LunarGiantNeil

LunarGiantNeil t1_ix4cut2 wrote

Reply to comment by DrSuchong in Study demonstrates that how effectively an individual awakens in the hours following sleep is associated four independent factors: sleep quantity/quality the night before, physical activity the day prior, a breakfast rich in carbohydrate, and a lower blood glucose response following breakfast. by the_phet

That's an interesting idea to try!

I usually do intermittent fasting following my skipped breakfast because my workplace has no accommodations for lunches (ie, no fridge or kitchenette, no break room except a separate building a few minutes walk away through winter cold half of the year) and as long as I don't eat any breakfast I can avoid any feelings of hunger or sluggishness until dinner.

But on the weekends it might be fun to experiment with some early nuts and cheeses. I enjoy making shakshuka or stuff on those days, more for enjoyment than anything else, so I could run a little experiment and see how my alertness/hunger/QoL factors change on a day where I eat a mix of healthy fats and nutrient-dense foods.

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LunarGiantNeil t1_ix3v4vd wrote

Reply to comment by d_phase in Study demonstrates that how effectively an individual awakens in the hours following sleep is associated four independent factors: sleep quantity/quality the night before, physical activity the day prior, a breakfast rich in carbohydrate, and a lower blood glucose response following breakfast. by the_phet

Here's the relevant section on morning caffeine:

"Moreover, caffeine intake was largely absent for the majority of observations (86% null + 12% missing = 98%), suggesting that most breakfast meals were not accompanied by any caffeinated drinks. Because of this low variance, breakfast caffeine intake was not included in the model. Nevertheless, including breakfast caffeine intake did not change the significance of the other predictors, and breakfast caffeine intake by itself was not a significant predictor of morning alertness — both with and without the OGTT (p = 0.11 and p = 0.605 respectively)."

Big Breakfast can take a flying leap though. I wake up before everyone in my family, make all their breakfasts and get people ready for school, motivating their slow-to-wake butts through the morning and I just skip breakfasts entirely, except for my double shot of black espresso, and then don't eat again until dinner.

Perhaps I am a mutant.

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LunarGiantNeil t1_iui4ope wrote

Reply to comment by Extension-Ad-2760 in Conscious Reality Is Only a Memory of Unconscious Actions, Scientists Propose In Radical New Theory by mossadnik

Here's another example, because the popular bad take on the valid mechanistic view just annoys me: the science on learning things demonstrates that neuroplasticity (the reorganizing of the brain to optimize for cognitive tasks) responds best to "quality inputs" given over your span of attention, which is about 15 minutes for a lot of people, and then requires a good sleep that night to put into practice.

But a quality input requires intent, your conscious role is to filter stimuli, put yourself into a good learning environment, and practice with intention until your focus wanders.

This absolutely suggests the 'awake' part of the brain plays a huge role in teaching things to the unconscious parts of the brain, and then the even other parts play a role in building new brain pathways to make it possible for the conscious and unconscious parts to repeat that thing later.

You 'experience' things through a perception lag, but there really is a role being played by the part of your brain that decides to get off your butt and practice things, with focus. It actually plays a role in physically changing the parts of your brain that run the autopilot parts of your brain that you trigger when you do a complex physio-cognitive thing like playing an instrument or speaking a language.

There's lots of moving parts up there.

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LunarGiantNeil t1_iui32e4 wrote

Reply to comment by Extension-Ad-2760 in Conscious Reality Is Only a Memory of Unconscious Actions, Scientists Propose In Radical New Theory by mossadnik

Most people here are interpreting the data the way they want it to lead.

The research is showing that the experience of consciousness happens after the brain decides to do things, not that there isn't any active intervention by the higher level abstract thinking, reasoning, problem solving portions.

Nerves and brain matter interpret stuff, make recommendations, and bounce stimuli back and forth more than once. It's not all "multiple choice" made by the 'you' parts of your social and consciousness brain matter, true, but those parts DO get input.

So if you want to do something that you don't enjoy, like a diet, it's a wrestling match between parts of the brain and body. It's not a simple one-way decision chain and then it's over and decided.

People want it to be one way or the other. It's not.

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LunarGiantNeil t1_iuhxnj9 wrote

Reply to comment by Extension-Ad-2760 in Conscious Reality Is Only a Memory of Unconscious Actions, Scientists Propose In Radical New Theory by mossadnik

You are correct. There are a lot of people misinterpreting where abstract thinking and problem solving takes place in the cognitive chain.

You're also not a purely "rational actor" who makes choices devoid of underlying impulses, of course. There's an interplay between the two.

Your brain makes decisions bureaucratically.

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LunarGiantNeil t1_iugv0op wrote

Reply to comment by daren_sf in Conscious Reality Is Only a Memory of Unconscious Actions, Scientists Propose In Radical New Theory by mossadnik

Perception of reality is display lag.

What drives me nuts are all the people who think just because the perception of consciousness is lagged in this manner that there's no actual thinking, deciding, or choice in the manner, like we're all just robots doing rational things.

If only!

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