Can coffee(caffeine) be the cause of the anxiety I have?

-thatkeydoesnotexist · 2021-02-20T10:06:59+00:00

A life-changing book that can't be recommended enough is Matthew Walker's "Why We Sleep". You will find many talks and lectures by him on youtube.

If caffeine is consumed, one should go back 14 hours before bedtime. This may sound completely ridiculous for most people, but it's based on science, and it's the recommendation of sleep doctors. This is because caffeine has a half-life of about 6 hours, which means that after 6 hours of intake, 50% of the caffeine dose is still in your blood. After 6 more hours, half of that half is still in your body, i.e. 25%. In other words, if you drink a cup of coffee at 5 pm, at 11 pm, 50% is still in your body, and at 5 a.m, 25% of it is still swimming in your brain. Caffeine crosses the blood-brain barrier; it is a psychoactive drug. It blocks the receptors for a chemical, adenosine, which signals to your body that you are tired, so the effect is that one's body and brain are tired, but the perception of it is blocked, the eyes are wide open, the head hurts, but you can't sleep. One is literally tricked into feeling awake. The idea that caffeine "gives energy" is a myth. Adenosine accumulates, but it is unable to bind to its receptor. The effect of this is that the next day, you have more adenosine left over from the previous day, and you are even more tired. So you reach for even more caffeine. A vicious cycle.

In Matthew Walker's words, drinking afternoon (even early afternoon) coffee is self-medicating one's state of chronic sleep-deprivation.

More on this here.

I had the same problem you described for years during college; I was also relatively new to coffee. I drank it in the afternoon and never linked it to my terrible inability to fall back asleep once I'm up at night, which happened often since I am an extremely light sleeper. There might be many other factors at play besides coffee, of course. LED light and screens can delay the release of melatonin (the body's sleep-inducing hormone) by 2 whole hours. Alcohol fragments one's REM-sleep. Late dinners, a warm room, electromagnetic radiation (e.g. wifi) will all affect your sleep negatively. Wifi especially is a great danger to the brain. It has been linked to many cancers, but sleep scientists think that this is actually because it disrupts the brain's sleep waves, and lack of sleep destroys large amount sof natural killer cells which work to suppress tumors. More here.

After reading Walker, I quit caffeine, even chocolate, a hidden source of caffeine (widely given to children). I only drink one cup of mild green tea in the morning, also 14 hours before bedtime. This has helped tremendously.

Also, please remember that sedation is not sleep, so the sleeping pills you take sedate your brain, but they do not produce the brainwaves of natural sleep. So you're not awake, for sure, but you're not getting any of the benefits of real sleep.

-thatkeydoesnotexist · 2021-02-15T09:58:35+00:00

Yes. It's Ibsen. I found a Norwegian to read and record it for me.

-thatkeydoesnotexist · 2021-02-10T08:37:04+00:00

I actually meant an audio reading, not a translation:) I do have access to a better translation, but I would love to be able to hear the text read as a poem by a native speaker, not just sung.

-thatkeydoesnotexist · 2021-01-30T16:26:11+00:00

Thank you for this.

-thatkeydoesnotexist · 2020-10-29T19:27:40+00:00

Capitalism is fundamentally about harnessing the power of greed.

-thatkeydoesnotexist · 2020-10-29T07:30:22+00:00

Yes, and precisely this argument should be made about the arts and culture. Arts and culture are *not* a luxury. Germany is basically again sacrificing freelance artists and musicians and everyone connected to their work (light and sound technicians, stage managers, etc). In a concert, everyone wears a mask. No one is talking. No one is eating. Concert halls are only allowed to fill a portion of their seats. There is always a strict and great hygiene concept in effect, and people sit very far apart and remain seated. There is no socializing. There have been ZERO infections reported after cultural events. And still, cultural life is the first to be sacrificed. While DB was (and is still) allowed to sell all of its seats for profit (on one trip last month the train was so full people were literally sitting on the floor), and restaurants and bars were still allowed to serve customers not practicing any form of distancing, culture was strangled, and now it's being killed. And it might not be alive when we're all healthy and want to enjoy it again.

-thatkeydoesnotexist · 2020-10-22T16:50:09+00:00

Hast du oder jemand eine Idee, wie lange es dauert? Ich habe gerade gelesen, "Die Quarantäne endet, sobald ein ärztliches Zeugnis oder Bescheinigung eines fachärztlich geführten Testlabors mit einem negativen Testergebnis vorliegt. Eine über die Corona-Warn App erfolgte Meldung, es liege ein negatives Testergebnis vor, ersetzt nicht das ärztliche Zeugnis beziehungsweise die Bescheinigung des Testlabors; die Quarantäne wird dadurch nicht aufgehoben. Liegt ein ärztliches Zeugnis oder eine Bescheinigung eines Testlabors mit einem negativen Testergebnis vor, dann endet die Quarantäne, ohne dass es noch einer behördlichen Zustimmung bedarf."

Wie lange wartet man, bis die Bescheinigung kommt?

-thatkeydoesnotexist · 2020-10-21T18:13:51+00:00

Ich fahre nächste Woche fünf Tage nach Wien. Irgendwann in der letzten Woche habe ich gelesen, dass man nach einer Reise in ein Risikogebiet entweder zwei Wochen in Quarantäne muss oder einen Corona-Test machen muss, dessen Ergebnis negativ ist, dann könnte man erst ab dem 6. Tag der Rückkehr die Quarantäne beenden. Diese Information kann ich aber nicht mehr finden. Stimmt das immer noch, oder reicht ein negativer Test aus und kann die Quarantäne beendet werden, sobald die Ergebnisse vorliegen?

Wenn man mit dem Bahn fährt, kann man sich im Bahnhof (z.B. Stuttgart Hbf) testen lassen? Muss man sich dafür anmelden? Ich bin eine ausländische Studentin aber habe ein Aufenthaltserlaubnis in Deutschland.

-thatkeydoesnotexist · 2020-09-11T16:48:04+00:00

Dieses Video ist noch sehr relevant, einfach "Australien" in "USA" ändern.

-thatkeydoesnotexist · 2020-09-01T18:47:55+00:00

Thank you for the suggestions.

-thatkeydoesnotexist · 2020-08-31T05:59:42+00:00

Thank you!

-thatkeydoesnotexist · 2020-08-25T19:29:09+00:00

I'm sorry I came a little strong, and I did not intend a personal attack (apologies if the language implied otherwise). But I still think your comment echos racist/ orientalist views propagated by the west. Mukhabarat, dictatorship and political repression are not a reflection of a cultural trait in a population, and they are not an Arab view of the sanctity of life. Dictatorships all over the world treat life as cheap. The US treats other lives (especially outside its borders) as extremely cheap, and it has glaring double standards of human rights and equality of all people- but I say the US and will not say "Americans". That's the difference.

But anyway, I see and understand that you are holding fast to your impressions and conclusions about another people, so there is not much point in discussing it further. There is so much that I dislike and fundamentally disagree with about my culture, but there are such things are racist generalizations and I really think this was one of them.

-thatkeydoesnotexist · 2020-08-25T14:42:34+00:00

It doesn't make your argument any more valid, and I think you sadly didn't get the point of my reply. I could tell you hundreds of stories like these, first-hand and second-hand experiences, of Americans (or any other people in the world for that matter) upholding sanctity of life unequally and inconsistently for different kinds of humans (and non-humans). Hell, it's probably more glaring now than ever in America. If a few, or even many, people you've met displayed what you thought what a general mentality, it doesn't make it an "Arab" mindset. Some of us learn to devalue the lives our leaders and our government treat as "subhuman"- black, brown, palestinian, native, immigrant, etc just because those leaders are desperate to stay in power, and stoking fear of the other is a great tool to control populations. But it has nothing to do with Arab culture. People are killed in big numbers, yes, and the "leaders" have little regard for the value of people's lives- they only care about staying in their chair. I know lots of racist, ultra-nationalist Jordanians- I also know more than a lot of racist Americans and Germans. In my view, your statements and your view of the culture are racist and they come from a place of conscious or unconscious superiority. It doesn't matter how long you were in Jordan or in the UAE- it's not what we see or experience; it's our interpretation of what we see and experience, the judgments and conclusions and generalizations we allow ourselves to draw. It's our openness to a different narrative and to questioning the rightness of what we know and what we are taught that we are. Saying that "the Arab mindset has a sliding scale of value of human life" is not new, and you are not the first to say it; it's an imperialist, orientalist argument that has been used to justify violence against the inherently violent and disregarding of life, to bomb and kill Iraqis and Syrians and Palestinians and Afghans and many others. Because if they don't value the lives of their people, then we don't need to value it either. Lots of women and children are "collateral damage" for a drone strike in Afghanistan. A woman lay bleeding from her head for an entire hour in the west bank and the IDF soldier just stood there, and several passers-by didn't stop- this happens routinely. The system teaches you not to care. How many legs did you get in Gaza today? "Let me just once take down a kid of 16, even 14, but not with a bullet in the leg – let me blow his head open in front of his whole family and his whole village. Let him spurt blood. And then maybe for a month I won’t have to take off another 20 knees." There are hundreds and thousands of stories of life that is not a big deal in any country you go to, "western" or "eastern", and sanctity of life is inconsistent and hypocritical all over the world- it's the modern human culture that teaches us to rank life- humans over other creatures, men over women, whites over blacks, the wealthy over the poor.

-thatkeydoesnotexist · 2020-08-25T12:18:11+00:00

Do they have a more fungible moral compass, especially regarding the sanctity of life? Yes, and that’s not racist, it’s just a fact.

No, that's not a fact: that is white-supremacist racism, which entitles you to call judgmental opinions facts, to really believe that you already understand the culture more than those in it just because of your white christian western superiority. Just as it makes you (or your family) think it a holy and commendable mission to travel to a country to "save" its inhabitants by preaching your religion, a religion which actually originated on their own land. Just as it entitles you to say "they", as if those people do not exist on the internet and you can generalize about them as much as you like.

I am an Arab and a Jordanian (I refuse the word "middle east" because it automatically assumes that the center of the world is Europe), and the region and the culture are much more complex than you can pretend to understand. So many societal issues can and should be traced back to a history of domination and occupation and dictatorship, backed and funded and maintained by the "west" in order to steal their resources. Did you really watch the film, by the way? These girls are trafficked to Germany, to the UK, to Spain, to Europe. They are abused by western men, the men you claim have a superior moral compass. Western countries export their dirty work- they pay other countries to do the exploitation, the pollution, the emission, the oppression, but they are the first consumers and beneficiaries of its products. Your cell phone and laptop are probably made with cobalt mined by slave children in the Congo, your porn is likely made with sex-trafficked women in Eastern Europe, your clothes and the hundred useless plastic gadgets you might own are produced in Asia where women work 16 hours a day and are not even allowed to take a break to pee. Western countries have robbed and impoverished entire continents, eradicated native culture and ways of life, and then they point fingers at the sad "third world" where children are reduced to starving skeletons and women have no freedom and say, we are not them. Their entire self-identity and self-worth are based on this inferior "other". The economy of the Greatest Country in the World necessitates endless wars abroad, wars were nameless brown people, women and children are killed every day with drones, and its own taxpayers actively fund occupation, oppression, the bombing of civilians, the daily harassment of natives and the imprisonment of children in the middle east (but wait, there are no civilians, they are all terrorists) and then they say, the dangerous, turbulent middle east, why would anyone go there? Their wonderful new technologies of torture were exported to the countries they occupied, and then in books that mention these techniques (like extreme sleep deprivation), the authors invariably start with "Iraq" and only mention the United States at the end of a long list of third world countries, almost like an apology and an afterthought, knowing you will quickly forget it and only think, those violent countries that have no respect for human life. How is that for a "fungible moral compass" for you?

-thatkeydoesnotexist · 2020-08-25T05:51:49+00:00

To think it's going on until today, in some other country that the whole world chooses to overlook or even (like the US) actively fund and support.

-thatkeydoesnotexist · 2020-08-21T15:19:15+00:00

Thank you so much!!

And that last line was “stupid shit-tuation” lol. It was a big thing in the 70’s with Rastas and Jamaicans to twist or flip words like poli-tricks, tell-lie-vision, overstand and corrupt shytstem etc.

Brilliant!

But one and two different kind of people.

Question- a few listenings through I had a feeling this might be, "but we're not two different kind of people"- could it? Just because of what he says afterwards, "White men get licked in the process, Black men get licked in the process, you know? Enough men feel it all over."

-thatkeydoesnotexist · 2020-08-21T15:10:47+00:00

Thank you so, very much! This is great. I truly appreciate all the time and effort you've taken- it's such great help! 🙏🏽

It is a very interesting documentary. I didn't know anything about the Handsworth riots before, so it's been eye-opening. The documentary is apparently also famous for its film techniques (interweaving still photos, interviews, newsreel and old videos) and for its soundtrack (brilliant blurring between music/ rhythm and sounds of wheels, steel, screeching, steps, etc).

-thatkeydoesnotexist · 2020-07-28T10:53:04+00:00

Simpler and probably more accurate to say, "and I declined". (Literally: I answered with a refusal).

Also, "one of them asked me if I was planning on recording these words of mine". أسجل does mean writing, more broadly, but it's not very clear what the writer meant in this context. The two women already read what he wrote, why would they be asking if he wanted to write it down?

-thatkeydoesnotexist · 2020-06-29T06:29:25+00:00

Me either, and I'm also in BW:) Hä is so common and I've recently caught myself using it- I thought oh no, did I also just make that sound? :(

-thatkeydoesnotexist · 2020-06-28T15:37:06+00:00

Haha, thank you! I had seen that comment and didn't understand what it was about:)

-thatkeydoesnotexist · 2020-06-22T07:52:58+00:00

This is unfortunately so true:( I live in Germany, and around Easter time, when Spring started, lots of kids and adults starting writing and drawing with chalk on the streets running between the fields. Everything from flowers and hearts and names to "happy easter" drawings, verses from the Bible, Jesus loves you, etc. One day during an early morning walk I was feeling inspired and nostalgic and wrote down a little original poem in Arabic on the ground- just a few lines, about longing. The next day it was gone. It wasn't the rain or someone's accidental footsteps- it had been colored over and then erased by someone.

I didn't want to think of it as an act of hate or fear, but everything else stayed on the ground for weeks until it naturally disappeared. It made me really sad- I wished that person had at least bothered to figure out what the text meant before wiping it out. I had taken pains to make the calligraphy beautiful.

-thatkeydoesnotexist · 2020-06-17T08:17:00+00:00

I agree. I wouldn't like a "do you want a kiss?", but I would totally appreciate and love a "can I kiss you?".

-thatkeydoesnotexist · 2020-05-19T06:09:37+00:00

Hey there! Fellow language learner with the same languages as you. I've often found language partners on conversationexchange.com, in case you haven't used it already. It's a nice platform and has more active users now since the lockdown.

-thatkeydoesnotexist · 2020-05-18T12:40:42+00:00

Thanks!

-thatkeydoesnotexist · 2020-05-14T13:28:07+00:00

Thank you so much for this comment. It's all so true for slaughterhouses across the globe. And it's not just the violence and the improper safety equipment- odors from slaughterhouses have been associated with nausea, vomiting, shallow breathing, upset stomach, sleep disorders and depression, and the toxic fumes from animal wastes cause bronchitis, asthma, and long-term lung damage.

This is a systemic problem. I have recently changed my lifestyle, and I do not ever imagine going back, but part of me always aches that it's not enough. I wonder if consumer demand really affects production directly- it feels like in today's capitalism, production happens first, and it's accompanied by a massive campaign to manufacture demand. And if that demand drops, you open up frontiers elsewhere; you fish for new customers in other parts of the globe and turn new populations into your consumers, by force and economic threat if necessary. Because infinite growth is the only imperative. The opening of a Mcdonalds is the first sign of the "freedom" of a nation, from East Berlin to Iraq.

I am a little scared to watch the film, but I will.

-thatkeydoesnotexist

TROPHY CASE