SIPPING sugar / sweetened water every 5 minutes for stress relief

[cs3000]

Sugars acute anti-stress property isnt just sugar itself,
it's the sweetness signalling that creates rapid adjustment to CRH stress neurons
(at first i thought that was due to the dopamine release , but that doesn't look likely actually)

Corticotropin Releasing Hormone releases ACTH which releases cortisol. It also has it's own signalling properties as a stress response
(e.g increasing REM sleep too much when CRH is increased i.e in chronic stress, in PVN of hypothalamus)

So sipping sweet drinks is basically a biohack to decrease CRH signalling at will.
probably useful idea for helping quit addictions like smoking also. tho would be a replacement if done often
(in rodent studies on high sugar intake their d2 receptor density goes down, from the continual dopamine release from tasting sweet water)

https://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdf/S0960-9822(19)30218-0.pdf

ca2+ signals are a marker of CRH neuron activation

We next asked how PVN CRH neurons respond when a mouse receives a reward. When mice voluntarily received sweet solution (5% sucrose or 0.2% saccharin) by licking a nozzle that was connected to a lickometer (Figure 1A), receiving either sucrose or the artificial sweetener significantly decreased GCaMP6m fluorescence in a manner that depended on lick duration. The decrease in Ca2+ signals reached the maximal level in a few seconds but lasted, strikingly, several hundreds of seconds after the termination of licking, indicating a rapid but prolonged inhibitory effect of reward

5% sucrose or 0.2% sweetener saccharin , so like 10g sugar in 200ml water , or sweetener equivalent they both worked the same
and it scales with sweetness. so jacking it up to 40g in 200ml would be a decent reduction.
each sip should last "several hundreds of seconds" , 5 minutes

Water deprivation or high salt intake if high enough to tip hydration balance also has anti-stress effect.
(seems odd at first but thinking about it - that would be anti-stress motivational effect to seek water)

the mechanism for salt is this induces an increase in Oxytocin to eliminate the sodium disbalance, and Oxytocin inhibits CRH neurons
so i wonder if you can cause this with salt taste signal also rather than actual dehydration? just instead of whatever is causing inhibition from sweetness,
it would be through oxytocin release

in this study it didnt work (green chart above) . so maybe needs to be enough to tip hydration. there' a study where 5 - 9 days of high salt loading lowered CRH mRNA drastically in the hypothalamus. but took a few days for the effect to show. so maybe repeated sipping over time is different, or enough to tip hydration if not.

way to lower stress response - though sweet approach is probably not suitable before bed due to dopamine release
if you dont want wooden teeth after a while , alternatively you don't even need sugar,
another sweet substance would work for signalling the same way, without effects on teeth.
e.g 1-2 grams saccharin in 200ml water. saccharin itself has small amount of water solubility but sodium saccharin has high water solubility
& considering potential negative health effects of sweeteners , doesnt have to be swallowed

 

[Rinse & rePeat]

Taking a ginger soda or Mexican Coke in the car with me, or sucking on a hard candy, keeps me level for a very long time until I can get to some protein. Before believing sugar was a good thing I would get really nauseous and sometimes a headache if I went too long between meals.

 

[ThinPicking]

Water deprivation or high salt intake if high enough to tip hydration balance also has anti-stress effect.
(seems odd at first but thinking about it - that would be anti-stress motivational effect to seek water)
View attachment 51232
the mechanism for salt is this induces an increase in Oxytocin to eliminate the sodium disbalance, and Oxytocin inhibits CRH neurons
so i wonder if you can cause this with salt taste signal also rather than actual dehydration? just instead of whatever is causing inhibition from sweetness,
it would be through oxytocin release

Seems consistent with the "Intermittent drinking, oxytocin and human health" study. No need for chronic water deprivation. Just keep a medium or high salt diet and bulk drink intermittently. The mechanisms are probably the same.

The same probably applies to sugar/carbohydrates, but in that case there's no need to drink sweetened beverages all the time. Doing so may lead to a kind of hypertonic hyperglycaemia. I'm still slowly turning this over, but it seems I can't understand fluid balance and body fluid dynamics without understanding the guts roll in glucose homeostasis. It's a micronutrient sponge. Just add water. Or something.

 

[milk_lover]

If I am traveling long distances in the car, I have my sugar coke with me and milk or labneh (Strained yogurt) in the car fridge. The sugar keeps the fat metabolism low because it decreases cortisol. The milk/cheese decreases PTH, so the metabolism is up and running. I also take potato chips (with salt and palm oil only) and red bull. Something in that combo is making it me happy.