here's an emerging vague guess i have about the interaction between nutrition and psychology, looking for feedback. it's probably a lot more complicated than this but really roughly: i think good nutrition can make you feel more powerful and capable at a deep psychological level
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your bodymind is just like "yeah whatever we're healthy and strong we can probably handle whatever shit is going down"
the worse your nutrition is, the worse your overall health, the more your bodymind is like "shit we're unhealthy and weak we can't handle anything"
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("bodymind" is a term of art i am stealing from , i think it is super good and i am going to try to make it happen)
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that sense of powerlessness amplifies fear, anxiety, all that stuff, because the more powerless you are the scarier all threats become
i could say more but that's about the level of detail that my vague guess warrants at this point. thoughts? relevant experiences? refinements?
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oh and the health -> psychology arrow is relevant to more than just nutrition, also sleep, exercise, etc. etc.
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honestly i think for a long time "caring about health" (for various dimensions of health) was in some kind of "thing that adults made me do when i was a kid so i automatically rebel against it now" category but i just like increasingly cannot afford to ignore it anymore
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ay whoa this is good shit
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Replying to @QiaochuYuan
I probably wouldn’t take the over on this replicating, exactly, but I think yet another aspect is that the nutrition people get from food is also partly about what’s going on psychologically.
scientificamerican.com/article/eat-dr
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hmm complicated confounder
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Replying to @diviacaroline and @QiaochuYuan
Oooh my guess on this is that it's about their microbiomes being more efficient at breaking down the foods they're used to eating. That correlates with what they like, but I don't see any reason to believe that liking the food is the cause of better absorption.
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there's another thread i don't really know how to tie into this one about the relationship between eating, specifically sharing / giving / receiving food, and attachment. that thread i think is super tied to stuff like eating disorders, comfort food, etc.
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somewhat related. sometimes you just need to burp
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new blog post about my year of rando anxiety and an issue i see with the way some ppl approach solving their emotional problems
knowingless.com/2021/09/27/anx
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Replying to
There is also the enteric nervous system, which produces most of our neurotransmitters from nutrients we absorb.
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For example: 90% of our serotonin for example is synthesized by the ENS. if there is not enough folic acid in the region, we literally cannot synthesize serotonin: causing direct psychological effects. This is why one of the major tells of celiac disease is mood/anxiety disorders