I've had dramatic improvements for past couple years. It seems I can feel good and function in what I do, something that before gave me a very avoidant personality but which I am managing.
The problem is, I seem to easily have fragile relapses which has dampened my optimism over time.
I've experimented very thoroughly and I'm pleased that in addition to diet, I have supplements and tools to address certain problems pretty reliably.
The trouble is, there seems to be a part of health which goes well beyond putting in the right initial formula. My highs are higher but my lows seem to be the same old lows if that makes sense.
I wonder if this is some kind of biological memory, having already spent a long time in a poor state of energy, that state is the default state to return to at even minor stress.
In other words, I feel like it is sort of a binary state of either great or still quite bad- on a time scale of even just a day or half-day. This is a very difficult state to be in.
Having explored aspirin, coffee and vitamins, they seem to fill a gap sometimes left by diet, but even here they seem to be temporary.
One experience that put this in stark relief was taking I think 2g or so of psilocybin roughly a year into using a Peat approach. I felt so incredibly energized and so incredibly at ease, physically. But the primary thing was I felt that utter lack of fragility that I feel so lately haunted by. I've explored the role of serotonin, and I'm wondering if that isolated hormone could really have that much profound of an effect. I've always familiarized myself with this idea of learned helplessness.
It just seems hard to believe to me that it is something as simple as a hormone would hold you back. I want to believe that there is something that provides just a higher baseline of resilience. In fact, I have to believe serotonin is absolutely important to health and maybe something to consider is learning to harness the power of serotonin the same as one would harness the power of thyroid. In other words, as much as I absolutely had a pleasant experience with it, it is certainly not a state that anyone could function in, not in today's world anyway. And so seeking that low-serotonin states should not be an aim, more of an occasional vacation. Likewise with seeking a very high thyroid state.
My question of course, is whether relying on substances as a stop back is maybe a less effective approach. Relying on outside substances itself puts a lot of fragility within the system.
So in other words, finding ways to increase the endogenous reserves (whatever those may be- the stress response) is the best way to create resilience. Maybe the approach I, and I think many here share, of seeking relief through different compounds, is in the long run self-sabotaging to our sense of resilience and stability- and to refer back to what I wrote, my optimism I had before has become dampened.
I almost feel like my greater awareness of my health has itself become a source of a new obligation. I'm sure in more idyllic human societies and in history, the quality of the food available would provide a pretty ideal environment for humans to thrive, but for now it is a given that it is far from ideal if not outright toxic.
To sum up here, I think I went into a couple different topics but I think are related. The first is whether there is some kind of validity of there being some kind of biological memory, wherein even when maybe not perfect but pretty ideal conditions exist, some kind of defensive response exists wherein the body will act in a binary way and shut down.
Secondly, I wonder whether there might be something inherently less ideal in approaching health with exogenous substances which seems to itself create more fragility. Maybe a substance/approach should be judged not on its effects on hormonal/metabolic effects, but should be looked at from a point of view of whether it provides resilience. For example, coffee/sugar/b vitamins seem to me to offer an agreeable affect on metabolic effects, but not long term resilience. People describe this as creating a crashed state, I'm aware. On the other hand, pregnenolone seems to have this quality of resilience. Therefore, minimizing the possibility of a crashed state should itself be the aim.
Not to say that increasing metabolic metrics for a few hours is bad, but perhaps for some depending on what they aim to achieve. And in fact, there may be some way to increase general resilience rather than short respites from stressed states (not to say that isn't therapeutically necessity in some contexts). Maybe being not as bright and energetic is fine. After-all, you can still be quite productive while not in an ideal very high metabolism. Maybe letting the body be in a lower but steady state will be just as useful for going through the day without any major setbacks.
At least one idea comes to here- the role of bread. The metabolic changes of sourdough (what I've read about that particularly fermentation is process is that is vastly reduced intestinal irritation) and seems to have actually provide that 'slow burning' energy you hear about. If you imagine what a really chewy chunk of bread is doing while you digest versus a shot of pure glucose hitting your bloodstream, you can visualize this. Furthermore, this effect of a more slow but steady metabolic was observed for hours after in studies- I believe it was indicated in the insulin response.
Bread has been called the staff of civilization. I wonder if it has to do with this particular quality. OJ, and these more ideal fruits, I am absolutely convinced of their therapeutic quality. However, I wonder if a model of a child is ideal when children, while yes, quite resilient in their own ways, lack that quality of hardness that is the mark of a man so to speak. In other words, a bit of toughness is necessary to get by and this I think is the quality I'm trying to seek out. In other words, embracing a bit of stress. Fighting fire with fire.
Unfortunately I don't have a source of quality bread- but I will say, rice and potatoes, do offer this quality of resilience moreso than juice and in lurking the forums here, others report similar observations. (As an interesting aside, I had a dream where I mowed down donuts and bread the other night.) Alas, it causes non-negligible digestive problems so I begrudgingly drink my OJ, etc. on awakening. The memory of freshly baked bread haunts me like a ghost.
My hope right now is to secure a source of sourdough bread to see if this really is the key, until then, I'd like to hear anyone's thoughts on this topic of fragility.
The problem is, I seem to easily have fragile relapses which has dampened my optimism over time.
I've experimented very thoroughly and I'm pleased that in addition to diet, I have supplements and tools to address certain problems pretty reliably.
The trouble is, there seems to be a part of health which goes well beyond putting in the right initial formula. My highs are higher but my lows seem to be the same old lows if that makes sense.
I wonder if this is some kind of biological memory, having already spent a long time in a poor state of energy, that state is the default state to return to at even minor stress.
In other words, I feel like it is sort of a binary state of either great or still quite bad- on a time scale of even just a day or half-day. This is a very difficult state to be in.
Having explored aspirin, coffee and vitamins, they seem to fill a gap sometimes left by diet, but even here they seem to be temporary.
One experience that put this in stark relief was taking I think 2g or so of psilocybin roughly a year into using a Peat approach. I felt so incredibly energized and so incredibly at ease, physically. But the primary thing was I felt that utter lack of fragility that I feel so lately haunted by. I've explored the role of serotonin, and I'm wondering if that isolated hormone could really have that much profound of an effect. I've always familiarized myself with this idea of learned helplessness.
It just seems hard to believe to me that it is something as simple as a hormone would hold you back. I want to believe that there is something that provides just a higher baseline of resilience. In fact, I have to believe serotonin is absolutely important to health and maybe something to consider is learning to harness the power of serotonin the same as one would harness the power of thyroid. In other words, as much as I absolutely had a pleasant experience with it, it is certainly not a state that anyone could function in, not in today's world anyway. And so seeking that low-serotonin states should not be an aim, more of an occasional vacation. Likewise with seeking a very high thyroid state.
My question of course, is whether relying on substances as a stop back is maybe a less effective approach. Relying on outside substances itself puts a lot of fragility within the system.
So in other words, finding ways to increase the endogenous reserves (whatever those may be- the stress response) is the best way to create resilience. Maybe the approach I, and I think many here share, of seeking relief through different compounds, is in the long run self-sabotaging to our sense of resilience and stability- and to refer back to what I wrote, my optimism I had before has become dampened.
I almost feel like my greater awareness of my health has itself become a source of a new obligation. I'm sure in more idyllic human societies and in history, the quality of the food available would provide a pretty ideal environment for humans to thrive, but for now it is a given that it is far from ideal if not outright toxic.
To sum up here, I think I went into a couple different topics but I think are related. The first is whether there is some kind of validity of there being some kind of biological memory, wherein even when maybe not perfect but pretty ideal conditions exist, some kind of defensive response exists wherein the body will act in a binary way and shut down.
Secondly, I wonder whether there might be something inherently less ideal in approaching health with exogenous substances which seems to itself create more fragility. Maybe a substance/approach should be judged not on its effects on hormonal/metabolic effects, but should be looked at from a point of view of whether it provides resilience. For example, coffee/sugar/b vitamins seem to me to offer an agreeable affect on metabolic effects, but not long term resilience. People describe this as creating a crashed state, I'm aware. On the other hand, pregnenolone seems to have this quality of resilience. Therefore, minimizing the possibility of a crashed state should itself be the aim.
Not to say that increasing metabolic metrics for a few hours is bad, but perhaps for some depending on what they aim to achieve. And in fact, there may be some way to increase general resilience rather than short respites from stressed states (not to say that isn't therapeutically necessity in some contexts). Maybe being not as bright and energetic is fine. After-all, you can still be quite productive while not in an ideal very high metabolism. Maybe letting the body be in a lower but steady state will be just as useful for going through the day without any major setbacks.
At least one idea comes to here- the role of bread. The metabolic changes of sourdough (what I've read about that particularly fermentation is process is that is vastly reduced intestinal irritation) and seems to have actually provide that 'slow burning' energy you hear about. If you imagine what a really chewy chunk of bread is doing while you digest versus a shot of pure glucose hitting your bloodstream, you can visualize this. Furthermore, this effect of a more slow but steady metabolic was observed for hours after in studies- I believe it was indicated in the insulin response.
Bread has been called the staff of civilization. I wonder if it has to do with this particular quality. OJ, and these more ideal fruits, I am absolutely convinced of their therapeutic quality. However, I wonder if a model of a child is ideal when children, while yes, quite resilient in their own ways, lack that quality of hardness that is the mark of a man so to speak. In other words, a bit of toughness is necessary to get by and this I think is the quality I'm trying to seek out. In other words, embracing a bit of stress. Fighting fire with fire.
Unfortunately I don't have a source of quality bread- but I will say, rice and potatoes, do offer this quality of resilience moreso than juice and in lurking the forums here, others report similar observations. (As an interesting aside, I had a dream where I mowed down donuts and bread the other night.) Alas, it causes non-negligible digestive problems so I begrudgingly drink my OJ, etc. on awakening. The memory of freshly baked bread haunts me like a ghost.
My hope right now is to secure a source of sourdough bread to see if this really is the key, until then, I'd like to hear anyone's thoughts on this topic of fragility.
