I finally removed all social media apps from my phone. I removed TikTok when it rolled out the new TOS, and this past week has just been draining for me. So, we will see how this goes.
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"17 Ways to Cut Your Risk of Stroke, Dementia and Depression All at Once"
The main take aways:
The study, which looked at data from 59 meta-analyses, identified six factors that lower your risk of brain diseases:
- Low to moderate alcohol intake (Consuming one to three drinks a day had a smaller benefit than consuming less than one drink a day.)
- Cognitive activity, meaning regular engagement in mentally stimulating tasks like reading or doing puzzles
- A diet high in vegetables, fruit, dairy, fish and nuts
- Moderate or high levels of physical activity
- A sense of purpose in life
- A large social network
[...]
The study also identified 13 health characteristics and habits that make you more likely to develop dementia, a stroke or late-life depression. (Altogether, the protective and harmful factors add up to 19 factors because two of them, diet and social connections, can increase or decrease risk, depending on their type and quality.)
- High blood pressure
- High body mass index
- High blood sugar
- High total cholesterol
- Depressive symptoms
- A diet high in red meat, sugar-sweetened beverages, sweets and sodium
- Hearing loss
- Kidney disease
- Pain, particularly forms that interfere with activity
- Sleep disturbances (for example, insomnia or poor sleep quality) or sleep periods longer than eight hours
- Smoking history
- Loneliness or isolation
- General stress or stressful life events (as reported by study subjects)
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No Lessons Here
I've been absolutely loving Mentopolis on Dropout. This latest episode was great, but I was particularly struck by the "Adventuring Party" episode for this episode, which is their after show where the cast chat about the episode and what happened.
But, given the nature of Mentopolis, the conversations can turn to mental workings and mental health. This latest episode really does that and delves into a discussion about dealing with bad things that happen to us.
Brennan Lee Mulligan brought out an amazing and wonderful point he uses when people are looking at a terrible event and how people take those events and change their life because of it, even though it's a random event and it doesn't merit any change. The phrase he uses is, "Or, no lessons here." And I just loved that framing and ability of evaluating these things.
The conversation continues on and delves into conspiracy theories and how people turn to them out of a need to make sense out of the randomness of the world.
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"It's Okay if You Can Only Take Care of Yourself Right Now"
One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.
—Carl Sagan
The pieces talks about the overwhelmingness of the world today and that the author came to following realization:
You don't really need to be an outspoken activist to make a difference. You don't have to take on the fossil fuel industry by yourself. You're not a coward if you're not ready to rush out into the streets against police in riot gear, who will crush your bones and call it an accident.
We don't need everyone to do that.
These days, simply wearing an N95 mask is a form of activism. Taking care of someone is a form of activism. Buying less plastic is a form of activism. Reading a book is a form of activism.
Being kind to someone is a form of activism.
(It's not the same as being "nice.")
Talking to someone about facts is a form of activism. More and more, just hanging on to human dignity is a form of activism.
Taking a nap is a form of activism. Getting a good night's sleep is a form of activism. Sitting down and relaxing is a form of activism. We desperately need more people who can just think straight. We desperately need more people who aren't rushing around with their raw emotions spilling out everywhere. And yet, we also desperately need more people to express their emotions, instead of just suppressing them until they explode outward in fireballs of rage and hate.
We desperately need more calm people.
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Dr. Kanojia Discusses ADHD and reacts to ADHD TikToks
I found the whole video quite informative and good. But there was one segment which really hit home for me. So much so that I decided to type up a transcript of what was said. And as I was typing this transcript, listening to the video, and reading the transcript on YouTube - I need you all to know that I was really struggling to focus. So often, I caught myself going off of my mental deductive and inductive reasoning of what was coming next, writing that only to hear something different such that I would have to go back and fix it.
But, I got there. And now you can enjoy just reading this segment, should you desire. The excerpt takes place around the 19:43 mark in the video if you want to jump directly to it.
Great point. So, this - y'all are joking when you say 'download more RAM' etc. So CasotVox [Trick: Sorry, I'm unsure what name he refers to here] is saying 'Download more RAM." You're are right that that is a solution for a while. So his is also something to sunderstand. You know what the 'download more RAM' is the equivalent of in kids with ADHD? It's a high IQ. So this is what happens with kids with ADHD.
They start to struggle in adulthood. Especially, the ones that are actually above average intelligence. Because what they do is they muscle their way through things using brute force extra resources. So, imagine, for example, I'm using a word processor and I can't save my documents. So what I'm going to do is put RAM into my computer so I can have more documents open at the same time. Right?
So you're, like, literally investing more resources in an inefficient process, which is exactly what happens with smart kids with ADHD. They just brute force use intelligence.
'I can't pay attention to class, so what I have to do is use cognitive reasoning, inductive reasoning, deductive reasoning, to answer questions when the teacher calls on me.' I want you all to really think about this if you're a kid with ADHD when the teacher calls on you and you're not paying attention. The miraculous thing is that a lot of ADHD kids know the right answer anyway, even though they're not paying attention.
And how do they know the right answer? Because they look around, they're like 'oh crap, the teacher called on me.' They look around at what's on the board, 'oh, we're doing math class, I see a problem on the board. They're asking me a question. Let me figure out what the answer is. This is the answer.' And you say it in five seconds, and the teacher's like 'Okay, I guess you were paying attention.'
No you weren't paying attention, you were brute forcing things with extra IQ. This is actually what's really really sad about kids with ADHD, is that they download more and more RAM. They fill up all of, their, you know, motherboard slots with RAM to try to compensate for not being able to save documents. The problem is at some point, your motherboard fills up, and as your motherboard fills up and you can't brute force it anymore - you're stuck with all this RAM and the inability to save documents.
So this usually happens in adulthood for kids who are very very intelligent and have ADHD, and they hit a wall because suddenly you can't pack any more RAM, right? Like, you hit this really hard wall and that's what's actually really devastating.
This excerpt really resonated with me.
In general, I believe my ADHD is on the minor side of the scale; but, it is still something that, looking back, I can clearly see as having impacted me. And what he describes, that some people brute force their way through dealing with ADHD - this is exactly me. I'm not claiming to be any genius, but I definitely think my ADHD was overlooked because I was smart enough that it wasn't really an issue until I hit 'the wall.'
And, for me, the wall he describes was Georgia Tech. I was able to muscle and brute force through years of school, but GT was where I hit my limit.
And, somewhat bitterly, I think back on how I went nearly twenty more years fully blaming myself for that failure, when some portion of it was my undiagnosed ADHD.
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Heather Cox on the attack on Paul Pelosi
I haven't been blogging for a few weeks, but I found Heather's article excellent in summarizing and documenting the incident.
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Self Care
Today is a day where I am forced to go back to something I came up with years ago. To be honest, I don't need it often. I'm a very happy person and I live a privileged life compared to many others. But some days, my mental health takes a real body blow and I found I needed a checklist of things to do to try and best care for myself and recover from these times.
Sharing here, as I expect others are also feeling pretty rough right now:
- Turn off social media, doom scrolling and the echo chamber will NOT help
- Drink water
- Eat food (good food)
- Give yourself permission to not be okay
- Turn off the computer and go outside
- If able, meditate and process your feelings
This is by no means a complete list. And I am not an expert. But I wanted to share in case others might need the reminders that its okay to not be okay sometimes.
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A Look Back at my Week Off
I took the last week of work off. Primarily for my wife's birthday, but also just for mental health and using my vacation time over the course of the year. Today, I head back to work...ing from home. Well, today will be work from home, then I'll go back to the office for most of this week.
Over last week I coded on personal projects a fair bit, including starting something new to play with. I read a great deal, finishing two books. I caught up on some TV and movies. And largely just enjoyed a relaxing staycation week. K and I went to a local "castle" for two nights, just to change scenery and explore some, but it was also fairly low key.
This is the castle we stayed at, "Thornewood Castle" which was a "Bed & Breakfast" though there was no breakfast.
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Oregon School Shooter, Kip Kinkel, is interviewed for the first time
This article is a long one, as I post it on the blog I'm only about a 1/4th of the way into it. So far it is a recounting of Kip's childhood, as far as I can tell it's almost entirely based on Kip's retelling of it and some corrolating notes or research by the author. The article touches on a number of topics, including mental health, prison reform, and gun control. I don't know enough to take any position as it relates to Kinkel, I only vaguely recall his shooting incident. Enjoying the read and getting a look inside his head, even if it has to be taken with a grain of salt since it's coming from him.
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