[HN Gopher] Why thinking hard makes us feel tired
___________________________________________________________________
Why thinking hard makes us feel tired
Author : yamrzou
Score : 122 points
Date : 2023-11-16 20:05 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nature.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nature.com)
| yamrzou wrote:
| https://archive.ph/WJCMC
| insanitybit wrote:
| Should probably replace the link with this, since it's actually
| readable.
| theyinwhy wrote:
| "Please submit the original source. If a post reports on
| something found on another site, submit the latter."
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| insanitybit wrote:
| OK but the original source is not accessible?
| progne wrote:
| Is glutamate : neurons :: lactic acid : muscle?
| andbberger wrote:
| no
| adpirz wrote:
| The lactic acid thing is a myth.
| https://www.bostonsportsmed.com/2013/08/the-lactic-acid-myth...
| User23 wrote:
| Because it takes energy? This is pretty well observed in high
| level chess[1].
|
| [1] https://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/27593253/why-
| grandmaste...
| insanitybit wrote:
| That hardly seems conclusive. For example,
|
| > Meanwhile, players also eat less during tournaments, simply
| because they don't have the time or the appetite. "The simple
| explanation is when they're thinking about chess, they're not
| thinking about food," says Ewan C. McNay, assistant professor
| of psychology in the behavioral neuroscience program at the
| University of Albany.
|
| That seems far more likely. I'm sure many of us can relate to
| working through lunch when we have an intense deadline, and not
| even realizing we're hungry until hours later.
|
| > According to Ashley, India's first grandmaster, Viswanathan
| Anand, does two hours of cardio each night to tire himself out
| so he doesn't dream about chess; Kasimdzhanov drinks tea only
| during tournaments and plays tennis and basketball every day.
| Chirila does at least an hour of cardio and an hour of weights
| to build muscle mass before tournaments.
|
| And apparently they're exercising quite a lot as well.
|
| This hardly seems to support that it's just brain power. And my
| recollection is that focus does not significantly increase
| glucose uptake in the brain - though _stress_ can obviously
| increase heart rate, but that 's separate, one can focus
| without being stressed.
| pikma wrote:
| If thinking hard required a lot of energy, wouldn't we expect
| that thinking hard would cause an increased heart rate and
| faster breathing?
| tantalor wrote:
| > watching letters appear on a computer screen every 1.6 seconds
| and documenting when one matched a letter that had appeared three
| letters ago. The other 16 participants were asked to perform a
| similar, but easier task. Both teams worked for just over six
| hours
|
| This is torture
| solardev wrote:
| It's like guitar hero's evil twin.
|
| After six hours, I wish the study would've differentiated
| between "tired" and "murderously enraged"
| sva_ wrote:
| Probably got a chance to win a $20 Amazon gift card in return
| mholm wrote:
| This is fairly similar to an ADHD screening test I took. I was
| mentally exhausted after about 20 minutes of it.
| deegles wrote:
| This is a working memory exercise called "n-back". For true
| torture try "dual n-back" where you also have to match a tone,
| shape or color.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-back
| TonyTrapp wrote:
| Sounds like something coming straight out of The Stanley
| Parable.
| frenchwhisker wrote:
| Reminds me of a card game I played as a kid called Egyptian
| Ratscrew, where one of the possible rules is to slap the deck
| if a "sandwich" appeared (e.g. a 3, a J, then another 3), so
| you always had to keep the card before the last one in your
| head. I remember variations such as "double sandwiches"--which
| made the 2-back into a 3-back--and many others.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_Ratscrew
| hx8 wrote:
| I use to colloquially call this game "slap deck" as a kid.
| The general approach taken was to add a ton of house rules,
| such that it was a large test of working memory to keep all
| rules in your head. We kept some simple rules to keep the
| game approachable for younger children, and older
| children/teens would continue to add house rules to make the
| game more complex. In addition, game play would be very fast,
| and often times patterns would be missed because no one
| recognized it quick enough.
|
| Some of the rules that would sometime appear that I can
| recall
|
| * Put 1 or 2 jokers in. Jokers are slappable
|
| * Doubles are slappable (3, 3)
|
| * Three (or four) face cards are slappable
|
| * Three (or four) cards of the same suite are slappable
|
| * Three (or four) consecutive cards are slappable (2, 3, 4,
| 5) or (5, 4, 3, 2)
|
| * A player without cards can 'slap in'
| pradn wrote:
| I've taught this game to 3 year olds and college students -
| everyone has fun with it!
| iamwpj wrote:
| Ahh, thanks for the memories! If it weren't for my slow
| reflexes, I would have been much better at that game.
| irrational wrote:
| How many minutes could you last before you lost focus said,
| "Screw it" and stopped really trying? I think I'd last maybe 5
| minutes.
| Almondsetat wrote:
| > This is torture
|
| I would like to ask everyone to stop for a moment and think if
| in their line of work they are required to perform tasks like
| this. Your job might be even shittier than you currently feel
| like it is
| derekp7 wrote:
| The difference is the reward afterward. Learning to play a
| complex piece on an instrument is mentally taxing, but
| getting it right gives you that sense of accomplishment that
| can't really be matched with anything else. Same with
| debugging a program you are writing, or solving other types
| of problems.
|
| Doing hours of arithmetic homework as a child didn't give me
| that reward signal, so for me that was torture back then.
| zulln wrote:
| ChatGPT throw together that game in a few seconds if you want
| to play it.
|
| https://github.com/zulln/misc/tree/master/lettergame
| https://zulln.se/misc/lettergame/
| simonw wrote:
| From https://www.npr.org/2019/09/18/762046422/the-chess-
| grandmast...
|
| > Chess grandmasters spend hours sitting over game boards. And
| yet, high-level players lose 10 to 12 pounds on average over a
| 10-day tournament.
| insanitybit wrote:
| I'm wondering if they're just on amphetamines.
|
| > He taps his foot gently to keep his alertness on the highest
| level while still not losing too much energy. He chews gum.
|
| Sounds like the kind of behavior you'd expect when hopped up on
| something tbh
| BurningFrog wrote:
| You have to assume anything not tested for (that helps) is
| used at the top.
| DarmokJalad1701 wrote:
| > You have to assume anything not tested for (that helps)
| is used at the top.
|
| More like, at the bottom[1].
|
| [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11SdThUNgLo
| ephbit wrote:
| First, my apology that I am making this off-topic remark.
|
| Remark: is it just me, or do other people too hesitate to
| click a youtube link with no title given?
|
| I feel like I at least want to know the title of the
| linked video, even if it doesn't reveal much about the
| video.
|
| IMO it'd be very nice if people made a habit of
| Ctrl+c/v'ing the title along with a yt link.
| drivers99 wrote:
| Good point. I think I've seen some subreddits with a bot
| that does that for YouTube links.
|
| Title: Making Beads That Vibrate To Cheat In Chess
|
| Length: 18min, 54s
|
| Channel: MixMorris (102k subscribers)
|
| 17,364 views
|
| Oct 23, 2022 #chess #engineering
|
| Description: "This video speaks for itself." (sic)
| klyrs wrote:
| Thanks, I wasn't going to click and this confirms my
| "never click a youtube" policy is sound.
| tysam_and wrote:
| And if your sense of humor is similar to mine, then you
| might just find this video by DougDoug riffing on the
| topic hilarious:
|
| Title: "I created the ultimate Chess Ai (it can cheat)"
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_wOsSda3Us
| anon_cow1111 wrote:
| I don't think I've clicked a no-context youtube link in
| years. Sometimes when it seems like it might be worth
| clicking, I just throw the hash into a search engine.
| slkdjfalzkdfj wrote:
| There actually are regular drug tests for professional
| chess.
|
| The simple fact is that doing any kind of mindsport
| intensely over an extended period is very draining.
| tayo42 wrote:
| I would think large swings like that are water weight.
| They're probably really focused and not drinking or eating as
| much as usual
| insanitybit wrote:
| I totally agree. My personal opinion here is:
|
| 1. They're stressed and therefor eating less, especially if
| they're spending the daytimes of the tournament playing
| games - hardly conducive to appetite, and in fact I expect
| many will avoid food purposefully to try to not get that
| sleepy-full feeling.
|
| 2. To a much lesser degree, increased stress == increased
| heartrate == increased BMR.
|
| 3. Maybe, and I hate to speculate because of the stigma
| (personally I don't care if chess players are doing drugs),
| some amphetamine use, or at least caffeine, all of which
| can suppress appetate further.
|
| I personally very much doubt that it's the thinking hard
| that's actually burning calories.
|
| Unfortunately, I can't even read the linked post! It's
| paywall'd.
| bluGill wrote:
| A pound of fat is 3500 calories. If a chess player eats
| nothing at all they are unlikely to burn that many calories
| in a day. Chess players do eat during a tournament.
| Therefore weight loss must be water.
| dekhn wrote:
| That's not how weight loss works- you don't lose a pound
| by "burning" fat.
| Detrytus wrote:
| How else would it work? You burn fat (as in: you turn it
| into energy, powering your own living cells), turning it
| into CO2 and H2O, which are then breathed out or expelled
| with urine.
| devmor wrote:
| What? Yes it is. Your fat cells are turned into ATP via
| Beta-oxidation and used for cellular energy. The excess
| carbon from the processes is then exhaled as CO2 during
| normal respiration and the water is sweated or urinated.
|
| When you lose about 3500 calories of energy via this
| process, you have burned a pound of fat.
| ergonaught wrote:
| Absolutely water weight.
|
| I can drop 10 pounds this week trivially by triggering a
| water flush (change in diet), essentially at will. Wife
| absolutely hates it, but that's water weight.
| lordnacho wrote:
| Does amphetamine help concentration?
| calamari4065 wrote:
| Adderall is basically amphetamine.
| tysam_and wrote:
| That's like saying 'gasoline is basically an oil
| product'. It literally _is_ mixed amphetamines, it's not
| basically it.
| Pyxl101 wrote:
| Yes, it can. It provides a feeling of excitement or
| enthusiasm for whatever you're doing, and can be channeled
| into working hard for long periods of time. Especially if
| your job already brings you some satisfaction, then doing
| your job on amphetamine will provide more. Pilots in the
| airforce (and possibly other warfighters) are given
| amphetamine to augment their performance.
|
| I think of it as basically stealing energy or enthusiasm
| from the future, though. You might feel energized and
| focused now, but it comes at the expense of less energy and
| focus when the drug wears off. The withdrawal effect is
| pretty mild if you take prescription doses of it though,
| e.g. Adderall (which is amphetamine). At normal moderate
| doses, taken in the morning, almost all of that energy can
| be recouped during sleep (though not all). I wouldn't want
| to take it daily for a long period of time though,
| otherwise you'll build up an 'energy deficit' that could
| lead to a crash.
|
| P.S. I know people who have essentially destroyed their
| lives by becoming addicted to amphetamine or meth. It's a
| dangerous drug.
| devmor wrote:
| As someone who basically requires dextroamphetamine to
| function, I've always found the notion of becoming
| addicted to it crazy, nonetheless. If I don't set alarms
| to take it, I will forget, for days at a time until I
| suddenly realize why I haven't gotten much done and my
| memory has been bad this week.
|
| I wonder if there is something about the dopamine issues
| of the ADHD brain that prevents an addiction to
| substances that aid it.
| hereme888 wrote:
| It depends. Raising those neurotransmitters (dopamine >
| norepinephrine > serotonin) is a matter of balance.
|
| If a person already has good levels and healthy receptors,
| and they suddenly raise them too much, it just makes people
| obsessive and actually not focus well on the important task
| at hand.
|
| It's a double-edged sword, always with warnings and side-
| effects.
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| Although if you are playing chess, obsessiveness with the
| game would probably be good. But of course it will vary
| greatly from person to person.
| hereme888 wrote:
| Actually, the sort of obsessiveness it produces
| diminishes the ability to switch attention, so people get
| obsessed over a particular train of thought and are
| unable to evaluate other strategies. Basically you end up
| obsessed over that one strategy, and motivated to do it,
| instead of taking a step back to re-assess.
| groby_b wrote:
| Only if you have ADHD.
|
| If you don't, it's negatively impacting mental performance
| - but it's really good at helping you to deliver slightly
| subpar performance for grossly extended periods of time.
| (Common uses: Crisis situations where you cannot step away.
| Cramming for exams)
|
| I suppose you could call this a different form of
| concentration, but AIUI it's more energy than
| concentration.
| tysam_and wrote:
| Yes, and sometimes people view it as a zero net drug, but
| it's not always a 1:1 relationship of borrowing from the
| future. It's significantly helped me, and there are some
| downsides, but the benefits have been far greater than the
| negatives (and having the extra motivation is...incredible
| since my brain does not really do that all that much
| naturally).
| tambourine_man wrote:
| I've been tapping my foot ferociously since I was a kid and
| the most I've been "on" is caffeine. Lots of it, though, but
| the taping helps me even when I'm not drinking coffee.
| Obscurity4340 wrote:
| Not that its representative necessarily but have you been
| screened for AD(H)D, the leg and foot tapping/shaking was
| always a big thing for me. And its not parkinsons lol,
| otherwise I've had it my whole life ;)
| djbusby wrote:
| Tapping or that thing where you keep the ball of the foot
| on the floor and then shake the leg like trying to double-
| bass hit a-la John Bonham? That's the one I do. Annoys the
| heck out of everyone around cause it shakes things. So they
| say Stop! Then get frustrated with my too-loud typing or
| humming or... whatever, gotta let that excess energy out
| somehow.
|
| Interrupting my focus state with "why are you doing that?"
| - doing what?
| pikma wrote:
| There's another thread linking the same article, and it's very
| unclear that this loss of weight is caused by the mental
| effort.
|
| If thinking hard required a lot of energy, wouldn't we expect
| that thinking hard would cause an increased heart rate and
| faster breathing?
| sva_ wrote:
| It is a bit confusing to me because it is often said that the
| brain draws about the same amount of energy, no matter what.
| Perhaps people also eat less during tournaments.
| MichaelDickens wrote:
| ~~This is not true.~~ (edited to clarify, see [2]) Robert
| Sapolsky's research approximated calorie expenditure using a
| highly inaccurate methodology. Troubat et al. 2008[1] estimated
| calorie expenditure by measuring chess players' respiration and
| found that they only burned 10% more calories than normal.
|
| And anyway, the claim that chess players lose 1 pound per day
| does not pass a basic sanity check. 1 pound of fat = 3500
| calories. If you raised all that energy instantaneously in the
| brain, it would raise brain temperature by around 2500 C (the
| average brain weighs ~1.5 kg and the brain is mostly water so I
| figure 1 Calorie ~= 1 degree C per kg). Obviously the energy
| doesn't release all at once and it wouldn't all be released by
| the brain, but that's still an implausibly high energy
| expenditure.
|
| [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18987876/
|
| [2] When I said "this is not true", I was thinking of the claim
| from the linked article that chess players burn 6000 calories
| per day, which is definitely false. Upon re-reading, I realized
| the parent comment did not actually make this claim. I am
| agnostic as to whether chess players lose 1 pound per day
| during tournaments, but if they do, it's definitely not because
| they're burning 1 extra pound of fat. It's plausible that
| they're eating much less and/or losing water weight.
| cactusplant7374 wrote:
| Thanks for the write up. I always wondered about this.
| mtrees_io wrote:
| Water is wet. I think we need a scientific analysis of "duh"
| esalman wrote:
| Water wouldn't be so wet if you were cognitively challenged.
| rzzzt wrote:
| That's another rabbit hole altogether: is water wet or does it
| merely make other things wet?
| stillbourne wrote:
| Is water the only wet thing? Because when I'm drying my
| liquid solvents I'm only removing the water. Is 100% ethanol
| still "wet?"
| mtrees_io wrote:
| Ladies and gentlemen, gather 'round as we reflect upon the
| profound wisdom imparted by the Log from Ren and Stimpy. In
| the sacred realm of the animated, behold the Log -- a
| symbol, a metaphor, a wooden beacon lighting the path to
| enlightenment.
|
| Just as the Log rolls through the whimsical landscapes of
| Ren and Stimpy's world, so too must we navigate the terrain
| of job applications. The Log teaches us perseverance, for
| even when faced with absurd challenges, it continues its
| journey with stoic determination.
|
| Applying to jobs, my friends, is akin to riding the Log of
| life. We must embrace the twists and turns, the
| uncertainties of the job market, with the same unyielding
| spirit. For just as the Log is steadfast in its purpose, so
| should we be in our pursuit of meaningful employment.
|
| And lo, let us draw inspiration from the Log Song itself --
| a melodic reminder that sometimes, in the chaos of job
| hunting, it's crucial to find joy in the simplicity of the
| process. Whether it's singing about our resumes or crafting
| cover letters, let the Log be our guide to finding humor
| and joy in the journey.
|
| In conclusion, my dear congregation, as we face the job
| market, let the Log's unwavering resolve inspire us to roll
| forward with resilience and a sprinkle of absurdity. For in
| the grand tapestry of employment, each of us is but a log
| on the river of life, floating toward new opportunities and
| adventures. Amen.
| telios wrote:
| A dry bar lacks water, not ethanol, and dry cleaning still
| uses liquids, so I'd argue even the colloquial definition
| is water.
| mesarvagya wrote:
| There was a discussion sometime back in reddit [1]:
|
| The conclusion: Pushing brain to its limit requires a lot of
| energy.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/17ms04d/til_...
| nullhole wrote:
| What's the difference between feeling tired and being tired?
|
| (I'm not going to pay 30 bucks to read the article, so it may
| answer that question)
| wouldbecouldbe wrote:
| https://archive.li/WJCMC
| b33j0r wrote:
| So, ATP is a thing. The chemical bonds store the energy, then we
| waste that on puns and being mad at our birth.
|
| Just don't tell Steve Lukather, somehow he never stops touring.
| Totolly badass.
| djokkataja wrote:
| Previous discussion:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32430395
| anonymousDan wrote:
| So is there any proven way to train yourself to have more
| endurance wrt your ability to think hard? Would be an interesting
| line of research...
| mdaniel wrote:
| previous commentary:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32430395 (2022; 189
| comments)
| CapitalistCartr wrote:
| I learned the real meaning of the word "thinking" the first time
| I was at 4400m and had to pitch my tent. Thinking really does use
| oxygen and effort.
| blastro wrote:
| Brain requires 12x the amount of oxygen per cell as a muscle
| does. Brain is most expensive organ in body.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Actually cheap because it does the most
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| Mine just sits around and worries all day.
| tysam_and wrote:
| I have chronic fatigue issues that go in and out of remission,
| and the buildup of glutamate seems to by far be the biggest
| factor for me.
|
| N-acetyl Cysteine and other blood glutamate scavengers (BGS) like
| malic acid and pyruvate are indispensable in these scenarios.
| They don't solve the issue but dampen it a bit.
|
| Additionally, a ketogenic diet helped me a lot.
|
| Most of all, high dose niacinamide holds it in remission at
| times, though I have a theory it's caused by a well-set-in,
| chronic infection as the reduction in symptoms with niacinamide
| correlates with the symptoms of fighting off an infection (very
| swollen lymph nodes, histamine release, sometimes nausea &etc,
| headaches, some other clear indicators, etc). I've been on it for
| about 7-8 weeks or so and we're still going!
|
| That said, having energy is a gift that is hard to quantify.
| Chronic fatigue takes away your ability to think about anything,
| so you have to have discipline to not think about anything
| sometimes...which also takes mental energy. It's a bit of a
| living hell, for suresies.
|
| Here's hoping I get to stay in remission. <3 :')))))
| rpmisms wrote:
| Have you been tested for Lyme? This is textbook Lyme disease.
| ryeights wrote:
| If you don't live in a Lyme-prone area, Lyme is unlikely and
| your risk of a false positive is high
| rpmisms wrote:
| It's spreading rapidly. Worth a shot. Undiagnosed Lyme is
| horrible and can cause serious long-term damage.
| tysam_and wrote:
| The world is much more complex than this, unfortunately,
| there are a significant number of etiologies which result in
| CFS-like symptoms, it's one of the less studied umbrellas out
| there.
|
| Lyme, babesiosis, rocky mountain spotted fever, etc, all
| negative. I also did a urine Lyme DNA test a while back but
| looking back on it, apparently that was not an extremely
| reliable test (though the western blot has a decent amount of
| false negatives as well).
|
| I believe it's a chronic yeast infection that's slowly
| traveled up under the skin of my left leg for the last 7
| years or so. It started out as athletes foot in college, and
| then when I got past the point of being too overwhelmed to
| treat it, it had set in pretty well.
|
| I wondered if the two were correlated, but over the past few
| years I've had increasing leg pain in that area, and the same
| pain in my toe where the infection was. Of course, the nature
| of this infection is that seems to be resistant to many OTC
| classes of antifungals, so it did not budge. The most
| effective agent was carvacrol/thymol, which is extremely
| broad range (even against MRSA), but it macerated the skin to
| a point of strong pain, bleeding, etc, all that jazz. Even
| when it cleared up on the outside, there was a deep white
| patch under the skin that you could see under the (healthy-
| seeming) skin, which, of course, is its own unique class of
| horror.
|
| About a year ago or so, I finally broke and decided to get
| rid of the skin infection no matter what. I basically mixed
| isopropyl alcohol and table vinegar and put it in the skin
| after removing the top layer of dead skin, which as it was an
| open wound was extremely painful. I used the reasoning that I
| could temporarily damage the nerves with overexcitation via
| the isopropyl alcohol stimulation, and that reasoning panned
| out after an excruciating several days, after which my nerves
| were damaged enough to no longer hurt under the raw vinegar
| and alcohol combination.
|
| That at least cleared up the surface infection until I was on
| the Appalachian Trail this year (which, yes, I did my two
| months on it with chronic fatigue + post exertional malaise
| (!!!!) !), where, more than a year later, the infection
| inexplicably came back again.
|
| I found niacinamide in my search for treatment-resistant
| infections, and it cleared up the surface infection within an
| astounding 2-3 days. I started taking it orally, and became
| extremely sick, it felt like I was being poisoned and doing a
| mini-chemotherapy of sorts, so I slowed down and began taking
| silymarin and NAC to help preserve liver and kidney function
| (which seems to still remain okay so far).
|
| The process of treating it has been painful, as the initial
| days caused a huge flare in leg pain in my left leg
| corresponding with swelling of the lymph nodes almost
| exclusively on the left side of my body, oddly enough (though
| it seems to have balanced out, a bit). I was in the emergency
| room on my birthday last year due to the leg pain, and they
| couldn't figure it out so they offered a potential umbrella
| diagnosis of complex regional pain syndrome.
|
| It's hard to keep up with dosing as I do have a bit of an
| aversion to feeling sick -- it quite literally feels like I'm
| being poisoned! -- but, my CMP from even this week came back
| okay, and I'm getting a feeling of underlying 'rightness'
| despite the transient negative symptoms (including having to
| pee every 2-3 hours...not fun).
|
| I've had maybe two dozen doctors, both in and out of the ER
| (6 visits in the last year or so), or so give me that look of
| not quite being able to know what to do. I applied to the
| internal medicine program at the Mayo Clinic a few months ago
| and got a form letter turning me down. It's not due to
| incompetence, it's just that there is a long tail of
| extremely complicated conditions that categorically fit an
| umbrella of symptoms, but are extremely hard to actually
| track down (and the semi-binarization of medical specialties
| makes cross-disciplinary diagnosis extremely difficult for
| these vague kinds of conditions).
|
| I'm sitting here now and can feel the leg pain when I focus
| on it, for example. But I think treating it is worth it --
| especially as one has to work to live in many circumstances!
| That said, this does not underpin how grateful I am to at
| least have one avenue -- whether it's temporary or not --
| where I can have energy.
|
| This also doesn't cover things like the mast cell sensitivity
| (diagnosed as not MCAS by _two_ separate immunologists,
| though they both fall in the tryptase-test-philosophy camp).
| I react to everything, including All Free and Clear
| detergent, for example, and with food and such sometimes it's
| just eating tons of meat (it's pure muscle protein and fat
| and doesn't have things I can react to like lots of plants
| do) and multivitamins to cover the nutritional gaps.
|
| I wish it were as simple as just having Lyme disease, as I
| think that would be much, much easier for me personally. But,
| I suppose to keep living we have to accept the limitations
| that we have (and unfortunately this is not the only journey
| of limitation I'm on -- I also have autism to a mild-moderate
| degree!), and I had a number of years where I really
| struggled (like, really really struggled). But all of that
| said, I think although it's taken a few years, I've come
| around the bend in accepting the challenges I've been given,
| and am on that upward walk of learning to enjoy the life that
| I do have access to in the meantime. It's not perfect, and I
| have a lot of big bumps in the road, for sure, but the slope
| for me is pointed up, and that's what I wished for for years.
| And I'm enjoying life a lot more than I have in the past, on
| average! :')))) <3 <3 <3 <3 :'))))
|
| Hope that answers your question.
| rpmisms wrote:
| Whoa, thank you for the comprehensive answer. I reach for
| Lyme since it's one of the most common and under-diagnosed
| diseases in this category, but you are definitely in your
| own category here. Good luck, having something outside the
| reach of standard antibiotics already makes doctors afraid,
| and this would probably give an immunologist nightmares.
| jonhohle wrote:
| It sounds like you've looked into it thoroughly, but have you
| had a blood iron test as well? My iron levels were not below
| the normal range, but taking an iron supplement (Proferrin) was
| profoundly impactful for me. I went from needing daily 1-2hr
| naps back to a normal sleep cycle (and can even go on <7hrs
| without feeling fatigue during the day).
| tysam_and wrote:
| Yes I tend to consume half a pound to a pound of red meat per
| day (calories in -- rather extreme food sensitivities
| unfortunately), so my iron levels are good.
| rcfox wrote:
| I'm curious how you came to start taking these supplements?
| Were they prescribed by a doctor? Several of these appear to be
| abundant in food (according to quick search results) so I
| wonder if it's more of a digestion/absorption issue for you?
| tysam_and wrote:
| It took a reading a few thousand pages of ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
| papers over a number of years (I made it a habit just to try
| to crack this thing), this is one of those traditional 'fall
| through the cracks' kinds of things. My PCP admitted to me
| that she felt ashamed at not being able to help any further
| and not knowing what to do, and she's internal medicine.
|
| I have reactions to nearly every food group out there, even
| things traditionally safe for many (minus the ultra safe
| things like rice, lamb, etc).
|
| It's definitely not a digestion/absorption issue, in fact I
| have a reasonable belief that have barrier permeability
| issues as things like taking GABA will result in respiratory
| depression + temporary oxygen starvation for a few seconds -
| half a minute or so (yay) followed by that emergency
| contraction of blood vessels that the body does when trying
| to get oxygen to muscles. That's one good indicator of
| systemic barrier dysfunction, for example, as that is
| certainly not supposed to happen in healthy people since GABA
| is not supposed to cross the intestinal barrier (or the BBB
| barrier for that matter) in healthy individuals (though I
| wonder if one tiny benefit is making GABA slightly more
| effective for me for anxiety over, say, the average person
| due to potentially-increased BBB permeability). Additionally,
| things like P-glycoprotein inhibitors (like piperine, etc)
| cause me to react much more strongly to food/environmental
| things.
|
| Apples would contain, say, the most pyruvate and malic acid
| (though I react to apples pretty badly, sadly, I'll get
| arthritis-like symptoms (which makes typing and manipulating
| objects difficult, for example), though I take an OTC 5-LOX
| inhibitor nowadays that is actually surprisingly quite
| effective at preventing things like that from happening in
| accidental food exposures. Still not enough to have apples
| straight though, lol).
|
| So it's things like that. Most of this is things like looking
| at the Krebs cycle, finding upstream things to targets that I
| want that seem to perform well (like oxaloacetate, which is
| sold at an outrageous price), and then putting them through
| the empirical test pipeline to see if they hold up.
|
| Things like niacinamide for example I'm taking 1.5-2. grams a
| day which would be hard to get from food, pyruvate is also
| hard to get from food as well. I love the idea of food as
| medicine, but unfortunately it's mostly calories in (and
| thankfully I don't seem to react to multivitamins, thank
| God).
|
| I've tried several thousands of dollars worth of supplements
| over the last several years trying to find combinations that
| work. This is most certainly harder than most of the machine
| learning problems that I work on, as the loss signal is not
| all that clear, really (unfortunately)!
|
| I am glad to have found something that seems to have a
| positive impact, however!
| andai wrote:
| >I have a theory it's caused by a well-set-in, chronic
| infection
|
| Have you looked into fungal overgrowth / candidiasis? Keto
| seems to work for that too
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9583754/
| willsmith72 wrote:
| i'm glad studies like these exist, and hope we'll see more and
| more like it in future. But as the article mentioned, the more
| interesting part is the follow-up. How do you improve your
| decision-making and reduce tiredness?
| trealira wrote:
| I've found that exercise helps. I try to jog and lift weights
| regularly, but usually I exercise for a few months and stop for
| a few months. When I don't exercise, I notice I'm a lot more
| tired and feel significantly colder than when I work out.
|
| Also, if I don't eat enough food, I feel tired throughout the
| day as well. It makes me feel like I can't focus or think, but
| then I'm fine after I eat. Maybe it's because I'm skinny.
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