Most Interesting Person
• Check out this insane Twitter thread about Roman Feodorovich von Ungern-Sternberg. The summary from the first tweet: During the inter-war period, a Tsarist cavalry officer conquered Mongolia, made himself king, fought the Bolsheviks, and was declared by the 13th Dalai Lama to be the earthly incarnation of the Buddhist God of War. The Mad Baron.
Dr. Mirkin
• I have linked to Dr Gabe Mirkin’s website in prior newsletters. I encourage everyone to subscribe to his weekly email. He sends a couple of ideas on health, backed up by several references.
• One of his recent emails talked about
1. Issues with plastic and plastic-lined water bottles and containers, triggered by recent research that we are eating a lot of plastic molecules that we shouldn’t be. *Use Stainless Steel or Glass.
2. Potentially harmful chemicals in sunscreens. *Use Zinc or Titanium Oxide
Liminality
• From Wikipedia: “In anthropology, liminality (from the Latin word līmen, meaning “a threshold”) is the quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of a rite of passage, when participants no longer hold their pre-ritual status but have not yet begun the transition to the status they will hold when the rite is complete. During a rite’s liminal stage, participants “stand at the threshold” between their previous way of structuring their identity, time, or community, and a new way (which completing the rite establishes).”
Muscle Cramps
• Many opinions float around related to muscle spasm, cramps, and their prevention. Cramps are usually blamed on a deficiency of potassium. While any electrolyte can be involved, Magnesium is the most likely culprit. Most people eating the modern diet are deficient in magnesium. We should all be taking a dose or two a day of a well-absorbed form like Magnesium Glycinate, Bisglycinate, or Threonate (supposed to go straight to the brain).
• This article, How Curiosity Killed the Cramp, citing some research on a proprietary product called Hot Shot, discusses the physiology of muscle cramps. They argue that cramps derive not from the muscle, but from nerves. Many studies have found that pickle juice, mustard, and other pungent foods alleviate cramps, almost immediately. The response happens too fast to be explained by a food nutrient passing into your intestine, then absorbed into your blood, then transported to the muscle. The reflex actually occurs in our mouth and throat, via Transient Receptor Potential (TRP) ion channels.
Here are tips to get rid of muscle cramps:
1. Take Magnesium daily
2. Pinch of sea salt, especially before bed if you have nighttime cramps
3. Eat a pungent plant extract: pickle juice, capsaicin/hot sauce, mustard, apple cider vinegar, or garlic
4. Stretch regularly
5. Don’t drink crazy amounts of plain water
Mind-Body
• Another very interesting person with a sadly brief wikipedia entry. Moshe Feldenkrais invented the Feldenkrais Method to address his own injuries. The method is a system of physical exercise that aims to improve human functioning by increasing self-awareness through movement … “thought, feeling, perception and movement are closely interrelated and influence each other.”
• He was a Ukrainian Jewish person who studied engineering, obtained a doctorate in physics, and studied under Marie Curie. He practiced Jiu-jitsu and then Judo, in which he obtained a second degree blackbelt. On the eve of the Nazi invasion of France in 1940, Feldenkrais fled to Britain, subsequently returning to Israel and eventually living in the US and teaching his philosophy.
Random
• These ‘compression’ socks are great for running, other sports, or just multipurpose. They seem to be pretty durable.
• Best pen ever.
Quotes
My brain is only a receiver, in the Universe there is a core from which we obtain knowledge, strength and inspiration. I have not penetrated into the secrets of this core, but I know that it exists
– Nikola Tesla
Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”
— From Coraline by Neil Gaiman
