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Sleep duration is associated with brain structure and cognitive performance
311–320 of 336 posts
Re: Sleep duration is associated with brain structure and cognitive performance
#312Earlier quoted context omitted.
Personally, I think processed food is literally poison. This is based on my experience living across the street from a 7/11 eating primarily processed prepackaged foods, whatever hot garbage wrapped in plastic they had under the heat lamp multiple times a day for a month. Now I mostly eat spinach, lentils, organic granola, yams, brown rice, occasional fish. Cognition is better, sleep is better, energy is higher. I do…
We've eaten processed food for generations, though - and lots and lots of very questionable food that could literally be poison. Sausages are processed foods, but they kept us alive over the winter. Salt pork anyone? Dried fish? Weevil-filled grains that hopefully stay dry during the winter and foods in root cellars. I'll add that plenty of processed food is an absolute miracle. Frozen vegetables, for example. You we…
No.
You're talking about preserved food.
Processed food is made in giant boiler vats, with chemicals which we have not had in our environment for more than 50-80 years. Chemicals which were approved as "generally recognized as safe" several years before the same agency even admitted that tobacco was harmful to health. Which are proven carcinogens, mutagens, and irritants. If you compare this to salted sausage or sauerkraut, you're a fool.
Re: Sleep duration is associated with brain structure and cognitive performance
#313Earlier quoted context omitted.
You know what I mean by "processed foods" and it is not frozen vegetables, salted meat, or smoked fish. The "meat stick" you get at the store is not just "salted meat". It is not a preserve, it is a processed food. Look at the ingredient label, they use a lot more than just "salt and meat" to make that stick and it is pretty sketchy to put that stuff in a person's body.
The thing is: Not everything with a large, technical name is bad. Simply having preservatives isn't necessarily bad - and neither is artificial flavorings. I'm pretty sure modern "Beef sticks" aren't really bad either - I'm gonna guess you mean something like a "slim jim", whose ingredients seem pretty standard [1]. They just aren't good if you live off of them as a standard part of your diet. And honestly, if you do…
>The thing is: Not everything with a large, technical name is bad. Simply having preservatives isn't necessarily bad - and neither is artificial flavorings.
It is simply bad if the substances are proven carcinogens, mutagens, endocrine disruptors, and sterilizers.
Not to mention all the poison which is produced and dumped into our air and water producing this stuff.
Your slim jim example includes the following:
Corn Syrup: proven harmful to human/animal health
Soy Protein Concentrate: proven harmful to human/animal
Spices: what is this? nobody knows
Dextrose: proven harmful to human/animal health
Paprika Extractives: nobody knows how this happens
Flavoring: flavoring is not an ingredient, this ingredient is concealed from view, and cannot be trusted
Hydrolyzed Soy: proven harmful to animal/human health
Sodium Nitrite: proven carcinogen, mutagen, and harmful to micro-biome.
Re: Sleep duration is associated with brain structure and cognitive performance
#314Earlier quoted context omitted.
You know what I mean by "processed foods" and it is not frozen vegetables, salted meat, or smoked fish. The "meat stick" you get at the store is not just "salted meat". It is not a preserve, it is a processed food. Look at the ingredient label, they use a lot more than just "salt and meat" to make that stick and it is pretty sketchy to put that stuff in a person's body.
The thing is: Not everything with a large, technical name is bad. Simply having preservatives isn't necessarily bad - and neither is artificial flavorings. I'm pretty sure modern "Beef sticks" aren't really bad either - I'm gonna guess you mean something like a "slim jim", whose ingredients seem pretty standard [1]. They just aren't good if you live off of them as a standard part of your diet. And honestly, if you do…
I guess you can mix that stuff and be confused if you really want to. Go ahead, be frustrating and tedious. See how far that gets you in life.
Re: Sleep duration is associated with brain structure and cognitive performance
#315Earlier quoted context omitted.
If that is a bulletproof way to handle water intake, why would you worry about "forgetting"?
Well if I'm engrossed in work or in flow I probably won't notice that I am thirsty or will ignore it for a while. For me it just seems like a good idea to take in some water in the morning to get my body going. I didn't claim anything to be bulletproof, just saying that your body tells you when it needs water and drinking in excess of that is probably unnecessary
>I didn't claim anything to be bulletproof, just saying that your body tells you when it needs water and drinking in excess of that is probably unnecessary
Yes, and it's important to listen to it, and hear it. Some body signals are subtle, and you won't hear them unless you pay attention.
Headaches, migraines, and other unignorable signals are the body screaming for help after many other more subtle signals have been ignored.
Re: Sleep duration is associated with brain structure and cognitive performance
#316Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe you should visit a doctor only if this happens at least with some pattern. If you sleep 24 hours twice a year and all other time you sleep 7-9 - it is a reason to see a doctor?
I'd say yes. 24 hours sleep is just insane. Unless you had a long travel journey with several flights and a lot of stress. If however, you had a normal day before and you slept 24h several times, then yes go see a doctor. At least do a blood check to be sure.
You said it yourself, unless you're under a lot of stress.
Sometimes the stress is not obvious.
Re: Sleep duration is associated with brain structure and cognitive performance
#317Earlier quoted context omitted.
This will sound wierd, but I knew a rancher who could diagnose a calf (correctly, confirmed by a vet) based on those two things. Ironically, he had been developing diabetes, which had he been paying as close attention to waste products he might have caught sooner. PSA: Look before you flush, it's actually not a bad way to gauge general health.
Maybe a little weird, but certainly not surprising to me. It's the closest you can get non-invasively to looking inside yourself.
Can I get weirder? What lab assessment material should I procure - as a consumer - to evaluate the most significant characteristics of my wastes?
Re: Sleep duration is associated with brain structure and cognitive performance
#318Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure... But I'm not giving those up for now. Not sleeping enough for optimal function, I'm not as attached to.
I didn’t suggest that you shouldn’t sleep enough, just that our feelings about how much we need to sleep might not be reliable, in either direction. Maybe we would benefit from sleeping even more than we do because we rarely are physically exhausted at the end of the day.
I do find that physical exercise and exhaustion are helpful for good sleep. If I lay down and "can't fall asleep", I typically get up and keep working until I can't help but fall asleep.
Re: Sleep duration is associated with brain structure and cognitive performance
#319Earlier quoted context omitted.
Our body evolved for an environment without those things that you listed. I think you were right to consciously remove those things from its access. Sleep was always an essential part of the equation, however. Try to imagine how you lived 10K years ago.
If I lived 10K years ago I imagine I would have been frequently sleep deprived. Obtaining food, building shelters, and guarding against attacks were all higher priorities. We don't have any hard data on neolithic sleep patterns.
That's a good point, and one of my arguments for unscheduled sleep.
All the things you mention would indeed take priority, and we probably spent days sleep deprived at times, making up for it with extended long sleep when there was opportunity.
I think our lives were not nearly as difficult or demanding as some imagine, however, especially when you factor in the social and tribal factor. Sleeping in shifts would allow for plenty, attacks were not constant, especially with good shelter, and shelter only takes so long to construct, if that's necessary at all.
Remember, we started in an environment which provided everything we needed already, and one we were evolved for.
If you look at the lives of other apex predators like lions, bears, and eagles, their lives are pretty good in this respect, and their biggest threats are either their own species or humans.
Re: Sleep duration is associated with brain structure and cognitive performance
#320Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe a little weird, but certainly not surprising to me. It's the closest you can get non-invasively to looking inside yourself.
Can I get weirder? What lab assessment material should I procure - as a consumer - to evaluate the most significant characteristics of my wastes?
Your nose and eyes is sufficient lab equipment.