3/21/21

Recommended Reading

Excerpts from Rhonda Patrick’s E Book 

Note: The following excerpt summarizes the results of a study in which 40 autistic men received an intranasal dose of the hormone oxytocin. 

  • “Participants who took the oxytocin reported decreased repetitive behaviors and feelings of avoidance toward others, even at four weeks and one year post-treatment. Those who took the oxytocin also reported feeling more energetic, active, or lively than those who took the placebo.”

Note: The following summarizes the results of a study that looked at contamination levels in common dietary supplements. This is one of the many reasons why I think it’s best to get one’s nutrients and phytonutrients from whole foods instead of supplements. 

  • “Microbial contamination commonly occurs during the processing of the natural products in many dietary supplements, according to the report. A study of more than 180 samples of popular supplements, including St. John’s wort, cumin, ginger, garlic, and others, found that nearly all of the samples contained some degree of microbial contamination, posing considerable risks to consumers. The report also stated that one type of natural product, kratom, contained one or more types of Salmonella, which resulted in multiple hospitalizations… In a study of more than 120 dietary supplements sold in Canada, many of the products contained excessive levels of arsenic, lead, cadmium, aluminum, and mercury.“

 

10 reasons why daylight savings is the worst

Excerpts: 

  • Additionally, a study conducted by the American Academy of Neurology found that the rate of an ischemic stroke was 8% higher during the first two days of daylight savings time. 
  • In his 2014 paper on the relationship between DST and fatal vehicle crashes, Austin C. Smith, an assistant professor of economics at Miami University, reports a 6.3% increase in fatal car accidents for six days following the spring time change. 

Notes: 

  • There is a growing movement today (with bi-partisan support) to get rid of time changes. If passed, we would simply not turn our clocks back come fall (so we’d have more sunlight in the afternoon over the course of the entire year). If you’d like to learn more about it, click here. As recommended by the article I just linked to, if you’d like to help make this happen, contact your local senator and voice your support for ending the time changes. 

 

To Get Parole, Have Your Case Heard Right After Lunch

Notes: 

  • Summary of a study looking at factors affecting the decision making of judges. The study found that judges were far more likely to grant parole to prisoners if their (the prisoners) hearings took place right after the judges had eaten. Judges were also more lenient early in the day. 

Excerpt: 

  • “Overall, judges were much more likely to accept prisoners’ requests for parole at the beginning of the day than the at end. Moreover, a prisoner’s chances of receiving parole more than doubled if his case was heard at the beginning of one of the three sessions (right after the judge had had a snack break), rather than later on in the session. More specifically, it was the number of rulings that a judge made, rather than the time elapsed in a session, that significantly affected later decisions. Every single judge in the sample followed this pattern.”
  • “As a case study, one of the judges started in the morning by granting parole to about 65 percent of the prisoners; that percentage dropped to near zero by the end of the first session, then rebounded to about 65 percent after the snack break. The same pattern repeated in the second and third sessions.”

 

Excerpts from my Journal 

So many pop sci articles these days talk about how some type of activity or meditation routine led to changes in the brain. As though these changes were of massive importance. This isn’t necessarily true. If you spent twenty minutes twiddling your thumbs every day for a couple weeks, it would probably lead to a detectable change in one or more brain regions. The indicators that I like to look for to quantify the efficacy of an intervention are changes in the metrics relating to performance. Improvements in scores on memory tests. Reductions in depressive symptoms. Elevated markers of sleep quality. These are the types of metrics that actually mean something. 

How did “the experts” actually come to that conclusion? A significant amount of the time, the answer is “through reasoning that was actually pretty faulty.” 

So many people these days seem to have forgotten that theories are not facts. 

What do you have that you do not want? What do you want that you do not have? How could you trade the former for the latter? 

How can I cultivate my sensitivity to the subtle patterns of reality? 

If you are suffering, it’s usually because you are refusing to face something, or refusing to let something go. 

 

Music Recommendations