Recovering Roundup
Link Party, Week of March 6 2022
Link Party, Week of March 6, 2022
“Even a drink a day can be bad for your brain, says a study we desperately want to ignore.” A new study out of U Penn shows that “alcohol consumption even at levels most would consider modest” may reduce brain volume. Also! Remember this whole fun thing at the height of pandemic drinking that said abstinence caused Alzheimer’s and we should knock back 13 a week?
In more “bummer drug news” a new study links vaping to prediabetes (Study is here)
A very obvious suggestion about how to manage an aggressive 24-hour news cycle that feels like really basic advice but somehow isn’t because none of us are really managing it all that well? Personal take: I practice this thing he discusses. I obviously read a lot of shit online, but I also do it for about 30 minutes to an hour each day. Then I don’t look again until the next day. Even though our own personal actions can be somewhat meaningless in a world that is always screaming at us to care about a thousand different things simultaneously, I have found this once a day and never more thing he speaks of does work. That is also, if you want to. It’s a personal choice about what we pay attention to, and how.
Continuing on the same thread: I found this podcast, “Why you don’t have to care about every social issue,” v. helpful
Another study on mindfulness and addiction (specifically, opioid misuse among chronic pain sufferers) shows mindfulness works.
This podcast with the absolutely lovely Kevin Griffin on mindfulness and addiction was also v. good
“Eating disorders and fatness do not exist at opposite sides of a spectrum.”
I have no idea how I found this newsletter but I do love it
I lost a significant amount of my hair not because I had covid, but because I was extremely stressed for a very long period of time. Mine has been growing back; I did some of what this Misty Green person did. I also just finally slept a lot and stopped worrying. Related, a great article on alopecia.
Sobriety made her love dating! (Sobriety has yet to do this for me.)
“Consumers who buy no- and low-alcohol beverages are also buying standard alcoholic beverages.” That spike in the zero-proof market is fueled by folks who still imbibe which I find fascinating. Who are these people who don’t drink all the alcohol???
Saying organic wine is “healthy alcohol” is like saying American Spirits are “healthy cigarettes”
I love Emily McDowell’s newsletters! She named it “The Emily Gazette” because that was what she called the newspaper she made when she was a little girl which is so cute.
I have pretty extreme tinnitus, or per this article, pretty extreme “phantom auditory sensation[s] perceived as diverse sounds,” or put another way “constant shrieking sounds in my inner ear,” so this was hopeful. If anyone has cured theirs lmk.
Weekly psychedelic roundup: I’m reading this book on mescaline called Mescaline by the author of another favorite book, High Society; this new podcast on drugs that I have not listened to and probably won’t. Another paper on the adverse effects of psychedelics. “Now is not the time to pretend that these things don't happen,” an article about the same topic in Vice. And the most influential women in psychedelics talking about their concerns makes me long for the day when we get to stop making lists of powerful women. Finally; another article on whether micro-dosing can help with alcohol addiction, and another on whether Ketamine can.
Revisiting the blackout.
Liquor stores ban Russian booze.
Maia Szalavitz is so fucking smart; God blesses her.
Five Things I Loved
In January Emily (my podcast co-host) sent me an article on how hustle culture got America addicted to work (copy pasted into a word document because, Business Insider paywall.) Meaning it was that good it was worth Emily taking an extra three minutes to send to me which is, whether we admit it or not, a big deal.) We got Aki to come on to Quitted (show airs in four weeks), and we got to talking about our “post-pandemic” response to hustle culture, which Aki coined as coaster culture or “quitting in place”, which is another way of saying some of us are phoning it in. In a totally unrelated event, at dinner the other night one of my friends, who has been a little miserable from work, looked happier; I asked her what was going on and she said she’d elected to work less, and when I asked her if she’d announced this to her boss, she said no. She was just doing it; just like that. Caring less, working less. This is obviously not something available to the entire workforce; like last night on a flight Delta made their fucking attendants give us handwritten notes (on top of all the shit they have to do) and none of those folks were phoning it in; I doubt gig workers or folks in the Amazon warehouses are coasting, either. But it is a really inspiring trend and I suggest following Aki’s work.
PLUG! I loved our Qutited episode with Liz Gilbert! Part 2 drops Wednesday at midnight, ET.
Very controversial take: I like The Gilded Age on HBO. Okay yes it’s super boring. But also I’m like, what’s wrong with boring?! Why can’t we like boring? It’s the only show I watch as it comes out, 9pm ET on Mondays, and I’m just wondering if I’m alone in this because it appears I am.
I don’t know how I found this but I feel so lucky I did. Really no words other than just watch it.
“Wellness is not a woman’s friend.” This wasn’t the best article I read all week, it’s just a subject extremely close to my heart that I don’t think we talk about enough.
Re: thing you loved #1… Saeed Jones wrote this in his substack this week and it blew my mind: “I’m not the most productive person. Nor do I want to be known as the most productive person—there are plenty of other values I hold higher.” Like, what a huge revelation to know instead of being constantly anxious about productivity I can just decide productivity isn’t a priority for me! I am privileged to have work that cycles from periods that require a lot from me to downtime when I feel like I’m not doing enough (even though I’m often filling that time with learning). I know I produce good work when it’s required, so why stress about how I’m filling the in between time!? These insights are making me realize how much capitalism wires us towards worth = output and also help me imagine a different attitude towards work that accepts ease and rest as an essential balance to effort.
I really like the Gilded Age too and watch as soon as it comes out. Not boring to me. I love shows about how people used to act back then. High society is embarrassing to me even now, but back then? Those dresses and the women basically did NOTHING all day but crochet or whatever.. My goodness i never would have made it. I can hardly stand to put on a regular dress- but I do actually enjoy doing nothing sometimes.