For chronic fatigue, mental energy, generally feeling like your brain isn't working this is a very accurate description The problem is insidious and if your brain doesn't have energy for daily functioning... Using it to parse the infinite complexity of health bullshit online, whilst *also* trying to track what works/does not work at an n of 1 level and control for variables which you might not have even been aware of, is actually a Herculean task This is objectively true, despite what anyone who tells you to "just get on with it" might think It's actually quite hard for me to articulate this - but if you've ever experienced simply not having the mental energy to put your socks on you'll likely know what i mean Figuring out all of this stuff on a personal, n of 1 level is so complicated that your average specialist doctor cannot do it. This is not a "hurr durr doctors are dumb" post. My current doctor has explained this to me in detail and we work very closely together on these type of topics. He's one of the most widely respected ADHD specialists in the UK. The sheer amount of *potential* things that could cause "simple" fatigue is astronomical. Then think about the additional potential causes of whether it's fatigue, or stress, or neurotransmitter imbalance, or [insert anything else here]. This is before you even think about designing a protocol. And that's a completely separate issue to whether that protocol works For you In your own life And doesn't break when your life changes But let's say you take care of the basics which is the 80/20 of all this. I'm talking light, nutrition, stress, sleep, exercise, socialising, purpose etc And things still aren't working You're now down into the minutae of potential causes which have some fairly hefty pre-requisites just to be able to understand what the topic even is *at a high level*. Then, you have to be able to think through and reason whether it makes sense to investigate *that topic* further. Or... learn another one, and investigate that. Then you're probably going to need blood work. Or some sort of test. This then has another pre-requisite: money. And again, knowledge of what to even test. Some things could not be tested 2 years ago that now can. So you'll need to keep track of this type of thing too. I could go on but the point is... All of this is so hard/complex/expensive that you rarely see this level of detail outside of insanely expensive private concierge medicine And if you embark on this quest you're doing it with a brain which is struggling to maintain day to day functioning. For emphasis - day to day functioning is so basic that *virtually everyone in the country is capable of it* And everything you learn has to be parsed through an ever-mutating trough of slop on the internet And that trough slop is powered by algorithms which are quite literally designed, by experts in addiction, behavioural design and cognitive neuroscience, in AI labs, with enough computing power to drain cities of water and electricity It is no wonder so many people fail at this Again, it's hard to articulate how ridiculous it is that we don't emphasise the difficulty of all this. You need to be able to: - Resist attempts to shame you into inaction - Have a sense of self-agency high enough to not outsource all your decisions - Be intelligent enough to learn about how all this stuff fits together - Be able to make decisions about where to start across the hundreds of topics you *could* start with - Realise which health influencers are worth listening to vs full of shit And this is before you consider that for anything to work, stick or even give you enough data to make any sort of conclusion you need to: - Be able to remember what variables actually changed day to day (sounds funny writing this out but if you have severe brain fog then it's unlikely you remember fuck all of what you did 2 hours ago let alone 2 days) - Record variables - Attempt to keep them somewhat controlled - Be consistent in your routine/protocol And only from there can you *even begin* to make some sort of analysis which is going to be fuzzy at best There is no "sOuRcE" There is no paper There is no peer reviewed study There is no "evidence based digital twin" which can categorically tell *you* what is going to work for *you* If you read anything to do with experimental design, biomedical stats etc you quicky realise how ridiculous it is to even contemplate doing this So it's also quite hard to articulate how retarded you actually have to be to even make a serious attempt at figuring all this shit out when you might struggle to decide whether your shoes should go on your hands or feet. And the worst part from there - despite all this complexity, despite the fact you probably should not have tried if you were "sane" - Is that you can actually be doing the right thing. You can be getting closer, without realising it. But without any results to show for all your neuroticism... you just give up. Accept your fate as someone who just has to "deal with it" and chalk it up to "aging" On top of this, you may also have to deal with a hefty dose of mis-attributed shame, and additional emotional dysregulation/low level stress from trying to explain all the above, not being able to, and doing "extreme" things like going home early on nights out, not drinking, not going out, bringing healthy food into work, explaining why you put electrolytes in your drinking water etc. However... Despite all of that, i would also say that another thing that's hard to articulate, that might only be possible to see "from the other side" (and i've definitely not solved all these things yet but am 10x better than before) Is how obviously worth it it is to not give up. It's difficult to describe what it's like to actually have enough energy to do everything you want to do, to someone who's never experienced not having it. I remember the first time when I got a handle on most of the issues i was struggling with and then used ADHD medication for the first time. The sense of "oh my fucking god is this what people mean when they talk about discipline and willpower" was rage inducing There's a big difference between discipline and Discipline for anyone who's experienced both Discipline is when you have energy is literally just choosing between things in pursuit of your values. Sometimes the choice is particularly tough, like when you've just met a cool new group of friends and they ask you to hang out but your Whoop says you need to pay down your sleep debt cos you're in amber recovery but you tell it to fuck off [this is a joke for everyone reading this who is autistic enough to need it spelling out] This type of Discipline is very different to discipline which is akin to expending all available energy get dressed and brush your teeth I am aware this sounds like depression - and metabolic theory of depression aside, i think that there's also a big difference between being clinically depressed and being exhausted *or* overwhelmed *or* stressed *or* [again, insert any one of the different things that can present *like* depression and occur *alongside* depression but might not necessarily *be* depression] I also used to work in neurotechnology (TMS for those who are interested) of which the primary application was treatment resistant depression. Anyway... Willpower when you have the energy to will things into existence Is very different to willpower that you need to use to remember not to leave your laptop at home for work The point being When you're physiologically on point these words take on a different meaning Finally... I would also add to the "kick themselves for how long it took" A ton of the time it took me to resolve most issues was due to: - Listening to people who had never experienced these problems and convincing myself i was full of shit - Because i minimised my issues i didn't actually try hard enough, or consistently enough, to solve them - Not having a system to actually track things accurately and properly - Listening to professionals who had not read enough research and following protocols that were never going to work - Listening to professionals who arrogantly explained why reasoning that came from published academic papers was wrong, despite not being able to articulate said research themselves And also probably a big one which i see a lot on the timeline: Being too neurotic about the wrong stuff I think there's a big reason why bryan-johnson-biohacking-optimiser-sphere gets a bad rap, and it's because the neuroticism which *can* be an adaptive trait when there absolutely is something that needs to be fixed Gets hijacked by Rhonda Patrick style insanity But this goes back to not minimising your own issues and being able to self-educate. If you put that personal judgement above the AI slop bullshit then that neuroticism can be harnessed for the good of your bloodline instead of figuring out whether you get more sulforaphane from home-grown broccoli sprouts vs a supplement

People who have never dealt with chronic fatigue, persistent inflammation, or medically unexplained symptoms live in a completely different world from those who have. A world in which it never felt like you were running a race with one leg tied behind your back the whole time, while comparing yourself to everyone running on two. And for the fortunate few who finally resolve their problems, they often kick themselves for how long it took, feeling hopelessly far behind the moment they start running normally again.

Greece has a wild beauty; like its soul.

Guys, I Fucked Up… Back in April, I rebranded Cotedge as Cotone Sock Studio and with it, dramatically raised my prices to try and justify all the time it takes me to make these socks by hand. In my mind, I had to calculate a price point at which point it was worth investing my time in continuing the business or just folding it altogether. It didn’t work and orders went from a 4-week backlog to zero. I was faced with two options: close the business and move on to something else, or lower my prices and accept that if I want to sell socks, I am going to be making them for minimum wage. So, I lowered my prices back down. The wood gift boxes are now available as an add-on, rather than being the default packaging for single pairs. One thing that is staying though is socks will no longer be made by order. Everything on the site is made and ready to ship today. Come take a look at the new 100% Pima Cotton collections on the site. I am not exaggerating when I say I absolutely love the new Pima cotton ankle socks and wear them every day now. And with the Christmas season coming up, I anticipate lots of gift buying. So don’t wait!

it’s interesting how often hyperphantasia and high verbal intelligence go hand in hand. reading books from an early age seems to be the link

This is the first in a series on Plato’s Phaedo. I discuss the enormous tension between Odysseus and the gods as *the* lens through which to understand the true theme of the dialogue which Plato’s Socrates appropriates in it from Homer’s Odyssey

Entrance to office, Greco-futurism. Georgetown, Washington, D.C.

Turns out love really is a glucose sink Eating an identical 50g carb load with a significant other lowered the post-meal glucose response by 15% Never overlook the human nutrient

Bucharest is this total mash up of different architectural styles, with a modernization boom, while having a fair amount of soviet style blocks and the highest degree of derelication I've seen in any capital. It's quite weird to have so many smells that spur recollection after almost 30 years since I've been here, and that olfactory memory is extremely robust.

“Satiate your soul with Plutarch and when you believe in his heroes dare at the same time to believe in yourself”. - Nietszche