People Are A Lot Less Resilient To Stress Than Originally Thought

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Marian Diamonds work showed that given an enriched environment with stimulation those rats could "catch up" to those who had the advantage of having the stimulation before; regarding their brain size.

This exactly....Environment is everything.
 

Kelly meyer

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Really good talk from Nessa Carey, one of the best out there at the moment articulating the complex epigenetics. She touches on stress response and the effects.

Thanks for sharing drareg -! Fascinating !
 

Xisca

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Moreover, how an organism responds to stresses IS genetic. It literally has to be, where else could it be?
Nothing is totally genetic and there is nothing versus anything.
By knowing the genetics, you can chose the best way to obtain the result you want. You can adapt.

More over, the response to stress is also due to what was lived in the environment, what was lived in the womb and in the first 6 months, when the nervous system depends a lot on the mother's.

Then it depends on the importance, frequency and repetition of stressful events. If you can be successful or not to be victorious.

Then, if you reach the freeze response, it depends if you could go out of it, how you were helped etc.
 

Xisca

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I considere Peter Levine for nerves at the same level as I considere Ray Peat.
Of course we do not recover properly in our culture, because we overcome and go ahead without knowing how to discharge the activation of stresses.
There are 2 ways to deal with an event, you keep the energy or you discharge it like earth rods do. It is basic electricity in a way...
 

jaguar43

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It is true that womb environment plays a role and can contribute to overestimating heritability, but all it is is just that. Twin studies can UNDERestimate heritability too. 1. Twins are not as bio-identical as previously thought. 2. One twin could have to pee or have diarea on the day of the test which may be attributed to non-transient environmental effects in the analysis. So because womb environment can overestimate heritability doesn't make twin studies unuseful and definitely not a fraud. They have strong predictive power and are offer an elegant explanation that has not been shown with only environmental explanations. If environment was accumulating then you would see the heritability highest at birth and lowest at death but the opposite is true. This is plainly obvious.


Moreover, how an organism responds to stresses IS genetic. It literally has to be, where else could it be? And since genes vary then response to environmental stresses will vary. This doesn't mean environment doesn't matter it just means you cannot full separate environment and genetics in the way some people would like. That's why I said a page back, there is no "Epigenetics vs Genetics". You cannot say genes stop mattering because environment affects people.

It's predictable because they are twins. However, looking at the general population the argument fails because the genetic variables are not as nicely correlated as in twin studies. The question remains, what causes the different characteristics to be express. And I think it is the environment.

Ray Peat in his most recent newsletter said that when a pregnant woman is going hungry or in starvation mode. The offspring will have a lower metabolic rate to adjust for the lack of food within the environment. The response to stress is directly caused by the environmental stress. Not by genes.
 

michael94

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I never really see anyone claiming environment doesn't have a strong impact, nor have I ever claimed that myself. The issue with your position is that it ultimately comes down to using evidence of strong environmental effects as reason to entirely dismiss genetics or claim that genetics approaches insignificance. That just doesn't happen in the real world.

It would be like me arguing that since pet dogs survive on gmo-grain kibble, are not exposed to good education, and are restricted in their natural desire to roam, that this accounts for the intelligence difference between dogs and humans. You can give a dog the 100% most ideal environment imaginable and lock a human in solitary confinement with nothing to eat + no sunlight. The human will still be more intelligent, because of genetics. It's not controversial to say genetics matter between species but if you bring up genetic variation with species people take offense to it and their argument for this magical disappearance of genetic influence is that environment is important.

I don't think im being unreasonable
 
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"Genetics" is just past environment...
 

jaguar43

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I never really see anyone claiming environment doesn't have a strong impact, nor have I ever claimed that myself. The issue with your position is that it ultimately comes down to using evidence of strong environmental effects as reason to entirely dismiss genetics or claim that genetics approaches insignificance. That just doesn't happen in the real world.

It would be like me arguing that since pet dogs survive on gmo-grain kibble, are not exposed to good education, and are restricted in their natural desire to roam, that this accounts for the intelligence difference between dogs and humans. You can give a dog the 100% most ideal environment imaginable and lock a human in solitary confinement with nothing to eat + no sunlight. The human will still be more intelligent, because of genetics. It's not controversial to say genetics matter between species but if you bring up genetic variation with species people take offense to it and their argument for this magical disappearance of genetic influence is that environment is important.

I don't think im being unreasonable

What is this so called "real world" you are referring too ? We all know that the mainstream ideas on nutrition are falsified. Why is it hard to consider the same idea with genetics and intelligence ?

The sentence that I underlined seems to show your true intentions. In a condescending way, you give the impression that people are different in intelligence from the genetic point of view. Even after Ray Peat has wrote extensively on the issue. I don't know some people believe in a superiority complex. Here is another quote by Ray Peat.

I have spoken with people in recent years who still held the idea of a fixed genetic mental potential, who believe that poor children fall behind because they are reaching their “genetic limit.” For them, the I.Q. represents an index of intrinsic quality, and is as important as distinguishing between caviar and frogs' eggs. The rat research of Marion Diamond and others at the University of California, however, showed that the structure, weight, and biochemistry of a rat's brain changes, according to the amount of environmental stimulation and opportunity for exploration. This improvement of brain structure and function is passed on to the next generation, giving it a head-start.

During this time Lewis Terman was studying bright children, and wanted to disprove some of the popular stereotypes about intelligent people, and to support his ideology of white racial superiority. In 1922 he got a large grant, and sorted out about 1500 of the brightest children from a group of 250,000 in California. He and his associates then monitored them for the rest of their lives (described in Genetic Studies of Genius). His work contradicted the stereotype of bright people as being sickly or frail, but, contrary to his expectation, there was an association between maladjustment and higher I.Q.; the incidence of neurotic fatigue, anxiety, and depression increased along with the I.Q. The least bright of his group were more successful in many ways than the most bright. He didn't really confront the implications of this, though it seriously challenged his belief in a simple genetic racial superiority of physique, intellect, and character.

I.Q. testing originated in a historical setting in which its purpose was often to establish a claim of racial superiority, or to justify sterilization or “euthanasia,” or to exclude immigrants. More recently, the tests have been used to assign students to certain career paths. Because of their use by people in power to control others, the I.Q. tests have helped to create misunderstanding of the nature of intelligence. A person's “I.Q.” now has very strong associations with the ideology of schooling as a road to financial success, rather than to enrichment of a shared mental life.


Intelligence and metabolism
 

bobbybobbob

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I don't think I saw occupational "burnout" mentioned in this thread. It's a big issue you see all the time in the working world, with serious economic consequences. Somebody kicks **** for five years and then goes into some sort of crisis mode. A lot of times they quit and walk out the door with invaluable experience and abilities. I myself have experienced a degree of burnout twice.

Of Two Minds - Another Reason Corporate Profits Will Plummet: The Managerial/Professional Class Is Burning Out

In casual discussions on forums what people seem to have observed is that it takes about as long to recover from burnout as you spent digging into the hole. That was also my experience. I got progressively more and more stressed out over about two years of very hard work, hit some degree of neurotic and physical health crisis, and then I really didn't get much done of note for the next two years. Kinda coasted while I felt better and better from shirking.

It's a tricky thing because as a life strategy sometimes you really do need to draw down the well, so to speak, in terms of stress. I enjoy the financial security I do because I stressed out at certain key points. I worked crazy hours building things, and it paid off. I think there needs to be a more popularized discussion about burnout and people need to explicitly understand that it's only a thing you risk for well understood commensurate rewards, where you get to relax and fill the well again. I see a lot of people working themselves into a shitty state of health when it is absolutely not a rational calculation.
 
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haidut

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"Genetics" is just past environment...

Exactly. I always thought that the argument nature vs. nature is pointless in a Lamarckian universe. Environment (nurture) causes gradual changes in the genetic makeup (nature). So, "nature" is just accumulations of "nurture". And btw, what we call "nurture" is actually nature exerting effects, right? So, it's all nature and all nurture, they are the same thing.
 
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Exactly. I always thought that the argument nature vs. nature is pointless in a Lamarckian universe. Environment (nurture) causes gradual changes in the genetic makeup (nature). So, "nature" is just accumulations of "nurture". And btw, what we call "nurture" is actually nature exerting effects, right? So, it's all nature and all nurture, they are the same thing.

Yes I think that's a good way of seeing it, and it essentially comes down to one reality that is acting upon itself. But the only way to make sense of this is with tools like those that are sketched out in the CTMU theory.
MU2.jpg
 

Simonsays

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This is a fascinating thread, i think Rafes first post really hit home with me, its very perceptive.

The genetic basis of personality was trashed long ago, we all shaped by our environment, primarily our care from our primary carers, generally our mothers (not wanting to guilt trip mothers). The first six years of our life determine our personalities. The constant search for the homosexual, criminal, fat, intelligent, sporty, psychopathic, slim, angry, calm, lazy, depressive, anxious, optimistic, ambitious genes etc etc is a complete waste of time.

Just maybe it maybe that an exploitative, highly competitive, dog eat dog, materialistic money equals success society does not produce the happiest, empathetic and well rounded of individuals.

Geneticists have been the worst offenders. Genetics is popular among bourgeois racists and elitists, and many geneticists have eagerly formulated genetic theories of intelligence on the flimsiest evidence.

Spot on

Whatever happened to the Human Genome Project??

Oliver James: Blame games

One good quote from the above article

"The first disappointment was when the project found far fewer genes than was expected (around 25,000). This led Craig Venter, the leader of much of the research, to conclude that 'the wonderful diversity of the human species is not hard-wired in our genetic code. Our environments are critical'.

Undeterred by Venter, the genes were further sifted only to find that single ones for mental illnesses simply do not seem to exist. The fall-back position is that there must be dozens, or even hundreds, of combinations of genes responsible. So far this has not been demonstrated and the basis for claims that mental illness has a genetic cause are studies of identical twins.

These have been shown to be highly unreliable (see J Joseph, The Gene Illusion) and indeed, when the molecular geneticists have explored every pathway, it may well turn out twin-study estimates of heritability have been wildly exaggerated. "

NB Oliver James is up there with Ray Peat for me.

Different topic , but article in todays Guardian regarding chronic fatigue syndrome

Is chronic fatigue syndrome finally being taken seriously?
 

tara

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Just maybe it maybe that an exploitative, highly competitive, dog eat dog, materialistic money equals success society does not produce the happiest, empathetic and well rounded of individuals.
Yeah that.
 

PeatThemAll

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It's hard to be resilient when your gas tank is empty. As they say, plug the holes first. Although this goes against the usual self-improvement belief systems (keep an open mind, be positive, etc.), I have found that integrating *Never* in my day-to-day thinking has really been helpful in fighting against Decision Fatigue. For paralysis-by-overanalysis, perfectionist-thinking types like myself, integrating Nevers with meditation-style thinking (be here now, don't pay attention to the monkey mind) is a necessary first step.
 

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