It's incredible to read all the nuanced deniers of the benefits of diet and exercise.
You all just rather inject yourselves with a medicine. Amazing.
Cognitive decline can be slowed down with lifestyle changes
81–90 of 92 posts
Re: Cognitive decline can be slowed down with lifestyle changes
#82Great, so my brain isn't a doomed potato after all. Just need to sleep, exercise, eat well, socialize, reduce stress, stop doomscrolling, learn a language, play chess, meditate, avoid sugar, limit screen time, and reverse the entropy of the universe. Easy.
All these have always been part of the default human design / experience, and you are just failing to live as intended.
Re: Cognitive decline can be slowed down with lifestyle changes
#83My mother had Alzheimer's for 20 years. I would not recommend it for more than 10 years no matter how healthy you are. I have one copy of the APOE4 gene and am ~40lbs overweight and probably drink too much, and will definitely double my weight and triple my alcohol consumption if I get it. I have always said the heathier you are when you begin to die, the longer it takes to die.
I had 2 grandparents die from Parkinson's and I would definitely pick up heroin addiction if I get diagnosed.
I've said this before, but I think that people over 80 should be allowed to legally purchase use any substance.
BUT to get immunity from prosecution they'd have to sign a notarised and confirmed Do Not Resuscitate order.
Call it the Blaze of Glory act or something =)
Re: Cognitive decline can be slowed down with lifestyle changes
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
pick one intervention and work on just that one to start. less anxious decision paralysis I say sleep is the best one to open with
Yep. Good sleep makes many other decisions easy. Anecdata, but while I normally have a healthy Mediterranean diet (after many years of binge eating), if I don't sleep properly, hell unleashes. If I eat well and I am well rested, I feel energized and positive, so I can go for exercise and then, why not, a meditative walk. If not, I die on my couch binge eating and watching nonsense. Do whatever it takes to get your sl…
If only I could actually do something about my awful sleep, even sleep medicine has no effect other than completely ruining my next day.
Re: Cognitive decline can be slowed down with lifestyle changes
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
> These will probably give you more motivation, which you'll need because the time you used to waste on the phone now needs to be occupied by a real hobby, and here comes language learning, chess, music, etc. Man, that "probably" is doing a ton of heavy lifting.
And the causality is the opposite in my experience. I view my smartphone as a maladaptive way of self-soothing. Locking away my phone just means I'm left with unchecked anxiety I can't think myself out of, and I've only deprived myself of one more method of addressing it (nonoptimally). People without constant stress have less temptation. In times where my anxiety is the lowest due to sheer circumstance, any reason I…
In econometrical terms it would be "double causality", as it forms a vicious cycle. Using your phone to self-soothe leads to not developing real hobbies, which leads to more isolation, which leads to more phone usage.
Say you decide you're now a chess person. Instead of doomscrolling before bed you find relaxation in the meditative study of chess games for an hour a day before going to bed and now you use your phone only as an alarm. You join your local chess club to play IRL during weekends and attend some classes too. What were the effects? Well, there are the proven long-term cognitive benefits of learning and practicing chess, there's the immediate cognitive and emotional benefit of a larger social circle and a community, and medium term you'll feel good about yourself for achieving milestones (getting to 1000 ELO, winning the weekly tournament, etc.)
None of that would have happened if you had stayed on your phone. You probably already invest just as much time on it as you would in chess in this scenario, but it has no ROI, it is designed to suck you in.
Re: Cognitive decline can be slowed down with lifestyle changes
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you stop using your phone for anything other than communicating (yes, not just the loose "stop doomscrolling" advice) a lot of these will come naturally. It will lead you to using a real alarm clock and not using your phone after going to bed, which will make your sleep schedule that much more consistent, and also improve quality of sleep. These will probably give you more motivation, which you'll need because the…
> If you stop using your phone for anything other than communicating (yes, not just the loose "stop doomscrolling" advice) a lot of these will come naturally. People before 2007 slept, exercised, ate well, socialized, reduced stress, learnt a language, played chess, meditated, avoided sugar, limited screen time, and reversed the entropy of the universe.
They 100% socialized more and slept better, I think. People used to have hobbies, too, at the very least watching TV and movies and talking to others about it... Lots of people nowadays just get home and do nothing but scroll
Re: Cognitive decline can be slowed down with lifestyle changes
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had 2 grandparents die from Parkinson's and I would definitely pick up heroin addiction if I get diagnosed.
I've said this before, but I think that people over 80 should be allowed to legally purchase use any substance. BUT to get immunity from prosecution they'd have to sign a notarised and confirmed Do Not Resuscitate order. Call it the Blaze of Glory act or something =)
Not sure you need the Do Not Resuscitate order bit.
Re: Cognitive decline can be slowed down with lifestyle changes
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've said this before, but I think that people over 80 should be allowed to legally purchase use any substance. BUT to get immunity from prosecution they'd have to sign a notarised and confirmed Do Not Resuscitate order. Call it the Blaze of Glory act or something =)
Not sure you need the Do Not Resuscitate order bit.
It’s there so that when Grandpa Steve does 15 lines of coke and smokes a full bong of premium weed and passes out he’s not taken to ER to take a spot from someone who needs it.
Re: Cognitive decline can be slowed down with lifestyle changes
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not sure you need the Do Not Resuscitate order bit.
It’s there so that when Grandpa Steve does 15 lines of coke and smokes a full bong of premium weed and passes out he’s not taken to ER to take a spot from someone who needs it.
I guessed that but I doubt Grandpa Steve cluttering ER for a couple of hours from his coke overdoses would be a significant issue compared with his being at the hospital for several years with alzheimer's.
Re: Cognitive decline can be slowed down with lifestyle changes
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
Instead of berating people or repeating messages over and over, let's focus on getting GLP-1 and GIP receptor agonists into as many people's hands as possible.
lol yeah let’s fund more pharma bull shit and kick the can for actually solving the problem. More CEOs need yachts. Diet education and curbing the corps poisoning us is far more effective.
You believe in your approach and I believe in mine.