Life, Interrupted

A friend sent me over to this fellow's blog, The Rat Race Trap -- Tools to improve your mind and escape the trap. Mr. Rat Race became aware of how his health -- especially his ability to use his brain -- had slipped from his 20s, and decided to see if there was something he could do about it. Turns out there is, and here are a few of his essays (with links) on the care and feeling of your brain. Things have changed quickly in this field, and there's a lot of new info, so it's worth taking a look when you have a few moments.

To sum up what I've read on his site: Do you want to spend the rest of your life doing and being things, or sitting on a couch somewhere drooling? Me, I'm into doing and being. So I'm going to take a break from the work and walk to the mailbox (that's a mile for me, BTW.)

How to Take Care of Your Brain

Top 10 Ways to Grow Your Brain

Your Brain on Food and Supplements:

Dopamine
Acetylcholine
GABA
Serotonin

Have saved a few things:

* Who would have thought it? Roasted barley tea is extremely nutritious. Georgette Heyer and Alton Brown speaketh the truth! And the tea tastes very much like coffee. I think I read once that it was a coffee substitute during WW2?

* Local folk -- I have my DVD of the Lyme documentary UNDER OUR SKIN back in hand, and it may be borrowed by folk of careful habits. It's "A dramatic tale of microbes, medicine and money" and worth seeing...if only to make tick checks mandatory on kids, dogs, cats and adults (don't forget in the hair!)

* HAD TO LOL DEPT. -- Saw a post on a political blog where someone commented that they'd been insomniac for eight years, ever since the birth of the first child. He's been sleeping like a log for a week, ever since the election. I think it's been part of my sleeping problem, too -- why we all thought we needed to be alert for the administration pulling a fast one, maybe that's hubris -- or maybe our ancestors would say: "Well, you've got a rattlesnake den somewhere on the property. If you can't find them and evict them, you gotta keep an eye peeled and a gun or hoe at your side..." ;^)

* OH DEAR UNIVERSE the January, 2009 Fine Cooking magazine has a flourless chocolate pomegranate cake on the cover! I sense buckling during the coming holidays.... And then there's the famous Pumpkin Cheesecake that sparkylibrarian introduced me to, and I tweaked to perfection (pecan crust adds a lot!)

* Third cat check -- even Maisie won't eat any of these cat treats I'd tried to interest Max in...she went so far as to return to food from this am that she'd ignored and eat it!