upright & seeking nutrition

It’s a common misconception that suicides spike in the winter months because of the depressing effects of dark and cold.  They actually spike in April, May and June, the late spring and early summer.   The rate is lowest in winter.   This is true in the northern hemisphere.   In the southern hemisphere suicides spike in September and October, which is springtime there.   Maybe the spike is the result of accumulating stress over winter.   If there were available, inexpensive nutrition and supplements that mitigated the accumulation of stress over the winter, then these substances would be valuable.   If these could be used well with the least amount of expert advice, then wouldn’t this lead people to improve their confidence in themselves as the agents of their own well-being?   Might what winter contributes to the alienation of sensitive people be tamed enough to encourage thriving rather than cutting, burning, bulimia, suicide?   If mitig...

4. It will take about 30% of the time that it took to become in a distressed, burned out state, to rehabilitate the metabolic damage from distress.  Thanks to my Dad for teaching me this principle early and often.  From colds and flu, to surgery, this principle is helpful to me. This formula turns out to be more about what has already happened than what needs to happen in the future in order to regain good metabolic potential.  For older persons the rehab might be practically the rest of your life.  To make this workable, I use 7 years as a maximum since this formula is only useful if it helps you be patient with steady, but sometimes intermittent, improvement. Young people have a different problem with improving metabolism:  their formative years were influenced by a more degraded food supply and exposure to more environmental estrogens.  Younger people are more resilient, but their potential for metabolic robustness can be generally less.  I s...

There are several principles that a layman can interpret from reading the physical-biological view of the human organism and its metabolism in its environment. 1. Stress happens in real-time and can be mitigated in real-time. 2. Stress accumulates. 3. Aging represents the accumulation of stress and changes in the structural and functional capacity to do work or think clearly. 4. It will take about 30% of the time that it took to become in a distressed, burned out state, to rehabilitate the metabolic damage from distress. 5. E pluribus unum , from many, one. 6. Stress hormones are deceptive; they give euphoric sensations in the short-term. 7. Physiological increments in metabolic support are still support. 8. Distress is traumatic to the metabolism. 9. The food supply is so fundamentally degraded that some ingredients are not distinguishable from building materials. 10. Appetite is a guide to nutritional needs under specific metabolic conditions. The physical-...

Health news this week announced that new research confirms previous studies showing that babies born in summer months are healthier on some measures than those born in winter months. The idea that summer birth confers lifelong benefits, and winter birth is associated with degenerative stressors is nothing surprising for people who view the body as operating according to the same general principles as large bodies, like planets or stars, or others kinds of things, even rocks, sheets of metal, trees, sunlight, water, smoke, or an ice cube.  These people I’m referring to are biophysicists who are thinking about the principles of non-equilibrium physics and the extent to which they can be applied to the functions of the human body.  This is not meant as a metaphor, but as a genuine aid in explaining metabolism.  The body is not like other systems, it is other systems, just to a limited extent.  The application of physical principles shouldn’t reduce one’s thinking—...