71–80 of 159 posts
I thought all the Hacker News "smarter than everyone else, self prescribers" were still endorsing Adderall, mild hallucinogens, and poop-swapping. But, by all means, shine on you crazy diamonds.
> One thing that makes the vagus nerves so attractive is surgical accessibility in the neck. “It is quite easy to implant some device that will try to stimulate them,” says Dr Benjamin Metcalfe at the University of Bath, who is studying how the body responds to electrical vagus nerve stimulation. Did these (with supervision) during residency. As far as neurosurgeries go, fairly simple. You just have to be careful whe…
Yeah, that's an intense surgery.
The MD doing the implantation was a rockin' bitch-ass motherfucking stone cold killer. Sorry for all the curse words, but that's the best way to describe her. I've never been near someone so dead calm no matter what. Just ice in the veins. She was ~6'5" and wore 6" stilettos all the time. That surgeon had presence. I'd never want to meet her in a back alley late at night.
We were developing a new technique to help out with implantation. One of the hard parts of DBS is knowing where to leave the stimulating end of the electrodes. You want to hit a specific region, but as everyone's brain is different, there's no way to stereotype the process. We had a little optical sensor that we were trying to use to guide the electrodes and see differences in the neuronal density. The place you leave the electrodes is in an area of relatively high density (S. Nigra). Bunch of Fourier analysis, machine learning, and machine vision went into it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel down this rabbit hole after reading Breath by James Nestor. Got serious about practising 5.5 second inhales / exhales and started forcing myself to adjust to nose breathing (even during exercise) It did a total number on my anxiety levels and pulled me out of the constant cortisol fuelled fight or flight mode I found myself as I slowly crashed and burned into the ground I wish someone had taught me as a child,…
Post the technique here so lazy people like me can read about it!
Nasal Breathing: Inhaling and exhaling through the nose to filter and humidify the air, increase oxygen uptake, and engage in diaphragmatic breathing.
Tummo Breathing: A Tibetan practice combining visualization and breath control, involving deep inhalations and exhalations to generate body heat.
Holotropic Breathwork: Rapid and deep breaths, usually accompanied by music, to achieve altered states of consciousness.
Buteyko Method: Focuses on shallow and reduced breathing to increase CO2 levels, promoting relaxation and better oxygen uptake.
Box Breathing: Inhaling, holding the breath, exhaling, and holding the breath again, all for an equal count, to calm the mind and increase focus.
Pranayama: Various yogic breathing techniques to control breath and energy, aiming to balance the body and mind.
Pursed Lip Breathing: Inhaling through the nose and exhaling slowly through pursed lips to improve lung function and control.
Sudarshan Kriya: A rhythmic breathing technique used in conjunction with meditation to reduce stress.
I teach a simplified breathing method for actors called "Flash Breathing" that teaches a series of breaths starting at the speed of gasping, ending at the speed of slow, deep breathing, and concentrating on the "space" between exhaling and inhaling. Very effective.
>Further research revealed that the brain communicates with the spleen – an organ that plays a critical role in the immune system – by sending electrical signals down the vagus nerve. These trigger the release of a chemical called acetylcholine that tells immune cells to switch off inflammation. Electrically stimulating the vagus nerve with an implanted device achieved the same feat. One might also achieve comparable…
You don't need to buy a $750 USD device to do this either. You can get away with a very cheap TENS device that has ear clips such as: https://www.tenspros.com/intensity-micro-combo-tens-microcur... And then look at a study like https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7199464/table/T... to determine what settings to use for your condition.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ibnJr6MqhHfpkXXzsKOD...
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Famotidine an old school H2 antihistamine used for acid reflux (pre PPIs), was found to have an additional mechanism of action via activation of the vagus nerve to inhibit pro-inflammatory cytokines in covid (via alpha 7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (α7nAChR) signal transduction - https://molmed.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s10020-022... ). It has also been used quite extensively to combat post-covid neurop…
That's interesting about famotidine. This is also a treatment for MCAS, which is probably under-diagnosed because it's kind of obscure and the diagnostic criteria kind of suck currently. It can reduce stomach acid, so my doctor and I decided against using it as the first option in treatment, but may reconsider even though the alternative seems to be working. Thanks for the link and explanation. Can you share any rele…
The tricky thing with increasing butyrate production is that everyone's gut dysbiosis is different - and therefore, a prebiotic that works for one person may make someone else's condition worse. For example, I have big blooms in my Prevotella Copri population which would consume Inulin and make my butyrate production worse - but in people without a Prevotella Copri overgrowth, Inulin would improve their butyrate production.
I would look into 16S microbiome testing (I use Biomesight) and use that as a guide, as well as slowly trialing interventions and monitoring symptoms. None of this is perfect and you kinda have to be on the bleeding edge of science/alternative medicine to figure things out.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel down this rabbit hole after reading Breath by James Nestor. Got serious about practising 5.5 second inhales / exhales and started forcing myself to adjust to nose breathing (even during exercise) It did a total number on my anxiety levels and pulled me out of the constant cortisol fuelled fight or flight mode I found myself as I slowly crashed and burned into the ground I wish someone had taught me as a child,…
Post the technique here so lazy people like me can read about it!
> nose breathing
They did! Breathe in and out through your nose, spending 5.5 seconds each on inhale and exhale. This leads to taking the “optimal” 5.5 breaths per minute. Try to do this all the time but don’t experiment with new techniques when you’re driving a car or operating heavy machinery.
The book talks about all kinds of other stuff too but that’s the tl;dr.
>Further research revealed that the brain communicates with the spleen – an organ that plays a critical role in the immune system – by sending electrical signals down the vagus nerve. These trigger the release of a chemical called acetylcholine that tells immune cells to switch off inflammation. Electrically stimulating the vagus nerve with an implanted device achieved the same feat. One might also achieve comparable…