All my life, i've needed to get away from people to recharge my batteries from time to time. It's finally apparent to me why that is the case, from a physiological point of view as opposed to the esoteric one (which i STILL believe is true, but on a different level).
Not only does the human brain chew up a disproportionate amount of our energy compared to other tissues (including muscle!), but that prefrontal cortex of ours which is responsible for much of our advanced thinking really sops it up. The busier we are, the more balls we're juggling at once, the more energy it burns -- we're using a LOT of executive brainpower! And as J Stanton explains here, we MEASURABLY use lots of prefrontal energy when we exercise willpower -- this "expensive" area of the brain.
Dealing with people, communicating, coping with the world, does the same damned thing.
Suppose we're "enjoying" a holiday with our extended families -- we're exposed to children's squabbles, drunk-uncle irrational political rants, sympathizing with drunk-aunt complaints, trying to figure out what to have for breakfast tomorrow and whether or not we can get away with using erythritol instead of sugar in tonight's dessert, etc: we end up having too many mimosas, and kick ourselves for it even though we know better....
Congratulations, "having a life" just destroyed your best-laid plans! Same thing happens with vacations, workplace deadlines, or a mere over-packed schedule.
We HAVE to prioritize our well-being BEFORE we can hope to have any success with food-centered health tweaks. Oh, the correction in our intake will help make the rest flow easier too, but we won't be able to stick with the program if our mental energy is being overused by modern-world worries.
Our poor taxed prefrontal cortexes! We have to learn to give them a break! Sleep is undeniably good for them, but if we're still trying to do too many things at once while we're awake, all the little things they do for us will suffer the consequences. This is why we're admonished to not sweat the small stuff.
Delegate. Make someone else do some of the deciding AND figure out how to make their decisions work -- it won't help for them to decide on a menu, if they're not doing the cooking! When things get noisy, go for a bathroom break (whether you need it or not) and spend twenty minutes locked in a quiet little room by yourself. You can always blame the excess time on something that was cooked by someone else. ;-)
Read something refreshing while you're in there, though -- if you continue planning and brainstorming it ain't gonna help. And no texting, either!
Tuesday, March 29, 2016
Friday, March 25, 2016
on the next step
I probably don't need to confess to you that i haven't been on the strict regimen prescribed in "The Six Week Cure for the Middle-Aged Middle" all this time -- the kids came up from Texas for spring break, and we ate, drank, and made merry for six days. I still made every effort to keep my protein-consumption up, however. Then when they drove off southward again, i happily got back on the wagon.
Interesting thing, though: as the days passed on the three-shakes-and-one-meal protocol, my FitBit reported that my resting heart-rate steadily declined. I felt unfueled despite getting plenty of protein and being fat-and-ketone adapted. My metabolism was clearly being depressed.
Obviously in my case, amino acids from whey plus the BCAA supplement are not as beneficial as some people find them. Two days ago i went back to my "normal" pattern of coffee-with-collagen for breakfast and two ample meals per day, but still continuing the BCAAs, and my heart-rate is trending back upward.
I FEEL a bit thinner, though the scale hasn't been giving me any good news -- i presume the extra protein put muscle on me to offset any fat-losses i managed to achieve. Until our vacation starts, i'll pursue the VLC plan that seems to suit my body best, and avoid the little indulgences that i'm sometimes prone to treat myself to: staying away from the stray potato or rice i occasionally allow; having a pot of tea at the cocktail hour instead of wine; preferring LC recipes that don't include cheese or cream, because those ingredients (like nuts) seem to slow fat-loss for me.
Online diet-trackers having the shortcomings they do, i don't really know what kind of calorie-reduction i was looking at while experimenting with the 3shake1meal routine. I could have calculated it, but was too busy with host-duties and socializing to be motivated to do it. I ASSUME that i was just trying to be too active on too little food, although i didn't FEEL like i was going hungry at any point. To me, it just underscores the point that calorie restriction has many more downsides than are acknowledged by the CRaP* people: the body WILL slow down, no matter how much running around you do, if it thinks its fuel intake is suboptimal.
_______
*. I love Dr. Fung's acronym for "calorie reduction as primary" -- it's almost as good as the expression "CICOpaths"!
Interesting thing, though: as the days passed on the three-shakes-and-one-meal protocol, my FitBit reported that my resting heart-rate steadily declined. I felt unfueled despite getting plenty of protein and being fat-and-ketone adapted. My metabolism was clearly being depressed.
Obviously in my case, amino acids from whey plus the BCAA supplement are not as beneficial as some people find them. Two days ago i went back to my "normal" pattern of coffee-with-collagen for breakfast and two ample meals per day, but still continuing the BCAAs, and my heart-rate is trending back upward.
I FEEL a bit thinner, though the scale hasn't been giving me any good news -- i presume the extra protein put muscle on me to offset any fat-losses i managed to achieve. Until our vacation starts, i'll pursue the VLC plan that seems to suit my body best, and avoid the little indulgences that i'm sometimes prone to treat myself to: staying away from the stray potato or rice i occasionally allow; having a pot of tea at the cocktail hour instead of wine; preferring LC recipes that don't include cheese or cream, because those ingredients (like nuts) seem to slow fat-loss for me.
Online diet-trackers having the shortcomings they do, i don't really know what kind of calorie-reduction i was looking at while experimenting with the 3shake1meal routine. I could have calculated it, but was too busy with host-duties and socializing to be motivated to do it. I ASSUME that i was just trying to be too active on too little food, although i didn't FEEL like i was going hungry at any point. To me, it just underscores the point that calorie restriction has many more downsides than are acknowledged by the CRaP* people: the body WILL slow down, no matter how much running around you do, if it thinks its fuel intake is suboptimal.
_______
*. I love Dr. Fung's acronym for "calorie reduction as primary" -- it's almost as good as the expression "CICOpaths"!
Tuesday, March 8, 2016
RDAs, revisited
I think we all know that the Recommended Daily Allowances of nutrients don't even TRY to be in the "optimal" range -- they're there to indicate the bare minimum necessary to keep us out of frank deficiency. Even then, there are times in our lives when ingesting the suggested amounts isn't enough to keep us out of trouble; anyone who has difficulty absorbing nutrients, for example, is totally screwed if they take their multivitamin and eat their 50 grams/day of protein and expect to keep their health.
That quantity of protein especially: I reflect on how ravenous i'd feel if i tried to get along on so little! Eighty grams is my lower threshold, when if i don't have some solid MEEEEAT, i start pacing my cage restlessly and eye passing dogs for muscle-mass....
Eggs and cheese just don't cut it for me, either. It HAS to be animal flesh (or at very least a goodly quantity of fish/seafood plus fat). And as a lover of detective fiction, I am forced to conclude that it's about the right kinds of amino-acids, in the right quantity/proportion.
Which brings me to this month! In about thirty days, we'll be heading to Texas again, to drop off the dog and bird with our daughter, and to head out on another seagoing adventure. Last spring, immediately upon getting off our LC cruise, we were jonesing for a deeper-sea experience, and started looking at smaller ships and longer trips (the big ships don't offer the intimate charm that we fell so hard for almost twenty years ago when we "crossed" on the QE2). Lo and behold, we saw a "sale" at Seabourn for a trip across the pond on a ship carrying an EIGHTH the passenger-load of the behemoths which usually haul tourists around. We booked.
Next month. Yes, i'm VERY excited. I also put on enough weight this last half-year, so that my favorite evening dress is too tight for comfort. I MUST dump some avoirdupois. MUST.
It's not going well. Every time i try to "be good" something comes up, like special events and visitors. In desperation, i pulled out a book i bought several years ago -- the Eadeses' "6-Week Cure for the Middle-Aged Middle." I read it only once, and it seemed ... quirky. I read it again the other day, and the peculiar characteristics of the regimen made a bit more sense, in that i'm a few years older now and harder to reduce than i was when i first read it. These are the fail-safe tweaks which the weight-loss-resistant people of my cohort HAVE to employ to get results. I put the plan on the back burner while i waited for my order to arrive, comprising the nutrients i needed to add to what i use already.
Yesterday, they did, and i took my first leucine dose before bedtime, and started googling other "authorities" on BCAAs. Interestingly enough, the proteinpower.com blog mentions them minimally, and most of the sites which are more discursive are more into bodybuilding than ... ahem ... body-trimming. But an interesting exchange in the comment-section of a PP blog-post made me start thinking.... The discussion was on serum albumin, and how low-protein diets don't translate into a sufficient quantity of this important blood-component taxi. Albumin, specifically, is what is needed in the blood to bind THYROID hormone and move it around to the cells in which it's needed. AHA. A reader asked Mike how much protein he eats on a daily basis, and i was surprised to see that it was in excess of 200 grams. The reader was obviously surprised, too -- was that 200 grams of MEAT or of protein? Protein.
In addition, the discussion entered the realm of leaky blood-vessels, and how adequate albumin can keep one's fluids on the correct side of the wall. To one like me, who has the tendency to wake up a little on the waterlogged side, this was another lightbulb moment. One of the causes of that is the histamine issue, but where does albumin (and ultimately, dietary protein) enter the equation?
The regimen started to make a lot more sense to me. One starts out the first weeks on three protein shakes plus one real meal per day. I naively thought that was to neutrally fill up a person who is always hungry, and i could not see myself drinking that much whey powder with its extra load of added BCAA. But if these super-shakes were really designed to get the older fatty to ingest superior quantities of protein, the logic jumps out at you.
Other associations began springing to mind. I opened Fitday and entered the pound-and-a-half of (ground) beef that the Strong Medicine recommended per day -- over 170 grams. I reflected on the quantity of meat that some of the ZCers eat, way more than MY appetite will allow me to consume. More: perhaps the magic of the SM regimen is getting one's protein intake up to the albumin-adequate range, not just into the calorie-adequate, low-carb, low-allergen sweet-spot i assumed? Donaldson CERTAINLY stressed how important the protein itself is.
I've ALWAYS craved protein, from early childhood. Looks like my body was wiser than i ever gave it credit for. Perhaps the modern LCer's caution against "too much" is STILL excessively austere -- perhaps "adequate protein" is even more than the "moderate protein" which is the LCHF ideal?
I'll be tweaking my usual diet to include more protein, and not really worry about the fat-content. The red meats i prefer come with a healthy amount of their own fat, and heaven knows i can contribute plenty from storage.
That quantity of protein especially: I reflect on how ravenous i'd feel if i tried to get along on so little! Eighty grams is my lower threshold, when if i don't have some solid MEEEEAT, i start pacing my cage restlessly and eye passing dogs for muscle-mass....
Eggs and cheese just don't cut it for me, either. It HAS to be animal flesh (or at very least a goodly quantity of fish/seafood plus fat). And as a lover of detective fiction, I am forced to conclude that it's about the right kinds of amino-acids, in the right quantity/proportion.
Which brings me to this month! In about thirty days, we'll be heading to Texas again, to drop off the dog and bird with our daughter, and to head out on another seagoing adventure. Last spring, immediately upon getting off our LC cruise, we were jonesing for a deeper-sea experience, and started looking at smaller ships and longer trips (the big ships don't offer the intimate charm that we fell so hard for almost twenty years ago when we "crossed" on the QE2). Lo and behold, we saw a "sale" at Seabourn for a trip across the pond on a ship carrying an EIGHTH the passenger-load of the behemoths which usually haul tourists around. We booked.
Next month. Yes, i'm VERY excited. I also put on enough weight this last half-year, so that my favorite evening dress is too tight for comfort. I MUST dump some avoirdupois. MUST.
It's not going well. Every time i try to "be good" something comes up, like special events and visitors. In desperation, i pulled out a book i bought several years ago -- the Eadeses' "6-Week Cure for the Middle-Aged Middle." I read it only once, and it seemed ... quirky. I read it again the other day, and the peculiar characteristics of the regimen made a bit more sense, in that i'm a few years older now and harder to reduce than i was when i first read it. These are the fail-safe tweaks which the weight-loss-resistant people of my cohort HAVE to employ to get results. I put the plan on the back burner while i waited for my order to arrive, comprising the nutrients i needed to add to what i use already.
Yesterday, they did, and i took my first leucine dose before bedtime, and started googling other "authorities" on BCAAs. Interestingly enough, the proteinpower.com blog mentions them minimally, and most of the sites which are more discursive are more into bodybuilding than ... ahem ... body-trimming. But an interesting exchange in the comment-section of a PP blog-post made me start thinking.... The discussion was on serum albumin, and how low-protein diets don't translate into a sufficient quantity of this important blood-component taxi. Albumin, specifically, is what is needed in the blood to bind THYROID hormone and move it around to the cells in which it's needed. AHA. A reader asked Mike how much protein he eats on a daily basis, and i was surprised to see that it was in excess of 200 grams. The reader was obviously surprised, too -- was that 200 grams of MEAT or of protein? Protein.
In addition, the discussion entered the realm of leaky blood-vessels, and how adequate albumin can keep one's fluids on the correct side of the wall. To one like me, who has the tendency to wake up a little on the waterlogged side, this was another lightbulb moment. One of the causes of that is the histamine issue, but where does albumin (and ultimately, dietary protein) enter the equation?
The regimen started to make a lot more sense to me. One starts out the first weeks on three protein shakes plus one real meal per day. I naively thought that was to neutrally fill up a person who is always hungry, and i could not see myself drinking that much whey powder with its extra load of added BCAA. But if these super-shakes were really designed to get the older fatty to ingest superior quantities of protein, the logic jumps out at you.
Other associations began springing to mind. I opened Fitday and entered the pound-and-a-half of (ground) beef that the Strong Medicine recommended per day -- over 170 grams. I reflected on the quantity of meat that some of the ZCers eat, way more than MY appetite will allow me to consume. More: perhaps the magic of the SM regimen is getting one's protein intake up to the albumin-adequate range, not just into the calorie-adequate, low-carb, low-allergen sweet-spot i assumed? Donaldson CERTAINLY stressed how important the protein itself is.
I've ALWAYS craved protein, from early childhood. Looks like my body was wiser than i ever gave it credit for. Perhaps the modern LCer's caution against "too much" is STILL excessively austere -- perhaps "adequate protein" is even more than the "moderate protein" which is the LCHF ideal?
I'll be tweaking my usual diet to include more protein, and not really worry about the fat-content. The red meats i prefer come with a healthy amount of their own fat, and heaven knows i can contribute plenty from storage.
Friday, February 26, 2016
so what should we DO about stress?
For a really outstanding book, "Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers" ends pretty weakly. The author did a great job of everything except the very last chapter -- hell, the guy even managed to make the "notes" section interesting. Too bad the big shorcoming was the chapter in which he promised to give us some good advice about how to deal with our stress.
Amusingly, it kinda reminded me of a facebook disagreement i got into with some bro in the (you guessed it) ZC group; he had just discovered "Deep Nutrition" and thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bacon! I commented that I was disappointed with it. Not that Dr. Shanahan didn't have interesting stories to tell and points to make (which are actually in just about every other ancestral/paleo book i've ever read, and most blogs as well); the big problem is that unless the start of your life was on the ideal side, there's only so much you can do about your future. I pointed out that, if one has not reproduced yet, there's still time to give your kids what you might not have had, but that an old broad like me is more or less screwed.
And so it is for the stressed amongst us -- we wouldn't BE stressed if we didn't have the genetic and conditioned predisposition, after all! The best chance to enjoy a life in which the troubles are viewed as challenges and the failures roll off our backs, IS TO HAVE BEEN BORN INTO A STABLE, HEALTHY, SOCIALLY-ACCEPTED, WELL-OFF FAMILY IN THE FIRST PLACE. I don't know about you, but i haven't figured out that can be arranged -- even with a time-machine there would be a lot of difficulties to overcome.
In fact, the best advice i've found for managing stress came from "Why Isn't My Brain Working," "The Magnesium Miracle," and the inkling i got from a magazine, many years ago, that B-vitamins can be helpful. Then, there are a few little tricks that i've learned on my own, which i'll return to later.
WZDGU doesn't really suggest anything that we haven't heard a million times before. Exercise, meditation, social support, therapy.... The best thing about this chapter, though, is that the guy has a practical mind and a sense of proportion. He says this stuff CAN help, but he cites the work of a couple of his favorite researchers about the shortcomings of each approach.
"When do these principles [...] work and when are they disastrous to apply? There are some rules." Exercise is good ...if you like the activity and want to do it; otherwise it's -- ahem -- even more stressful. Meditation works for those who choose to do it, WHILE it's being done -- beyond that, nobody really knows. This is one of those things that you can't really study in a randomized trial with a control group; how would you tell people NOT to sit quietly and reflect, which is basically what meditation IS?
A sense of control and predictability are discussed at length and widely shown in human and animal studies to be helpful in minimizing stress reactions, but in real life their practicality is limited. If you could predict and exert control, you wouldn't be unprepared for X, or stuck in a traffic jam because some idiot ahead got in a wreck, now would you? ;-) And as i wrote the other day, believing one has some control may be good for minor stressors -- if it isn't illusory -- but it's horrible in catastrophic ones.
"Having an illusory sense of control in a bad setting can be so pathogenic that one version of it gets a special name in the health psychology literature. ... As described by Sherman James of Duke University, it is called John Henryism. ... John Henryism involves the belief that any and all demands can be vanquished, so long as you work hard enough." Trouble is, this only potentially works in a meritocratic system. In modern America, for less-privileged classes or in other biased systems, it doesn't. People have been known to literally work themselves to death -- hence the name.
"The realm of stress management is mostly about techniques to help deal with challenges that are less than disastrous." Some people CAN cope magnificently in the face of catastrophe, but that's an n=1 situation -- "that’s never grounds for turning to the person next to them in the same boat and offering that as a feel-good incentive just to get with the program. Bad science, bad clinical practice, and, ultimately, bad ethics."
"Social support," too, may be counterproductive, as when one's networks are not truly supportive. I'm sure we've all gone to someone for comfort -- a pat on the back, an encouraging word, a shoulder to cry on -- and experienced the emotional equivalent of a bucket of icewater in the face. Some poor devils really learn who their true friends are the hard way. Religion and spirituality, though of use to some people is completely out of the question for others. It can't even be studied properly -- any retrospective is questionable and far from objective. Prospectively ... well, how do you assign your randomized groups and get them to believe in something on demand?
According to the author, learning to respond flexibly seems to be the only solid foundation when it comes to coping: if what you try first isn't doing it for you, doing the same thing MORE is unlikely to improve the situation; the patient must shift gears and try something different if s/he wants different results.
"Physical stressor, you want to activate a stress-response; psychological stressor, you don’t." It seems to me that glucocorticoids for physical stressors is kinda like an insulin-response -- you want a low baseline, and when the need arises you want ENOUGH but not too much, and you want a quick recovery.
He doesn't tell how to do that.
I've found a few tweaks, though. If your start in life wasn't ideal -- and i'm willing to bet that the vast majority of us did NOT have that privilege -- the very first thing to do is become nutrient-replete. Being short of any nutritional requirement will cause undue physical stress. Magnesium, particularly, gets chewed up at a faster rate when we're stressed, as well as B-vitamins. I think the carb-craving that comes upon people when life is crazy is actually a hunger for B-something.
When during the last year, i was suffering some pretty nasty stress, i consulted "Why Isn't My Brain Working?" -- a book which DOES offer some very sound suggestions from the point of view of a DHSc and DC who has clinical experience. Working from his suggestions, i found a supplement which supplied a little GABA as well as its precursors, and got a lot of relief. The book has LOTS of supplement suggestions along with a discussion on various nutrients and neurotransmitters they support.
As described before, magnesium helped me significantly this winter too, at about twice the RDA's suggested dosage. It's VERY easy to get into a vicious stress-circle, wherein an infection starts using up our "immunity stores," driving a deficiency, which makes the illness/stress worse, which makes the deficiency worse, ad infinitum. Just ONE bad day's eating encourages my h.pylori to act up, which lowers my stomach-acid, which screws my digestion, which lowers my thyroid-function, which impairs my digestion more, which makes me more nutrient-deficient, which lowers GABA, which adds to stress, which lowers dopamine .... You get it.
Ya wanna know the cheapest, easiest trick to raise dopamine which is the motivation-neurotransmitter for DOING THINGS to make you feel better? Sit down and play a video game you love. In the rush to demonize the activity that is blamed widely for obesity, why is it ME who has to point out that VIDEO GAMES RAISE DOPAMINE?
Yep, you heard it here first, folks. When you're sitting in the evening, so drained that the very thought of taking a walk makes you feel even more exhausted, pick up your laptop or ipad. Whatever you do, do NOT read the news or that "social medium" which tends to make everyone angry and frustrated! No, start up a solitaire game, or Flow, or JewelQuest (one of my favorites), or Bookworm, or whatever floats your boat. For every game you win or board you clear, your prize is a feel-good hit of dopamine!
Armed with the neurotransmitter of pleasant anticipation, who knows -- maybe you'll be motivated to take that walk and enjoy it, or devote a little time to meditation, or even to call your mother.
Amusingly, it kinda reminded me of a facebook disagreement i got into with some bro in the (you guessed it) ZC group; he had just discovered "Deep Nutrition" and thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bacon! I commented that I was disappointed with it. Not that Dr. Shanahan didn't have interesting stories to tell and points to make (which are actually in just about every other ancestral/paleo book i've ever read, and most blogs as well); the big problem is that unless the start of your life was on the ideal side, there's only so much you can do about your future. I pointed out that, if one has not reproduced yet, there's still time to give your kids what you might not have had, but that an old broad like me is more or less screwed.
And so it is for the stressed amongst us -- we wouldn't BE stressed if we didn't have the genetic and conditioned predisposition, after all! The best chance to enjoy a life in which the troubles are viewed as challenges and the failures roll off our backs, IS TO HAVE BEEN BORN INTO A STABLE, HEALTHY, SOCIALLY-ACCEPTED, WELL-OFF FAMILY IN THE FIRST PLACE. I don't know about you, but i haven't figured out that can be arranged -- even with a time-machine there would be a lot of difficulties to overcome.
In fact, the best advice i've found for managing stress came from "Why Isn't My Brain Working," "The Magnesium Miracle," and the inkling i got from a magazine, many years ago, that B-vitamins can be helpful. Then, there are a few little tricks that i've learned on my own, which i'll return to later.
WZDGU doesn't really suggest anything that we haven't heard a million times before. Exercise, meditation, social support, therapy.... The best thing about this chapter, though, is that the guy has a practical mind and a sense of proportion. He says this stuff CAN help, but he cites the work of a couple of his favorite researchers about the shortcomings of each approach.
"When do these principles [...] work and when are they disastrous to apply? There are some rules." Exercise is good ...if you like the activity and want to do it; otherwise it's -- ahem -- even more stressful. Meditation works for those who choose to do it, WHILE it's being done -- beyond that, nobody really knows. This is one of those things that you can't really study in a randomized trial with a control group; how would you tell people NOT to sit quietly and reflect, which is basically what meditation IS?
A sense of control and predictability are discussed at length and widely shown in human and animal studies to be helpful in minimizing stress reactions, but in real life their practicality is limited. If you could predict and exert control, you wouldn't be unprepared for X, or stuck in a traffic jam because some idiot ahead got in a wreck, now would you? ;-) And as i wrote the other day, believing one has some control may be good for minor stressors -- if it isn't illusory -- but it's horrible in catastrophic ones.
"Having an illusory sense of control in a bad setting can be so pathogenic that one version of it gets a special name in the health psychology literature. ... As described by Sherman James of Duke University, it is called John Henryism. ... John Henryism involves the belief that any and all demands can be vanquished, so long as you work hard enough." Trouble is, this only potentially works in a meritocratic system. In modern America, for less-privileged classes or in other biased systems, it doesn't. People have been known to literally work themselves to death -- hence the name.
"The realm of stress management is mostly about techniques to help deal with challenges that are less than disastrous." Some people CAN cope magnificently in the face of catastrophe, but that's an n=1 situation -- "that’s never grounds for turning to the person next to them in the same boat and offering that as a feel-good incentive just to get with the program. Bad science, bad clinical practice, and, ultimately, bad ethics."
"Social support," too, may be counterproductive, as when one's networks are not truly supportive. I'm sure we've all gone to someone for comfort -- a pat on the back, an encouraging word, a shoulder to cry on -- and experienced the emotional equivalent of a bucket of icewater in the face. Some poor devils really learn who their true friends are the hard way. Religion and spirituality, though of use to some people is completely out of the question for others. It can't even be studied properly -- any retrospective is questionable and far from objective. Prospectively ... well, how do you assign your randomized groups and get them to believe in something on demand?
According to the author, learning to respond flexibly seems to be the only solid foundation when it comes to coping: if what you try first isn't doing it for you, doing the same thing MORE is unlikely to improve the situation; the patient must shift gears and try something different if s/he wants different results.
"Physical stressor, you want to activate a stress-response; psychological stressor, you don’t." It seems to me that glucocorticoids for physical stressors is kinda like an insulin-response -- you want a low baseline, and when the need arises you want ENOUGH but not too much, and you want a quick recovery.
He doesn't tell how to do that.
I've found a few tweaks, though. If your start in life wasn't ideal -- and i'm willing to bet that the vast majority of us did NOT have that privilege -- the very first thing to do is become nutrient-replete. Being short of any nutritional requirement will cause undue physical stress. Magnesium, particularly, gets chewed up at a faster rate when we're stressed, as well as B-vitamins. I think the carb-craving that comes upon people when life is crazy is actually a hunger for B-something.
When during the last year, i was suffering some pretty nasty stress, i consulted "Why Isn't My Brain Working?" -- a book which DOES offer some very sound suggestions from the point of view of a DHSc and DC who has clinical experience. Working from his suggestions, i found a supplement which supplied a little GABA as well as its precursors, and got a lot of relief. The book has LOTS of supplement suggestions along with a discussion on various nutrients and neurotransmitters they support.
As described before, magnesium helped me significantly this winter too, at about twice the RDA's suggested dosage. It's VERY easy to get into a vicious stress-circle, wherein an infection starts using up our "immunity stores," driving a deficiency, which makes the illness/stress worse, which makes the deficiency worse, ad infinitum. Just ONE bad day's eating encourages my h.pylori to act up, which lowers my stomach-acid, which screws my digestion, which lowers my thyroid-function, which impairs my digestion more, which makes me more nutrient-deficient, which lowers GABA, which adds to stress, which lowers dopamine .... You get it.
Ya wanna know the cheapest, easiest trick to raise dopamine which is the motivation-neurotransmitter for DOING THINGS to make you feel better? Sit down and play a video game you love. In the rush to demonize the activity that is blamed widely for obesity, why is it ME who has to point out that VIDEO GAMES RAISE DOPAMINE?
Yep, you heard it here first, folks. When you're sitting in the evening, so drained that the very thought of taking a walk makes you feel even more exhausted, pick up your laptop or ipad. Whatever you do, do NOT read the news or that "social medium" which tends to make everyone angry and frustrated! No, start up a solitaire game, or Flow, or JewelQuest (one of my favorites), or Bookworm, or whatever floats your boat. For every game you win or board you clear, your prize is a feel-good hit of dopamine!
Armed with the neurotransmitter of pleasant anticipation, who knows -- maybe you'll be motivated to take that walk and enjoy it, or devote a little time to meditation, or even to call your mother.
Saturday, February 20, 2016
"it's all MY FAULT!"
I've been reading a very interesting piece of non-fiction, alternated with a few other things -- this is a long-standing habit with me; whether it's a good or bad habit has to depend on the point of view! :-) I need a soothing and pleasant book to fall asleep with, something more technical to satisfy intellectual urges, and sometimes an atmosphere-setting book which can help me in my living-history impersonations. For example, when i portray Louise, the late-Victorian mixologist (bar-tender), all sorts of skills and background knowledge are valuable to make me a believable character, not just some modern person in an old-fashioned dress, mixing modern cocktails with anachronistic equipment.
So it's taking me quite a long time to digest this book, but going slow is sometimes preferable. Quickly-read books are often quickly forgotten as well! "Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers" is worth spending plenty of time to absorb.
Just now i read something that really resonated with me. In discussing some variables which modify perceived stress, the author notes a rat study in which a lever is supplied, pushing which the rat has been taught to associate with reduced shocks. A subject who believes that he has some control over his "fate" does not feel stress as strongly as a subject who believes he has no control at all. HOWEVER, when the subject believes he has some control, but that belief proves to be delusive, the whole thing backfires.
And this is why bad dietary and medical advice makes me fuming furious. The individual gets advice from a quarter which s/he believes to have true expertise -- eat lots of fruits and vegetables, and everything else in moderation; exercise strenuously on a regular basis; avoid red meat and concentrate on low-fat choices, making sure to keep animal-protein on the low side; cut sat-fats and get the fats you are allowed in PUFA form; eat 5-11 servings of whole grains daily, and reduce but don't cut out sugar entirely, or you'll feel deprived and end up head-first in the Girl Scout cookies.... When this advice fails, AND IT WILL, obviously the patient did something wrong!
For decades they've been telling us that the food of our ancestors was carcinogenic; remember when everyone was so shocked that Linda McCartney, a healthy organic vegetarian, died of breast cancer? That was NOT supposed to happen! Her whole lifestyle was what was supposed to save us from just that fate!
A low-fat diet was SUPPOSED to keep us from getting fat, but it didn't -- what was with THAT? Lowering cholesterol was supposed to reduce heart-disease -- how could it POSSIBLY have happened that the use of corn oil resulted in MORE death from heart attacks?
And don't get me started on Alzheimers....
We've been set up to fail, and to blame ourselves for the failure. It makes me want to go on a spree, Kill Bill style, against all of the "scientists" and "health-columnists" who persist in perpetrating this fraud against people who look to them for authoritative, evidence-based advice. There's enough data out there to demonstrate that what they espouse is one hundred percent WRONG, but they have reputations to protect, not to mention law-suits to deflect. They continue to do harm, because at this point it's not enough for new voices to contradict what has become Conventional Wisdom -- the old voices who originally gave the bad advice must step up and say WE WERE WRONG ... and they won't.
It's very difficult to override the ideas we once accepted as truth. I still find myself thinking that reducing the amount i eat will help me lose fat faster, although i have experience that this is not the case! I still find myself thinking that fruits and vegetables are "healthy," though the studies which Peter at Hyperlipid reported on MANY years ago proved to me INTELLECTUALLY that they don't actually do what is claimed for them, and my gut has confirmed are NOT my friends.
Convincing us that we have complete control over our weight, and a great deal of control over our health (except for that genetic crap-shoot, you know) has been an insidious tool of our own destruction. And the "truth" is out there -- it's just a 24/7 job of reading lots of different fields-of-study, and putting puzzle pieces together.
May the gods bless those who make it easier for us -- the Peters, and the Wooos, and the Eades, etc. Heaps of praise for people who bave brilliant and curious minds, who start with a narrow expertise, but who aren't content to remain in their own isolated fields. Curses on the professionals who think that everything they learned in school was the very last word on the subject, and DAMN TO HELL the ones who KNOW they're doing the wrong thing, but do it anyway.
So it's taking me quite a long time to digest this book, but going slow is sometimes preferable. Quickly-read books are often quickly forgotten as well! "Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers" is worth spending plenty of time to absorb.
Just now i read something that really resonated with me. In discussing some variables which modify perceived stress, the author notes a rat study in which a lever is supplied, pushing which the rat has been taught to associate with reduced shocks. A subject who believes that he has some control over his "fate" does not feel stress as strongly as a subject who believes he has no control at all. HOWEVER, when the subject believes he has some control, but that belief proves to be delusive, the whole thing backfires.
And this is why bad dietary and medical advice makes me fuming furious. The individual gets advice from a quarter which s/he believes to have true expertise -- eat lots of fruits and vegetables, and everything else in moderation; exercise strenuously on a regular basis; avoid red meat and concentrate on low-fat choices, making sure to keep animal-protein on the low side; cut sat-fats and get the fats you are allowed in PUFA form; eat 5-11 servings of whole grains daily, and reduce but don't cut out sugar entirely, or you'll feel deprived and end up head-first in the Girl Scout cookies.... When this advice fails, AND IT WILL, obviously the patient did something wrong!
For decades they've been telling us that the food of our ancestors was carcinogenic; remember when everyone was so shocked that Linda McCartney, a healthy organic vegetarian, died of breast cancer? That was NOT supposed to happen! Her whole lifestyle was what was supposed to save us from just that fate!
A low-fat diet was SUPPOSED to keep us from getting fat, but it didn't -- what was with THAT? Lowering cholesterol was supposed to reduce heart-disease -- how could it POSSIBLY have happened that the use of corn oil resulted in MORE death from heart attacks?
And don't get me started on Alzheimers....
We've been set up to fail, and to blame ourselves for the failure. It makes me want to go on a spree, Kill Bill style, against all of the "scientists" and "health-columnists" who persist in perpetrating this fraud against people who look to them for authoritative, evidence-based advice. There's enough data out there to demonstrate that what they espouse is one hundred percent WRONG, but they have reputations to protect, not to mention law-suits to deflect. They continue to do harm, because at this point it's not enough for new voices to contradict what has become Conventional Wisdom -- the old voices who originally gave the bad advice must step up and say WE WERE WRONG ... and they won't.
It's very difficult to override the ideas we once accepted as truth. I still find myself thinking that reducing the amount i eat will help me lose fat faster, although i have experience that this is not the case! I still find myself thinking that fruits and vegetables are "healthy," though the studies which Peter at Hyperlipid reported on MANY years ago proved to me INTELLECTUALLY that they don't actually do what is claimed for them, and my gut has confirmed are NOT my friends.
Convincing us that we have complete control over our weight, and a great deal of control over our health (except for that genetic crap-shoot, you know) has been an insidious tool of our own destruction. And the "truth" is out there -- it's just a 24/7 job of reading lots of different fields-of-study, and putting puzzle pieces together.
May the gods bless those who make it easier for us -- the Peters, and the Wooos, and the Eades, etc. Heaps of praise for people who bave brilliant and curious minds, who start with a narrow expertise, but who aren't content to remain in their own isolated fields. Curses on the professionals who think that everything they learned in school was the very last word on the subject, and DAMN TO HELL the ones who KNOW they're doing the wrong thing, but do it anyway.
Wednesday, February 17, 2016
my pillows seem to have turned against me
As Rosanne Rosannadanna's daddy used to say, "it's always something!"
Good sleep is something the paleo world accentuates, and for good reason. Most importantly for many of us, it is central in what we experience as stress, and stress cascades into swamps of malaise -- fat-gain, pain, depression, disease.... Those of us using paleo principles to improve our health and well-being consider sleep one of our highest priorities.
Many different kinds of people suffer from poor sleep, and i belong to several of those groups: older than dirt, female, etc. I've done a lot of things that i've found helpful, and my husband too seems to appreciate the black-out window shades i put in the bedroom, as well as other improvements. We both benefit from separate blankets, for example, because we don't pull the covers off each other anymore. He even reminds me sometimes to put on my amber goggles, which is also a prompt to stop reading stimulating material in the evening and go for something a little more restful. :-) I don't know about you, but when you're dying to know what happens next, either in a mystery OR a well-written book of nonfiction, 2am comes around VERY quickly.
Be those hacks as effective as they are, it IS frequently easier to get a good night's rest when i have the bed to myself. J tries to move quietly when he needs to get up to pee in the night, but our bed creaks horribly. He also tosses a bit from time to time, for which he can't be blamed. But when he was working out of town and i was using the same bedding i am now, THAT never interfered with my rest. Maybe.
When my stress was really bad last year, i started waking up about a half-hour after dozing off, feeling a peculiar and very unpleasant sense of dread. Of all the sleep-hacks i tried AND KEPT, valerian as a stress-hormone inhibitor helped me not wake in the early mornings with an over-wired feeling, but didn't seem to do anything about these early-NIGHT awakenings. And sometimes the weird feelings didn't wait till i was asleep -- sometimes they started just as soon as i turned off the Kindle and snuggled down into the bedclothes. It was a version of racing-brain with worry ... but it wasn't REAL worry.
For the record, i'm a side-sleeper, so my face is often against both pillow and blankets. I began to suspect my pillows. They were getting pretty limp -- not FLAT, but inclining me to believe that the blobs of filling were breaking down. They still fluffed up, but compressed way too easily. At midnight a couple of days ago i padded through the darkness into the guest-room and grabbed what are some of the newest pillows in the house, swapped the cases, and tried it again. I slept much better. I even woke up better.
I slept better last night, too, and woke up less sniffly. I'll be keeping an eye on the situation, but i'm already disposed to believe some of my sleep woes had to do with the breakdown products of run-of-the-mill pillow fillers. Since i customarily remove the fiber-content tags on my linens i don't know what to actively avoid in future, but i'll definitely aim for hypoallergenic materials. (I LOVE feather pillows, but they definitely deteriorate too quicly for me.)
Life is full of those "always something" situations -- we have to remain observant, figure out what actually CAUSES our discomforts, and make changes as time goes by. Who says you don't have as many challenges in life as a retiree?! ;-)
Good sleep is something the paleo world accentuates, and for good reason. Most importantly for many of us, it is central in what we experience as stress, and stress cascades into swamps of malaise -- fat-gain, pain, depression, disease.... Those of us using paleo principles to improve our health and well-being consider sleep one of our highest priorities.
Many different kinds of people suffer from poor sleep, and i belong to several of those groups: older than dirt, female, etc. I've done a lot of things that i've found helpful, and my husband too seems to appreciate the black-out window shades i put in the bedroom, as well as other improvements. We both benefit from separate blankets, for example, because we don't pull the covers off each other anymore. He even reminds me sometimes to put on my amber goggles, which is also a prompt to stop reading stimulating material in the evening and go for something a little more restful. :-) I don't know about you, but when you're dying to know what happens next, either in a mystery OR a well-written book of nonfiction, 2am comes around VERY quickly.
Be those hacks as effective as they are, it IS frequently easier to get a good night's rest when i have the bed to myself. J tries to move quietly when he needs to get up to pee in the night, but our bed creaks horribly. He also tosses a bit from time to time, for which he can't be blamed. But when he was working out of town and i was using the same bedding i am now, THAT never interfered with my rest. Maybe.
When my stress was really bad last year, i started waking up about a half-hour after dozing off, feeling a peculiar and very unpleasant sense of dread. Of all the sleep-hacks i tried AND KEPT, valerian as a stress-hormone inhibitor helped me not wake in the early mornings with an over-wired feeling, but didn't seem to do anything about these early-NIGHT awakenings. And sometimes the weird feelings didn't wait till i was asleep -- sometimes they started just as soon as i turned off the Kindle and snuggled down into the bedclothes. It was a version of racing-brain with worry ... but it wasn't REAL worry.
For the record, i'm a side-sleeper, so my face is often against both pillow and blankets. I began to suspect my pillows. They were getting pretty limp -- not FLAT, but inclining me to believe that the blobs of filling were breaking down. They still fluffed up, but compressed way too easily. At midnight a couple of days ago i padded through the darkness into the guest-room and grabbed what are some of the newest pillows in the house, swapped the cases, and tried it again. I slept much better. I even woke up better.
I slept better last night, too, and woke up less sniffly. I'll be keeping an eye on the situation, but i'm already disposed to believe some of my sleep woes had to do with the breakdown products of run-of-the-mill pillow fillers. Since i customarily remove the fiber-content tags on my linens i don't know what to actively avoid in future, but i'll definitely aim for hypoallergenic materials. (I LOVE feather pillows, but they definitely deteriorate too quicly for me.)
Life is full of those "always something" situations -- we have to remain observant, figure out what actually CAUSES our discomforts, and make changes as time goes by. Who says you don't have as many challenges in life as a retiree?! ;-)
Wednesday, February 10, 2016
THAT'S why
A friend i've never met, on the opposite side of the world, pointed out the idiocy of what's going on in American politics right now. Yep, and it gives nobody a bigger headache than it does us, but there is a reason.
You see, American children are brainwashed with certain notions from earliest childhood, but the ultimate irony is the "freedom" part. It's largely bullshit, but it is feverishly embraced. Hell, i'll bet half the conservatives out there would die in an apoplectic fit if you tied them in a chair with their mouths duck-taped shut, and made them listen to an international panel discussing the subject.
[evil grin] ...i'd pay good money to watch that happen! [rubbing hands together, fiendishly....]
"They hate us for our freedom!" Fervently believed nonsense ... by some. They hate us because we arrogantly bomb other countries, and there's not a goddamn thing we-the-people can do about it, because our country is completely controlled by the Military-Industrial Complex. COMPLETELY. All of our media are controlled by their buddies down at the Rich Guys' Club, and some of their servants are clever people. They manipulate us into believing in goofy ideas like American Exceptionalism, Creative Design, and the importance of giving to health charities.
We have our moments in the sun every two to four years, when we have the glory of choosing between two pre-chosen leaders. The "primary" season, which we're in now, is like qualifying rounds at sporting events, evaluating which final contestants have the best chance of winning the gold.
Oh, there's also a side-show game at the carnival, in which we can dally with self-promoted "third party" candidates, but it's just a show that distracts attention enough so that representatives of the major parties can slip in and pick the audience's pockets.
The reason that THIS year is special is that "somebody up there" slipped in a plot-twist. We actually think we have an opportunity to burst out of our clockwork-orange country and into a wider world. You know -- that world in which Europeans have lived for quite awhile, with education instead of indoctrination, and the idea that society and civilization are GOOD things, not the silly, sissy, bleating of "sheeple." Where a man with clean fingernails is not sneered at as a "metrosexual."
The United States of America desperately needs to enter the 21st century. Some people don't want that to happen. Some want to go back to the 1950s, or actually the 1850s would be better.
GRRRR. I read the voices of the past -- i DO history. Not the idealized history of the appalling books that are used in schools, not the Old West of Hollywood, and certainly not the cultural myths that way too many people here embrace. All that is BULLSHIT. It never happened, so it cannot happen again.
THAT is why THIS election is important.
You see, American children are brainwashed with certain notions from earliest childhood, but the ultimate irony is the "freedom" part. It's largely bullshit, but it is feverishly embraced. Hell, i'll bet half the conservatives out there would die in an apoplectic fit if you tied them in a chair with their mouths duck-taped shut, and made them listen to an international panel discussing the subject.
[evil grin] ...i'd pay good money to watch that happen! [rubbing hands together, fiendishly....]
"They hate us for our freedom!" Fervently believed nonsense ... by some. They hate us because we arrogantly bomb other countries, and there's not a goddamn thing we-the-people can do about it, because our country is completely controlled by the Military-Industrial Complex. COMPLETELY. All of our media are controlled by their buddies down at the Rich Guys' Club, and some of their servants are clever people. They manipulate us into believing in goofy ideas like American Exceptionalism, Creative Design, and the importance of giving to health charities.
We have our moments in the sun every two to four years, when we have the glory of choosing between two pre-chosen leaders. The "primary" season, which we're in now, is like qualifying rounds at sporting events, evaluating which final contestants have the best chance of winning the gold.
Oh, there's also a side-show game at the carnival, in which we can dally with self-promoted "third party" candidates, but it's just a show that distracts attention enough so that representatives of the major parties can slip in and pick the audience's pockets.
The reason that THIS year is special is that "somebody up there" slipped in a plot-twist. We actually think we have an opportunity to burst out of our clockwork-orange country and into a wider world. You know -- that world in which Europeans have lived for quite awhile, with education instead of indoctrination, and the idea that society and civilization are GOOD things, not the silly, sissy, bleating of "sheeple." Where a man with clean fingernails is not sneered at as a "metrosexual."
The United States of America desperately needs to enter the 21st century. Some people don't want that to happen. Some want to go back to the 1950s, or actually the 1850s would be better.
GRRRR. I read the voices of the past -- i DO history. Not the idealized history of the appalling books that are used in schools, not the Old West of Hollywood, and certainly not the cultural myths that way too many people here embrace. All that is BULLSHIT. It never happened, so it cannot happen again.
THAT is why THIS election is important.
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