It's Just You and Me

Let's just say it's been a rough couple of months (which I will take the time to write about at a later date). I head out of town tomorrow (flying to Minneapolis) to start training with my new job. Found out today I'll be sharing a hotel room with someone I've never met and needless to say I'm not too thrilled about this at all. If you've read any other post you'll know that this caused my social anxiety to flare up (like I wasn't already anxious about the whole thing already). Today has just been a lovely day of worrying about all of the possibilities. I think things like this happen to me because God is trying to draw me closer. I really do. It really does make me start talking to him. Of course, it always starts out in the way David talked to him in Psalms - "Why me? Why do you hate me?!"

I've already told God that if this is the way it's going to be then he is going to be hearing a lot from me. This journey - it's just you and me God. Like I've posted before. When it is all said and done, as much as someone or some group of people my care about and love you, there is only so much they can understand about your situation. While you are still up crying and praying they eventually fall asleep. Of course, the same is true the other way around also. So essentially, it always boils down to you and God. Anyway, I know that this isn't being read by anyone besides spammers, so spammers wish me luck. And to those of you who might be reading this 50 years from now for some reason (after the sweet release of death has taken me) - I hope that they have invented a magic pill that eliminates this social anxiety crap, completely without any side effects. I'm currently taking Buspirone. There aren't really any bad side effects but I sure do miss that feeling of relaxation that I would sometimes get from Xanax. I can't tell if this drug is working at all.

I Will Be Glad When This Crap Is Over

In my post Nicotine Withdrawal - Day 2 I mentioned how "I will be glad when this crap is over" when writing about how I was feeling without nicotine at that point. Trying my best not to sound like someone in an AA meeting, but failing - I've now gone 37 days without any tobacco products and I'm finally over the hump. I rarely feel that need I was feeling in the beginning. I know that I've got to be careful. My dad likes to smoke a cigar on Thanksgiving and here we are, already close. No matter how tempting I must refrain, because with nicotine I'd be off the bandwagon with just the one cigar.

So, if it gives anyone hope - it really does get better. Let's compare this feeling I'm having now without any withdrawal to what I said a little over a month ago on 10/17/14 -

After lunch today I felt like something was missing and it made me a little sad when I realized it was the nicotine,because it's not like a piece of gum or mint will ever give that same satisfaction. The people that tell you to buy a lot of gum and hard candy really don't know what it's like to be addicted to nicotine. Those are the people that must have smoked 5 or 6 cigarettes a day. "Oh yeah, chew on this piece of gum and you won't be pissed at the world anymore," they say. Now, I have a jaw that is sore from chewing gum on top of being pissed at the world.

Does Sugar Cause Anxiety?

Sugar has been on the usual suspects shortlist for a variety of illnesses lately and is now being blamed for some of the mental health issues that we're facing in the West. Secondary effects of too much sugar and processed food consumption can cause depression and anxiety due to the weight gain and sedentary feelings they may cause but is there a direct relation between sugar and anxiety?

Notice, I'm not going to be talking about many of the other problems that have been grouped with sugar consumption like confusion, sadness, inability to focus etc. I'm going to focus on anxiety and see where we stand with sugar consumption and its relation to anxiety by looking at the research that is currently out there.

There is a lot of research which shows that sugar and junk food has led us down a path of swollen bodies and unhealthy attitudes. Don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting that a healthy diet is the answer to all of our problems. I would, however, like to see a study done on the percentage of people who have an unhealthy diet and are overweight compared to people who eat very healthy diets and are in good shape and see what the gap is between the two groups on how much psychotherapy and pharmaceuticals that each is taking. I'm willing to bet that the more healthy group is way less medicated. I'm willing to also bet that people who have addictive personalities are much more likely to have unhealthy diets and have emotional eating issues. And when is the last time you at a tomato when you were depressed? Aren't you more likely to eat a pint of ice cream, which just continues the addiction to sugar? To only add to the confusion, you also have a "chicken or the egg" situation as stated in The Psychiatric Times -

"However, since the advent of the atypical antipsychotics, obesity has become more prevalent." - link

If you've been keeping up with this blog at all you'll notice that I've been keeping a scattered journal on my recent separation from nicotine. It's been a hard road and considering that it's an oral fixation that I've grown accustomed to for many years I've been apt to use this as an excuse to have a tootsie roll pop (or any other sugary candy that you can think of) anytime I have the urge for a tobacco product. As of today, it's been 29 days so maybe it's helped. I have pretty much gotten over the need for nicotine, which is probably why I'm moving on to this subject of diet and relating it to my mental health issues. Can a proper diet with moderate exercise cure me of my anxiety and make my small doses of Xanax unnecessary? This is the next step on my journey. The next frontier that I will have to undertake in order to become so healthy that I'm afraid to die again.

Now, back to the question of sugar and anxiety. Dr.Perlmutter, in his book "Grain Brain: The Surprising Truth about Wheat, Carbs, and Sugar--Your Brain's Silent Killers" - he suggest a low carb diet with very little fruits. There is an excerpt from his site suggesting that not only does sugar effect our brains but also the healthy carbs...

Renowned neurologist David Perlmutter, MD, blows the lid off a topic that’s been buried in medical literature for far too long: carbs are destroying your brain. And not just unhealthy carbs, but even healthy ones like whole grains can cause dementia, ADHD, anxiety, chronic headaches, depression, and much more. LINK

Looking at his site and video interviews, the main claim tends to be that following his suggested diet will greatly lower your chance of getting Alzheimer's and a reduce in brain fog, depression, ADHD etc. I'm not seeing much on anxiety besides a few articles. Maybe the book goes into more detail about anxiety specifically. These are the kinds of studies I'm looking for. Perlmutter's diet does seem to help people though. One man claims to have seen a 50% decline in his anxiety after reading Grain Brain, taking the suggested supplements, and exercising.


The Calm Clinic had the below to say about sugar and anxiety...

Contrary to what you read online, sugar does not cause anxiety. Anxiety is a mental health issue, and it's very uncommon for a person's diet to "cause" anxiety. What sugar does do is create changes in your body that may make your anxiety symptoms worse, or cause feelings that trigger anxiety attacks.

And then they egg you on to take this 7 minute anxiety test, so while what they're saying in the article is probably true there may be a $68 ulterior motive to why you can't fix your anxiety with diet alone. The $68 may be worth it but I'm sticking to diet on this post.


In the next article written by Dr. David Sack we read that...

"sugar consumption to an increased risk of depression and worse outcomes in individuals with schizophrenia" and " Interestingly, countries with high sugar intake also have a high rate of depression."

But what about anxiety? Well, he goes on to say that..

"The Standard American Diet, which is full of sugar and fat, does not necessarily cause anxiety but it does appear to worsen anxiety symptoms and impair the body’s ability to cope with stress." and "In a 2008 study, rats that binged on sugar and then fasted displayed anxiety, and in a 2009 study rats fed sucrose compared to high-antioxidant honey were more likely to suffer anxiety. While dietary changes alone cannot cure anxiety, they can minimize symptoms, boost energy and improve the body’s ability to cope with stress."

So I'm starting to see a theme as I study the correlation between anxiety and sugar. Yes, it does have an effect but it seems to lean more towards the symptoms than it does the cause.  We've seen the 50% reduction from following Dr. Perlmutter's recommended diet, the Calm Clinic saying that "anxiety is a mental health issue" and not so much a dietary issue, while they admit sugar can make symptoms worse as does Dr. Sack in his article.

Does anyone say that reducing or removing sugar from your diet can cure you from having those overly intense feelings that are not common in the normal population, the intense feelings you get with social anxiety, when in certain situations, or with OCD? From what research I've done on other people's research - Sadly no. Although it seems to help some people I don't see where diet has cured anyone in the anxiety arena. Can losing weight and feeling healthier help you with your social anxiety? Of course it can, but cure it? Maybe not. Even if you're lucky and diet takes care of 80% of your problems with anxiety, there is a percentage that has to do with our perceptions and facing our difficulties etc.

But let me veer in a direction that I didn't even see this article going...
There is an interview here with Bill Brenner about his addiction to sugar that shows how much a downward spiral unhealthy food can be. It's very easy for me to say that I'm going to change my diet to help with my anxiety, but what is it that has caused my poor eating habits? More often than not, it's my anxiety, or in the case of Brenner, his OCD. Like I mentioned earlier, most of us who are emotional eaters are not binge eating celery while we listen to that song from Inception while crying.

"The OCD is the main problem. It triggers my addictive behavior and the flour and sugar is what I would lunge for." LINK

What changed after you stopped binge eating?
"My head cleared in dramatic ways. I stopped having anxiety attacks. I dropped 65 pounds on the spot and have kept it off for more than two years. It made my OCD much easier to manage."

Once again, we're back to symptoms and managing the mental health issues but doesn't the quote above sound a lot better than not addressing diet at all? So maybe sugar isn't the cause of  anxiety disorders, but it's not helping anyone either. Let's take in the fact that not one study or article (at least none that I could find) said that sugar or junk food of any kind was good for you either physically or mentally. So while Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream taste and feels good at the time, there is always the "you play, you pay" rule in food - whether it's our waistlines, our moods, or our slipping back into addictive eating after splurging for one evening. When we've splurged on junk food to the point of being emotional vulnerable or numb to the world we've lost the battle (at least temporarily).  I think that most of us are going for that numb part and the anxiety comes from the lack of having that refined sugar hit like you would any other drug. So you eat more of it and it helps in the short term.

The plan for myself goes as follows - started the Paleo diet as of yesterday and so far it's been okay. I'm probably overdoing it on the meat right now but I'll reign that in. I'm about to go to the grocery store to stock up on more vegetables and some lean meat, maybe some fruits also. It's got to be better than all of the ice cream I've been eating. I'll let you know how it goes. Hopefully I will see gains physically and mentally, and will be able to describe it well enough to let help someone else, whether it's Paleo, vegetarian, whatever eventually works.

Other Links:
Sugar, Junk Food, and Mental Illness
How blocking sugar intake can reduce cancer risk/progression
Panic Attacks and Anxiety

Nicotine Withdrawal - Day 12

I've actually made it to day 12. It's been a journey full of scattered thoughts, mood swings, and binge eating until I can't feel my legs - but it's getting better. Right now, I have no desire for nicotine. Oops, spoke too soon, there it is.

Really, my cravings are becoming less frequent. There are certain things that seem to set off the need for tobacco that I've discussed before. I could have used a huge cigar at the end of the Saints' game last weekend. If they could win a game then my Sundays would be a little more sunshine and less the Morrissey version of "silent and grey." I'm not much of a Sunday person anyway, so the Saint's losing the game in the last 3 minutes only made it more depressing. Why I'm upset because some millionaires lost a game is beyond me.

I still get that flush of dopamine every now and again when I think about smoking. They say it gets released when you're expecting a reward, whether the reward actually comes or not. Problem is, I'm unable to fulfill the expectation so I look to other things like food and drink. My time on the treadmill has gone up a little (probably due to the need to burn off some stress) but I'm sure I'm making up for it in calories. I had two beers last night, plus a lot of appetizers at the restaurant we went to. No real food that I can think of in the last few days. That will have to be the next step once I'm over this hump - getting my diet back on track. If I don't reign this in I will end up on the news, being fork-lifted out of my house while my moo moo flaps in the wind.

I've learned that knowing something is bad for you doesn't mean that you will make a change. The thoughts about something being bad for you have to align with your emotions in order for you to quit a bad habit or start a good one. That's why most of the time, when life changes are made, it's because of an emotion like fear. You're much more likely to have a clean diet if your doctor tells you that you're borderline diabetic and you're more apt to quit smoking if you're told that you have spots on your lungs. Sad but true. Maybe I'm lucky that it didn't take a scare to make me quit nicotine? There was some other emotion that lined up with the intellectual part of me knowing it was bad for me, even though I can't really put my finger on it I'm sure a small part of it was fear. Next step will be to get my diet back under control instead of using quitting smoking as the excuse. Guess it will take lining the intellectual and the emotional up again. Now back to listening to Viva Hate because what's a better answer to any problem than knowing it's all going to end one way or another - "Armageddon, come Armageddon."

Mary Jane is No Longer the Cool, Witty Girl

Believe it or not, there was a time in the nineties when Pauly Shore saying "hey buuuuddy" or "chilling with the wease" was actually funny. This was until everyone finally got sick of it and it lost its magic. There was also a time when Wayne's World and their mullets had taken the box office by storm until people had seen every angle to the humor and it too...lost it's magic. When people are ready to revisit these movies in twenty years, we will maybe have a few laughs once again. This is the way of the world, nothing last forever. If humor and interest didn't have an ebb and flow, Jerry Lewis movies would have their own 24 hour channel and our taste would never evolve. So my question is...when is the newness, hipness, or repetitive humor of smoking weed ever going to finally take a rest? When will it not be a mandatory scene in every film to have the main characters smoke weed with rap playing in the background (that makes it ironic) while talking about who the best Batman was or who was the hottest out of Betty and Wilma on the Flintstones?

Apatow - I'm afraid you have the most pull so it's got to start with you. I know that this is not an actor playing certain characters like an Austin Powers where you can just stop making Austin Powers movies when you see that people have had their fill. It's just scenes in otherwise mostly decent films, but many filmmakers are now making entire movies out of this subject with no heart or humor involved. They figure if they put someone smoking weed on the DVD cover with some reference to weed in the title that they'll have an instant hit. Sad thing is, the groupthink actually has taken hold enough for these films to do pretty well no matter how bad they are. Some filmmakers will continue to make movies about smoking weed and going for the cheap laughs, but maybe if the big names in the industry stop, then the Benson's of the world will eventually stop and then the "serious" docs will finally give it a rest for a while. I thought the scene from Transformers 2 (mom with pot brownies) would finally put an end to the madness but I guess some people still think it's hilarious.

I don't have enough interest in the subject of marijuana to watch any documentaries on the subject. I have no stance on whether it should be completely legal or not because I think that the verdict is still out on a lot of the issues that surround smoking pot in general. I do lean more toward the libertarian side of not caring what someone does in their own home as long as it's not hurting anyone else. Stoners, ALL that I'm asking is PLEASE stop flooding my Netflix Watch Instantly queue with movies about Marijuana. New Releases - Recently Added - Comedies - TV Shows - Documentaries - even Romance. There are documentaries and TV shows that try to take a serious look at its legalization (it seems like they are going to make a documentary for each state as they legalize it) and there is literally a ton of wasted time and money on stoner comedies. Growing up, we had Cheech and Chong - those movies had some humor but they weren't comedy gold that need to be imitated for generations.

People are so brainwashed into relating smoking pot with being hip and funny that all you have to do to have a mediocre stand up show in Anytown, California is stand there with your eyes half closed, a mike in your hand, and slowly say, "I smoke pot." You will get cheers and applause that will carry you through the rest of your lame show where you continue to beat on this same freaking drum until the next "cool" comedian comes on stage and talks about how much pot he smokes. You know, being that most people have enough on their plate besides caring if stoners will be able to smoke legally or not I don't see why this subject hasn't been dropped already. "Ebola, Isis and another story today from Denver about the rise in homelessness and its possible links with the growing use in marijuana." Here we go, more tax money to more people who can't hold down a job. Great, thanks mass media for making something so lame seem soooo hip.

I'm just done with it. Some marijuana users act like it's something that's actually healthy for them - because it's of the earth? Every drug is of the earth! Cocaine from the Cocoa plant, heroin from the poppy seed, nicotine from tobacco. Smoking marijuana is still bad for you no matter what kind of spin you put on it and there are side effects in all it's forms that effect different people in different ways - so saying it's completely safe is ridiculous. Maybe, and I'm not sure about this because it sure does seem to be abused, there isn't so much of an addictive quality to THC as there is with alchohol, tobacco , and other drugs. I'm no expert, but I'm sure the more people use the more we will find out , and I'm betting it won't be all sunshine and uncontrollable laughter while you still somehow manage to hold down your 6 figure job like they do in the movies.

What's the last Seth Rogen movie made where he wasn't smoking weed? And people still laugh every time! I stopped laughing when Wile E Coyote fell of that cliff, uuuh...probably the 5th time I saw it, and I was ten! What is going on? I can see some humor in it every now and then but it is NOT as COOL or FUNNY as these people think it is. Do it all you want but please stop using it for a cheap laugh because yeah, the 15 year olds in the theater might giggle but the rest of us (who aren't laughing loudly to be cool) have seen it all before and the charm has worn off. And if you're doing it so the stoners in the audience will laugh, they are already too busy laughing about the way their straw sounds in their cup so why even try?