Placebo Effect!

Expectations change our sensory system and alter the way we experience subjectively and objectively.

We may be laughing at people who believed in the effect of snake oil and think we are different now but Placebos still work the magic on us.

Placebos are effective in two stages to shape our expectations. Imagine that we first see the health claims all over the box of a new product, we believe in them and we decide to try. Great expectation makes us feel better after having it. Our faith results in positive initial experience and we are confident to go on. Sooner than later, we are conditioned to expect positively after repeated experiences and release chemicals to prepare us for the next pleasant outcomes, just like Pavlov's dogs salivated at the bell rings.

This explains why it's so hard to stop eating the junk food that we know is bad for us.

When we allow ourselves to reach for the convenient junk foods while feeling most hungry, sad, tired, stressed and frustrated, we are totally vulnerable to expect something good to lift us up, and boy, they are good! They are ingeniously designed and engineered so! Of course they cure all our ailments and we are hooked. We become emotional eaters of this cure-all.

We just went through the most effective Placebo process, thinking it's not much more than merely spoiling our appetite for the next meal, without knowing that it might be far more difficult to strip away the preconceptions and its self-enhancing Placebo effect once when our brains are primed and conditioned.

My point? If you have to, have it early in the day, when you are happy, full, and share it so you don't have to finish the whole bag by yourself.

Notes:

Hormones such as endorphins and opiates can block agony and produce exuberant highs and dopamine is a neurotransmitter in the brain's pleasure system when you expect a rewarding experience.

The Power of Expectations!

When we believe something will be good, it generally will be good. Studies show that it doesn't just change our beliefs psychologically, it also changes the physiology of the experience itself.

It turns out that knowledge doesn't merely inform us of a state of affairs, it actually reshapes the sensory perceptions to align with the information we received. That is, the knowledge of what we are going to eat actually modify the neural activity underlying the taste itself, so that when we expect something to taste good or bad, it will actually taste that way.

Interesting, don't you think?

What you know modifies your taste, changes the way you perceive and appreciate the food!

This will be quite useful when you invite people for dinner or encourage people to try something new.

However this is also how branding and marketing get us hooked on a product. We expect the product to be good because of the name, the artful presentation, the video clip or the well-designed box that suggest benefits, cultural images or social connections, and we experience greater pleasure from the product and the process of consuming it.

Don't believe that expectations change the experience? Check this out.

Coke versus Pepsi.
It's all in the head.

Escape from Freedom!

Do you have a hard time making choices or decisions? Do you feel overwhelmed or even anxious when you have to pick out of several options presented to you, because of the fear of missing out the others?

You are not alone, my friend. Quite the opposite, you are just the same human being as the next one.

Erich Fromm said in his book "Escape from Freedom" that we are beset not by a lack of opportunity, but by a dizzying abundance of it.

We keep telling the kids we can do anything and be anything we want to be.

That is all good, only that I see two problems, if we forget to read them the fine print.

Let's make the case within the realm of food.

We have talked about our brain and how evolutionally ancient it is (our food brain). When it comes to food, when our brain is primed to believe "do anything we want, experience everything", when we believe that without the knowledge of what's in our best interest and about the food system we have today, it is (in fact, it has been) a recipe for disaster. In a nut shell, if the food system doesn't work for you, you can't just take everything and every opportunity when the food is presented to you. Do you know whether that is real food or just edible food-like substances, how it is produced or manufactured, and what it does to your body and mind? That is the first problem.

The second problem is in living up to it.

I know, you are going to say, "didn't you just say we should not eat everything we could? So, is experiencing it all a bad thing to avoid or a good thing to live up to?"

Exactly! If you do it right, it's a good thing. If you do it blindly, it's beyond bad.

In my opinion, a good thing that's worth living up to, is something we must develop ourselves in every possible way so we can discern the nuance, truly appreciate the expression and consume the offering responsibly. The development of the capacity to perceive will enhance and maximize the experience, making it a lot more meaningful and substantial to you and to the planet.

Moreover, when you have the capacity to distinguish real from fake, your craving will be geared towards food that is naturally good to you. That is how you reclaim your freedom in choosing what you eat and trust me, when it comes to deciding what can touch your body, you want the sole ownership of that right.

On the contrary, if we ignore to build up our understanding around it, we, as human beings, tend to spread ourselves too thin, eating everything we could unselectively, trying the newest product with the most health claims, running from one hip place to the next but never quite feeling enough or satisfied. Do you know that the processed food today, is meticulously and scientifically engineered to make us "insatiable" and always want more of it. How can you stay in control of your appetite and palate without knowing it? You have an illusion of freedom in your food choices but as a matter of fact your brain and palate have scientifically been hijacked.

Problem two in a nut shell: if you don't know what you are eating, it's bad, beyond bad. Build your food skill from tasting it and then preparing it.

Elephant in the Room: Stress!

Why are we so stressed out?

To detox, we need to understand stress.

Two Types of Stress:

To understand the causes of stress, we need to first know there are two kinds of stress: acute stress and chronic stress.

See, stress in our daily life is just like hurt or pain - they are there to protect us from further harm.

When people or animals experience an immediate threat to their well-being, they know something is wrong and danger might be there if we don't do something, thus acute stress occurs to alert us. Think about when we could not find our wallet or cellphones, the stress response kicks in to help us respond to the event. Once the event is over, our body returns to normal and the stress is gone.

These days, when people talk about stress, they usually mean chronic stress that's always there, in the background ready to rise up.

Animals don't seem to experience chronic stress, except those that live around human beings (yeah, and we thought they were the trouble makers.) - those we abuse or keep in cages. When left along, animals don't appear to have chronic stress like we do.

Three Causes of Chronic Stress:

There are three reasons why we are far more chronically stressed than animals or our prehistorical ancestors.

1. We changed our environment drastically

Wild animals live in pretty much the same environments like they have been living for millions of years in their evolution. We don't. We have changed our environment so much that most things that create chronic stress are the recent developments of civilization and culture, including traffic jams, computer crashes, constant interruptions and noise, air travel, financial market mess and stock market volatility.

2. We changed from being in immediate-return environment to being in delayed-return environment, thus uncertainty about the future rise.

No, I am not talking about the interest rate and long term treasury bond.

Wild animals live in immediate-return environment, while we found ourselves in a delayed-return environment ever since we started to rely on farming about 10,000 years ago (at the start of the agricultural revolution when we began to settle into permanent communities, build houses and grow our own food.)

In the immediate-return environment, animals get immediate feedback to know how things are going, or if their effort, responses to events work. (Well, if you get eaten, you get eaten, but at least you know the outcome right then.) Our ancestors also lived like that until very recently. They wandered around, searching for foods, dealing with threats or predators, interacting with other human beings and raising kids. Day to day, moment to moment they had constant feedback about how they were doing in meeting goals. Prehistorically, people couldn't do much for the future so they were focusing on meeting their day to day needs and there were very little uncertainty about how well they were doing.

These days we spend most of our time and effort for future goals. Can this relationship work out? Can we find a job after four years of college? When we put all our time and effort into something, there is no assurance that our hard work will pay off and the uncertainty about the future causes us constant stress.

3. To make things worst, there is often nothing we can do about it.

Just like the return is delayed, the threat is also delayed in the future, and it is in our mind rather than immediately present, even though it's every bit real. Our human nature wants to take action to remove the stressors but we find ourselves not able to do anything about it at the moment. Therefore, we feel frustrated and stressed out when we worry about things in the future that we have no control over.


Well, happiness and stresses are both connected to our well-being and eating well is part of the whole so we have to take a holistic approach. When we are off balance, we tend to stress eat without really enjoying, savoring and tasting whatever food has to offer and that's sad.

Brain Food for Tea Time!

Can we eat to help our brain function better?

Your brain needs vitamins and essential fatty acids to function. They also support your heart and your body's general well being.

When you feel like having something to help you focus in the long, awkward time between lunch and dinner, don't just munch away and let temptation rule you. First defense line to guard your health is snacking mindfully.

Like I mentioned not all calories are created equal. You can snack to really fuel your body and your brain or undermine them.

By the way, the most important thing to help your brain is good sleep. If you are sleep deprived or suffer from insomnia, don't try to eat your problem away. Get some good sleep first. (I'll post something in that regard later.)

Here is a list of food that would help your brain function.

1. Broccoli, Cauliflower - your brain's best friend with high level of vitamin K, which has a great deal of health benefits, including enhancing cognitive functions. Steam it for only 2 to 4 minutes or roast it instead. Sprinkle with chopped garlic, olive oil, and chile flakes for the boost.
2. Fish high in EFA's and Omega-3 - oily fish like salmon, sardines, trout, and kippers contain EFA's in a ready-to-use form. Omega-3 supports brain and nerves system and prevent cognitive problems, sleep disorders, learning disabilities and depression. The essential fatty acids from fish and nuts can not be produced by the body and have to be ingested from our diet. 
3. Fruits high in vitamin C - blackcurrants, tomatoes, blueberries. The antioxidants that your body gets through regularly consuming fruit and vegetables are an important part of your diet, as they improve your cognitive performance and ward off stress, to help you think and learn better – essential for all of us out there. Their high level of vitamin-C that can help nerve cells and brains function better and prevent the onset of Alzheimer's disease.
4. Sweet potato or banana for potassium -  Potassium is needed for good oxygen flow to the brain to support concentration and productivity. Sweet potato has more potassium than a banana and lower GI for a lower and longer sugar burning boost. Bake it with a sprinkle of salt, Cajun.
5. Nuts - they are whole food with low GI, high-protein for brain fuel and they are very filling. Walnuts are a great source of omega-3 fatty acids, like oily fish. However, watch out for the calories as they are, after all, high in calories from oil. Take a moderate amount and don't refill after you finish them.
6. Chocolate, the darker the better - not the kind from candy bars. I prefer 80 percent or more and I eat them with pumpkin seeds or nuts such as almonds.

The rest are also good for brain function but may suit better in your meal plan.

1. Curry - Turmeric, the spice that gives curry and mustard their yellow color, contains a chemical called curcumin. Research has shown curcumin’s ability to boost memory, slow the progression of Alzheimer’s and stimulate neurogenesis, which is the process of creating new brain cells. It may also clear out amyloid plaques, the brain gunk thought to be a cause of Alzheimer’s, and calm inflammation of brain and nerve cells.
2. Chickpeas - They contain high level of magnesium, a mineral that plays a key role in energy metabolism. Magnesium is highly beneficial for brain cell receptors, speeding message transmission. Magnesium also relaxes blood vessels, letting more blood through to feed the brain.
3. Buckwheat - buckwheat is a natural mood-calmer because it's high in relaxing tryptophan, providing 25 percent of your recommended allowance in a one-cup serving. Buckwheat is also a good source of magnesium, with 229 mg per serving. (Though some forms of cooking drop the magnesium content.)  Technically a fruit seed, buckwheat is gluten-free and high in fiber, so it’s a great grain substitute. Throw it in soups or stews, or cook it and add it to salads. You can even boil it up as a hot breakfast cereal, much like grits or cream of wheat.

Sorry it's a bit long, but when it comes to our brain, we just can't cut corners, eh?