Reality Upgrade

If you have ever felt like you get all your best ideas while going for a run or a swim, it turns out you may be right. According to Newsweek magazine, small bursts of exercise can boost your creativity for hours afterward.

In fact, Newsweek says “Almost every dimension of cognition improves from 30 minutes of aerobic exercise, and creativity is no exception. The type of exercise doesn’t matter, and the boost lasts for at least two hours afterward.”

Of course, this only works if you are in good shape. Otherwise the exhaustion from unaccustomed exercise outweighs the benefits.

For more on this, and a bunch of other ideas for boosting creativity, check out the full article here.

For thousands of years, humans have lived the majority of their lives outdoors, only going inside to sleep if at all. Even then, windows were in scarce supply, so we lived in direct contact with the outside air almost all the time.

The first real air conditioner was invented in 1902, and ever since humans have been spending more and more time indoors. Especially if you work in an office, your only time outside at all might be walking from car to building and back.

It seems intuitive to some of us that spending all that time inside and away from nature is bad for your health, but this article from Discovery News adds even more evidence to the pile.

The article talks about the natural bacteria in the soil and air, which when we breathe them in (or eat them) have several major health benefits. Not only do they increase serotonin levels and decrease anxiety, they can also make us learn faster.

So your mother was right after all. Go outside, it’s good for you!

There are a multitude of hangover “cures”, embedded in old wives’ tales and frat house legends, but which ones really work?

Today, Reality Upgrade turns to science to find out which ones actually do the job.

The list is depressingly short.

The simplest and most effective hangover cure is to simply not drink in the first place, but lets face it. That’s no fun.

Other than that, there are essentially only 3 real things that help with a hangover:

• Food
• Water
• Time

See, I told you it was depressingly short.

Food

Eating well before starting to drink is a surprisingly effective hangover prevention tool, but not for the reason that is given in the general hangover lore. Rather than a literal alcohol sponge, a full meal is a figurative one.

When you eat a full meal, your stomach will focus on slowing the progress of food and liquids through the stomach so that the digestive process can happen. This has the useful side effect of slowing the absorption of alcohol into the bloodstream, because your intestines are busy absorbing other things as well.

Stretching out the absorption of alcohol over a longer period of time lets your body deal with the alcohol in smaller amounts over a longer period of time,  which in turn reduces the pain of your hangover. (See the bit on Time, below)

Water

Water is the magical elixir of life that keeps everything in your body running smoothly. Dehydration can cause headache, dry mouth, dizziness when standing, and and lethargy. Sound familiar anyone?

Alcohol is a diuretic, which means it encourages your kidneys to create more urine by suppressing your body’s levels of the antidiuretic hormone vasopressin, which in turn drains water out of your body more quickly than normal.

The best way to prevent dehydration is to drink plenty of water before, during, and after drinking alcohol. A good rule of thumb is to make sure you drink at least 1 tall glass of water for every shot, glass of wine, or cup of beer you drink. If you forget to drink water while you are out at the bar, at least remember to chug some before you hit the sack. This will keep you body hydrated, and fend off some of the worst effects of the hangover.

Time

As the liver breaks down alcohol, a whole bunch of nasty chemicals are created, all of which contribute to the hangover.

In the liver, ethanol is converted to acetaldehyde by the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase, and then from acetaldehyde to acetic acid by the enzyme acetaldehyde dehydrogenase. Acetaldehyde (ethanal) is between 10 and 30 times more toxic than alcohol itself.

A bunch of other complicated chemical stuff happens as well, but one of the major effects of these chemicals is to prevent the liver from properly regulating the levels of glucose in the blood. Glucose is the major energy source for the brain, so a lack of glucose can cause symptoms such as fatigue, weakness, mood disturbances, and decreased attention and concentration. Again, does  any of that sound familiar?

Because you just dumped a whole bunch of nasty into your bloodstream all at once, getting rid of it all causes your liver to run out of  glutathione and other detoxification agents. Your liver will produce more of these cleaning agents, but it takes…well, time. Until your liver can produce more, your body has to deal with a bunch of poisons floating around in your bloodstream, and the only thing you can do is wait.

Other Somewhat Useful Tips

Headache Medicine

One other thing that helps, but is not really a cure, is ibuprofen. It does not really fix anything, but it is the least damaging of the the three major over the counter headache medicines. Aspirin and acetaminophen work as well, but tend to irritate the lining of the stomach. In normal situations, this is not a big deal, but if your stomach just had to deal with a bunch of alcohol, anything else that irritate it is probably a bad idea.

Incidentally, if you don’t have any ibuprofen available, go with acetaminophen. It is slightly less rough on your stomach than aspirin.

Drink Clear Liquor

There are several things that can exaggerate the symptoms of alcohol, including other types of alcohols and congeners. Both of these can be side products of some types of fermentation, and some are also added to sweet liquors to enhance their flavor.

A 2009 study provided evidence that darker-coloured liquors, such as bourbon, cause worse hangovers than lighter-coloured liquors, such as vodka. The higher amount of congeners found in darker liquors compared to lighter ones was indicated as the cause.

So avoid the darker liquors, and stick with silver tequila for a somewhat smaller head in the morning.

What Not To Do

There are tons of hangover cures that don’t really help at all, and for a fun list and the debunking of most of them check out this fun article by Lifehacker.

Also for a more detailed look at the science behind the hangover, check out this article on hangovers on my favorite website ever, Wikipedia.

If you eat like me, a lot of your food says “Organic” on the packaging.

Back in the day, when the world was young and eating natural and organic food had not yet become a popular trend, my parents had to go to specialty health food stores to get organic food. Now that the “green” wave is sweeping the world, I can buy organic lettuce at my local grocery. But what exactly does “Organic” mean?

When the number of people eating organic food was small, there was a large incentive for manufacturers to be very honest about what they called organic, because they knew that their consumers would pay attention to the ingredients. Now, in makes marketing sense to put “organic” on just about anything, and regulation of who can make that claim is a little shaky.

For a great common sense review of how to know what is really organic and what just says it is, take a look at this post by Lifehacker.

By the way, the best way to know what you are eating is to turn the package over and read the ingredients list. If it goes in the food, it’s on the list, no matter what kind of label might be on the front of the package.

Difficulty getting to sleep can be one of the most frustrating things in the world.

With the busy lives that we all live these days, it is hard enough to find the time to get a good night’s sleep. When you finally do get the chance to go to bed, and your body won’t cooperate…well, let’s just say bad dreams would be better than no dreams at all.

The typical remedies of keeping a consistent sleep schedule, not drinking caffeine before bed, even having a glass of warm milk are all good, but new research shows that room temperature might play an even bigger role than anyone thought.

(continue reading…)

The economy is tough these days, and health care costs just keep going up. If you find yourself adrift and in need of health insurance, this is a great article on how to choose the right kind.

How to Buy Health Insurance by Yourself

Good luck!!

Why does oatmeal taste so good with orange juice? Why do tomatoes seem the perfect match for olive oil?

It turns out that our bodies know what’s up: by combining different foods, we actually gain more nutritional benefits than by eating each food by itself.

For those of us who played (or still play) role-playing games, you are already familiar with the concept. Mix the red herb with the green herb, and the result heals you more than each by itself. Add the magic stone to the ancient sword and get the super weapon of doom. And so on.

I guess art imitates life after all.

For a great list of foods that go well together, take a look at this article by Men’s Health.

And enjoy!

What makes us happy? Not happy in the I-just-got-some-chocolate temporary way, but really, truly happy in the long term. The kind of happy where you die at 87, with your great-grandchildren around you and think, “I had a good life, and wound not change anything.”

Is there some formula, some magic mix of psychology, upbringing, career, and love that lead to a good life?

For 72 years, researchers at Harvard have been trying to find out. (continue reading…)

In the spirit of being prepared for anything, from a flat tire to a Zombie Invasion, this is a great list of wild plants that are edible in a pinch, or even just for some fun (and free) variety. They may not all be available in your area, and I think staying away from mushrooms completely might be a good idea, but things like Yucca flowers and lambs quarter can be a great fun addition to your summer menu.

And you never know when you might need to forage for food while hiding from Zombies.

If the link is down, here is the Google cache of the page.

Also, if you want to get way, way more in depth, check out this site.

As you probably know, the human body has a daily cycle, know as the Circadian Rhythm.  

This is a perfectly natural pattern of sleep and alertness, dealing with cell regeneration, melatonin production, and so on.

However, if for some reason your Circadian Rhythm does not match your actual sleeping pattern, as in the case of Jet Lag, the symptoms can be serious, including loss of appetite, nausea, headaches, disorientation, and mild depression.

Recovering from jet lag can take several days, or even a week, of gradual adjustment to the new timing.

However, there is a way to reset your biological clock in only one day. By fasting for 12-16 hours, your body’s “hunger clock” will override your Circadian Rhythm, and reset your biological clock.

According to an article by the Globe and Mail:

Scientists have long known that our 24-hour “circadian rhythm” is regulated by a group of cells in the hypothalamus region of the brain. These cells, which represent the body’s main clock, are sensitive to changes in light conditions registered through the optic nerve in the eye.

Researchers at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston have now pinpointed a second clock that is set by the availability of food. Their study, published today in the journal Science, is based on research on mice. But they believe all mammals, including humans, possess an internal food clock, too.

Clifford Saper, the senior author of the study, said this second clock probably takes over when food is scarce. It may have evolved to make sure mammals don’t go to sleep when they should be foraging for food to stay alive.

“A period of fasting with no food at all for about 16 hours is enough to engage this new clock,” he said in a statement released with the study. Once you eat again, your internal clock will be reset as though it is the start of a new day.

The way to do this is to determine when your breakfast time should be on your new schedule, and then fast for 12-16 hours before that. Then break your fast at your new breakfast time, and your Circadian rhythm should be reset.

For example, if you are flying from New York to Israel, and you want to have your breakfast in Isreal at 8:00 AM, you should start fasting sometime between 9:00 AM and 1:00 PM the day before, in New York time. 

The calculation, in case you are interested:

8:00 AM - Breakfast, Israel

-7 hrs - Time difference = 1:00 AM New York

-16 hrs - Fasting time = 9:00 AM New York (the day before)

Hopefully, next time you are travelling, this will help you make the most of your trip.