Neurological Stuff
I've been having a tough week, health-wise, and as a consequence some of my neurological issues are back. I used to have chronic and serious neurological issues and with getting healthier that's mostly cleared up, but today I sometimes can't remember what I've done in the last two minutes and did I do that thing already or not.
In addition to short-term memory issues, I sometimes drop things a LOT, fall down a LOT, can't string a coherent sentence together, can't speak English (I default to German at such times and my German isn't all that good), spill things and so forth. On the upside, I took gymnastics in my youth so most of the time I don't get very seriously hurt when I am tripping and falling down regularly.
I actually know a lot more about neurological issues than probably most people would guess. Among other things, my oldest son had a lot of neurological issues as a child and at one point I ran a discussion group called Wired for Science where we shared articles about neurological stuff and talked about them.
I was also slightly internet-acquainted at one time with Dr. Fernette Eide who graciously shared some of her expertise on some email list or other I was on back when I was homeschooling my special-needs sons. Back in the day, the gifted homeschooling community was seemingly a small, tight-knit community and I was passingly acquainted with a number of published authors and such via various email lists.
Anyway, my neurological issues -- and my son's issues -- seem to be rooted in the fact that we both have atypical CF which is a salt wasting condition and also causes the body to misprocess fats. Salt (and other minerals) plus fats are important to neurological function.
If you are salt deficient, you are probably also deficient in a number of other minerals that nutrition science has not yet adequately researched. If you sweat out salt at high rates -- or pee it out because, say, you are at altitude -- the salt drags OTHER things with it and so you can't straighten this out without getting the right mix of minerals.
Those minerals seem to be the basis of life on earth and so one simple solution is go to the beach and walk on the beach regularly. You may also be able to find a good quality sea salt with a mix of those minerals but many sea salts are mostly salt -- NaCl -- and do not necessarily have those other minerals. So I very often just tell people "Go to the beach" as a reliable means to expose them to the right mix of minerals.
How often should you go to the beach? Well, it depends on a variety of factors.
If you are seriously neurologically impaired but otherwise in reasonably good health, you might want to go daily until your neurological issues improve.
If you are moderately impaired or in frail health or older or just very busy, you might want to go, say, three or four days a week for a short walk.
People often want to do a LOT of a thing to try to get an obvious effect so they can feel confident they are actually accomplishing something. This isn't necessarily a good idea.
It's better to keep a journal or otherwise track a metric related to your issue. Realize you may get worse or have side effects temporarily before you start seeing gains, but this is a case of "slow but steady wins the race." It's better to track a metric to see an effect than to push your body real hard and put yourself through hell to see an effect.
Salt and the right kinds of fats are two of the three ingredients in The Trifecta and while I took them to treat myself for atypical cystic fibrosis, they all three seem important to neurological function as well. The third is the right kinds of carbs.
The brain is the organ in the body with the most cholesterol. It builds most of it -- about 95 percent -- in house and takes in about 5 percent from the blood stream. B vitamins are also important to brain function.
I've written about all that stuff before and you can search the site to read previous posts about such topics if you are interested. A good post to start with is Taking a Medical History.
In addition to short-term memory issues, I sometimes drop things a LOT, fall down a LOT, can't string a coherent sentence together, can't speak English (I default to German at such times and my German isn't all that good), spill things and so forth. On the upside, I took gymnastics in my youth so most of the time I don't get very seriously hurt when I am tripping and falling down regularly.
I actually know a lot more about neurological issues than probably most people would guess. Among other things, my oldest son had a lot of neurological issues as a child and at one point I ran a discussion group called Wired for Science where we shared articles about neurological stuff and talked about them.
I was also slightly internet-acquainted at one time with Dr. Fernette Eide who graciously shared some of her expertise on some email list or other I was on back when I was homeschooling my special-needs sons. Back in the day, the gifted homeschooling community was seemingly a small, tight-knit community and I was passingly acquainted with a number of published authors and such via various email lists.
Anyway, my neurological issues -- and my son's issues -- seem to be rooted in the fact that we both have atypical CF which is a salt wasting condition and also causes the body to misprocess fats. Salt (and other minerals) plus fats are important to neurological function.
If you are salt deficient, you are probably also deficient in a number of other minerals that nutrition science has not yet adequately researched. If you sweat out salt at high rates -- or pee it out because, say, you are at altitude -- the salt drags OTHER things with it and so you can't straighten this out without getting the right mix of minerals.
Those minerals seem to be the basis of life on earth and so one simple solution is go to the beach and walk on the beach regularly. You may also be able to find a good quality sea salt with a mix of those minerals but many sea salts are mostly salt -- NaCl -- and do not necessarily have those other minerals. So I very often just tell people "Go to the beach" as a reliable means to expose them to the right mix of minerals.
How often should you go to the beach? Well, it depends on a variety of factors.
If you are seriously neurologically impaired but otherwise in reasonably good health, you might want to go daily until your neurological issues improve.
If you are moderately impaired or in frail health or older or just very busy, you might want to go, say, three or four days a week for a short walk.
People often want to do a LOT of a thing to try to get an obvious effect so they can feel confident they are actually accomplishing something. This isn't necessarily a good idea.
It's better to keep a journal or otherwise track a metric related to your issue. Realize you may get worse or have side effects temporarily before you start seeing gains, but this is a case of "slow but steady wins the race." It's better to track a metric to see an effect than to push your body real hard and put yourself through hell to see an effect.
Salt and the right kinds of fats are two of the three ingredients in The Trifecta and while I took them to treat myself for atypical cystic fibrosis, they all three seem important to neurological function as well. The third is the right kinds of carbs.
The brain is the organ in the body with the most cholesterol. It builds most of it -- about 95 percent -- in house and takes in about 5 percent from the blood stream. B vitamins are also important to brain function.
I've written about all that stuff before and you can search the site to read previous posts about such topics if you are interested. A good post to start with is Taking a Medical History.
