgment for finite lives. "Next please," said St. Peter. The foremost man stepped forward. He had freckles and brilliant orange hair. "Tell me about yourself," said St. Peter. "Me name's Seamus O'Malley, sure, and I was - or still am, begorrah - an Irish Catholic," said Seamus. "How did you die?" said St. Peter. "Jaysus, I went and blew meself to bits tryin' to cobble together an auld explosive to give those English occupiers a proper boot, so I did," said Seamus. "You were a good Catholic," said St. Peter, "You're in." Seamus entered the Pearly Gates with his head held high. "Next please," said St. Peter. A Floridian woman stepped forward. "My name is Megan Roberts. I worked as a nurse. I couldn't bear to tell people their family members were going to die. I poisoned them so they would die when a less empathetic nurse was on watch," said the nurse. "That's a grave sin," said St. Peter. "But it's okay because I'm a Christian. Protestant," said Megan. "Did you go to church?" said St. Peter. "Mostly just Christmas and Easter," said Megan, "But moments before I died, I asked Jesus for forgiveness. That means my sins are wiped away, right?" "You're in," said St. Peter. "Next please," said St. Peter. A skinny woman stepped forward. "My name is Amanda Miller. I'm an Atheist. I've never attended church or prayed to God. I was dead certain there was no God until I found myself in the queue on these clouds. Even right now, I'm skeptical this isn't a hallucination," said Amanda. "Were you a good person?" asked St. Peter. "Eh," said Amanda, "I donated a paltry 5% of my income to efficient public health measures, resulting in approximately 1,000 QALYs." "As punishment for your sins, I condemn you to an eternity of Christians telling you 'I told you so'," said St Peter, "You're in." "Next please," said St. Peter. A bald man with a flat face stepped forward. "My name is Oskar Schindler. I was a Nazi," said Oskar. "Metaphorical Nazi or Neo-Nazi?" asked St Peter. "I am from Hildesheim, Germany. I was a card-carrying member of the Nazi Party from 1935 until 1945," said Oskar. "Were you complicit in the war or just a passive bystander?" asked St. Peter. "I was a war profiteer. I ran a factory that employed Jewish slave labor to manufacture munitions in Occupied Poland," said Oskar. "Why would you do such a thing?" asked St. Peter. "The Holocaust," said Oskar, "Nobody deserves that. Every Jew I bought was one fewer Jew in the death camps. Overall, I estimate I saved 1,200 Jews from the gas chambers." St. Peter waited, as if to say go on. "I hired as many workers as I could. I made up excuses to hire extra workers. I bent and broke every rule that got in my way. When that didn't work, I bought black market goods to bribe government officials. I wish I could have done more, but we do what we can with the limited power we have," said Oskar, "Do you understand?" St. Peter glanced furtively at the angels guarding the Gates of Heaven. He leaned forward, stared daggers into Oskar's eyes and whispered, "I think I understand you perfectly." "Next please," said St. Peter. A skinny Indian man stepped forward. "My name is Siddhartha Gautama. I was a prince. I was born into a life of luxury. I abandoned my duties to my kingdom and to my people," said Siddhartha. St. Peter read from his scroll. "It says ...

The podcast is part of the project “Building a transatlantic technology bridge: challenges and opportunities”, Managed by IAI - Istituto Affari Internazionali, in partnership with the German Marshall Fund of the United States and the Centres for European Policy. The project is supported by Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo in the framework of the call for applications "Geopolitics and Technology".The podcast discusses ongoing initiatives to strengthen and expand transatlantic dialogue and cooperation on global challenges posed by technological developments in the areas of Digital Infrastructure, from a dual European and US perspective.  With:Anselm Küsters, Head of Digitalisation and New Technologies Department at the Centre for European Policy (CEP) in Berlin.André Wolf, Head of the Department Technological Innovation,Infrastructure and Industrial Development at CEP in BerlinJulia Trehu, Paris-based Program Manager and Fellow of the Digital Innovation and Democracy Initiative, German Marshall Fund of the United States.The podcast is based on the results of two papers that were presented and discussed during the event A Digital Transatlantic Bridge - Economic Security and Cooperation, held at IAI on February 28, 2024. The paper can be accessed here:Challenges to Transatlantic Digital Infrastructure: An EU Perspective, Anselm Küsters, André Wolf, Eleonora Poli;Transatlantic Tech Bridge: Digital Infrastructure and Subsea Cables, a US Perspective, Julia Tréhu, Megan Roberts

In this podcourse, I am joined by Megan Roberts. Megan is an associate professor in the Roxelyn and Richard Pepper Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders. Her work focuses on family-centered early communication interventions for young children with language delays. This clinically based line of research examines different variations of parent-implemented communication interventions tailored specifically for different populations of children with language delays. Her research has been funded by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders and the Institute of Education Sciences. As a result of this activity, participants will be able to describe the importance of caregiver coaching and early intervention, learn the importance of talking with families about ASD, describe different methods of ASD assessment and ways to incorporate data and science into our practice. This episode is available for 0.1 ASHA CEUs. Visit www.slpconnect.com to learn more. Use the code caraspeech to receive up to 20% off a monthly or yearly CE membership!

Sometimes you take your breastfeeding baby on vacation and other times you travel without them. Whether you're leaving for a trip or a vacation, for work or for pleasure, my guest Megan Roberts will teach you all you need to know. She's traveled for years with work without compromising her lactation goals. Come learn how.  Check to see if your insurance will cover 6 consults with Bri (for free!)Join Bri's crew so we can stay in touch.*This podcast is not "medical advice". Please consult with your Healthcare Provider about your specific situation.This episode appeared first on the Breezy Babies website. Follow along @breezy__babies on Insta for more tips and tricks.

Megan Roberts has experienced many farm transitions–as a non-farm heir to her family dairy farm, as an in-law in a family farm transition, and as an educator. Drawing on over a decade in personal and professional experience in farm succession and estate planning, in this episode she shares several points of consideration for families navigating tough conversations and the complex process of succession. “Something I learned is that there's never enough communication,” says Roberts. Even when family relationships are really strong and there are shared goals, farm succession planning isn't simple and can provoke strong emotions. Roberts encourages families to “be inclusive” in their meetings and conversations on the future of the farm, inviting in-laws and non-farm heirs to be present and have a voice even if they aren't ultimately decision makers. Listen in for more of Roberts' conversation with Dirt Rich host Jared Luhman, who is in the midst of a family farm transition himself, on other things to consider in succession: finances, estate planning and grief, maintaining relationships, security for the elder generation, and more. This is the first of a three-part miniseries on farm succession. Look for Part 2 on April 27, when we'll release an episode with Jerry Ford on a non-family farm transition.   Megan Roberts, Executive Director of the Southern Agricultural Center of Excellence, Farmer Jared Luhman, SFA Soil Health Lead   The viewpoints of the speakers expressed within or outside of this episode do not necessarily reflect the goals and mission of SFA. Dirt Rich is produced by the Sustainable Farming Association. Thoughts? Comments? Ideas? Leave us a review, or drop us a line on our Virtual Comment Box.

Agweek reporter Noah Fish is joined by Megan Roberts, executive director of the Southern Agricultural Center of Excellence, to break down data from the 2021 release on Minnesota farm income by experts from University of Minnesota Extension and the Minnesota State Agricultural Centers of Excellence.

Waiting is an inevitable part of our lives, and there can be so much beauty in the waiting. Join us as we visit with Megan Roberts, author of In the Waiting.  This former UL Homecoming Queen is a speech language pathologist by trade who enjoys writing and has a desire to touch souls. She sure touches ours! You can find her book on amazon!  In the WaitingThis episode is powered by:Elevare International - Helping leaders find clarity and confidence.John Paul the Great Academy's Collarnary Cookoff. Get your tickets here!Get ready for a new season of journeying with Christ...Ignite Leather Binder and Pursuing Peace Season 3 are here!

Hosts Julie Slater & Jason Friday are on vacation! Please enjoy this encore presentation from Episode 033 - MEGROB - SOLO TRAVELER. ((She's still traveling btw!)) Megan Roberts is on a journey cross country to find out what's out there and find out what's next. We talk about her solo trip to New Zealand/Australia and then traveling through St. Louis, Santa Fe, Sedona, Palm Springs, Joshua Tree, San Diego, and now Los Angeles. She talks about taking risks, doing what feels uncomfortable, manifesting the right opportunity, her MegRob Spotify travel playlist, and how everyone should GET LOST. Follow @cuzihavetopodcast on Instagram for all the latest news. We'd love to hear from you - email us at cuzihavetopodcast@gmail.com. Find other episodes or leave us a voice message for the show on the anchor website: https://anchor.fm/cuzihaveto. Thanks for tuning in! Keep on living those dreams, friends, CUZ YOU HAVE TO!! - jULIE AND jASON --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/cuzihaveto/message

This week, Rachel interviews Megan Roberts, an Associate Professor and SLP at Northwestern University. Megan started the Early Intervention Research Group, where she researches early parent-implemented interventions for children with hearing loss, autism, and developmental language disorders. Megan has lots to share about her research behind parent-implemented interventions, early behaviors that are a predictors of autism, and how to approach conversations with parents about their child's possible autistic-like behaviors.   Before the interview, Chris and Rachel discuss a listener's email about a difficult situation with an administrator. When the listener requested a high-tech AAC device for a minimally-verbal student, her school administrator told her she needed to give him low-tech AAC, because there was no way to get the student high-tech AAC. Rachel and Chris talk about how this administrator was stepping out of their role, and how Rachel and Chris would approach the situation to push back against this.   Key ideas this week:  

Megan Roberts is the program coordinator of Moms Supporting Moms, a peer-based support program for moms housed under the non-profit SafeChild NC. She is also the PSI-NC coordinator for the Triangle Region. Megan has dedicated her life to supporting mothers, particularly those navigating postpartum mental health issues. In today's episode Megan shares her own story of battling postpartum anxiety, and some of the lessons she's learned from 6 years of offering support to mothers during the fourth trimester and beyond. Summary: Three Main Tools for Battling Maternal Mental Health Issues Moms Supporting Moms and the work they are doing for moms in the community Megan's personal experience with postpartum anxiety The stigma surrounding mental health issues and the burden of impossible expectations of motherhood The need for expanded education around perinatal mood and anxiety disorders Paid Leave differences across countries Gap in black maternal care in southeast Raleigh Ability of mom to bond with baby with a perinatal mood and anxiety disorder Mommy Wars and questioning the “judgemental” nature of moms versus fear of being seen as not good enough Using cuss words around the kids Letting kids make their own mistakes Megan's reading and watching: Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett Mayor of East Town on HBO Important Links: HER Health Collective Postpartum Support International Moms Supporting Moms --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/herhealthcollective/support

Hosts Julie Slater & Jason Friday chat with MEGROB - SOLO TRAVELER. Megan Roberts is on a journey cross country to find out what's out there and find out what's next. We talk about her solo trip to New Zealand/Australia and then traveling through St. Louis, Santa Fe, Sedona, Palm Springs, Joshua Tree, San Diego, and now Los Angeles. She talks about taking risks, doing what feels uncomfortable, manifesting the right opportunity, her MegRob Spotify travel playlist, and how everyone should GET LOST. Follow @cuzihavetopodcast on Instagram for all the latest news. We'd love to hear from you - email us at cuzihavetopodcast@gmail.com. Find other episodes or leave us a voice message for the show on the anchor website: https://anchor.fm/cuzihaveto. Thanks for tuning in! Keep on living those dreams, friends, CUZ YOU HAVE TO!! - jULIE AND jASON --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/cuzihaveto/message

Ryan speaks with Megan Roberts, the President of The Lash Lounge and CMO of Franworth.

How do you prepare your kids for a life without you? Megan Roberts grapples with this question each day as she navigates motherhood while living with stage IV cancer. For more information on this episode and others, check out www.talkdyingtome.com or follow us on Facebook and Instagram @talkdyingtome.

Shauna Reitmeier and Brenda Mack build off of our last podcast where we learned signs of healthy and unhealthy relationships. Today, we move on to discuss ways we can build positive communication into our relationships, from active listening to conflict resolution.TranscriptMegan Roberts: Welcome to this session of our Cultivating Resiliency for Women in Agriculture podcast, series one. The Cultivating Resiliency project develops tools for women in agriculture to recognize, adapt to, and develop positive coping strategies to life's stresses. This podcast series is developed from our Cultivating Resiliency webinar sessions. I'm Megan Roberts, and I co-lead this project along with Doris Mold.Today, we feature Shauna Reitmeier and Brenda Mack as our session hosts. Both are professionals in behavioral health with ties to farming. In this session, we build off our last podcast, where we learned signs of healthy and unhealthy relationships. Today, we move on to discuss ways we can build positive communication into our relationships, from active listening to conflict resolution.Brenda Mack: Part of healthy communication is active listening. Do you listen to understand, or do you listen to respond? And so many of us, I think, fall into that category of, "All right, I do have this. My mother-in-law and I are talking, and all I keep thinking about is how I'm going to respond to the things she's saying to me," instead of just slowing down and being present in the moment, and calming your brain a bit to actively listen and engage and be present with what your mother-in-law might be saying without going three steps ahead to think about how you're going to respond to that. And when that happens, there's so many verbal and non-verbal cues that you can be giving to your mother-in-law, such as nodding your head or paralinguistic cues like, "Mm-hmm (affirmative)."Brenda Mack: And again, that's a way to strengthen and build relationship. It's a piece of communication that helps to nurture those healthy relationships.Shauna Reitmeier: And so when we go into conversations, we go through a thought process when we hear information. So we've done active listening, and you're going in and you're being present in that situation. There is a process that we go through in making decisions or taking action. And this is called the ladder of inference. We hear information, we take in data, and that is a new information. And in the course of, say, a conversation with someone, we're going to take bits and pieces of that data, of that information that we've had, words that were said, body language that we saw, we're going to take those pieces, and we're going to apply meaning to those. When we apply meaning to that, and that comes based on our previous experiences that we've had, our cultural and personal values that we have, and we put that meaning on it, and we make assumptions based on the meaning. And when we make assumptions, it's easy for us to draw conclusions, and we adapt that conclusion to our beliefs, and we take action off of that. Now, we can use this ladder of inference in active listening. And so it's really about, how do we be a detective in asking as many questions as we can? Because what it's easy to do is to start creating these stories in our head. And we want to be Nancy Drew. We want to be a detective in asking our questions when we're doing active listening. So then, you're doing active listening, we're using the ladder of inference, we're asking questions. We know that there are times that there's going to be conflict in a relationship. We know that that is normal, that we want to use those skills of active listening to address whatever the conflict is.And what's important in that, when there is conflict, is focusing on the problem, what's that issue? What is the problem? Because what it does is it separates it from the person. It's not, "My husband." It's whatever the behavior is that they may have done, that you want to use those reflective listening skills. Use the active listening and reflect on what it is that you're hearing, and ask those questions around whether or not, "Did I hear you right? Did I understand that? Is that the meaning you have? Because this is the meaning that I am hearing or I am applying." Always ask those questions, and use those I-statements. "I feel incompetent in the business when my mother-in-law isn't telling me directly what she's saying." So this conflict might be happening. It might happen over and over again in those meetings with the family farm, but we have to use those I-statements.And, know when to take a time out. If things get heated, if you're feeling really emotional, it goes back to, we've got to be in the right place to have some conversations. If I'm heated, if I have had just an immediate emotional reaction to something, trying to resolve conflict in that moment is not going to be helpful for you. And the goal is then to work towards that resolution, and use your values to resolve that.Brenda Mack: How can you strengthen your relationships? And again, your relationship is going to be on a spectrum. There might be someone on this call that they really are assessing their relationship and feel like they have a solid, connected, honorable, respectful relationship. And then there may be others on this call that they feel like they're really struggling in their relationships. And so this information, I think, can be helpful wherever you are on that spectrum. And again, it's really based on the theorists, John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth, and their attachment research, as well as the relationship expert, Dr. Sue Johnson. Again, the point of this is, have some awareness about, where are you connecting emotionally with your intimate partner, or your spouse? And practice some of those ways to connect. And so, you have to practice it. You have to celebrate your connectivity. And just remember, it takes 21 days to create a new habit. So if you're not in that habit of doing this stuff now, and it feels uncomfortable in the beginning, that's pretty normal.Shauna Reitmeier: You bet.Brenda Mack: But keep at it, because again, research says that practice, practice, practice, and within 21 days, you're starting to feel comfortable, and write your new narrative.Megan Roberts: Thanks for joining us on this Cultivating Resiliency for Women in Agriculture podcast, series one. One of the first steps to improving our relationships with others is to improve our own self-awareness. How are we active listening, making assumptions about intent? How are we refraining from creating an argument or engaging and instigating arguments? Are we honing our Nancy Drew skills, or in other words, being a detective that asks clarifying questions? With these relationship tools, we can build our own resiliency, enabling us to bounce back in the face of adversity and be more flexible to the emotional ups and downs of farming. This project is a collaboration of American Agri-Women, District 11 Agri-Women, University of Minnesota Extension-Women in Ag Network, and the Upper Midwest Agricultural Safety and Health Center, UMASH. You may find the recordings for our entire webinar series on the UMASH, or American Agri-Women websites under Cultivating Resiliency. Our next podcast focuses on ways to put it all together to create a personal self-care plan that fits your unique needs. 

Please be aware: In this episode's discussion of unhealthy relationships, our hosts address domestic violence at the conclusion of the episode. Two resources on this topic include the National Domestic Violence hotline is 1-800-799-7233 or https://www.thehotline.org and Minnesota's MN Day One Crisis Line 1-866-223-1111 (call) or 612-399-9995 (text).Today, our hosts Shauna Reitmeier and Brenda Mack discuss relationships--from families, friends, casual, romantic, to the relationship we have with ourselves. All of these types of relationships can have positive attributes and all of these types of relationships can develop negative attributes. How do we identify positive relationships? Shared core values can be one key identifier. Building and maintaining healthy, positive relationships with those around us can help us stay resilient in the face of stressful times in agriculture. TranscriptMegan Roberts: Welcome to this session of our Cultivating Resiliency for Women in Agriculture Podcast, series one. The Cultivating Resiliency Project develops tools for women in agriculture to recognize, adapt to and develop positive coping strategies for life stresses. This podcast series is developed from our Cultivating Resiliency Webinar sessions. I'm Megan Roberts and I co-lead this project along with Doris Mold. Today, we feature Shauna Reitmeier and Brenda Mack as our session hosts. Both are professionals in behavioral health with ties to farming. In today's podcast, we focus on the importance of positive relationships. We start our discussion talking again about the three-legged stool of self-care which has been a theme throughout this podcast series. The three-legged stool includes social, emotional, and physical self-care. First, we hear from Shauna about how relationships fit into those three legs of the self-care stool.Shauna Reitmeier: We talked about this three-legged stool and relationships really are foundational in two of those legs, that social piece, that connectedness, and then also around the emotional piece which is, how's that self-talk, how are we giving ourselves some self-compassion as well? Relationships feed both of those and relationships are really rooted in being healthy and making sure that we're going to walk through, how do you align your values around selecting the relationships that you have, and relationships are really rooted in strong communication, safety and aligned with those shared values.Brenda Mack: I view building and maintaining relationships is that healthy relationships can be a protective factor. It can help you reduce your stress, it can increase your happiness levels, it can also be a risk factor in the sense that if you're in an unhealthy relationship that can impact stress, it can lead to depression. Just want you to consider as we're going through this, how is healthy relationships a protective factor for you and where is it potentially a risk factor for you?Shauna Reitmeier: As we jump into this, when I think about relationships, it's really rooted in knowing what your values are. We know that, for some of us, we get overwhelmed or we talked a little bit about with our self-care when we overcommit to certain things. How do we make decisions based on our values? So I'm going to walk you through a process that you can use to start coming up with, what are your own personal core values? And you can use this core values exercise to evaluate existing relationships and can be used in helping determine where do you want to invest your time in new relationships.It really starts with, take the experiences that you've had, walk through some of those times when you've had really positive experiences and what were they. Did you walk out of that experience with someone positive? Did you get energized? Did your cup get full? Were you able to have a really deep conversation where the person listened to you, you felt like you were engaged with that person? In those circumstances, your values were probably honored. In times where you walked out of that relationship and it was not enjoyable, you felt exhausted that, "Boy, we weren't connecting," the values that you have were probably suppressed. You can use those past experiences to start putting words to what those are. So start thinking about, in those kinds of experiences, what is the most important to you beyond the basic living needs?We all know we need shelter, we need food, we need sleep, and some of those values that are important to us. Think about what are those other things that are not basic to just survival that are important to you. Many times those values can be categorized into various themes like accountability, responsibility, timeliness, all kind of go together, connection, belonging, relationships. So go through your list, write them all down, check them off, and then you can start categorizing them. Once you've narrowed down those values and you have five to 10, look at, what are those values? Let's go back to the connection, belonging, and relationships, all right? You've got some themes, you're lining up this value and I'm going to decide that connection is really the one that stands out for me out of the three.However, those other values like belonging and relationship really support connection. So I can come up with a sentence or a statement around, "For me, connection is to have meaningful relationships with people where I feel I belong." If that's happening, then I know I have connection. The next step is once you've identified that is test your value. Does it resonate with you? Is it consistent with the scenarios that you've been placed in with the decisions that you've made and how does it make you feel? But it's very normal in relationships that you have different values and it's a great exercise to walk through with your partner, with your spouse or whomever because this can be an area where you're really focusing on communication as well.Brenda Mack: And I think finding that common ground-Shauna Reitmeier: Yes.Brenda Mack: ... that, where are your values with the person you're in a relationship, where are those aligned? Because I think it's always great to start where you have that in common and then build on that.Shauna Reitmeier: As we dive into just relationships, there are the difference between healthy and unhealthy relationships. When we think about a healthy relationship, they have these characteristics of open communication. There is trust that's been established, you have mutual respect with each other, you compromise, you come to the middle on issues or things that might come up and you have the ability to make decisions equally within your household, and there's boundaries, you know when it's okay to reach out and when it's not okay within that relationship. These characteristics are in all types of relationships and some of these types of relationships might cross, you might have a relationship that hits multiple types, you can have your family, your extended family, and you might have more intimate relationship with a family or a casual relationship.Now, when I use the word intimacy, for some people, they think it's just a romantic or a sexual connotation to that when really it's about, how well are you connecting? Are you able to go, and I can use this analogy, can you go deep in a conversation with someone and have that trust and know that they're going to be there for you and listen to you? In other times you might not, you have friendships that might be casual, you might have a friendship where it's a much more intimate relationship, same with your spouse, you might be very intimate with your spouse on all levels of that continuum of intimacy, where you wouldn't with somebody else.I can't forget about, we talk so much about self-care, the relationship that we have with ourself. So don't forget to communicate with yourself, to respect yourself in who you are because you need to be full, you need to have self-care because you're one part of a relationship as well. There's also unhealthy relationships and it's the same types of relationships that you have. But some things to be thinking about are the characteristics of what an unhealthy relationship is and that can be, there's criticism, there isn't communication, there's a loss of intimacy, that connection, that passive-aggressive behaviors that you're seeing, that trust has been broken in a relationship or they're hostile, and there's many more that we could be listing as you shared from a healthy perspective, there's others that would come up. Here's the thing, as relationships grow over time and have different scenarios or circumstances that happen is that there may be times when a relationship might experience some unhealthy characteristics and how the relationship addresses those will determine whether they stay unhealthy or whether they shift and now you become healthy. One of the things to think about though in your relationship is that, if you have a lot of these characteristics in your relationships or all of these are present in your relationship, then that's where you really want to start checking against your values. What is your value in your relationship and who you are and do these align? Now, we're not in any means advocating, a path of, do you stay in relationships or not, those are personal decisions that each one of you would be making. But what we're hoping is we're giving you some tools for you to evaluate that, to make whatever decisions that you need to make. Anything else, Brenda, that you want to add in this?Brenda Mack: I don't, I don't think so.Shauna Reitmeier: Think so right now? So then here's the piece to that, we would be, I think, a little remiss if we didn't bring up, is that, if a relationship is unhealthy and your relationship experiences any of these areas that are part of the power and control is being exerted over you, that you feel you don't have your own power and your own control in these areas, it may be a sign that you are in an abusive relationship.Brenda Mack: We also like to share this, just so that you have some awareness, in case you know of somebody who, you have this sixth sense or intuition in your gut that they're not in a healthy relationship, just wanted to raise some awareness about patterns of abuse happen in cycles and there are times where you may feel like the abuse is over or things are smooth and without addressing these issues, it can go on and on potentially for your friend. Well, that's a heavy subject to talk about.Shauna Reitmeier: It really is.Brenda Mack: It's a heavy subject and yet again, I think we just would feel we'd be remiss if we didn't at least address a little bit on this call.Megan Roberts: Thanks for joining us on this Cultivating Resiliency for Women in Agriculture Podcast series one. In this session, we learned about relationships from families, friends, casual relationships, to romantic relationships, to the relationship we have with ourselves. All these types of relationships can be positive and all these types of relationships can become negative. Do you have shared healthy values with the people you consider your closest relationship to? Do you have signs of unhealthy relationships? In the month since this webinar was recorded to now, our world has changed due to the pandemic. The ways many of us kept in contact with those outside our household are now strained as we have had to adapt to social distancing, but phone calls, emails, video chat, and more are all possibilities as our in-person face-to-face relationship tools are put on hold. We hope you find ways to keep connected. This project is a collaboration of American Agri-Women, District 11 Agri-Women University of Minnesota Extension, Women in Ag Network, and the Upper Midwest Agricultural Safety and Health Center (UMASH). You may find the recordings for an entire webinar series on the UMASH or American Agri-Women websites under cultivating resiliency. Our next podcast is part two of our focus on relationships, where we talk about ways to improve relationships through active listening, conflict resolution and other strategies. 

This week on the show - Megan Roberts

This episode our hosts Shauna Reitmeier and Brenda Mack focus on increasing joy and happiness even in the midst of stressful times in agriculture. While we recorded this episode pre-Covid-19, many of these tips can be adapted and used during social distancing. Happy listening!TranscriptMegan Roberts: Welcome to this session of our Cultivating Resiliency for Women in Agriculture podcast, series one. The Cultivating Resiliency project develops tools for women in agriculture to recognize, adapt to, and develop positive coping strategies to life stresses. This podcast series is developed from our Cultivating Resiliency webinar sessions. I'm Megan Roberts and I co-lead this project along with Doris Mold. In this podcast, we feature Shauna Reitmeier and Brenda Mack as our session hosts. Shauna and Brenda are professionals in behavioral health with family ties to farming. In this session, we talk about focusing on increasing joy and happiness, even in the midst of stressful times in agriculture. First, we hear from Shauna and then you hear Brenda join in.Shauna Reitmeier: As we go into this conversation today about joy and happiness we all, as farmers, I remember growing up on my farm and I have to think back why did my grandparents go into farming? Why did my dad decide to farm? And I'm sure all of you listening that are in farming, ranching, agriculture industry went into this because it brought you joy and it brought you some happiness. It's that question of what drew me into this that made me happy when things may seem really out of control, or stressful, or that positive stress turns negative? Is how do you take this happiness and take that memory lane back to why didn't we do this? So remember that. Keep that in the back of your mind, as we talk about joy and happiness. When things get stressful, why did you start going into agriculture and farming and ranching?Brenda Mack: All right. So we just want you to think a little bit about these sayings that are out there. Happiness is not defined by obtaining everything you want, but by appreciating everything you have. And happiness is not out there. It's in you. Be happy not because everything is good, but because you see the good in everything. It really reminds me, Shauna, I think about what do I have control over in my life? I don't have control over farm commodities. I don't have control over the weather. I don't have control over my husband's reaction to things. I have control over me. You have the ability to alter or change your thoughts. When we look at the happiness and joy and gratitude research, that is foundational, is modifying your negative or self-defeating thoughts to more optimistic or positive or hopeful thoughts. I know that's really easy to say. I would encourage you to practice that. On a couple of earlier seminars, we provided a worksheet that's a self-care self-talk worksheet of taking your old patterns, your negative patterns of talking and changing those old patterns to new patterns that have a direct impact on how you feel and then how you behave.Shauna Reitmeier: That's that thought the feeling and then the behavior or the action that you do based on that. When you have one that's negative, how do you use that framework to flip it?Brenda Mack: Yeah.Shauna Reitmeier: Right? That's the one you're talking about, Brenda.Brenda Mack: So I think about this. I read a study one time that as women, we are often most critical about our body image and how we look. So I think about something like, "I hate how my stomach looks. I have too many rolls," and how can I reframe that? Because you don't feel good when you say that to yourself. That probably one makes you want to stay home and not go out to coffee with your friend because maybe your jeans are a little too tight. But if you can think about or reframe to say, "I'm really proud of myself that I walked three times outside this week and I'm feeling stronger and healthier, and maybe I'm going to wear my yoga pants out to have coffee with my friend." So again, it's not taking a self-defeating statement and being untruthful to yourself, but it's finding the honest way, an honest answer about something more positive or hopeful or optimistic that you can give yourself that message instead.In talking about research, there's been many studies on what specifically can increase your happiness level. Happiness, the definition of happiness is different for everyone. Happiness for you may be, or for me, may be just a sense of peace, a sense of overall wellbeing. Although, time to time, you may see an escalation in your happiness level because maybe your child got a scholarship to go to college, or you had an afternoon of hanging out with your dog and your kids and your husband, and you played football in the farm yard. You may see a spike in happiness. But my point is, is that happiness and what that definition is, is just a little bit different for everyone. Some of the studies show, many studies show that expressing gratitude leads to an increase in happiness.Megan Roberts: Let's talk more about a simple way to show gratitude. You can write a so-called gratitude letter. To do this, think of someone who did something for you that you were very thankful for, but you have not yet expressed your gratitude to. Get a piece of paper and write out a letter expressing your thanks and send it to them, or if possible, read it to them. The Greater Good Science Center at University of California Berkeley showed this simple act of gratitude, writing a gratitude letter, scientifically increased happiness a month later in participants.Shauna Reitmeier: Here are, just again, are some more ways that you can consider in boosting your happiness. What I really like is with Brenda tying in the science and the research behind this because some of these things are really writing a letter as science, but we can see what the data of what people were feeling before and their levels of happiness and what their levels of happiness were afterwards. That research on even people that just kept a gratitude journal, people that had been on antidepressants because they were feeling so depressed and were not able to find happiness, once implementing just completing a gratitude journal of writing down their three good things in a day and why that was something that they were grateful for were able to reduce the use of their antidepressants over 30 day period of time.Brenda Mack: Yeah. I want to add to that a little bit because in the therapy that I used to do with individuals and families and this farm community, as well as when I teach about stress and burnout and self-care to students in the classroom, and when I'm doing presentation on these topics, I often talk about the three good things activity because it is something that is pretty quick and easy to do in a busy and overwhelming farm life. So the idea is that before you go to bed at night, you should have a piece of paper or a journal or your phone with a way to type in what are three separate and distinct? And maybe a little bit of detail about what that was during the day. Every night, you should change it up so that you're not saying, "Oh, I got up and worked outside today," but that you try to change those three good things so that it doesn't become repetitive or monotonous. It sort of loses its value in doing that. What the studies show about this is after a 30 day period of time, individuals see their happiness level increase.Brenda Mack: Additionally, I just wanted to talk a little bit about the science and studies regarding random acts of kindness. It's another specific particular activity that you can do, and you can do random acts of kindness that don't cost any money. You hear about those random acts of kindness of going through the Starbucks or Caribou Coffee, pay it forward, the drive through on buying, the coffee for the person behind you, but you can also do things like shoveling your next door neighbor's sidewalk. Or if we're in the farm community, we've had so much snow this winter, especially in our region, clearing snow for your neighbor next to you. So those random acts of kindness not only increase the happiness level of the person who's been the recipient of that, but it increases your own happiness level. I thought this was kind of an interesting activity to do. Focus on doing five nice things for someone all in the same day. Then write down how that makes you feel. Part of what Shauna and I want you to walk away with today is some practical, tangible, but grounded in research activities that you can do to increase your joy and happiness. One other thing that I do is because I do quite a bit of driving is I will download books on audible or some other site that is connected to joy and happiness. When I have a hot, steaming delicious cup of coffee and the sun is rising and I'm listening to the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu talk about joy and kindness and compassion, it just warms my heart. So these are just a few of our lessons learned based on science that you might want to consider what works for you. Maybe some of these works and others don't, but that's what we hope to offer today.The power of exercise and going out and doing something physical. So walk yourself out of that bad mood. Studies show that even a 10 minute walk will immediately boost your brain chemistry that increases your happiness. Gratitude increases happiness. Happiness spontaneously rises from gratitude and becomes a continuous feedback loop. Again, so if you're expressing your gratitude, say you expressed your gratitude to your mentor and your mentor reached out to you, which again then fed your happiness. Really, what the overarching theme of this series is, it's about how do we build our resilience as women connected to farming and ranching and agriculture? Remember ways to build your resilience are things like exercising, eating right, getting a good amount of sleep, connecting with a friend, a pastor, or a counselor. But those are some tangible types of activities that can increase our resilience and help us to find ways to bounce back from adverse experiences.Shauna Reitmeier: Yeah, I think the whole intention is to be able to take these pieces of information through this series is going to help you bounce back. It is giving you tools to be resilient. So sometimes you'll read that. It's like, "Okay, great. I'll find ways to bounce back. Well, how do I do that?" Well, it's this continuum of pieces around building self-care, keeping ourselves physically active, building those connections, active listening, dealing with conflict. All of those together can help you bounce back.Brenda Mack: Shauna, we've also talked about how oftentimes, we are our harshest critic. And I would say another activity to build your happiness and increase your self-compassion is write yourself a gratitude letter. Write yourself a gratitude letter and file it away somewhere or put it away somewhere. Every once in a while, if you're having a difficult day and you're being really hard on yourself, go to that drawer and pick up that letter. So again, in coming to a close here, here's just five additional tips to happiness.Set your alarm and wake up to a song or music that you like. Music can also be very uplifting. I don't love to clean the house, but if I put on some music and my favorite artists, it makes it a little easier to do. Again, maybe not only look at writing about the three good things that happened at night, but you could start your morning by identifying three things that you're thankful for. Being clear about your intentions and then having a schedule for a day is a tip to happiness. Eating healthy, being prepared, not eating on the run, but maybe having a healthy lunch packed can influence your happiness levels. Then get exercise and bask in the sun like you just said. Get that vitamin D to increase your well-being and how you feel.Megan Roberts: Thanks for joining us on this Cultivating Resiliency for Women in Agriculture podcast, series one. In this session, we learned about the science of joy and happiness. What don't we have control over? What do we have control over? We do have the ability to focus on modifying our negative thoughts and actions into positive thoughts and actions. Focusing on why we chose agriculture, what we are grateful for, and ways we can be kind to others can help increase our joy and happiness in the midst of our agricultural lives. All of these tools and tips are meant to help us bounce back in the face of adversity and be more resilient through the ups and downs of farming. This project is a collaboration of American Agri-Women, District 11 Agri-Women, University of Minnesota Extension, Women and Ag Network, and the Upper Midwest Agricultural Safety and Health Center, or UMASH. You may find the recordings for our entire webinars series on the UMASH or American Agri-Women websites under Cultivating Resiliency. Our next podcast will focus on tips for building healthy relationships in stressful times.

There’s a common misconception that you need to run expensive advanced biomedical tests to fix your health. Over the years we’ve found just the opposite, that you can learn much of what you need to know from basic blood chemistry. Perhaps the best example is the information gained from a Complete Blood Count (CBC) with Differential. As the most common blood test, it is widely used to assess general health status, screen for disorders, and to evaluate nutritional status. On this podcast, NBT Scientific Director Megan Hall and I are talking about leukocytes, also known as white blood cells (WBCs), as critical elements of the CBC blood test. Megan discusses the various types of leukocytes and what it means when your count is outside the reference range. We talk about what leukocytes tell you about your nutritional status, why some people “never get sick” as well as signs you’ve got chronic inflammation or physiological stress. Megan also discusses how to use this information to determine the next steps in your health journey. Here’s the outline of this interview with Megan Hall: [00:01:04] Forum post: Chronically Low White Blood Cell Count. Get access when you support us on Patreon. [00:01:45] Leukocytes = White Blood Cells (WBCs) found on CBC with differential blood test. [00:02:58] Different types of white blood cells. [00:04:18] Phagocytosis video. [00:06:10] Absolute vs relative counts of WBCs. [00:09:15] Optimal range of WBCs in relation to all-cause mortality. [00:11:25] Baltimore Longitudinal Study on Aging: Ruggiero, Carmelinda, et al. "White blood cell count and mortality in the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging." Journal of the American College of Cardiology 49.18 (2007): 1841-1850.  [00:12:57] Study: Shah, Anoop Dinesh, et al. "White cell count in the normal range and short-term and long-term mortality: international comparisons of electronic health record cohorts in England and New Zealand." BMJ open 7.2 (2017): e013100.  [00:15:30] bloodsmart.ai. [00:18:00] Why WBCs might be high: Leukocytosis. [00:18:45] Paper: WBCs are predictive of all cause mortality: Crowell, Richard J., and Jonathan M. Samet. "Invited commentary: why does the white blood cell count predict mortality?." American Journal of Epidemiology 142.5 (1995): 499-501.  [00:20:00] Podcast: Air Pollution Is a Cause of Endothelial Injury, Systemic Inflammation and Cardiovascular Disease, with Arden Pope, PhD. [00:21:57] Association of leukocytosis with metabolic syndrome; Study: Babio, Nancy, et al. "White blood cell counts as risk markers of developing metabolic syndrome and its components in the PREDIMED study." PloS one 8.3 (2013): e58354. [00:22:15] Megan's outline for this podcast. [00:22:41] What to do if you have elevated WBC counts. [00:22:54] Impact of stress; Studies: 1. Nishitani, Naoko, and Hisataka Sakakibara. "Association of psychological stress response of fatigue with white blood cell count in male daytime workers." Industrial health 52.6 (2014): 531-534. and 2. Jasinska, Anna J., et al. "Immunosuppressive effect and global dysregulation of blood transcriptome in response to psychosocial stress in vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus sabaeus)." Scientific reports 10.1 (2020): 1-12.  [00:23:32] Dr. Simon Marshall and Lesley Paterson; Podcast: How to Manage Stress, with Simon Marshall, PhD. [00:24:08] Reasons WBC counts might be low; Leukopenia. [00:27:57] "I never get sick". [00:30:40] What to do if your WBCs are low. [00:30:56] Effects of low energy availability: Studies: 1. Johannsen, Neil M., et al. "Effect of different doses of aerobic exercise on total white blood cell (WBC) and WBC subfraction number in postmenopausal women: results from DREW." PloS one 7.2 (2012): e31319. and 2. Sarin, Heikki V., et al. "Molecular pathways mediating immunosuppression in response to prolonged intensive physical training, low-energy availability, and intensive weight loss." Frontiers in immunology 10 (2019): 907.  [00:31:44] Articles by Megan on energy availability and underfueling: 1. Why Your Ketogenic Diet Isn’t Working Part One: Underfueling and Overtraining; 2. How to Prevent Weight Loss (or Gain Muscle) on a Therapeutic Ketogenic Diet; 3. What We Eat and How We Train Part 1: Coach and Ketogenic Diet Researcher, Megan Roberts; 4. How to Carbo Load the Right Way [00:31:52] Podcast: How to Identify and Treat Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (RED-S), with Nicky Keay. [00:33:03] Ranges may slightly differ by ethnicity; 1. Haddy, Theresa B., Sohail R. Rana, and Oswaldo Castro. "Benign ethnic neutropenia: what is a normal absolute neutrophil count?." Journal of Laboratory and Clinical Medicine 133.1 (1999): 15-22; 2. Palmblad, Jan, and Petter Höglund. "Ethnic benign neutropenia: a phenomenon finds an explanation." Pediatric blood & cancer 65.12 (2018): e27361; 3. Grann, Victor R., et al. "Neutropenia in 6 ethnic groups from the Caribbean and the US." Cancer: Interdisciplinary International Journal of the American Cancer Society 113.4 (2008): 854-860.  [00:34:39] Absolute Neutrophil to absolute Lymphocyte Ratio (NLR) as indicator of systemic inflammation; Studies: 1. Gürağaç, Ali, and Zafer Demirer. "The neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio in clinical practice." Canadian Urological Association Journal 10.3-4 (2016): 141-2; 2. Fest, Jesse, et al. "The neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio is associated with mortality in the general population: The Rotterdam Study." European journal of epidemiology 34.5 (2019): 463-470.  [00:36:19] Elevated NLR associated with poor outcomes in COVID-19 patients. Studies: 1. Yang, Ai-Ping, et al. "The diagnostic and predictive role of NLR, d-NLR and PLR in COVID-19 patients." International immunopharmacology (2020): 106504; 2. Ciccullo, Arturo, et al. "Neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio and clinical outcome in COVID-19: a report from the Italian front line." International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents (2020); 3. Liu, Jingyuan, et al. "Neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio predicts critical illness patients with 2019 coronavirus disease in the early stage." Journal of Translational Medicine 18 (2020): 1-12.  [00:37:41] NLR predicts mortality in medical inpatients: Isaac, Vivian, et al. "Elevated neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio predicts mortality in medical inpatients with multiple chronic conditions." Medicine 95.23 (2016).  [00:38:21] What to do if NLR is out of range. [00:39:23] NLR on bloodsmart.ai (found on the Marker Detail View page). [00:40:01] NLR as a marker of physiological stress: 1. Onsrud, M., and E. Thorsby. "Influence of in vivo hydrocortisone on some human blood lymphocyte subpopulations: I. Effect on natural killer cell activity." Scandinavian journal of immunology 13.6 (1981): 573-579; 2. PulmCrit: Neutrophil-Lymphocyte Ratio (NLR): Free upgrade to your WBC. [00:41:59] Schedule a 15-minute Starter Session.

This episode is a continuation of our last episode, Shauna Reitmeier and Brenda Mack summarize the second half of our “You can't pour from an empty cup” webinar. One of the ways we can refill our cups is to practice self-care. Here we focus on emotional self care and decision making as a way to get and stay energized in the midst of our busy lives in agriculture and farming. TranscriptMegan Roberts: Welcome to this session of our Cultivating Resiliency for Women in Agriculture podcast, series one. The Cultivating Resiliency project develops tools for women in agriculture to recognize, adapt to, and develop positive coping strategies to life stresses. This podcast series is developed from our Cultivating Resiliency webinars sessions. I'm Megan Roberts and I co-led this project along with Doris Mold. In this podcast, we feature Shauna Reitmeier and Brenda Mack as our session hosts. Shauna and Brenda are professionals in behavioral health with family ties to farming. In this session, we summarize the second half of our You Can't Pour From An Empty Cup webinar. One of the ways we can refill our cups is to practice self-care. Here, we focus on emotional self-care and decision-making as a way to get and stay energized. Here is Brenda.Brenda Mack: Something that's been helpful for me regarding what issues am I going to focus on, how am I going to make decisions what's my plan going to be is for me, it's helpful to feel a sense of accomplishment and so I'll look at all of the tasks or activities that I need to do or get done, and I'll write those down, and then I'll look at that like lowest hanging fruit. If I'm walking by an apple tree and there's an apple that is right at kind of my arms length reach, it's easy to pull that apple down and take a bite out of it. And that's really what I think about with when I'm organizing tasks and activities and trying to feel a sense of accomplishment is starting with those things that are more easily and quickly accomplished, and there is something about scratching through that line on your to-do list and seeing that it's done. That gives me energy. It fills my cup a bit.Shauna Reitmeier: And now we walk into that next step of the process is really how do you make decisions and what the process of decision-making is? And these are just some of the things to think about, and we're going to talk about a couple of those in a little more detail here, but identifying problem solving, identifying what's the decision that needs to be made, gathering the information and do you have the facts? Do you have your personal values that are important for you to weigh this information against, and identifying your options of what you want to do. Weighing what that evidence or that information that you gathered, is it high risk? Is it low risk? And choosing which options that you want to take action on.So that's really just the process and things that you can be thinking about as you move forward with tackling that list of things that you've just come up with. And so these are some questions, when you're trying to solve a problem, many times it's trying to really get at is there a root or an underlying issue? Because sometimes some things come up that there might be five things, but it's really something that is at the core that needs to get addressed. And so an exercise that I use very often is this ask five why. If you ask five why's to what your first problem or first issue is, you start drilling down and you get to what that root of your question or your problem is that you're trying to solve.What you could do in asking well, why can't we make this vet bill? All right, because now you're diving into well, because I've got these three other bills. I've got to pay for seed, I've got to pay for feed, I've got labor costs.Doris Mold: And I've got to keep heat on in the house and food on the table.Shauna Reitmeier: Well, exactly.Doris Mold: Okay.Shauna Reitmeier: And so then you say well, why do we have that? Well, my value and I've got my priority is that my family, I need to pay for this first. And then you start drilling down and what it does is it helps you ... So it doesn't solve the problem. I mean, you're getting to the root of what an issue is, but then you start diving into what do I have control over or what don't I have control over?This does not mean, when you go through a process like this, does not mean it's going to make it easy. It's giving you a framework to start asking the questions because there are going to be times. The reality is that there are times we're going to have to make really hard decisions that we don't really want to make, but by making them itself relieves some of that pressure.Doris Mold: Right.Shauna Reitmeier: Do I have to scale back in my production of what I've been ... With whatever your crop is or your cattle, because I can't keep up with these bills or I need to scale back in some of my fun or personal activities that I want to do to make sure that I can put food on the table and pay the vet bill.Doris Mold: Right.Shauna Reitmeier: Maybe I'm going to have to hold off on a trip that I wanted to take or a remodel on something.Brenda Mack: When I see this and I hear you talk about this a little bit further. To me, it's like that apple that I just picked from the low hanging ... From the tree, and that you're taking a bite of an apple and the core of the apple is your ability to make an informed decision. And so this process of taking those bites of the apple, or if you want to reference peeling away the layers of an onion, it's to get to that point where you make an informed decision, and it might be a difficult informed decision, it might be an outcome that you don't necessarily want to have happen, but you're at that point where you can make that informed decision. Because you've been through this process of asking yourself these questions, reaching out to somebody else where that decision affects them as well, and it helps you to organize and structurally think about that a little bit more.Shauna Reitmeier: It does, and it also helps you start the what and the why. That kind of gets at the underlying okay, how did this come up? Why did it come up? Is it an interpersonal relationship issue? And then you start getting into who's involved. Am I trying to please somebody or does somebody has an expectation on me? So it helps you start figuring out, getting more to the now how do I address that? And then, so then moving in, as we drill down to how do we solve that problem? What questions am I asking? One of the other pieces here is how do I assess the risk? So when I'm starting to get ready to make a decision to say do I want to move forward with something, and let's use an example of one of the things on the list that you dumped out from your brain dump that you've done is we just found out that a big section of the side panel on the barn is rotting out and that's where the cattle all line up for milking every morning, and you're trying to figure out what do I do. Do I build a brand new barn? Do I just repair a section? You start asking yourself ... Say it's October and the snow ... We won't say it's the 22 below zero that it was here this morning in Crookston, Minnesota. Let's say it's winter is coming and you know you have to do that, so you start weighing out, is it probable? Can we do this? And is there a risk? So what's the risk to the cattle? What if the barn is ... It makes the structure unstable? Is the barn ready to fall down? Well, yes it is. If it's ready to fall down, then you've got a safety risk. You've got a risk to people working in the bar, you've got risk to the cattle. You start making a decision of okay, we're going to repair. All right, do we have the ... Can we afford it? Do we have the income to cover that? Is it repairing versus building a brand new barn? So you look at if it is something that yep, we've got the money, we can fix the side of the barn, we're not going to build a whole new barn. So the probability of being able to do that is pretty high and the risk is maybe somewhat medium. The barn isn't going to fall down right away, but it allows you to start weighing your decision on probability with the problem is how risky is the problem. So it helps you make some decisions on that.Brenda Mack: I think what can be helpful about this as well is it helps you frame the issue and get organized around the issue, and it's something that you can do with the other person in your relationship that is needing to make a decision about this.Shauna Reitmeier: You bet.Brenda Mack: So you certainly can do this independently, but it's also meant as an opportunity to have a shared vision or process of being able to make decisions.Shauna Reitmeier: And that's the secondary purpose behind this. So this is great in helping get all that stuff that's in our head out on a piece of paper, start asking questions, using those frameworks to figure out what do we work on first? How risky is the issue? And helping then moving into how do we plan for the action of fixing or solving whatever the problem is? And I just pulled out a couple examples in what Brenda was saying is the secondary piece behind this is you can do this with your spouse, with your business partner that you might run your farm with, as a way to put this information out on a piece of paper so it doesn't become struggles potentially, and it's used as a communication tool. It's used as an accountability tool. So now you say we've decided as our farm, we are going to repair that side of the barn, we are going to do it ourselves, we're not going to contract out because we feel like we can do this. We've researched that. So now, if it's just my husband and myself that are working on this, it's the two of us that are going to figure out who's doing it, but it also helps me say, "All right, Shauna, this is what I'm going to take of, so that's what I'm in control of, and my husband's going to worry about these things. So those are the parts that he can worry about and I don't have to worry about them because he's doing it."So this just is a tool. I mean, it can be as detailed as you want it to be, or it could be as simple as that little picture up there with a marker on a piece of paper that the idea really behind this is to help figure out who's going to do what to accomplish a goal and to move forward so you've made a decision, you're being intentional about whatever that decision is, and it can also, when I think of from family dynamics as well, I mean, you could be putting your children in there that might have a task. Oh, they might not know how to do it, maybe I'll put a checklist together so when they go out to the barn they know what to do.Or it helps just, again, that communication and having those side conversations with your spouse or your partner around boy, are you worried at all? Now we've got to do this, and we know we've made this decision, but are you worried about the cost? Is there anything that you're concerned about as we do this? So now it's about the activity of action planning, but it allows for a backdoor approach to start having some conversations with your partner as well.Megan Roberts: Now here is Brenda, one more time for some concluding remarks on a decision many find challenging to make, the decision to say no when we have too much on our plate and our feelings spread thin.Brenda Mack: I'm giving everyone here permission to say no. We don't have to be everything to everyone, and if we are trying to be everything to everyone, you're probably going to see your stress increase to levels that can be very unmanageable. So it's okay to it's okay to say no.Shauna Reitmeier: The question to start asking yourself a little bit is what of these things align with what's really important to me? What are my values? As we start figuring out how do you move forward with managing all of this stuff so that when the next person comes up to you and asks, "Hey, could you help me with this fundraiser? Or could you do this?" Yo know right away what is the most important to you right now and sure, you want to be helpful, but maybe not right now because you're over committed or oh, you know that in a week something's going to come off your plate and you'll have time then to be able to help. It just helps you manage a little bit more all of the demands that are happening.Megan Roberts: Thanks for joining us on this Cultivating Resiliency for Women in Agriculture podcast, series one. Becoming more resilient and practicing self-care takes intention and focus on making careful decisions. It takes care, time, and effort to support each of the three legs of the self-care stool. These three legs are relationships/social care, emotional self-care, and physical self-care. Here we really focused in on the emotional self-care leg of the self-care stool, in particular, through the context of emotional self-care in decision-making. We started by talking about picking the low hanging fruit when it comes to tasks and decisions. We learned strategies like making lists, asking yourself good questions, why, what, how. What is causing your stress and making your decisions difficult? And we learned on focusing on what we can control. When making your decisions, can you come to a solution that relies only on the things you can control? We can't change what we can't control. Finally, remember that we have limited time in our days and sometimes the decision we have to make is to say no in order to protect our time and to reduce negative stress. Speaking of reducing negativity and negative stress, our next podcast will focus on increasing joy and happiness in an agricultural life. This project is a collaboration of American Agri-Women, District 11 Agri-Women, University of Minnesota Extension Women in Ag Network, and the Upper Midwest Agricultural Safety and Health Center, UMASH. You may find the recordings for our entire webinars series on the UMASH or American Agri-Women websites under Cultivating Resiliency.

In this episode and our next episode, we summarize our “You can't pour from an empty cup” webinar. One of the ways to refill our cups is to practice self care. A way to think of self-care is to imagine a stool with three legs: a social and relationship leg, a physical self care leg, and an emotional self care leg. This podcast session hones in on making physical self care intentional, in particular through good sleep habits. First we hear from Shauna Reitmeier. Then, Brenda Mack joins.TranscriptMegan Roberts: Welcome to this session of our Cultivating Resiliency for Women in Agriculture podcast, series one. The Cultivating Resiliency project develops tools for women in agriculture to recognize, adapt to and develop positive coping strategies to life stresses. This podcast series is developed from our cultivating resiliency webinar sessions. I'm Megan Roberts, and I co-lead this project along with Doris Mold. In this podcast, we feature Shauna Reitmeier and Brenda Mack as our session hosts. Shauna and Brenda are professionals in behavioral health with family ties to farming. In our next two sessions, we summarize our, "you can't pour from an empty cup," webinar. One of the ways to refill our cups is to practice self care. A way to think of self-care is to imagine a stool with three legs, a social and relationship leg, a physical self-care leg and an emotional self care leg. This podcast session hones in on making physical self-care intentional. In particular through goods and habits. First, we hear from Shauna Reitmeier. Then, Brenda Mack joins. Here's Shauna.Shauna Reitmeier: How do we take care of ourselves? Which in my mind is, "how do I put that oxygen mask on me first before I can start getting into really, how do I fill my cup?" And part of that is making decisions and setting intentions. It's hard sometimes. We want these things to just happen. But they don't happen unless we actually make some decisions as we move forward.Brenda Mack: Thinking about self care as, what are the ways and things that you can do that refill and refuel you in healthy ways? And I think Brianna Weist said it really well. She said that, "true self care is not only salt baths and chocolate cake. It's making the choice to build a life you don't regularly have to escape from." And so I think when you're connecting with others and you're tapping into those individuals who do fill your cup, who energize you and who don't deplete your energy or exhaust you, that's some of the strategies on the foundation of taking care of yourself and reducing your stress. And then all of those other additional bubble baths or short-term activities just enhance that foundation of taking of yourself by connecting with others. By reframing your negative messages into more optimistic or hopeful messages. And by just having your basic self-care needs met. Your physical needs. Your sleep. Your eating healthy. Your drinking water. Your exercising and-Shauna Reitmeier: I like that word "choice," that you use Brenda. And it gets to even some of that boundary setting. We make choices and we set those boundaries and we make decisions that might seem hard and might seem stressful at the front end, but once we make some of those hard decisions or set intention and purpose to things, our energy goes up because that weight goes away. Once the decision is made, many times things just start to feel a lot better for people.Brenda Mack: And I really like your word of the day of intentionality. And we've heard from some of the participants on the webinars before that, where they're living can be really isolating. And so how do we connect in intentional ways, given some of those barriers of living out in a rural remote area. And my example this morning of... That I hopped on the computer and had virtual coffee with a friend,. that is a way that technology is making connection a little bit easier. And we had to be intentional about that. I had to be intentional about that.Shauna Reitmeier: I like that. In setting the time, scheduling that time.Brenda Mack: Right. In 45 minutes I mean, if that doesn't work. That even for 10 minutes connecting with someone or doing a 10 minutes worth of exercise can also make a big impact on our emotional health and well-being.Shauna Reitmeier: There is also a breathing technique called 4-7-8, that is a great mindfulness exercise. That makes you start thinking about your breathing and what you're doing with breathing. And many times that stress, we forget to breathe and we can't forget to breathe because our body needs that oxygen so we can actually make good decisions and stay focused. And so when we get to that point where things... And even as we're going to talk about sleep here, that is an exercise that I know I use at night, many times if I struggle with getting to sleep, because I've got a bunch of things racing in my head. That I will practice that breathing technique as well. And so to stay energized we also need to make sure that we're sleeping and we can't be energized if we aren't sleeping. And managing stress is really challenging when we're not sleeping.And so this information is shared to you by the national Institute of health, through the national Institute for sleep. And some of these are researched and very well known. There's still a lot of work being done on sleep and how it affects the brain. But one of the things that we know is when we sleep, that's when the brain starts organizing all of the information in what's happened in the day and the week. And allows the brain and ourselves to be able to recall things better. Be able to just make decisions and problem solve. And so these are just some tasks or things that you can be thinking about or practice and do. Be intentional in doing those to help you sleep if you find that you're struggling, sleeping. And so the first one really is about setting a schedule. So try to get to bed at the same time every night and try to wake up at the same time.That's something that we say a lot of times, "I'll just catch up on my sleep on the weekend." Well, the reality is, we don't ever catch up on sleep. It's what happens in that night. And so the more we can try to sleep... And now everybody said, "you need six to eight hours." It's really different depending on each person. And the research is starting to show that when you're an infant, of course you might be sleeping 16 hours a day. But then as we age, we don't need as much sleep. But it's monitoring how do I feel? How am I managing? Is really whether or not how much sleep you need. Relaxing before you go to bed. Do you drink a hot cup of non-caffeinated? I should put herbal tea in here maybe, not caffeinated tea. Reading a book.So now I know that there's a lot of folks that use readers like Kindles or fire tablets and all of that. That's okay. But make sure you're using a setting so you're not having that white background signing in your face. And that gets to one of the other pieces of avoid alcohol, caffeine, nicotine and electronic screens in the evening, is that it brings up that blue light on devices. Mimic as if you're a daylight and stimulates the brain. Create a space in your room for sleep. Remove clutter. Remove TVs in the bedroom. Having cool temperature between 65 degrees, they say, is supposed to be a really good temperature for sleeping. Try to keep exercising. And if you can't sleep at night, get up, don't stay in your bed. Get up and try to go do some relaxing activity. Maybe you pull out a book again. Maybe you do some stretching to relax. But really keeping your bedroom as the place really is for sleeping and for sex. Those intimate relationships that you have. Is keeping that space really as a place to promote what the bedroom is intended to be so you're able to sleep.Brenda Mack: So that you associate the bedroom with those specific activities, rather than your brain thinking, "oh, this is the time to watch TV or this is the time to work on my computer" that you want to train your brain, that this is the place that you primarily need to go to sleep and you engage in intimacy.Shauna Reitmeier: Exactly. And if practicing these things don't work for you, I would go talk to your doctor because maybe you have sleep apnea. Maybe you are struggling. You're snoring a lot. You find moments where you're waking up gasping for breath. There's sleep studies that can be done. Maybe you just need a CPAP machine and your doctor through those sleep studies will be able to help you figure that out as well. I keep a notepad beside my bed. So all of those thoughts that come up... I mean, this happens to me, when things are stressful for me, sleep is my first thing that's affected. And so I have a habit of, I get to sleep well, but then I wake up at two, three o'clock in the morning and my head just starts racing. And I'm like, "oh, I forgot to send that email. I've got to get this report out the door. I need to respond to somebody." So I keep a list. I write those things down. And then that gets me out of my head and then I won't forget about it. And then I rip that off and I take that with me in the morning when I go to work.Brenda Mack: In addition to what I do is, if I wake up in the middle of the night, same thing, I all of a sudden I'm running through everything that I have to do tomorrow and how am I going to get it done? That I'll try to stay in bed for a little bit to see if I can let that go and go back to sleep. So probably 15 to 20 minutes, maybe even up to a half an hour. If after a half an hour I'm in that environment and I can't get back to sleep, I get out. Otherwise, I'm going to stay there and stay awake for hours.So I'll get up and I'll get out and I'll go and lay on the couch in a different environment. I'll throw a blanket on me and I will do that mindfulness breathing. Breathing in and out and repeating that message that works for me. Be still and know. Other people don't need a message. You can just focus on the breathing, focus on the breathing. And oftentimes if I get out of the environment, then I'll either fall asleep on the couch or I'll get to such a relaxed state that I go back to my bed and can fall asleep again quickly. So those are a few additional tips.Doris Mold: So ladies, don't you think too... And you've covered this a little bit, but preparing yourself for sleep too and preparing yourself just to relax. I know that especially if you've been working outside a lot, you've been out in the cold, your muscles and joints are cold, taking a hot shower or a hot bath and just getting yourself really relaxed. Because part of what wakes you up, sometimes it's just aches and pains. You got a cramp or this happens or that, and then you're wait for hours and-Shauna Reitmeier: Doing that with enough time. Like an hour before you would normally go to bed, starting some of that routine. And again, it gets... You start associating this practice with being in your bed and sleeping. So preparing a hot shower. A hot bath. Even smells, essential oils or lavender lotion that you put on before you go to sleep. And start associating some sense and smells with what sleep is, can help as well.Brenda Mack: And I think that can be adjusted as well, because I think about women in agriculture with young children. You are putting your kids to bed really just moment before you're trying to unwind and go to bed as well, because you need to get up early in the morning to do work around the farm or whatever. And so there are... You have to figure out which one of these activities and suggestions is going to fit best you and work best for you.Shauna Reitmeier: And then the other piece. And this like the person, what tips do you have at night when you're having a hard time getting to sleep? I use this, dump your mind. Use this as an opportunity to, when you give yourself this alone time to start preparing, to make decisions and be intentional in managing this stress is, write down. Whether it's on your phone and your notes section. Whether it's on a computer, on a piece of paper, on a whiteboard, you don't have a whiteboard, but yet for some reason have dry erase markers. You can do them on a window in your house. Write everything that you have to do down, write your worries down, write the tasks. What are the activities? What are the big decisions that you have to make, write everything down. Because getting that out of your head and onto paper helps separate it. It makes it tangible. When I can see that on a piece of paper.Megan Roberts: Thanks for joining us on this Cultivating Resiliency for Women in Agriculture podcast, series one. In this session, we focused on the physical self-care leg of the self care, three legged stool. Remember you need all three legs, relationship, physical and emotional to make yourself care stool, steady and stable. In focusing on physical self-care in this session, we learned several strategies to improve our sleep and relaxation habits. Becoming more resilient takes intentional choice and we can become more intentional about getting adequate sleep. Think back over the tips and suggestions from the session. How can you implement at least one or two strategies to improve your sleep and to help clear your mind when you are awake? Our next podcast, we'll continue our look at self-care and filling your cup. As we focus in, on emotional self care through the context of positive decision-making. This project is a collaboration of American Agri-Women, District 11 Agri-Women, University of Minnesota Extension, Women in Ag Network and the Upper Midwest Agricultural Safety and Health Center, UMASH. You may find the recordings for an entire webinar series on the UMASH or American Agri-Women websites under Cultivating Resiliency.

In this session, we discuss coping with agricultural stress and positive self talk. First, we hear from Shauna Reitmeier about coping with stress in a healthy way. Then, Brenda Mack joins to talk about reframing our negative self talk into positive self talk.TranscriptMegan Roberts: Welcome to this session of our Cultivating Resiliency for Women in Agriculture podcast, series one. The Cultivating Resiliency Project develops tools for women in agriculture to recognize, adapt to, and develop positive coping strategies to life stresses. This podcast series is developed from our Cultivating Resiliency webinars sessions. I'm Megan Roberts, and I co-lead this project along with the Doris Mold. In this podcast, we feature Shauna Reitmeier and Brenda Mack as our session hosts. Shauna and Brenda are professionals and behavioral health with family ties to farming. In this session, we address coping with stress and positive self-talk. First, we hear from Shauna Reitmeier about coping with stress in a healthy way. Then Brenda Mack joins to talk about reframing our negative self-talk into positive self-talk. Here's Shauna.Shauna Reitmeier: These are some of the things that you can do in coping with stress and diet and drinking lots of water. Healthy eating when you've got a lot of things going on is hard to do. If you're running from one event to the other, and I know the days when I've eaten poorly, and it's a lot of quick, fast food, I'm in a convenience store because I'm traveling from one place to the next, and I'm not getting fruits and vegetables and protein and lots of water. I know I physically feel that. It's sleeping, trying to sleep. Building and maintaining those really supportive relationships are really helpful. Relationships are really the root of keeping our stress ... Everybody needs somebody to bounce things off of. When I think about kind of a tool of coping with stress is this positive self-talk is so important because when you do have a bunch of things, sometimes it's really easy to stay half glass empty, go to what's not working versus what's positive, and that in itself is a symptom of stress. And so one of the things that I have done is I create these reframes and I will write them down on a post-it note. I'll put one on the bathroom mirror so when I wake up in the morning, it's the trigger and the reminder for me right away. Okay, I know I've got a lot to do, things might be stressful, but this is going to be ... I can think about this positively. So how do I start thinking about things differently? Putting one on the refrigerator, putting one on the dashboard in your car as you're going through your day, because the stress does eat at the positivity and we have to sometimes do things that give us the tools to trigger how to think differently. When you're in it, it's hard to remember to do that all on your own.Brenda Mack: When we talk about reframing or taking negative self-talk and changing that to positive self-talk, that first step is really to be aware of those self messages. And hopefully after this seminar, you'll be able to walk away and start to catch yourself when you are giving yourself negative self-talk. And we've got a practical little exercise to walk through with you here that can help you do that. On the webinar site, we've uploaded this worksheet for you to take a look at, download, print off, put on your refrigerator or mirror. On the left-hand side is for old patterns. That's your negative self-talk, and your thoughts directly impact your feelings, which directly impact your behaviors.And so really what I want you to do is I want you to think of an example of a negative message that you give yourself, and then I want you to walk through this worksheet, what is that negative message? What feelings are triggered because of that negative message? And then what is your behavior as a result of that? I want you to then reframe like Shauna, would be a good example of, I want you to reframe that message and you don't need to have this grandiose, absolutely positive rainbows and unicorns and sunshine positive self-talk, you just need to change it to something that you believe then that is more optimistic in nature. And then walk through what kind of feeling do you have when you reframe that situation where you are giving yourself a more hopeful, optimistic message and what are those feelings? And then what are the possible behaviors that are resolved with those feelings?So let me give you an example. Think about this situation, here's an old pattern. I'm not talking to my husband. He's so crabby. That's my thought. I am not talking to him because he such a crab. But my feelings are really exhaustion, resentfulness, and anger. And as a result of that, I don't talk to my husband. I go to bed without saying goodnight, and I do not engage in a conversation with him. That has a rippling effect, potentially.Now think about this reframe. My husband is worried about getting the crop harvested. I can empathize with that. I'm going to ask him for five minutes to talk about the kids' school program. I have a sense and a feeling of relief and optimism when I reframe that message, and then my behavior is asking him to go on a small walk with me. Let's just take a little walk. Let's do a walk and talk because I want to just talk for a few minutes about this program that our kids have at school. And if that walk takes you longer than five minutes, that's okay.Shauna Reitmeier: Great.Brenda: Sometimes you just need to be with one another.Shauna Reitmeier: Yeah.Brenda Mack: You don't even need words.Shauna Reitmeier: Right.Brenda Mack: But sometimes you just need to be with.Megan Roberts: Thanks for joining us on this Cultivating Resiliency for Women in Agriculture podcast, series one. In this session, we learned about coping with stress and positive self-talk. This podcast focused on three important coping strategies, building relationships, eating well, and reframing negative self-talk into positive self-talk. Remember Brenda's great suggestion, start small. This doesn't have to be grandiose or all sunshine, rainbows, and unicorns. We can be real about the challenges of farming and agriculture. Recognize agriculture is very stressful right now, but also try to reframe our thoughts and develop positive coping strategies at the same time. This project is a collaboration of American Agri-Women, District 11 Agri-Women, University of Minnesota Extension Women in Ag Network and the Upper Midwest Agricultural Safety and Health Center, UMASH. You may find the recordings for our entire webinar series on the UMASH or American Agri-Women websites under Cultivating Resiliency. Our next podcast will focus on the three legged stool of self-care and how to get and stay energized.

This session focuses on what is stress in the context of agriculture and farming. Shauna Reitmeier and Brenda Mack discuss signs of stress, including how to define positive and negative stress as well ways to know when stress is becoming a problem for you. TranscriptMegan Roberts: Welcome to this session of our Cultivating Resiliency for Women in Agriculture podcast, series one. The Cultivating Resiliency project develops tools for women in agriculture to recognize, adapt to, and develop positive coping strategies to life stresses. This podcast series is developed from our cultivating resiliency webinars sessions. I'm Megan Roberts and I co-lead this project along with Doris Mold. In this podcast, we feature Shauna Reitmeier and Brenda Mack as our session hosts. Shauna and Brenda are professionals in behavioral health with family ties to farming. This session focuses on what is stress. Shauna and Brenda talk about a checklist of signs of stress during this session. Before they begin, I want to review that list, which includes insomnia, mood changes, inability to make decisions, distraction, physical appearance changes, withdrawal from others, feelings of hopelessness, increased alcohol use. Shauna and Brenda will help you define stress in this session, as well as discuss ways to know when stress is becoming a problem for you. Here's Brenda.Brenda Mack: What I want you to do right now is I want you to shut your eyes and I want you to take three deep breaths. And I want you to think about what is your unique definition of farming or ranching or agriculture related stress? And what are your unique farming, ranching, and agriculture related challenges or difficulties that cause you excessive worrying? There are many different causes and symptoms related to stress, pertaining to women in farming and ranching. [inaudible 00:02:08] defines stress as a fact of nature in which forces from the inside and outside world affect an individual, affects an individual's emotional or physical well-being or both, and the individual responds to stress in ways that affects not only you, but also other people in your environment. And, there is an overabundance of stress in our modern lives. We usually think of stress as a negative experience, and we are focusing a bit today on negative stress as opposed to positive stress, because we want to focus on when it's not working for you and try to give you some ideas and strategies that might help under those circumstances.Megan Roberts: Now here's Shauna to describe how to recognize when stress moves beyond positively affecting our lives and begins to negatively impact us.Shauna Reitmeier: We experience stress and we know that there's those tensions in our relationships. Sometimes it's hard for us to really understand what does that look like to yourself? Like you might see it in the person next to you, but you're also in that household, or you're seeing someone. Negative stress really... I mean, it can look very different for each person. So one person might not be able to sleep. Another can sleep... It might be sleeping too much, or not being able to wake up. Mood changes. So many decisions need to be made and then it's hard to make them because there's too many and feeling a bit overwhelmed. The other one that I think about as well is, if we get distracted and that's where, are you having accidents? Are you bumping your head? Are you falling down in certain things because we're not paying attention to what we're doing because we're thinking about all the other things versus what we're doing right at that moment. And so... But these are all things that you can be looking at to see, is stress looking like this for me? Is this looking like this for somebody that I know, as well? And one of the first steps I think in using that checklist is that's going to give you some self-awareness. So if you check off three or four of that list and say, oh, I know that I think I am, these aren't working for me anywhere. No longer has the, what was seemed to be positive stress because it gave me a little energy or a little boost, no longer is positive and turning negative.Megan Roberts: This is Megan again. Thanks for joining us on this Cultivating Resiliency for Women in Agriculture podcast, series one. In this session, we learned about stress and what it is. While stress can be positive, an overabundance of stress can negatively affect our lives. Signs of stress are expressed differently in different people. After listening to Brenda and Shauna, did you identify signs of stress in yourself or others? Developing positive coping strategies and self-talk can help you address stress and increase your resilience to stress. We address that in our next podcast, which focuses on coping with stress, positive self-talk. This project is a collaboration of American Agri-Women, District 11 Agri-Women, University of Minnesota Extension Women in Ag Network, and the Upper Midwest Agricultural Safety and Health Center, UMASH. You may find recordings for our entire webinar series on the UMASH or American Agri-Women websites under cultivating resiliency.

In this introduction, we meet Shauna Reitmeier, LGSW and Dr. Brenda Mack, DSW, LICSW. We find out why they are passionate about resilience and women in agriculture. Shauna and Brenda join us for the rest of the podcast series one.TranscriptMegan Roberts: Welcome to this session of our Cultivating Resiliency for Women in Agriculture podcast, series one. The Cultivating Resiliency Project develops tools for women in agriculture to recognize, adapt to, and develop positive coping strategies to life stresses. This podcast series is developed from our Cultivating Resiliency Webinar series. I'm Megan Roberts, and I co-lead this project along with Doris Mold. In this introduction, we meet Shauna Reitmeier and Brenda Mack, our session hosts, and find out why they are passionate about resiliency and women in agriculture.Doris Mold: I'm pleased to introduce Shauna Reitmeier and Brenda Mack, and they're going to do self introductions, but I did want to say something about both of them. They're really awesome women. We've gotten to know each other through this process. They both have agricultural backgrounds. We know that that is critical for those of us in agriculture to have people that understand the road that we travel to help us when we're stressed out or need other help. Thank you ladies for being part of the process, and we're thrilled to have you, and look forward to hearing what you have to say.Shauna Reitmeier: Thanks Doris.Brenda Mack: Well, good afternoon. Doris, thank you for those kind words. It's just really an absolute honor to be here, and co-presenting with Shawna Reitmeier today. I'm Brenda Mack. I grew up in a farm family from East Grand Forks. My claim to fame in my family is I am one of the fastest dirt chunk throwers, and rotten potato throwers, as I worked in my teen years on the potato piler for my dad, as those potatoes were going into the bin.Brenda Mack: I'm currently married to a third generation crop farmer. We have soybeans, wheat, and sugar beets, and we live on my husband's family farmstead. In addition to that, I am a licensed mental health professional in the state of Minnesota, and I've had 21 years of experience in providing therapy and crisis response services in Northwestern Minnesota, and particularly in farm country. About two years ago, I accepted a position as an assistant professor in social work at Bemidji State University. That's where I work now full-time, as well as go to school full time. I'm working toward my doctorate in social work. As part of that process, I have dived deeper into researching stress, and burnout, and self-care, not only with the social work population, or the helping profession, but also how can I take this research that I've been doing, and apply that to men and women who are in farming, as well as the general population. A lot of who I am and what I do is largely influenced by my family, the family I grew up in and the family I currently live in. I hope to take some of those experiences and those lessons learned, and share those with you. I am the expert in my life, but I am not the expert in all things stress-related, or all things farming related. I'm just really hoping to start a conversation, and continue to be part of raising awareness about stress, and wellness, and self care practices. That's a little about me, and I'm going to just pass it over to Shauna.Shauna Reitmeier: My name is Shauna Reitmeier, and I am also from the Northwest Minnesota area. I was born and raised here in Crookston, and grew up on our family farm. We lived right next door to my grandparents. If my parents couldn't find us at home, we were over at grandma's house, probably digging in the sugar cookie jar, or running around and keeping her on her toes. The picture that you see here is of my grandma and my grandpa, [Eldoris 00:04:37] and Marvin. When I think of women and farming, and just knowing the stress that I know they were under, while they never talked about it in that generation, when I think of women in farming, my grandmother is the person that I think of. She really kept it all moving. Doing this webinar series is near and dear to my heart. I spent many years growing up working in the fields, combining, digging, harrowing with the hoe, hoeing out sugar beet fields, just whatever was needed at that time, I spent my time doing that. When I graduated, I went on to get my bachelor's and my master's degree in social work, and have spent the years of my career working in the mental health and substance use arena. I just know what mental health means to individuals and just overall wellbeing, and why stress and worry in our Ag community, where this all connects, so I'm very passionate about rural and frontier life in our farming community, and really excited to bring this information forward.Megan Roberts: Thanks for joining us on this Cultivating Resiliency for Women in Agriculture podcast, series one. This project is a collaboration of American Agri-Women, District 11 Agri-Women, University of Minnesota Extension Women in Ag Network, and the Upper Midwest Agriculture Safety and Health Center, UMASH. You may find the recordings for our entire webinar series on the UMASH or American Agri-Women websites under cultivating resiliency. In the next session we learn about, what is stress?

Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues (ELSI)

UNW Flock Talk is an affiliate of the University of Northwestern St. Paul and provides an inside look at UNW Athletics both on and off the court. We will be releasing Podcasts every Monday and Thursday for the rest of the semester covering a wide variety of topics.UNW Flock Talk started as a Senior Project and is turning into a great way for Eagles fans to gain more access to their favorite sport teams. Check us out on twitter @UNWFlockTalk or on Facebook at UNW Flock Talk. We also have a website you can check out called www.unwflocktalk.comHere is what we discussed in our first ever Podcast.0:00 Introduction to Flock Talk and the purpose behind it as well as thanking some people for helping us get to this point.8:00 Top 5 UNW Events for the coming week.18:00 We sat down with our first ever UNW Flock Talk Athlete Of The Week, Sophomore Basketball player Megan Roberts to chat. Some of the things we discussed...- Why you came to UNW- Favorite Hobbies- Favorite Food- Difference between this year's team and last year's team- Mindset of this year's team- Preview of big matchup against BLC Wednesday night.40:00 A look into UNW Men's basketball and predictions for Wednesday night's battle between BLC for first place in the conference. Tennis updates and outlooks as well as a Track & Field discussion.Tune in every Monday at 12 P.M. for the UNW Flock Talk Podcast with Wyatt and Tyler.You can also head over to www.unweagles.com for all your Northwestern Athletic needs. 

Researcher and elite athlete Brianna Stubbs is back on the podcast today, checking in before her recent Ironman competition in Santa Cruz, California. Since we last talked with Brianna she’s left HVMN and joined the Buck Institute for Research on Aging as Lead Translational Scientist. There she’ll be studying ketone biology and collaborating on some of the best research being conducted today with the mission of living better, longer. In this interview, Brianna and I talk about some of the latest studies on ketone metabolism, which continues to show promise for athletic performance, cognition, and cardiovascular health. She also notes where the research in this area is lacking and even contradictory. Brianna also shares her personal strategy for dosing the ketone monoester she helped bring to the marketplace.  Here’s the outline of this interview with Brianna Stubbs: [00:00:00] Brianna’s previous podcasts: World Champion Rower and Ketone Monoester Researcher Brianna Stubbs, The D-BHB Ketone Monoester Is Here, Women in Science: Bridging the Gender Gap, and The Latest Research on Exogenous Ketones and Other Performance Enhancers. [00:02:00] Racing Ironman. [00:05:10] Lesley Paterson; Podcast: Off Road Triathlon World Champion Lesley Paterson on FMT and Solving Mental Conundrums. [00:06:57] Dosing the ketone ester during the triathlon. [00:09:55] Ketone ester as a tool to to evaluate perception of exercise; Study: Faull, Olivia Kate, et al. "Beyond RPE: The perception of exercise under normal and ketotic conditions." Frontiers in physiology 10 (2019): 229.  [00:11:09] Lead Translational Scientist at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging. [00:13:01] Dale Bredesen, MD; Eric Verdin, MD. [00:13:36] Review on ketone metabolism: Newman, John C., and Eric Verdin. "Ketone bodies as signaling metabolites." Trends in Endocrinology & Metabolism 25.1 (2014): 42-52. [00:14:56] Jeff Volek, PhD, RD & Stephen Phinney, MD, PhD [00:18:07] STEM-Talk Podcast: Episode 92 with Megan Roberts and Episode 94 with John Newman. [00:19:27] β-Hydroxybutyrate (BHB), as an endogenous histone deacetylase inhibitor; Study: Shimazu, Tadahiro, et al. "Suppression of oxidative stress by β-hydroxybutyrate, an endogenous histone deacetylase inhibitor." Science 339.6116 (2013): 211-214. [00:21:42] HVMN. [00:22:59] Epigenetic effects of ketones. [00:27:27] BHB can affect vascular senescence; Study: Han, Young-min, et al. "β-Hydroxybutyrate prevents vascular senescence through hnRNP A1-mediated upregulation of Oct4." Molecular cell 71.6 (2018): 1064-1078. [00:30:24] BHB inactivates the NLRP3 inflammasome; Study: Youm, Yun-Hee, et al. "The ketone metabolite β-hydroxybutyrate blocks NLRP3 inflammasome–mediated inflammatory disease." Nature medicine 21.3 (2015): 263. [00:31:02] BHB protects against muscle protein wasting; Study: Thomsen, Henrik H., et al. "Effects of 3-hydroxybutyrate and free fatty acids on muscle protein kinetics and signaling during LPS-induced inflammation in humans: anticatabolic impact of ketone bodies." The American journal of clinical nutrition 108.4 (2018): 857-867. [00:32:11] Increased inflammatory response with ketone ester; Study: Neudorf, Helena, et al. "Oral Ketone Supplementation Acutely Increases Markers of NLRP3 Inflammasome Activation in Human Monocytes." Molecular nutrition & food research (2019): 1801171. [00:35:52] Ketogenic diet and exogenous ketones reduce epileptiform spikes associated with Alzheimer’s: Newman, John C., et al. "Ketogenic diet or BHB improves epileptiform spikes, memory, survival in Alzheimer's model." bioRxiv (2017): 136226. [00:36:51] Kenneth Ford, PhD.; Podcast: Optimal Diet and Movement for Healthspan, Amplified Intelligence and More with Ken Ford [00:37:57] Cardiovascular effects of ketone infusions in humans; Studies: 1. Nielsen, Roni, et al. "Cardiovascular effects of treatment with the ketone body 3-hydroxybutyrate in chronic heart failure patients." Circulation 139.18 (2019): 2129-2141. 2. Gormsen, Lars C., et al. "Ketone Body Infusion With 3‐Hydroxybutyrate Reduces Myocardial Glucose Uptake and Increases Blood Flow in Humans: A Positron Emission Tomography Study." Journal of the American Heart Association 6.3 (2017): e005066. [00:38:06] Ketone infusions in a paced model of cardiac failure in dogs. Study: Horton, Julie L., et al. "The failing heart utilizes 3-hydroxybutyrate as a metabolic stress defense." JCI insight 4.4 (2019). [00:43:05] Ketogenic diet and gut health. [00:44:31] Exogenous ketones affect stem cell regeneration and differentiation; Study: Cheng, Chia-Wei, et al. "Ketone Body Signaling Mediates Intestinal Stem Cell Homeostasis and Adaptation to Diet." Cell 178.5 (2019): 1115-1131. (We don’t have access to the Supplementary Methods, which contain Brianna’s favorite molecule!) [00:46:02] Performance enhancing effects of lactate/propionate: Scheiman, Jonathan, et al. "Meta-omics analysis of elite athletes identifies a performance-enhancing microbe that functions via lactate metabolism." Nature Medicine (2019): 1. [00:47:22] Lucy Mailing; Podcast: How to Optimise Your Gut Microbiome. [00:50:24] Improved performance with the ketone monoester; Study: Cox, Pete J., et al. "Nutritional ketosis alters fuel preference and thereby endurance performance in athletes." Cell metabolism 24.2 (2016): 256-268.  [00:50:30] No performance benefit with ketone monoester supplement; Study: Evans, Mark, et al. "No Benefit of Ingestion of a Ketone Monoester Supplement on 10-km Running Performance." Medicine and science in sports and exercise 51.12 (2019): 2506-2515. [00:52:00] Dr. Stephen Cunnane’s studies correlating blood ketone level and changing cognitive function and brain ketone uptake: Cunnane, Stephen C., et al. "Can ketones help rescue brain fuel supply in later life? Implications for cognitive health during aging and the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease." Frontiers in molecular neuroscience 9 (2016): 53; 2. Fortier, Mélanie, et al. "A ketogenic drink improves brain energy and some measures of cognition in mild cognitive impairment." Alzheimer's & Dementia 15.5 (2019): 625-634. [00:52:40] Breath ketone meters. [00:57:03] Find Brianna on Twitter.

Our guest today is Dr. John Newman, a geriatrician and researcher who is well-known for a 2017 study that found a ketogenic diet reduced the mid-life mortality of aging mice while also improving their memory and healthspan. John is an assistant professor at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging and a geriatrician in the Division of Geriatrics at the University of California, San Francisco. He also is a physician who works with older adults in the San Francisco VA Medical Center. At Buck, John studies the molecular details of how diet and fasting regulate the genes and pathways that control aging. He particularly focuses on the ketone body beta-hydroxybutyrate and how its molecular signaling activities involving epigenetics and inflammation regulate aging and memory in mice. Show notes: [00:02:51] Dawn opens the interview asking John what it was like growing up in Long Island. [00:04:20] Dawn mentions that John was described as a pretty geeky kid growing up, and asks him about his childhood. [00:05:40] Ken asks John if being the type of kid who would do all the homework in his textbooks in the first couple of months annoyed his classmates. [00:07:34] Dawn asks why John decided to go to Yale University. [00:08:45] Mentioning that Yale doesn’t have a pre-med program, Dawn asks what John decided to major in. [00:10:15] John explains how he met his wife at Yale. [00:11:28] Dawn asks John why he traveled across the country to the University of Washington after graduating from Yale. [00:12:26] Dawn asks why John decided to focus his graduate work on the progeroid Cockayne syndrome. [00:14:15] John discusses his decision to go to the University of California, San Francisco for his residency. [00:16:05] Dawn asks if John immediately joined the faculty at San Francisco after his residency. [00:17:03] Ken asks John about his work to improve the care of older adults and help them maintain their independence as they age. Ken asks for an overview of the work John and his colleagues do in this area at the Buck Institute [00:18:39] Ken mentions that a lot of John’s work focuses on the molecular details of how diet and fasting regulate the genes and pathways that control aging. Ken asks John to elaborate on this work. [00:20:04] Dawn asks what specifically attracted John to the idea of studying the ketogenic diet as an intervention in mid to later life as opposed to a diet consumed habitually throughout life. [00:23:12] Dawn mentions that John and Eric Verdin, who recruited John to the Buck institute, share an interest in looking at ketone bodies as signaling metabolites, a topic they have written about. [00:26:21] Ken talks about a conference he and Dawn attended on CBD and seizures, where Ken made the point that ketones are a metabolite of THC. [00:27:52] Ken asks John to go into more detail about how ketone bodies may link environmental cues such as diet to the regulation of aging. [00:29:08] Ken talks about how it seems clear that ketone bodies are emerging as crucial regulators of metabolic health and longevity via their ability to regulate HDAC (histone deacetylases) activity and thereby epigenetic gene regulation. He asks John to discuss how beta hydroxybutyrate may be an increasingly useful and important signaling molecule as we age. [00:34:24] Dawn mentions that John and his colleagues published paper in 2017 in Cell Metabolism titled “Ketogenic Diet Reduces Midlife Mortality and Improves Aging in Mice.” Dawn asks why John chose a cyclical rather than continuous ketogenic diet for this study. [00:37:56] Dawn asks why John decided to conduct the test of physiological function while the ketogenic diet group was off the diet, and on a standard high-carbohydrate diet. [00:40:02] Dawn mentions that Megan Roberts and her colleagues at theUniversity of California Davis were also conducting studies on the effects of a ketogenic diet on mice around the same time as John...

Our guest today is Megan Roberts, a research scientist who conducted an interesting study that showeda ketogenic diet extended the longevity and healthspan of adult mice.  This study has been discussed in several earlier episodes of STEM-Talk. Megan conducted her research while earning a master’s degree in nutritional biology at the University of California, Davis. Today, she is the scientific director at Nourish Balance Thrive, an online health-coaching company where Megan helps people optimize their heath and performance. Show notes: [00:02:53] Dawn begins the interview mentioning that Megan grew up in Northern California and asks Megan what she was like as a child. [00:03:20] Megan talks about how her interest in science started. [00:03:38] Dawn asks Megan how she became a martial arts instructor, teaching teen-agers as well as children as young as five years old. [00:04:02] Megan talks about her decision to attend the University of California, Davis. [00:04:16] Megan explains why she initially want to major in biochemistry, but decided toward the end of her freshman year to switch majors. [00:04:42] Ken asks Megan about her decision to stay at UC Davis to earn a master’s degree in nutritional biology. [00:05:08] Megan talks about the privilege of having open-minded professors and peers who were a part of her nutritional biology program at UC Davis. [00:06:07] Ken mentions that part of Megan’s thesis ended up in Cell Metabolism, in the form of a paper titeld, “A Ketogenic Diet Extends Longevity and Healthspan in Adult Mice.”The paper, Ken points out, has been discussed in several episodes of STEM-Talk. He asks Megan about the motivations behind her study. [00:07:41] Megan describes the three different diets used for the mouse studies. [00:08:30] Dawn mentions that an important aspect of the study was that all of the mice were fed the same number of calories every day. She asks Megan to explain the significance of this parameter. [00:09:23] Megan describes the various markers of physiological function that were measured how the study yielded interesting results in terms of healthspan in the mice. [00:10:14] Dawn asks how the memories of the mice were tested. Dawn also asks Megan to go into detail on the finding that mice on the ketogenic diet were having their memories preserved for longer. [00:11:13] Ken asks Megan how she tested the grip strength of mice. [00:12:05] Megan talks about the two areas of healthspan that saw the most dramatic effects with the ketogenic diet: memory and the preservation of motor-function. [00:12:39] Ken asks if Megan and her colleagues were surprised by the finding that lifespan was increased by 14 percent in the mice fed a ketogenic diet. [00:13:08] Dawn mentions that the ketogenic diet came out on top in the study, followed by the low-carb diet. Dawn mentions that those mice on the low-carb diet, however, surprisingly gained weight asks Megan is she was surprised by this. [00:14:35] Ken asks what lead Megan to the idea of studying the ketogenic diet as an intervention in midlife, as opposed to being a habit throughout life. [00:15:27] Dawn asks how well Megan thinks these mouse models are likely to translate to humans. [00:17:05] Ken asks what experiments Megan would have done to extend her findings reported in the Cell Metabolism paper if she had managed to have more time, funding and resources. [00:17:52] Dawn mentions that Megan’s study suggests that the metabolic changes that accompany carbohydrate restriction might indeed help increase lifespan. However, Dawn asks Megan about ketone bodies themselves (AcAc and BhB) and their potential role in the extension of healthspan. [00:18:13] Ken asks about Megan’s findings in regards to a tissue dependent mTORC1 signaling, in the context of skeletal muscle and the ketogenic diet. [00:20:26] Dawn asks Megan for her take on the tissue specific effects of ketones that she ob...

The post PWE40: Living a Courageous Life with Love, Loss & Endo with Megan Roberts appeared first on Peace With Endo.

Episode 5: SLPs role in early identification of autism, parents' social skills, & clinical practice research with Megan Roberts

Dr. Dominic D’Agostino returns to STEM-Talk to give Ken and Dawn an update on his research into ketogenic nutrition. Dom was the guest on episode 14 back in 2016 when ketogenic diets didn’t even show up on a list of the top-10 diets that people Googled. Since then, the search term “ketogenic diet” has risen to the top of the list. In today’s episode, Dom talks about his past 10 years of research into ketogenic diets and what he is learning about the physiological benefits of nutritional ketosis. Dom is tenured associate professor in the Department of Molecular Pharmacology and Physiology at the University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine.He also is a research scientist here at IHMC.Throughout his career, Dom has been a researcher with a diverse background in neuroscience, molecular pharmacology, nutrition and physiology. Show notes: [00:02:55] Dawn begins the interview mentioning that when she and Ken started hosting STEM-Talk, the ketogenic diet wasn’t on the list of the top-10 most Googled diets of 2015. Today, however, Dawn points that ketogenic diet is number one on the list. She asks Dom if he foresaw sudden mass interest in a ketogenic diet coming. [00:04:12] Ken asks Dom for his thoughts on how the ketogenic diet has went from being very obscure to becoming a household term. [00:06:04] Ken comments on the evolutionary component of the ketogenic diet and how our ancestors must have gone in and out of ketosis based on the availability of food. He also comments on the unique aspect of the ketogenic diet, being that it has an objective measurement, and asks Dom to talk about that. [00:06:59] Dawn comments on the cynicism regarding the ketogenic diet, particularly from nutritionists. She asks Dom to address the criticism and pushback that the ketogenic diet receives from so many nutritionists. [00:10:02] Ken mentions that some fields are resistant to change and new science due to the emotion behind established theories. Dom agrees and then talks about how people, even doctors, are resistant to new data and new science. [00:11:13] Dom talks about the most common misconceptions and overrepresentations of the ketogenic diet. [00:12:54] Ken discusses his dissatisfaction with the term “ketogenic diet” since the word diet implies the mandated consumption of certain food items. He goes on to say that if one is in ketosis, then, by definition, they are doing a ketogenic diet, even though they may be in ketosis because they have been fasting and haven’t eaten anything.  Ken and Dom discuss how knowledge about ketogenic nutrition has changed over time and that it is certainly possible to eat an unhealthy ketogenic diet. [00:15:35] Dom and Ken talk about the results of a recent Megan Roberts paper, “A Ketogenic Diet Extends Longevity and Healthspan in Adult Mice,”that showed a 13% increase in the lifespan of the mice along with remarkably improved healthspan. [00:20:26] Dom shares his thoughts on the potential of exogenous ketones in the context of blood glucose regulation. [00:27:07] Ken asks if Dom has been tracking Virta Health, which was founded by Dr. Jeff Volek who was interviewed in STEM-Talk episode 43. Virta Health has been publishing impressive results of its trials that show  people reversing type-2 diabetes via a well-formulated ketogenic diet. [00:29:13] Ken adds that the reported numbers from Virta show 60% to 70% of their patients going off their insulin medication or greatly reducing their insulin levels. [00:30:55] Dawn asks about Dom’s experience going underwater for 10 days in participation of a NASA NEEMO mission. She asks him to talk about his personal experience as well as his background in hyperbaric physiology. [00:32:08] Dom discusses his group’s work replicating the experimental design of his original oxygen toxicity work in aged and obese rats. [00:33:35] Dawn briefly describes what oxygen toxicity is,

This past January several of the NBT team members and I met up for sun and camaraderie at the Flō Retreat Center, in Uvita, Costa Rica. Flō is run by strength coach, Ben House, PhD, who’s been on the podcast once before. Previously we talked about his work with clients and the effects of hormones on building strength and lean mass. It’s now a year later and we’re continuing the conversation. On this podcast, Ben is joined by myself, Dr. Tommy Wood, Megan Roberts, and Dr. Lindsay Taylor for a discussion of some of the practical and philosophical aspects of strength training and public health. Ben also shares his strategy for evaluating scientific literature and explains why everyone can benefit by building muscle. Here’s the outline of this interview with Ben House: [00:00:00] Hikecast with Kim House. [00:00:07] Flō Retreat Center, Uvita, Costa Rica. [00:03:03] Addictions. [00:05:27] Indicators of longevity: grip strength, leg strength and muscle mass, VO2 max. [00:08:46] Megan's transformation. [00:09:47] Fat free mass index (FFMI). [00:10:02] Muscle mass and mortality; Study: Abramowitz, Matthew K., et al. "Muscle mass, BMI, and mortality among adults in the United States: A population-based cohort study." PloS one 13.4 (2018): e0194697. [00:13:27] FFMI Calculator. [00:16:16] Working as a personal trainer. [00:17:56] Getting a PhD: Learning how to learn. [00:21:32] Glycogen shunt; Studies: Shulman, Robert G. "Glycogen turnover forms lactate during exercise." Exercise and sport sciences reviews 33.4 (2005): 157-162; and Shulman, R. G., and D. L. Rothman. "The “glycogen shunt” in exercising muscle: a role for glycogen in muscle energetics and fatigue." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 98.2 (2001): 457-461. [00:24:47] Dr. Josh Turknett. Podcast: The Migraine Miracle. [00:25:22] Different types of cells identified in mouse brain; Study: Tasic, Bosiljka, et al. "Shared and distinct transcriptomic cell types across neocortical areas." Nature 563.7729 (2018): 72. [00:27:18] Dr. Richard Feinman blog post: Meta-analysis is to analysis… [00:31:58] Keto not conducive to muscle gain in clinical trials; Studies: Vargas, Salvador, et al. "Efficacy of ketogenic diet on body composition during resistance training in trained men: a randomized controlled trial." Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition 15.1 (2018): 31. Additional studies showing loss of lean body mass on keto: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. [00:32:42] Luis Villaseñor, KetoGains. [00:34:27] Solving nuanced health problems. [00:35:49] Precision Nutrition. [00:40:36] Books: The Power of Moments and Switch by Chip Heath and Dan Heath. [00:42:01] Behavior change. [00:43:13] Is obesity solvable on a macro level? [00:50:34] Uncoupling proteins; Podcast: Mitochondria: More Than a Powerhouse, with Dr. Bryan Walsh. [00:52:00] Lindsay Taylor; Podcast: Brain Training for the Primal Keto Endurance Athlete. [01:03:24] Mike T Nelson; Podcast: How to Assess an Athlete: The Best Principles, Methods, and Devices to Use. [01:03:43] Retreats at the Flō Retreat Center. [01:06:52] Bro retreats; hypertrophy camps. [01:08:35] 2019 Functional Medicine Costa Rica Retreat: Speakers include Bryan Walsh, Pat Davidson, Seth Oberst. [01:09:46] Zac Cupples; Course: Human Matrix. [01:10:07] Lucy Hendricks, Ryan L'Ecuyer. [01:13:16] 30 minutes 2x a week to get to a sufficient FFMI. [01:14:26] Mechanisms for increasing muscle mass: muscular tension and metabolic stress. [01:19:35] Zach Moore; Podcast: Overcoming Adversity and Strength Coaching. [01:19:48] Nourish Balance Thrive on Patreon. [01:26:47] Is the Flō Retreat Center replicable? [01:30:15] Ben’s Facebook page; Functional Medicine Costa Rica; broresearch.com; Email: drhouse@broresearch.com.

Recently — and by chance — we purchased two american compilations on vinyl, one entitled ‘10+2: 12 American Text Sound Pieces’ (1975) and the other ‘New Music for Electronic and Recorded Media: Women In Electronic Music’ (1977). While the first record is focused on american sound poetry, the second one is a careful introduction to the heroines of mid Seventies electronic music milieu. After this coincidental buy we discovered that both records were published by 1750 Arch Records, an American avant-garde music label, founded in the sixties in the homonymous recording / archival studio located at 1750 Arch Street, Berkeley, California. The episode features: Aram Saroyan, Laurie Spiegel, Beth Anderson, Ruth Anderson, John Giorno, Megan Roberts, Clark Coolidge, Pauline Oliveros, John Cage, Johanna M. Beyer, Anthony Gnazzo, Laurie Anderson, Charles Dodge, Annea Lockwood and Charles Amirkhanian.

The post 013: Megan Roberts on 6 Scientifically Backed Benefits of Keto appeared first on Keto Summit. In this episode Louise chats with Megan Roberts, who shares with us some of the most common mistakes people make on a Keto diet. The post 013: Megan Roberts on 6 Scientifically Backed Benefits of Keto appeared first on Keto Summit.

Researcher Jon Ramsey, PhD is Professor in the Department of Molecular Biosciences within the School of Veterinary Medicine at UC Davis. His study of animals focuses on nutrition as it relates to obesity and aging. The goal of his research is to understand the biological mechanisms that contribute to the aging process and to develop dietary interventions that promote healthy aging and weight loss. In this podcast, NBT Scientific Director Megan Roberts interviews Dr. Ramsey about his research in the area of calorie restriction and its beneficial effects on longevity and healthspan. They examine the scientific literature on energy and macronutrient restriction, including some of the possible biological mechanisms driving the anti-aging effects of these interventions. They also discuss what this all means in practical terms for those seeking optimal health as they age. Here’s the outline of this interview with Jon Ramsey: [00:01:35] Calorie restriction for increasing lifespan. [00:02:01] Theories of aging. [00:04:40] Osborne and Mendel; Study: Osborne, Thomas B., Lafayette B. Mendel, and Edna L. Ferry. "The effect of retardation of growth upon the breeding period and duration of life of rats." Science 45.1160 (1917): 294-295. [00:04:58] Clive McCay; Studies: McCay, Clive Maine, and Mary F. Crowell. "Prolonging the life span." The Scientific Monthly 39.5 (1934): 405-414 and McCay, Carl M., Mary F. Crowell, and Lewis A. Maynard. "The effect of retarded growth upon the length of life span and upon the ultimate body size: one figure." The journal of Nutrition 10.1 (1935): 63-79. [00:06:25] Calorie restriction literature in animals. [00:07:39] Types of rodents studied. [00:08:09] Comparing effect of caloric restriction (CR) on different strains of mice; Study: Liao, Chen‐Yu, et al. "Genetic variation in the murine lifespan response to dietary restriction: from life extension to life shortening." Aging cell 9.1 (2010): 92-95. [00:09:08] Time restricted feeding in animal models. [00:11:51] Calorie restriction vs. malnutrition. [00:12:00] Different levels of calorie restriction. Study: Weindruch, Richard, et al. "The retardation of aging in mice by dietary restriction: longevity, cancer, immunity and lifetime energy intake." The Journal of nutrition 116.4 (1986): 641-654. [00:13:36] Effects of 10% dietary restriction: Richardson, Arlan, et al. "Significant life extension by ten percent dietary restriction." Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1363.1 (2016): 11-17. [00:15:09] CALERIE study and resulting Publications. [00:17:56] Analyses of CALERIE data. Studies: Belsky, Daniel W., et al. "Change in the rate of biological aging in response to caloric restriction: CALERIE Biobank Analysis." The Journals of Gerontology: Series A 73.1 (2017): 4-10. and Redman, Leanne M., et al. "Metabolic slowing and reduced oxidative damage with sustained caloric restriction support the rate of living and oxidative damage theories of aging." Cell metabolism 27.4 (2018): 805-815. [00:19:21] Dietary restriction and oxidative stress; Study: Walsh, Michael E., Yun Shi, and Holly Van Remmen. "The effects of dietary restriction on oxidative stress in rodents." Free Radical Biology and Medicine 66 (2014): 88-99. [00:20:29] Podcast: How Oxidative Stress Impacts Performance and Healthspan, with Megan Roberts. [00:20:40] Effects of CR on reactive oxidative species production; Study: Ramsey, Jon J., Mary-Ellen Harper, and Richard Weindruch. "Restriction of energy intake, energy expenditure, and aging." Free Radical Biology and Medicine 29.10 (2000): 946-968. [00:20:59] Effects of fasting on the liver; Study: Salin, Karine, et al. "Decreased mitochondrial metabolic requirements in fasting animals carry an oxidative cost." Functional Ecology (2018). [00:21:56] Control of food intake: Do animal models accurately reflect human behavior? [00:25:06] Enriched environment; Study: McMurphy, Travis, et al. "Implementation of environmental enrichment after middle age promotes healthy aging." Aging (Albany NY) 10.7 (2018): 1698. [00:26:16] Monkey studies; Study: Ramsey, J. J., et al. "Dietary restriction and aging in rhesus monkeys: the University of Wisconsin study." Experimental gerontology 35.9-10 (2000): 1131-1149. [00:26:35] University of Wisconsin study: Colman, Ricki J., et al. "Caloric restriction delays disease onset and mortality in rhesus monkeys." Science 325.5937 (2009): 201-204. [00:26:35] National Institute on Aging study: Mattison, Julie A., et al. "Impact of caloric restriction on health and survival in rhesus monkeys from the NIA study." Nature 489.7415 (2012): 318. [00:31:34] Biological mechanisms behind the beneficial effects of CR. [00:33:09] Central metabolism sensors. [00:35:28] Mitochondrial proton leak. [00:37:41] Study: Bevilacqua, Lisa, et al. "Effects of short-and medium-term calorie restriction on muscle mitochondrial proton leak and reactive oxygen species production." American Journal of Physiology-Endocrinology and Metabolism 286.5 (2004): E852-E861. [00:40:59] The influence of dietary fat source; Study: Villalba, José Manuel, et al. "The influence of dietary fat source on liver and skeletal muscle mitochondrial modifications and lifespan changes in calorie-restricted mice." Biogerontology 16.5 (2015): 655-670. [00:42:16] Effects of protein restriction on longevity; Studies: 1. Davis, Teresa A., Connie W. Bales, and Roy E. Beauchene. "Differential effects of dietary caloric and protein restriction in the aging rat." Experimental gerontology 18.6 (1983): 427-435; 2. Pugh, Thomas D., Roger G. Klopp, and Richard Weindruch. "Controlling caloric consumption: protocols for rodents and rhesus monkeys☆." Neurobiology of aging 20.2 (1999): 157-165. [00:42:23] More recent studies on protein restriction: 1. Pamplona, Reinald, and Gustavo Barja. "Mitochondrial oxidative stress, aging and caloric restriction: the protein and methionine connection." Biochimica Et Biophysica Acta (BBA)-Bioenergetics 1757.5-6 (2006): 496-508; 2. Caro, Pilar, et al. "Effect of 40% restriction of dietary amino acids (except methionine) on mitochondrial oxidative stress and biogenesis, AIF and SIRT1 in rat liver." Biogerontology 10.5 (2009): 579-592. [00:43:42] Morris Ross study: Ross, Morris H. "Length of life and nutrition in the rat." The Journal of nutrition 75.2 (1961): 197-210. [00:44:03] Effects of dietary lipid composition on lifespan; Study: López-Domínguez, José A., et al. "The influence of dietary fat source on life span in calorie restricted mice." Journals of Gerontology Series A: Biomedical Sciences and Medical Sciences 70.10 (2014): 1181-1188. [00:45:07] Anthony J. Hulbert. [00:48:46] Omega-3 study: Aung, Theingi, et al. "Associations of omega-3 fatty acid supplement use with cardiovascular disease risks: meta-analysis of 10 trials involving 77 917 individuals." JAMA cardiology 3.3 (2018): 225-234. [00:50:02] Ketogenic Diets. [00:50:05] Study: Roberts, Megan N., et al. "A Ketogenic Diet Extends Longevity and Healthspan in Adult Mice." Cell Metabolism 26.3 (2017): 539-546. Podcast: A Ketogenic Diet Extends Longevity and Healthspan in Adult Mice, with Megan (Hall) Roberts. [00:53:47] Intermittent fasting study: Mitchell, Sarah J., et al. "Daily fasting improves health and survival in male mice independent of diet composition and calories." Cell metabolism(2018). [00:54:19] Valter Longo, PhD. [00:54:49] Weight cycling; Study: Smith Jr, Daniel L., et al. "Weight cycling increases longevity compared with sustained obesity in mice." Obesity 26.11 (2018): 1733-1739. [00:55:22] Exercise in the context of carb restriction and longevity. [00:56:08] Study: Holloszy, John O., et al. "Effect of voluntary exercise on longevity of rats." Journal of applied physiology 59.3 (1985): 826-831. [00:58:41] Take home points. [01:01:08] With unlimited resources, what would you study? [01:02:08] Jon Ramsey, PhD at UC Davis.

   Math for America is focused on changing the way we think about teachers and teaching in America. MfA's goal is to improve retention nationally by establishing a network of independent programs that support communities of accomplished mathematics and science teachers across the country.   Dr. Megan Roberts is the executive director of Math for America. Prior to joining MfA, she served for four years as the executive director for the Office of Innovation within the New York City Department of Education. She began her career in education as a science teacher in Manhattan where she was also a middle school principal and then Regional Director for STEM. Dr. Roberts is a past Woodrow Wilson Science Teaching Fellow; a Fulbright Memorial Teaching Fellow; and a Columbia University Science Teacher Research Fellow, for which she now serves on the advisory board. Megan has published articles and presented nationally and internationally on topics in geosciences, science education, professional development, educational technology, and innovation in education. We had a wonderful talk. Math for America is doing amazing things! Makes me want to teach math and science - awesome collaboration and professional development. Check out the links below to find out more about the amazing work that teachers are doing in MfA as well as how MfA supports teachers and their work with children. Thanks for listening. Please share with your colleagues and friends. Find out more information: https://mathforamerica.org/ https://mathforamerica.org/videos/all https://www.facebook.com/mathforamerica https://twitter.com/mathforamerica https://www.instagram.com/mathforamerica_/   Length - 46:11

Imagine a professional development scenario where you are given funding, choice, and time to collaborate with others in your specialty area who energize and inspire you. That's the basic gist of a teacher fellowship program, and in today's episode, we're looking at how one of these programs work. My guests are Megan Roberts and Ashraya Gupta from Math for America, a fellowship program for exceptional teachers of math and science.

Dr. Tommy Wood studied medicine at the University of Oxford, graduating in 2011.  After two years as a junior doctor in the UK, he returned to academia to earn his PhD in physiology and neuroscience at the University of Oslo, Norway.  He is the current PAH President, as well as the Chief Scientific Officer of Nourish Balance Thrive, a company that specializes in optimizing health and performance in athletes using advanced biochemical testing and an online health-coaching paradigm. Tommy believes that diet and lifestyle interventions should form the basis of treatment for all systemic disease, and has lectured internationally on subjects related to this. In this podcast, Dr. Wood discusses his professional journey and the research that has gone into developing a machine learning algorithm to forecast health conditions from a basic blood chemistry. Please leave a review for the Physicians for Ancestral Health podcast. Here’s the outline of this interview with Drs Josh Turknett and Tommy Wood: [00:00:37] From biochemistry to coaching elite athletes. [00:07:00] Crossfit, Robb Wolf. [00:09:02] Paleo Diet, Autoimmune Protocol Diet (AIP). [00:09:25] Terry Wahls. [00:09:52] Multiple Sclerosis risk factors. [00:12:19] Talk: Systems Analysis and Multiple Sclerosis - Physicians for Ancestral Health Symposium, 2015. [00:14:28] Terry Wahls studies: Lee, Jennifer E., et al. "A Multimodal, Nonpharmacologic Intervention Improves Mood and Cognitive Function in People with Multiple Sclerosis." Journal of the American College of Nutrition 36.3 (2017): 150-168; and Wahls, Terry, et al. "Dietary approaches to treat MS-related fatigue: comparing the modified Paleolithic (Wahls Elimination) and low saturated fat (Swank) diets on perceived fatigue in persons with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial." Trials 19.1 (2018): 309. [00:14:34] MPI Cognition: Dale Bredesen's approach to Alzheimer’s disease. [00:15:12] Difficulty of studying multimodal therapies. [00:16:24] Nourish Balance Thrive. [00:17:21] Megan Roberts, MSc; Study: Roberts, Megan N., et al. "A ketogenic diet extends longevity and healthspan in adult mice." Cell metabolism 26.3 (2017): 539-546. [00:18:00] Clay Higgins - health coach. [00:18:58] Blood Chemistry Calculator; Christopher Kelly; Bryan Walsh. [00:19:19] Optimal reference ranges. Podcast: Health Outcome-Based Optimal Reference Ranges for Cholesterol, with Tommy Wood, MD., PhD. [00:20:32] DUTCH test, Organic Acids Test (OAT), stool testing: 1, 2. [00:21:25] Gut problems in ~90% of runners. [00:24:47] Subjective quality of life as predictive of health (e.g., lack of sex drive, GI symptoms, sleep problems). [00:28:03] Blood glucose as predictor of all-cause mortality. [00:28:56] Hemoglobin and RDW as predictive measures. [00:30:11] Study: Petursson, Halfdan, et al. "Is the use of cholesterol in mortality risk algorithms in clinical guidelines valid? Ten years prospective data from the Norwegian HUNT 2 study." Journal of evaluation in clinical practice 18.1 (2012): 159-168. [00:31:34] Study: Stavenow, Lars, and Thomas Kjellström. "Influence of serum triglyceride levels on the risk for myocardial infarction in 12 510 middle aged males: interaction with serum cholesterol." Atherosclerosis 147.2 (1999): 243-247. [00:31:46] Study: Després, Jean-Pierre, et al. "Hyperinsulinemia as an independent risk factor for ischemic heart disease." New England Journal of Medicine 334.15 (1996): 952-958. [00:34:42] Metabalomics. [00:39:04] Meeting the Queen. [00:42:37] nourishbalancethrive.com; Blood Chemistry Calculator; 7-minute analysis; Highlights Newsletter; ancestraldoctors.org; email.

Our own Scientific Director and coach Megan Roberts is back on the podcast today to discuss an important but often misunderstood aspect of health and longevity: oxidative stress.  It’s a condition associated with numerous chronic health problems including cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Today we cover everything you need to know about oxidative stress: what it is, what causes it, how to know if you’ve got it, and how to fix it.  If you want an objective assessment of your own oxidative stress burden, try using our Blood Chemistry Calculator.  The calculator, powered by a machine-learning algorithm, analyzes your own basic lab work to produce a single Oxidative Balance Score that you can use to track progress over time. Note: During this podcast, you’ll hear us talk about the “Oxidative Stress Score” on the Blood Chemistry Calculator Report.  This has since been renamed the Oxidative Balance Score.   Here’s the outline of this interview with Megan N. Roberts: [00:02:20] Blood Chemistry Calculator. Example report here. [00:04:52] Free radicals. [00:05:47] Oxidative stress: not always bad.  Study: Pizzino, Gabriele, et al. "Oxidative stress: Harms and benefits for human health." Oxidative medicine and cellular longevity 2017 (2017). [00:06:13] Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS). [00:07:52] Hormesis. [00:08:47] Podcast: The High-Performance Athlete with Drs Tommy Wood and Andy Galpin. [00:09:04] Supporting adaptation vs. recovery. [00:10:07] High dose vitamins, polyphenols. [00:12:05] Diseases associated with increased oxidative stress. [00:13.30] Lipid peroxidation. [00:14:12] Metabolic Fitness Pro. [00:15:46] Factors that increase oxidative stress. [00:17:11] Gamma-glutamyltransferase (GGT). [00:19:24] Bilirubin. [00:20:05] Uric Acid; Study: Sautin, Yuri Y., and Richard J. Johnson. "Uric acid: the oxidant-antioxidant paradox." Nucleosides, Nucleotides, and Nucleic Acids 27.6-7 (2008): 608-619. [00:23:52] Albumin. [00:24:26] HDL. [00:24:53] Podcast: Health Outcome-Based Optimal Reference Ranges for Cholesterol, with Dr. Tommy Wood. [00:25:05] Lipopolysaccharide (LPS). [00:26:53] Ferritin; Study: ORINO, Kouichi, et al. "Ferritin and the response to oxidative stress." Biochemical Journal 357.1 (2001): 241-247. [00:27:08] Fenton Reaction. [00:28:46] Nutritional immunity: PubMed. [00:31:26] The poor misunderstood antioxidant. [00:33:40] Dietary sources of antioxidants. [00:35:12] Supplementation can be contraindicated. [00:35:45] Measuring oxidative stress. [00:37:50] Podcast: Risk Assessment in the Genomic Era: Are We Missing the Low-Hanging Fruit? with Dr. Bryan Walsh. [00:38:21] Oxidative Balance Score. Example here. [00:40:00] What to do if oxidative stress is elevated. [00:40:44] Study: Bhatnagar, Anubhav, Yogesh Tripathi, and Anoop Kumar. "Change in oxidative stress of normotensive elderly subjects following lifestyle modifications." Journal of clinical and diagnostic research: JCDR 10.9 (2016): CC09. [00:41:30] Nutrition, digestion, absorption. [00:42:15] Avoid Polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs). [00:44:20] Minimally processed diet. [00:46:22] Wild Planet sardines. [00:47:27] Hormetic stress; Hormetea. [00:48:14] Podcast: Hormesis, Nootropics and Organic Acids Testing, with Dr. Tommy Wood. [00:48:26] PHAT FIBRE is currently sold out. [00:48:55] Four Sigmatic 10 Mushroom Blend. [00:49:23] Sleep, blood donation. [00:51:02] Study: Islam, Md, et al. "Dietary phytochemicals: natural swords combating inflammation and oxidation-mediated degenerative diseases." Oxidative medicine and cellular longevity 2016 (2016). [00:55:57] bloodcalculator.com. [00:56:43] Mobile phlebotomy.

Stephen Anderson has been an Acupuncturist and Chinese Medicine practitioner for nearly 20 years.  He’s had over 2500 patients and upwards of 40,000 consultations (that would be over 3/4 million acupuncture needles, but who’s counting). In 2016, Steve went through the Kresser Institute’s Practitioner Training Program for Functional and Evolutionary Medicine, completing the ADAPT Level 1 Framework.  Since then, his focus has shifted to working more with clients who are ready to make a deeper commitment to their health. Steve is on the podcast today talking about his transition into Functional Medicine and his practical application of our Blood Chemistry Calculator to guide treatment decisions and keep clients motivated.  Steve is currently running his busy clinic in Australia and is now introducing an easy way for Aussies to get lab work done locally and try the calculator for themselves. Here’s the outline of this interview with Stephen Anderson: [00:00:12] The Holistic Practitioner (THP) Podcast. [00:00:25] THP Podcast: Dr. Tommy Wood - Reframing Insulin Resistance. [00:02:07] Taichi. [00:03:30] Chinese Kung Fu Academy; Grandmaster Henry Sue. [00:03:58] Cheng Man-ch'ing. [00:04:29] Hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis. [00:07:48] Accelerated learning. [00:07:54] Book: How to Develop a Super Power Memory, by Harry Lorayne; Peg memory system. [00:08:09] Podcast: Learning to Learn with Jonathan Levi.  Course: Become a SuperLearner. [00:09:28] Acupuncture. [00:10:52] Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). [00:12:30] Dr. Michael D. Fox at the Jacksonville Center for Reproductive Medicine. [00:17:13] Functional Medicine. [00:18:57] Simon Marshall, PhD. Podcasts: How to Create Behaviour Change and Why We Self-Sabotage (And What to Do Instead). [00:20:25] Kresser Institute for Functional and Evolutionary Medicine; ADAPT Practitioner Training Program. [00:23:16] Dr. Amy Nett. [00:24:11] Hierarchy of treatment. [00:25:52] THP Podcast: A Patient’s Perspective of Functional Medicine Treatment. [00:29:26] Blood Chemistry Calculator. [00:29:37] THP Podcast: Chris Kelly On Becoming An Effective Health Coach. [00:29:41] Dr. Bryan Walsh; Podcasts:  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. [00:29:42] Megan Roberts; Podcast: Why Your Diet Isn’t Working: Under Eating and Overtraining.  Blog post: What We Eat and How We Train Part 1: Coach and Ketogenic Diet Researcher, Megan Roberts. [00:31:06] 7-Minute Analysis. [00:36:39] 5-year wellness score; Intermountain Risk Score. Study: Horne BD, May HT, Muhlestein JB, Ronnow BS, Lappé DL, Renlund DG, et al. Exceptional mortality prediction by risk scores from common laboratory tests. Am J Med. 2009;122: 550–558. [00:39:14] Thomas Dayspring, Peter Attia; LDL-P. [00:42:13] Familial Hypercholesterolemia. [00:44:17] Mediterranean diet, B-vitamins, Thorne Choleast-900 (Monacolin K), Ubiquinol, Glutathione. [00:46:35] Feedback via lab results as the incentive to change behaviour. [00:49:58] Coronary artery calcium scan; Podcasts: How Not to Die of Cardiovascular Disease, with Ivor Cummins; The True Root Causes of Cardiovascular Disease, with Jeff Gerber. [00:52:12] Podcast: Optimal Diet and Movement for Healthspan, Amplified Intelligence and More with Ken Ford. [00:53:14] stephenanderson.com.au/nbt.

Megan Roberts (née Hall) is the Scientific Director of Nourish Balance Thrive. In September, 2017, she co-authored a paper that was published in the prestigious journal Cell Metabolism entitled A Ketogenic Diet Extends Longevity and Healthspan in Adult Mice that was widely commended in the scientific community. In this podcast, Megan sits down with host Lindsay Taylor to discuss her program of research and the most important and exciting findings from that study. They talk about the difference between lifespan and healthspan (hint: you want both) and the evidence for how a low-carb ketogenic diet can contribute to both.   Taking a step back, Megan gives a brief lesson in Research Methods 101: What are the benefits and limitations of non-human research (e.g., studies conducted on mice)? Where can we and where should we not extrapolate from this type of research to human interventions? What do we know and what do we not know at this point about the ketogenic diet? Finally, Megan tells us what advice she gives people who are interested in adopting a ketogenic lifestyle and why it doesn't work to try to micromanage your diet.  

Dr. Kenneth Ford is Founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Florida Institute for Human & Machine Cognition (IHMC), a research institute that is home to world-class scientists and engineers focused on building technology that extends human cognition, perception, locomotion and resilience. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Tulane University and is the author of hundreds of scientific papers and six books, with interests in an array of areas including artificial intelligence, cognitive science, and human performance under extreme conditions. Ken is also co-host to the popular and respected STEM-Talk podcast which recently won first place in the 12th Annual People’s Choice Podcast Awards in the Science and Medicine category. Many leaders in the areas of health and exercise physiology appear on STEM-talk, with a focus on the scientific elements behind extending human longevity and performance. Ken is here with us today to talk about some current projects at IHMC, artificial intelligence, ketosis, and his favorite cutting-edge training methods. Here’s the outline of this interview with Ken Ford: [00:04:16] Episode 49 of STEM-Talk, first place People's Choice Awards in the Science and Medicine category. [00:06:43] Current projects. [00:07:10] Dr. James Allen, World Modelers. [00:08:54] Economic modeling, weather modeling for crop failure. [00:09:45] Cognitive orthotics. [00:10:36] Dr. Dawn Kernagis, brain glymphatic system. Podcast: Human Performance and Resilience in Extreme Environments. [00:11:52] Artificial gravity. [00:12:34] The double secret selection committee. [00:13:56] Extending human capabilities. [00:16:35] Locomotion for paraplegics. [00:17:31] Humans in extreme environments. [00:19:51] Space flight and aging. [00:20:41] Few rules but strong culture and a flat organisational structure. [00:22:07] Growth mindset. [00:22:41] Choosing people rather than an agenda. [00:28:09] Fostering a network of friends and experts. [00:28:46] Barry Barish, STEM-talk Episode 10. [00:31:37] Understanding the limits of knowledge. [00:32:47] Do the big tech companies have too much power? [00:35:51] EU 2.5$ penalty for Google. [00:36:45] Google D.C. influence operation. [00:38:36] Duckduckgo. [00:39:10] The term artificial intelligence. [00:42:41] The danger of a superhuman AI. [00:44:21] HAL 9000. [00:45:09] Dropped a physics. [00:45:58] Driverless cars. [00:51:52] Ketogenic diet. [00:53:23] The benefits of ketones. [00:53:55] Signalling functions of beta hydroxybutyrate (BHB) and acetoacetate. [00:54:26] Study: Shimazu, Tadahiro, et al. "Suppression of oxidative stress by β-hydroxybutyrate, an endogenous histone deacetylase inhibitor." Science 339.6116 (2013): 211-214. [00:55:11] Study: Newman, John C., et al. "Ketogenic diet reduces midlife mortality and improves memory in aging mice." Cell metabolism 26.3 (2017): 547-557. [00:55:57] Study: Sleiman, Sama F., et al. "Exercise promotes the expression of brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) through the action of the ketone body β-hydroxybutyrate." Elife 5 (2016). [00:57:03] Study: Roberts, Megan N., et al. "A ketogenic diet extends longevity and healthspan in adult mice." Cell metabolism 26.3 (2017): 539-546. [00:58:03] Podcast: Why Your Diet Isn’t Working: Undereating and Overtraining, with Megan Roberts. [00:58:24] Podcast: The Keto Masterclass with Robb Wolf. [00:59:38] Virta Health, results with 0.5 - 1 mmol/L of BHB. [01:00:11] Study: Shimazu, Tadahiro, et al. "Suppression of oxidative stress by β-hydroxybutyrate, an endogenous histone deacetylase inhibitor." Science 339.6116 (2013): 211-214. [01:01:01] Study: Cunnane, Stephen C., et al. "Can ketones compensate for deteriorating brain glucose uptake during aging? Implications for the risk and treatment of Alzheimer's disease." Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1367.1 (2016): 12-20. [01:02:53] Exogenous ketones. [01:05:26] Exercise. [01:06:33] Hierarchical sets. [01:07:11] Art DeVany. [01:08:17] Episode 30 of STEM-Talk. [01:10:15] Eccentric movements. [01:10:41] Study: Schoenfeld, Brad J., et al. "Hypertrophic effects of concentric vs. eccentric muscle actions: a systematic review and meta-analysis." The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research 31.9 (2017): 2599-2608. [01:13:37] Blood flow restriction training. [01:14:41] Episode 34 of STEM-Talk. [01:16:31] Dr. Jim Stray-Gundersen, Dr. Adam Anz. [01:18:13] Kaatsu and Go B Strong (discount code: IHMC). [01:18:43] Vibration platform training. [01:19:16] Power Plate. [01:21:12] Electrical muscle stimulation (EMS). [01:22:56] PowerDot. [01:26:41] Kettlebells. [01:27:04] Pavel Tsatsouline. [01:28:21] Strong First, Coaches Mark Reifkind and Tracy Reifkind. [01:29:15] Why not cardio? [01:30:36] Zoo humans. Book: The Human Zoo: A Zoologist’s Classic Study of the Urban Animal, by Desmond Morris [01:32:12] Study: Fain, Elizabeth, and Cara Weatherford. "Comparative study of millennials' (age 20-34 years) grip and lateral pinch with the norms." Journal of Hand Therapy 29.4 (2016): 483-488. [01:34:56] Don't be normal. [01:38:07] Finding versus inventing a purpose. [01:41:45] Cal Newport. [01:43:19] IHMC.us newsletter.

In this conversation, we discuss the newly released Blood Chemistry Calculator that Chris Kelly developed (he was a software engineer in a past life) in collaboration with Dr Tommy Wood, Dr Bryan Walsh, and Megan Roberts. Chris Kelly is the Co-Founder of Nourish Balance Thrive (nbt), an online functional medicine practice that specializes in helping athletes optimize their […] The post THP 031: Blood Chemistry Calculator – AI Meets Functional Medicine appeared first on Stephen Anderson.

Happy 2018 Y'all!!! I can't think of a better way to start this new year than by sharing my precious Meg wit y'all. As a senior, Megan sought me out as a freshman at Carolina, and made it her personal mission to drown me in grace and love. Either her or Kate (Episode 12!) drove me to church nearly every Sunday, and for a car-less freshman, re-discovering my identity, it meant the world. In this episode we talk about those days at Carolina, her decision to leave the classroom to be at home with their toddler Ford, her husband, David, and how to make meaning of days where the fear of monotony settles in far too often. I wouldn't be who I am without Megan, so I am extremely thankful to share her with y'all. Happy listening!

Three times XTERRA World Champion Lesley Paterson is the “little Scottish lassie who packs a mean punch.” In this interview, Lesley talks briefly about her early triathlon days and later success in the offroad world. I wanted to get Lesley on for two reasons, first, because I knew she’d been working with Chris Kresser and the Taymount Clinic to resolve longstanding gut and Lyme issues. Secondly, I wanted Lesley to talk about her new book, The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion. Lesley co-authored the book with her sports psychologist husband Simon Marshall, PhD and I’d highly recommend to anyone looking to get the most out of their brain to maximise endurance. Sorry about the swearing! My goal was not to offend. Honest. Here’s the outline of this interview with Lesley Paterson: [00:00:00] PHAT FIBRE, Article: How to Use MCT Oil to Fuel an IRONMAN Triathlon, and, How Endurance Training Affects Carbohydrate Tolerance by Megan Roberts, MSc, and Tommy Wood MD, PhD. [00:00:24] Interview: Lauren Peterson, PhD. [00:00:35] YouTube: The Lesley Paterson Story by the Taymount Clinic. [00:01:12] Site: International Triathlon Unit, or ITU racing. [00:02:06] Site: XTERRA: Global Off-Road Triathlon and Trail Running Series. [00:03:57] Being out in nature. [00:04:14] Quote: “If it were easy, they'd call it IRONMAN” — Bob Babbitt. [00:07:27] Gut issues. [00:08:04] Antibiotics and Accutane. [00:09:29] Weight gain. [00:10:05] Lyme disease. [00:10:35] 6% bodyfat. [00:11:25] Site: Taymount Clinic. [00:11:48] Podcast: Chris Kresser interview with Glenn Taylor of the Taymount Clinic and an Update show. [00:13:00] Sign up for our Highlights series. [00:14:35] Ozone and IV therapy. [00:15:07] Interview: Dr David Minkoff. [00:16:06] The artist formerly known as Adrenal Fatigue. [00:16:26] Carbs. [00:17:01] SIBO. [00:18:10] The Taymount experience. [00:21:05] The gut brain connection. [00:23:25] Types of athlete at Braveheart Coaching. [00:25:01] Site: BMC bike racing team. [00:25:35] Professor Steve Peters. [00:26:33] TED Talk: Optimising the Performance of the Human Mind: Steve Peters at TEDxYouth@Manchester 2012. [00:28:06] Do you want to be having these feelings right now? If no, the chimp is in charge. [00:29:31] Alter ego. [00:32:46] Athlete identity issues. [00:40:30] Race: Sea Otter Classic. [00:42:48] Finding gratitude. [00:44:12] Being mindful during the race. [00:45:10] Negative thoughts. [00:46:26] Music. [00:48:25] Site: Braveheart Coaching.

As Scientific Director at Nourish Balance Thrive, Megan is a research scientist who helps keep the program state of the art. She received her BS in Exercise Biology and MSc in Nutritional Biology at UC Davis where her research focused on the effects of low carbohydrate and ketogenic diets on longevity and healthspan in mice. In her free time Megan enjoys reading, long walks in the sunshine, weight lifting, martial arts, and hiking in the Colorado mountains. You could listen to this interview to learn: How Megan recovered her gut health. The best diet to gain lean mass (for the underweight). About allostatic load. Here’s the outline of this interview with Megan Roberts: [00:01:14] IHH-UCSF Symposium on Functional Medicine and the Paleo Approach. [00:01:30] Presentations: Robb Wolf, Dr Stephan Guyenet, Dr Justin Sonnenburg. [00:02:55] The road to medical school. [00:03:14] Blog post: Why Your Ketogenic Diet Isn’t Working Part One: Underfueling and Overtraining. [00:04:34] Integrating all the information. [00:04:59] Dr Ron Rosedale, Dr Dominic D'Agostino. [00:06:43] Allostatic load aka, "the stress bucket". [00:07:40] Gluten and dairy sensitivities. [00:08:01] Presentation: Dr Tommy Wood at Icelandic Health Symposium. [00:08:39] White blood cell counts and getting sick. [00:10:03] Book: Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers by Dr Robert Sapolsky. [00:12:33] Favouring micronutrients over macronutrients. [00:14:05] Learning to be mindful. [00:14:51] Interview: How to Think Yourself Younger, Healthier, Faster with Dr Ellen Langer. [00:15:52] Presentation: The Way to the Man's Heart Is Through the Stomach, Dr Tommy Wood. [00:16:16] Blog post: How to Prevent Weight Loss (or Gain Muscle) on a Therapeutic Ketogenic Diet. [00:16:52] Sumo wrestlers. [00:17:12] Interview: Keto Summit with Dr Chris Masterjohn. [00:18:22] Interview: How to Achieve High Intensity Health with Mike Mutzel. [00:19:07] Interview: Social Isolation: The Most Important Topic Nobody is Talking About with Dr Bryan Walsh. [00:20:46] Headspace. [00:23:59] Critical thinking and seeing shades of grey. [00:25:05] Timing carb intake. [00:26:34] Adapting to altitude in Colorado. [00:28:01] Will the ketogenic diet extend longevity? [00:28:25] The limitations of rodent studies. [00:29:30] Gender differences for the ketogenic diet. [00:29:59] Blog Post: The IRONMAN Guide to Ketosis. [00:32:50] Ben Greenfield's experience on a ketogenic diet. [00:33:06] Dr Mark Cucuzzella, Zach Bitter. [00:34:56] Interview: How to Use Biomedical Testing for IRONMAN Performance with Bob McRae. [00:35:10] Blog post: How to Use MCT Oil to Fuel an IRONMAN Triathlon, and, How Endurance Training Affects Carbohydrate Tolerance. [00:36:12] PHAT FIBRE v2. [00:37:39] Blog post: Why Your Ketogenic Diet Isn’t Working Part One: Underfueling and Overtraining.

All Megan has to do is get that godforsaken deer to leave her backyard. Dead or alive. Consider a small monthly donation and keep The Lapse - and Kyle - in production. We're just shy of our next goal at www.patreon.com/thelapse and yet another patron-exclusive episode! Catch Megan Roberts on her choose-your-own-adventure podcast, Chaotic Neutral Adventures.