This 1000 times. Why is it that we don’t optimize for brain power? The brain lacking sleep and under stress is designed to survive, not thrive. Our strongest muscle is weakest when we need it most to prioritize survival.
31,764 karma · joined March 30, 2007
Dad, Neuroscience, Technology.
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Lesson that the blinders of consensus rarely see what’s new.
I love this example so much because the method was so new and spoke to a key truth. If methods are useful then mundane results are to be expected but still need to be tested. One mentor once said to me that the whole point of an experiment is to test what you think you know. Testing ground truths helps mitigate confirmation biases.
1. How is my sleep?
2. Am I limiting caffeine intake?
3. Anything else affecting my sleep? Room temperature? Lights? White noise? Eating too late? Alcohol?
Sleep is how the brain repairs damage caused by daily life. Not enough or poor quality means you will drag, not just over days, but weeks and months is exactly a downward spiral.
4. Checked my Vitamin D levels recently and supplementing with D3/K?
Circadian rhythms and cognition are poorly studied, but there’s good evidence on Vitamin D and mood and seasonal affective disorder.
5. Managing stress?
Too much stress affects key brain functions like learning, memory, and attention. Too little sleep leads to more stress.
6. Exercising enough?
Am I getting outside daily, going for walks or runs, etc.
7. Nutrition
Am I making good food choices that give me sustained energy or am I eating mindlessly?
The pandemic was the last piece on nutrition for me. I saw how one bad meal (e.g. burger and fries) affected me for 2 days.
With each added Senate seat in subsequent years, the third party builds relevance by setting the Senate agenda. Given how evenly split the country is, just a few Senate seats have outsized influence. House is possible too, but with only 2 year terms, the value is harder to maintain and build upon.
For instance, another big indoor pollutant is cooking fumes, from both the heat source and to cook, carmelize, burn, etc - the food and vapors of changing temperatures. The range hood required by fire codes to stove sizes is not turning on automatically with pollutant detection.
Best is to caffeinate then nap.
https://lifehacker.com/naps-vs-coffee-which-is-better-when-y....
I’ve been thinking about the limits of statistical AI for the last 20 years when I did my Ph.D. in embodied cognition. Folks like Andy Clark then put much more emphasis on having bodies.
That said, it’s great humanity learned to produce more food than we need then ways to process and store it for years later. Hopefully we’l never need that knowledge again.
Meanwhile the adrenal cortex and the autonomic nervous system has been largely forgotten. It regulates how we feel every second of every day, even when we are asleep. Good luck being happy when you are overstressed and underslept.