Dieting & the Brain

Every month or so I go on a crash diet. That lets me eat whatever I want for three weeks and diet the fourth week. Someone just told me that dieting damage. Is that really true?

Studies have shown that weight-loss diets can impact the brain negatively in several ways. It can disrupt the synthesis or creation of neurotransmitters, alter brain chemistry, and trigger mental-processing problems. According to the author of 20/20 Thinking, you can shed smarts as well as pounds when going on crash diets or rapid-weight-loss diets. (e.g., less than 1000 calories per day) Dieting can starve the brain of serotonin, which can trigger a cycle of dieting and bingeing as there is insufficient serotonin to signal satisfaction. According to author Faith Hickman Brynie, dieting starves the brain of serotonin. This can trigger a cycle of dieting and bingeing—as there isn’t enough serotonin to signal satisfaction. I would suggest you could be healthier by eating moderately all the time.

To diet or not to diet

I’ve gone on endless diets and always  gain it all back, sooner or later. I always wonder “Why?”

That is the question for millions of individuals. Samuel Beckett has been quoted as saying, ‘Probably nothing in the world arouses more false hopes than the first four hours of a diet.’ Those concerned about their weight can get caught in dieting traps. UCLA researcher Stuart Wolpert reported that dieting does not work. By their very nature diets are designed to fail. Initially you many lose a few pounds as the brain and body respond temporarily to something new and different. But dieting cannot be maintained over time, especially when it involves food deprivation. Within a space of just two to three years, most eventually gain back everything they lost—often more—and risk damaging brain and body systems in the process. A study published in the journal American Psychologist found that dieting does ‘not lead to sustained weight loss or health benefits for the majority of people.’

 Thank you for subscribing to my YouTube channel

https://www.youtube.com/@braingurutaylor/videos 

Obesity & Alzheimer’s Risk

Please tell me there is not a link between being obese and an increased risk of Alzheimer’s.

I could tell you that. However, it would not align with current research. Maintaining an optimum weight is a vital part of protecting your health. Studies of 8,000 twins found that being overweight doubled the risk of dementia, while being obese quadrupled that risk. Estimates are that reducing risk factors such as smoking, diabetes, obesity, and inactivity by 25% could prevent half-a-million cases of Alzheimer’s annually in the USA. The goal is to stave off the disease long enough so you can live life to its fullness without ever suffering Alzheimer's symptoms. (Gary Small, MD. The Alzheimer's Prevention Program)

Your Odortype

We spent a week with close friends during Thanksgiving. Now my husband tells me, "You smell different." What causes that?

Your genetically determined body odor or Odortype, acts like an olfactory nametag, helping to distinguish one person from another. What can alter your odortype? If you eat a great deal of garlic, it can impact your breath for 24-28 hours, and if you are sweating a lot, sometimes it can temporarily alter the odor of your sweat. Many people are familiar with stress-related odors. When you are stressed, you tend to secrete more apocrine from the apocrine sweat glands in your armpits. In combination with the bacteria on your skin, this milky fluid, most commonly secreted in the presence of emotional stress, can create a rather unpleasant odor. Drinking plenty of fluids, practicing good body hygiene, using appropriate deodorants, and taking appropriate steps to manage emotional stressors, can help reduce these stress-related odors. Some very rare conditions can impact one’s odortype, as well. For example, a genetic disorder known as trimethylaminuria (TMAU) affects about 1 in 200,000 people. They don’t process trimethlamine efficiently and it tends to build up in the body, resulting in a fishy odor in urine, sweat, reproductive fluids, and breath.

 Please subscribe to my YouTube channel

https://www.youtube.com/@braingurutaylor/videos

Can Intuition be Improved?

My friends and I have an ongoing argument: can intuition be improved? What's your take?

In his book Answers for Aristotle, Massimo Pigliucci pointed out that research on intuition has clearly shown that it is a domain-specific ability. This means that a person can be very intuitive about one thing but just like an average person about other things. Intuition can often be improved with practice. To use it effectively, however, intuition needs to be combined with rational thought and analysis. Here are some ideas. 

 ·       Take a walk. Sometimes intuitive thoughts will surface or solutions to problems pop up.

·       Learn to recognize and pick up on changes in your body quickly. If suddenly your body signals a sense of uneasiness, ask yourself what that dis-ease is trying to tell you.

 ·       Pay attention to your hunch and evaluate it. Does it fit within your moral values? Is there some way it could benefit you? If it appears to be safe, take a small step in that direction and evaluates where it leads.

 ·       Spend a few minutes daydreaming and pondering a question in your mind and pay attention to what your mind perceives.

A new video is posted every Saturday morning

https://www.youtube.com/@braingurutaylor

Male-Female Intuition Differences

I suppose some male-female differences have been identified related to intuition?

 Intuition studies have shown that females seemed more attuned to intuitive information from the heart and were more responsive to prestimulus information than were males. Processes in the prefrontal cortex were moderated by the heart. In general, females appear to process the prestimulus more frontally; males process it more in the posterior portions of the brain. The bottom line: the heart and the brain together are linked in the actions of receiving, processing, and decoding intuitive information. The concluding hypothesis was that intuition is a system-wide process in which the heart and the brain (and possibly other body organs or systems) are involved together in responding to intuitive information. According to the author of The Intuitive Compass, Francis Cholle, the best decisions result from a combination of intuition and rational thinking. Unfortunately, many disregard their intuitive hunches—to their detriment. 

Benefits of Intuition

Does the function of intuition really have any benefits to human beings?

According to French Philosopher Henri Poincare, through science we ‘prove’, while through intuition we ‘discover.’ Human brains have a built-in ability to pick up on patterns and respond to them in a nanosecond in the form of intuitive insights. What have studies shown about the benefits intuition can provide:

     ·       Augments your analytical brain in decision making

·       Opens your brain to new ideas that can lead to success

·       Enhances your ability to identify potential dangers

·       Assists with brainstorming and problem-solving

·       Assists in identifying your life vision and goals

 Thank you for subscribing to my YouTube channel

https://www.youtube.com/@braingurutaylor/videos

Intuition and the Heart

 

You have blogged about the close connection between the heart and the brain. Is the heart ever involved in intuition?

 Until very recently the prevailing belief was that intuition was related only to the brain and nervous system. Recent studies have found surprising electrophysiological evidence of intuition with a definite heart component. Researchers discovered that the heart appears not only to receive intuition information but also to respond to it. Furthermore, the heart is directly involved in processing the information about a future emotional stimulus seconds before the body actual experiences the stimulus. At times, the heart seems to receive intuitive information even before the brain. In the brain, the prefrontal cortex, temporal, parietal, and occipital regions all appear to be involved with the processing of the information. So, the brain and the heart may work together—at least sometimes—to produce the flashes of insight or the gut feelings by which intuition is characterized.

Definition of Intuition

Is there a universal definition of Intuition?

Each person may have his or her own definition of intuition. This brain function is difficult to define—at least with a definition that is recognized universally. According to Sophy Burnham, author of The Art of Intuition, intuition is the subtle knowing without ever having any idea how or why you know it. Intuition is different from thinking, from logic, or analysis. It is a type of knowing without knowing. Scientists believe that intuition is always there, whether or not you are aware of it. An article published in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine defines intuition as a process by which information that is normally outside the range of cognitive processes is immediately sensed and perceived in the body and mind as certainty of knowledge or feeling about the totality of a thing distant or yet to happen. This experience is very different from the processing of normal awareness that occurs incrementally. Intuition is a sense of the whole all at the same time. It can generate a positive sense of excitement or a negative sense of dread. In working with women who have been date raped, I cannot count the number of times I heard variations on a theme. For example: “When he picked me up, I had this sudden dis-ease about going on this date. Too bad I dismissed the thought.”

 Please subscribe to my YouTube channel

https://www.youtube.com/@braingurutaylor/videos

Intuition: Reality or Fantasy

I am fascinated by human intuition. The people I talk with think it is a figment of my imagination. What is your opinion?

 Perhaps because don’t yet come close to understanding the brain and how it functions, it is difficult to define human intuition precisely . Many individuals have had an intuitive flash of insight or gut awareness of something that had not yet occurred—only to have that insight or gut awareness proven later on to be correct. The common belief has been that intuition was primarily a function of the brain or mind. How to explain what has happened, however, is a horse of a different color. There have been studies about intuition. The military launched studies related to the power of intuition, and the staff who made intuitive decisions during combat that ended up saving lives. Add that to a plethora of anecdotal reports, and it appears that intuition is an important factor in human interactions and may form the basis for many everyday decisions—although often unrecognized as such. Even when not discussed, most people have a sense that intuition exists. Reportedly Steve Jobs said that intuition was more powerful than intellect.

Please subscribe to my YouTube channel

https://www.youtube.com/@braingurutaylor/videos

Sensing Intuition

How can you experience intuition?

 You might:

-        -      Have a strong impression that you need to take a specific action immediately

    -        Perceive an internal mental picture about something only to recognize it in reality some later on

-        Mentally ‘hear’ or sense that you need to stop something that you are currently doing

-        Experience a strong physical sense in your body as an aversion toward or an affinity to something or someone

-        Experience a flash of insight or perceive a solution to a problem when you are day-dreaming or doing an unrelated task

-        Dream about something literally or symbolically, in which case you would need to ponder the symbols and sort out what the dream might be trying to tell you.

-        Disregard an impression and later on realized you needed to pay attention to it

 Some suggest that when you dream about people you know, the dream is really about characteristics in those individuals that also apply to you, positive or negative, which gives you the opportunity to evaluate your behaviors and course correct as necessary.

Dreaming & Intuition

Can intuition help you come up with a new idea in a dream?

 ·       According to Encyclopedia Britannica, German chemist August Kekule von Stradonitz (1829–1896) is famous for having clarified the nature of aromatic compounds, which are based on the benzene molecule. He claimed to have had a dream while dozing in which he saw the figure of a snake that seized its own tail in its mouth, giving Kekule the idea for the benzene ring.

 ·       James Dewey Watson, KBE (hon.), an American molecular biologist, geneticist, and zoologist and a co-discoverers of the DNA structure, reportedly got the idea from a dream. Reportedly he dreamed of a double sided spiral staircase—which makes sense when you recall that the spiral DNA strands look something like a twisted ladder.

·       According to NOVA, one night Einstein was riding home in a Bern streetcar. Looking back at the famous clock tower that dominated the city, he imagined the streetcar racing away from the clock tower at the speed of light. His ponderings eventually resulted in the theory of relativity (events that were simultaneous in one frame of reference were not necessarily simultaneous in another) and the world's most famous equation, E = mc².

 Thank you for subscribing to my YouTube channel

https://www.youtube.com/@braingurutaylor/videos 

Location of Intuition

 

Can you help me understand more about intuition? Like, where is it in the brain?

 Intuition can be described as an instinctive sensation about something. Intuition is believed linked with the right frontal lobe. All undamaged human brains are believed to contain the mental faculty of intuition. However, it may be a bit like a sense of humor, which is also linked with the right frontal love. Meaning, that function is present, but it typically needs to be honed. The female brain is believed to have a sixth sense of intuitive knowing because of the global way in which their brains are wired. According to neuroscientist Beatrice de Gelder, PhD, humans all process things that they’re not consciously aware of—it’s a sensation of ‘knowing.’ Because humans are also so dependent on a sense of sight, they are not used to trusting their internal intuitive vision track. Joy Hirsch, PhD, director of the fMRI Research Center at Columbia University Medical Center has been reported as saying, “If you find yourself in a situation where you feel nervous, your brain may have spotted a reason for concern without you even knowing it. Pay attention to the sensation.” It can be life-saving.

Information Inflation

My doctor says my mother (who has Alzheimer’s) is experiencing something called Information Inflation. Can you explain that in plain English?

 According to studies by the National Institute of Health, individuals with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) are more susceptible to certain kinds of memory distortions as compared to healthy older adults. Imagination inflation is a specific type of memory distortion in which people are more likely to falsely remember that an item has been seen or an action has been performed when it has only been imagined in their brain or mind’s eye. For example, the individual may mistakenly believe they took their medications, turned off the stove, locked the door or any number of other actions when in reality, they have only thought about or imagined actually doing these actions.

 Please subscribe to my YouTube channel

https://www.youtube.com/@braingurutaylor

Mere Exposure Effect

Why do I tend to do the same things repeatedly instead of branching out and trying something new?

 The Mere Exposure Effect, also described as the Familiarity principle, posits that we tend to develop preferences for things simply because we become familiar with them. The more familiar you are with something, the more likely you are to repeat it. Studies have shown that individuals are more likely to adopt ideas that they are repeatedly exposed to, especially by the media. Sometimes this is a helpful thing—as in developing healthy habits. Sometimes it is an unhelpful thing—repeating old habits instead of an option with which the individuals is initially unfamiliar. Learn to become aware of what you do and ask yourself if this is a good path to continue to follow or it would be better to take a new path and learn new skills.

 A new video is posted every Saturday morning

https://www.youtube.com/@braingurutaylor/videos