Let me introduce myself. My name is Mark Sisson. I’m 63 years young. I live and work in Malibu, California. In a past life I was a professional marathoner and triathlete. Now my life goal is to help 100 million people get healthy. I started this blog in 2006 to empower people to take full responsibility for their own health and enjoyment of life by investigating, discussing, and critically rethinking everything we’ve assumed to be true about health and wellness...
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Research of the Week
Some human gut bacteria produce GABA, a “relaxation” neurotransmitter. People with depression tend to have less of the GABA-producing bacteria.
The more fruits and vegetables you eat, the more highly you rate your own cognitive function.
Following a Mediterranean diet is linked to less body fat, lower inflammation, improved glucose metabolism, and higher insulin sensitivity.
New Primal Blueprint Podcasts
Episode 298: Ashleigh Vanhouten: Host Elle Russ chats with Primal Health Coach, writer, and Paleo Magazine Radio host Ashleigh Vanhouten.
Each week, select Mark’s Daily Apple blog posts are prepared as Primal Blueprint Podcasts. Need to catch up on reading, but don’t have the time? Prefer to listen to articles while on the go? Check out the new blog post podcasts below, and subscribe to the Primal Blueprint Podcast here so you never miss an episode.
Media, Schmedia
Scientists discover tens of billions of tons of microbes beneath the earth’s crust.
“The U.S. Marines require a potential recruit to do 3 chin-ups to sign up. They have to turn down a significant number until they can accomplish this. I stopped by a Marine recruitment center in the mall. I’m almost 72 and as a joke I walked in and asked the recruiter if I could see if I would qualify. He laughed and said, “go ahead”. I did 30. The look on his face was priceless.
I got the hell out of there before he recruited me!”
You KNOW you’re doing something to positively push the medical status quo in a good direction when a Vox writer pulls out their writing recipe book and does a “piece” on you! Congrats to Crossfit! Be patient, VIRTA, your article will come soon enough, it’s probably already in rough draft!
Happiness is a slightly charred, but bloody, piece of meat (w/ a side of handmade chokecherry sauce) for the whole tribe to share and celebrate… it’s how we create, struggle and share in the success of the hunt that we can connect with real depth, love with such warmth, and frolic in belly-born-laughter.
In other words, happiness is as primal as purpose and we, as evolutionary hunters, have to seek it out and create it. We have to become part of something bigger and we have to identify in a shared belief, and we have to foster a culture of belonging (to one another) like our lives depend on it. You develop a sense of community… a sense that everyone is needed and that everyone is important… a sense of primal purpose that awakens the old spirit within.
Mark, the protein you shared has bad information. A quick look at the comments shows the Snopes fact check. As for whether or not it can be reduced to that, sure, but what matters is the means by which you get those endorphins.
This depends on one’s worldview, particularly of man. If man is reducible to to proteins, or further, to matter and energy, then there are certain conclusions that would necessarily follow, such as the conclusion that free will does not exist and that consciousness is illusory. If that is the case, then can happiness exist or is it too an illusion?
If, on the other hand, man is both body (i.e. matter and energy) and soul (i.e. will and intellect), then happiness is possible. But then it needs to be defined. In classical or scholastic philosophy, the word the Greeks used was “eudaimonia.” The definition is somewhat complex, but bears fleshing out (no pun intended). First, it begins with the prefix “eu,” meaning good, thus implying that you have to be good, morally good, to be happy. Second, “daimon” means spirit, thus implying that happiness is a matter of the soul, not the body and its external goods of fortune. Third, eudaimonia ends in ia, which means a lasting state, something permanent. Contrast that with the English word “happy.” The word happiness, by contrast, comes from the Old English word “hap”, meaning precisely fortune, luck or chance. It is related to the word “happens.”
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Happiness looks like a lot of hard work… I guess that’s it then.
That’s not happiness. https://twitter.com/BioinfoTools/status/1073404805245095936
You KNOW you’re doing something to positively push the medical status quo in a good direction when a Vox writer pulls out their writing recipe book and does a “piece” on you! Congrats to Crossfit! Be patient, VIRTA, your article will come soon enough, it’s probably already in rough draft!
Happiness is a slightly charred, but bloody, piece of meat (w/ a side of handmade chokecherry sauce) for the whole tribe to share and celebrate… it’s how we create, struggle and share in the success of the hunt that we can connect with real depth, love with such warmth, and frolic in belly-born-laughter.
In other words, happiness is as primal as purpose and we, as evolutionary hunters, have to seek it out and create it. We have to become part of something bigger and we have to identify in a shared belief, and we have to foster a culture of belonging (to one another) like our lives depend on it. You develop a sense of community… a sense that everyone is needed and that everyone is important… a sense of primal purpose that awakens the old spirit within.
It’s not supposed to be easy.
Well … now I’m embarrassed … I was gonna say a bite of dark chocolate … 😉
Question I’m Asking
Do you think happiness can be reduced to proteins dragging endorphins along brain filaments?
Answer:
no
Note that the Mediterranean diet link is behind a paywall..
Orange juice…..Puuuleeeez
Very very nice the article on Relax for a Better World, saved it:
” However we can achieve it, a more resilient, recovered, well-rested population of people would make for a whole different modern world.”
Emily must be good friend of Kelly Brogan
Mark, the protein you shared has bad information. A quick look at the comments shows the Snopes fact check. As for whether or not it can be reduced to that, sure, but what matters is the means by which you get those endorphins.
Yeah, AIs generate realistic human feces.
Re: Happiness
This depends on one’s worldview, particularly of man. If man is reducible to to proteins, or further, to matter and energy, then there are certain conclusions that would necessarily follow, such as the conclusion that free will does not exist and that consciousness is illusory. If that is the case, then can happiness exist or is it too an illusion?
If, on the other hand, man is both body (i.e. matter and energy) and soul (i.e. will and intellect), then happiness is possible. But then it needs to be defined. In classical or scholastic philosophy, the word the Greeks used was “eudaimonia.” The definition is somewhat complex, but bears fleshing out (no pun intended). First, it begins with the prefix “eu,” meaning good, thus implying that you have to be good, morally good, to be happy. Second, “daimon” means spirit, thus implying that happiness is a matter of the soul, not the body and its external goods of fortune. Third, eudaimonia ends in ia, which means a lasting state, something permanent. Contrast that with the English word “happy.” The word happiness, by contrast, comes from the Old English word “hap”, meaning precisely fortune, luck or chance. It is related to the word “happens.”
So to answer your question: it depends.
”
November 21, 2018ARTICLE
Long-term intake of vegetables and fruits and subjective cognitive function in US men”
Questionnaire based study so on that basis alone can be ignored except for researchers in the field.
Focusing on neurotransmitters when it comes to happiness is the same trap we’ve been falling in for decades: Treating symptoms instead of the cause.