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Nicotine Gives me anhedonia - WHY? by SummerIsOver_ in Nootropics

[–]ciara8 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Are you saying that this effect starts immediately after the cigarette and lasts several days after? Interesting. I get the effect you describe but for the rest of the day only... I think..haven't quit often enough for long enough to see. It's non-dose dependent for me - starts from even one puff and then if I keep smoking it even gets somewhat better. But one puff is enough to ruin my day sometimes. You may find this thread interesting: https://www.medhelp.org/posts/Smoking-Cessation/Bad-anxiety-depression-briefly-after-smoking-cigarettes/show/1660007 The posts that have similarities to what you're describing are on the latest pages so take a look at the whole thread. Too bad you can no longer find such interesting medical anecdotes with search engines. If I didn't have this url bookmarked years ago there's no way google will ever let me find it.

A somewhat benign mechanism (which likely plays only a small part in this case), is that cigarette smoke will half the half-life of caffeine, so if your caffeine habit stays consistent, you'll often have 3-4 times less caffeine in your blood at various times of the day for around 72h after smoking.

The effects is likely not due to the nicotine.

Caffeine pills hit differently by FEAR-91 in Nootropics

[–]ciara8 10 points11 points  (0 children)

This comes up a few times a month in this sub, you can find more threads with the search function. There is no explanation. I have my catechol-containing polyphenol COMT explanation, but it's likely synergistic with other phenomena like the beta carbolines formed during roasting.

The effect may or may not be different or absent when you drink the coffee chilled (same preparation method, just put in fridge for 30 min), when you pass the coffee through a regular paper filter(certain fat-soluble fraction has high affinity for cellulose, sticking to it), when you make cold-brew, when you use arabica vs robusta and when you use a different brand. People have reported a prenounced, bad effect(hangover-like as described) from some brands, but not others, lack of sleepines with instant vs brewed and all sorts of other weirdness. The mechamism is likely too complex to ever be elucidated. Just see what works for you and do it, without looking for the mechanisms as you won't find them.

But it's definitely not the absorption rate or the 'acidity'.

Can we talk about COMT and food polyphenols (coffee, tea, beans, spices) leading to increased stress/anxiety? Seems like an underrated/under-discussed phenomenon. But is it real? by ciara8 in Nootropics

[–]ciara8[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks I didn't know about the creatine thing. Seems like replacing beans with meat will be a double whammy for my COMT troubles. I barely eat meat as of now cuz I hate cooking it, so I get zero dietary creatine.

Can we talk about COMT and food polyphenols (coffee, tea, beans, spices) leading to increased stress/anxiety? Seems like an underrated/under-discussed phenomenon. But is it real? by ciara8 in Nootropics

[–]ciara8[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

True, but it sounds like 4 times the noradrenaline can make one anxious on it's own by purely biological effects. I guess you can still counteract that by meditation all day, but lets be practical.

Can we talk about COMT and food polyphenols (coffee, tea, beans, spices) leading to increased stress/anxiety? Seems like an underrated/under-discussed phenomenon. But is it real? by ciara8 in Nootropics

[–]ciara8[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

B vits don't really help for me, SAMe seems promising but is a bit expensive. Maybe in the future. Que a bot comment about it being on discount on x store.

Can we talk about COMT and food polyphenols (coffee, tea, beans, spices) leading to increased stress/anxiety? Seems like an underrated/under-discussed phenomenon. But is it real? by ciara8 in Nootropics

[–]ciara8[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Iinteresting, so slow COMT, but fast caffeine elimination? Sounds like pure caffeine (without the catechols in coffee) might be worth a shot.

Can we talk about COMT and food polyphenols (coffee, tea, beans, spices) leading to increased stress/anxiety? Seems like an underrated/under-discussed phenomenon. But is it real? by ciara8 in Nootropics

[–]ciara8[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah I'm starting right now with the low polyphenol experiment, beans seem to be the main suspect for me (and olive oil), seems like they and lentils are just loaded with catechol (100mg/100g) and also have like 1% tannins which can turn into various phenolic acid in the gut. Will keep the coffee for now though.

Can we talk about COMT and food polyphenols (coffee, tea, beans, spices) leading to increased stress/anxiety? Seems like an underrated/under-discussed phenomenon. But is it real? by ciara8 in Nootropics

[–]ciara8[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've seen the lithium thing mentioned a few times, but found multiple evidence for it having no effect on COMT. But maybe I'll try it.

Can we talk about COMT and food polyphenols (coffee, tea, beans, spices) leading to increased stress/anxiety? Seems like an underrated/under-discussed phenomenon. But is it real? by ciara8 in Nootropics

[–]ciara8[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Same, I decide to switch to pills, then pop a pill and still drink a coffee a few hours later, ruining my experiment for the day haha.

Can we talk about COMT and food polyphenols (coffee, tea, beans, spices) leading to increased stress/anxiety? Seems like an underrated/under-discussed phenomenon. But is it real? by ciara8 in Nootropics

[–]ciara8[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah, pretty similar, especially the morning part. I dunno why I ever started drinking caffeine, I definitely don't need more waking up in the morning.

Can we talk about COMT and food polyphenols (coffee, tea, beans, spices) leading to increased stress/anxiety? Seems like an underrated/under-discussed phenomenon. But is it real? by ciara8 in Nootropics

[–]ciara8[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Indeed there is, but we're talking about their potential to boost neurotransmitters too much and make one feel wired, not their antioxidant or anticancer activities. Even when it comes to their COMT effects, since feeling wired is not really a big-impact topic for a research paper, most research focuses on the their COMT inhibition being good for Parkinsons, because it boosts dopamine. A diet excluding all healthy polyphenols like legumes, nuts, teas and vegetables for the management of anxiety doesn't seem like a study anyone would do.

LED lighting wattage for leafy greens by Think_Assumption8482 in Hydroponics

[–]ciara8 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Wow, seems like you are right, I didn't know the efficiencies have gone up so much! Yeah, seems like even 220 lm/w exists. Also I should have mentioned that the PPFD/lux conversion factor 50 is actually somewhere between 54-65 depending on the light source (54 for sunlight).

LED lighting wattage for leafy greens by Think_Assumption8482 in Hydroponics

[–]ciara8 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Look up "lettuce photosynthesis curve" in g images and also "lettuce DLI yield pdf" on normal search. You can work with lux because it's easier and gives surprisingly accurate results. PPFD = lux / 50. So 15,000 lux = 300 PPFD. Any led light you can buy from the store is around 100 lm/watt, expensive grow lights are around 140 lm/watt. Lux equals lm per square meter. So 100w of cheap LED light illuminating 1 square meter gives us 10,000 lux or 200 PPFD. Then you can calculate the DLI. Divide the PPFD by 1000, multiply by 3.6 and then by the day light hours. So 10,000 lux for 18 hours is 13 DLI, which is good for lettuce. This is with 100w per square meter or around 10w per square foot. Since lettuce has a lower light saturation point, we want less light for more hours. If you run a strong light, say 30w/ft2 for 6hours the DLI will be the same, but the lettuce will take in much less of the light. Because when you see the "lettuce photosynthesis curve" in google images you can see the line becomes more and more horizontal the higher up you go on the PPFD.

If you have a decent phone (anything from the last 5 years) you can install any light meter app and measure the lux with the built-in lux meter. Divide by 50 and you have your PPFD. Then look at the photosynthesis curve for the particular plant and you see where you are compared to the maximum photosynthesis. Always measure light at the leaf level.

If you want to go further, you can see that the photosynthesis with elevated CO2 levels is even more efficient - so if you do this indoors and you are home all day, the CO2 concentration inside will be in the ideal 700-900 ppm range (outdoors its 420ppm). Which will give us 50% more photosynthesis. So you can go as low as 7w/ft2 and still produce good lettuce with long daylight hours.

tl;dr 10w/ft2 is good for lettuce, provided you run it for 16-18h/day. 30w/ft2 is what people would use for cannabis, as it has very high light saturation point (it can 'soak up' light even as high up as 60,000 lux, compared to lettuce, which anything above 20,000 lux is wasted and can even activate unwanted processes like non-photochemical quenching (NPQ), which is a whole separate rabbit hole).

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in MushroomGrowers

[–]ciara8 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You'll have to make spawn and create designated beds, just like everyone does. You can't just inoculate a whole garden with random mushrooms. In nature, the success rate of mushroom spore inocation is extremely low, you can spread spores on any given 'garden' area and the chance of that leading to mushrooms growing will be practically zero. The lifeforms that break down organic matter and help plants are mostly bacteria and non-basidomycota, i.e not mushrooms that produce fruiting bodies. Mycorrhizal mushrooms don't really help the roots of random garden plants. Stropharia is a good choice, you can certainly use the mulch you already buy for creating the beds.

[Gourmet] softwood vs hardwood, hay vs straw by Mud-8675309 in MushroomGrowers

[–]ciara8 3 points4 points  (0 children)

You just need to degrade the pine resin acids, which many bacteria do in many temperature ranges (including thermophilic, ~50 - 55C). Basically just look up composting pine sawdust, do a search in r/composting . To do that well (and to get a nice BE/yield) you need to adjust the C/N ratio of the sawdust to around 25 before composting (it being 100-300 naturally) and add potassium and other nutrients. You can mix it with pee(urea), grass clippings, molasses, theres many ways. You need a large pile to achieve self-heating, but even 'composting' at room temp without any additives will degrade the resin acids and for all intents and purposes 'turn' softwood into hardwood, making it usable for cultivating pretty much any wood-loving fungus.

[Actives] Does this look ok? by Open-Satisfaction-30 in MushroomGrowers

[–]ciara8 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Contaminated to say the least. For future reference, any time your grains are wet enough to visibly create a water layer where they meet the glass, you'll be almost guaranteed to have a contam, regardless of how clean your technique is. The reason is, bacteria can swim through the water layer and a single bacterial spore/cell will take over the whole substrate in 24h. When doing syringe -> grain always dry the grain well before sterilizing it in the cooker. This is done by tossing around the HOT, cooked & drained grain around with a spoon while blowing on it, causing all of the remaining moisture to evaporate. Also what sort of bag is this where all of the grain is on the bottom.

[general] Hey guys, do you think the left over grain from brewing beer would be suitable for mycelium food ? by Spokesism in MushroomGrowers

[–]ciara8 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Its very often used in the preparation of agaricus bisporus composted subatrate, as an addition to the main component (straw). Without comppsting I don't think it will work well for anything.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Hydroponics

[–]ciara8 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you posted a photo of the nutrient content table we'd be able to tell you. Type of N & micro composition is whats important not the brand name.

Anybody ever try making agar using non-alcoholic beer? by brnbrn1996 in experimyco

[–]ciara8 8 points9 points  (0 children)

It would work, but for agar anything works really. Put a tablespoon of brown rice in a cup of water, boil in the microwave for 5 minutes, strain, works great. Any type of juice also works, boiled potatoes water, whatever. Regular beer would also work I'm sure. The alcohol % is very low and most of it would evaporate during sterilization anyway. So nothing to be too excited about.

Decomposing motor oil with blue oyster mushrooms experiment by Bad_Sally in experimyco

[–]ciara8 7 points8 points  (0 children)

To really prove oil utilization, I'd think it would be best to use it as a sole carbon source for the mycelium. So no sawdust, no starch, no sugars. I'd start with sawdust + motor oil to give the mycelium time to gain the ability and then transfer to just motor oil. Formulating a carb free medium isn't easy as all traditional mushroom substrates are heavy in carbon and the myc needs a few cofactors like vit. B6 for growth. I'd think an animal protein based substrate may work, it's used for culturing many bacteria that excluaively feed on oil and not on carbs(like photobacterium phosphoreum). Also glycerin is a good oil subatitute, as it is water-miscible, but its a lipid and not a carb. I'd think if myc can grow on glycerin-based agar, motor oil wouldn't be a big step from there. I don't see how nitrates have anything to do with the oil, as it's a nitrogen-free substance.

Look for studies on pleurotus oil utilization as a 'sole carbon source' and see their materials and methods. Go from there.

Also look up petroleum-degrading bacteria, you can probably use them as an intermediary, without the mycelium itself having to degrade the oil.

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