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Just a few drinks can change how memories are formed

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Re: Just a few drinks can change how memories are formed

#91

Post by antonvs »

par wrote: post #75
nostrebored wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source? This is completely counter to my experience and everything that I know about alcohol

Neurogenic studies of alcohol addiction: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2607330/ Could you post a source that shows alcohol relaxes you?

Alcohol is well established to have a sedative and depressant effect in addition to its stimulant effect - see e.g. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21560041

People commonly experience that effect as relaxation.

Re: Just a few drinks can change how memories are formed

#92

Post by ec109685 »

minikites wrote: post #47
joegyoung wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the Clean episode of "How we got to now" with Steven Johnson, Steven states that the beer-brewing process kills disease. Although no-one realises this in the middle of the 19th century, it means if you live in an unclean environment, beer is a very sensible drink. >> https://subsaga.com/bbc/documentaries/science/how-we-got-to-...

Beer in the medieval period through 19th century was hardly alcoholic, so this is a foolish argument. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_beer >At mealtimes in the Middle Ages, everyone could drink small beer, including children, while eating a meal at the table. Table beer was around this time typically less than 1% ABV.

1% isn't that low though. I'm sure you could drink a lot of that, so people did get drunk.

"It was common for workers (including sailors) who engaged in heavy physical labor to drink more than 10 imperial pints (5.7 litres) of small beer during a workday to quench their thirst. Small beer was also drunk for its nutrition content; it might even have bits of wheat or bread suspended in it. Erasmus Darwin, in his A Plan for the Conduct of Female Education, in Boarding Schools of 1797, thought that "For the drink of the more robust children water is preferable, and for the weaker ones, small beer ...".[5] Larger educational establishments like Eton, Winchester, and Oxbridge colleges ran their own breweries.[6]"

Re: Just a few drinks can change how memories are formed

#93

Post by cheschire »

Apocryphon wrote: post #11

Weirdly enough, at certain amounts of alcohol, I start to think about memories I haven't had in years. Nothing traumatic nor nostalgic, but just mundane memories from school or childhood. I suppose it's just the mind wandering to thoughts it normally doesn't think about while inebriated, forming unusual connections.

There's even pop culture references for such a phenomenon. As an example, in the movie Beerfest, they get one of the characters drunk so he can recall the way to a secret place that he had only previously experienced drunk before.

Re: Just a few drinks can change how memories are formed

#95

Post by cmurf »

crehn wrote: post #84
par wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neurogenic studies of alcohol addiction: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2607330/ Could you post a source that shows alcohol relaxes you?

So you don't feel more relaxed after a drink?

Quite a few people become aggressive. I wouldn't consider alcohol universally relaxing. It might be universally an uninhibitor.

Re: Just a few drinks can change how memories are formed

#96

Post by jrs95 »

pm90 wrote: post #67
rgbrenner wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's interesting.. I wasn't aware this was studied. I stopped drinking years ago because I noticed that alcohol reduced the amount of code I could hold in my head, even up to a week later.

How much code do you hold in your head?

7

Re: Just a few drinks can change how memories are formed

#97

Post by easytiger »

Ancalagon wrote: post #18

Interesting that so many others in this thread experience the same side effects on their learning capabilities caused by even just a few drinks and/or lack of sleep. I feel significantly slower and much more mentally "foggy" for days after I drink more than 1-2 drinks in a sitting. I'm definitely still a social drinker, but this affirms my opinion that I need to further reduce my alcohol consumption (preferably remov…

> I feel significantly slower and much more mentally "foggy" for days after I drink more than 1-2 drinks in a sitting.

If it only takes 3 drinks and has this effect you clearly can't metabolise alcohol well and have a genetic difference to others, because that's not a normal westerner's experience. Perhaps you have an enzyme difference along the chain of breakdown

Re: Just a few drinks can change how memories are formed

#98

Post by usrusr »

imgabe wrote: post #24
soared wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question - Do most adults need to retain new information very often?(excluding the typical HN audience who are constantly learning/innovating/reading/etc)

I would posit that enough adults drink often enough that society is generally structured to allow people to function with whatever impairment occasional drinking creates, since that would be the baseline capability for the average person. That doesn't mean you couldn't benefit from doing better than that, though.

And yet I don't see myself surrounded by highly successful ascets. Maybe the typical winners are those who by chance happen to be somewhat immune to the negatives than others while still cashing in on the positives (see ajcodez post)?

I do wonder occasionally who a parallel universe abstinent-me would be today. Would I have retained that deep focus excitability I had as a young teen? From a personal perspective it's difficult if not impossible to tell the effects of drinking years from the effects of years.

Re: Just a few drinks can change how memories are formed

#99

Post by usrusr »

drawkbox wrote: post #66
mruts wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, it’s gotten me laid a bunch, and also has had me make new friends. Also a promotion (probably)

Taking that further, it has also probably had a considerable effect on population numbers. Alcohol probably adds to the birth rate.

I'm not sure how well that hypothesis would hold up in a quick comparison of alcohol consumption per capita vs birth rate.

Space aliens looking at those numbers might even mistake alcohol for a mild contraceptive.

Re: Just a few drinks can change how memories are formed

#100

Post by SmellyGeekBoy »

samatman wrote: post #88
par wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'll find that alcohol is a lot like cigarettes. Cigarettes used to be everywhere, even doctors would prescribe cigarettes to their patients. Then people started slowly waking up to the idea that nicotine is a highly addictive and toxic substance. People started looking at cigarettes differently, they stopped putting cigs in movies, and people stopped glamorizing cigarettes in the media. Now we have big warnings on…

Addictive, certainly. Toxic at normal doses? Evidence says no. Carbon monoxide, tar, and tiny soot particles are very bad for you. Nicotine? Not so much. Addiction is annoying as hell and I don’t recommend it. But let’s be accurate.

Which evidence? Before modern pesticides came along nicotine was used to fumigate greenhouses. Suggests to me that it must be fairly toxic.
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