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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   2253 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for February 8, 2023

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

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  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

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I recently saw a comment on a video going over the latest scary "any amount of alcohol is bad for you" research that said "it's funny how alcohol is the only drug that people have to justify NOT using". Not that I think that's what you're trying to do here, as you said, you're just curious. At the end of the day, however, I'd just take the win and be happy that you don't enjoy something that's bad for you, no matter how many other people love it.

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We can test this pseudo-empirically. Passionflower and lemon balm are gaba agonists which should make you feel similarly poor and lemon balm is serotonergic. L Theanine is an GABA agonist and has effect on serotonin. Ginger is protective against alcohol’s renal damage and serotonin-depleting effects. Of course just because something

It could also just be that, for whichever genetic or microbiota-related reason, you don’t like alcohol. In my case I hate alcohol 90% of the time, it makes me feel sick and uncomfortable, but I like the effect of lemon balm. Just because things affect GABA and release/increase serotonin does not mean they do so with the same perceived psychological result of course

Of course just because something

Good point. However, I would argue that it doesn't necessarily require a

I think you may have accidentally a word

Your response to alcohol sounds somewhat similar to that of people who experience Asian glow i.e. discomfort after drinking a small amount of alcohol, a delay, and then getting very drunk once all the acetaldehyde in their system is finally metabolized. While that allele is uncommon among people who aren't of East Asian descent, it's not unheard of. There are certainly other genes relating to ethanol sensitivity too, some of which may have been selected for in the recent past as the ALDH2 allele was in Asians. It is a poison after all, so it isn't surprising that our body can respond negatively to it.

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