(no subject)
It's hard to say but maybe I feel a bit calmer since I started taking magnesium a few days ago. I looked back at this journal from early last year and I wrote then that magnesium seemed to have settled my restless leg syndrome. I didn't actually have restless leg syndrome, and never have had it, but maybe I felt a bit calmer then too. I barely took magnesium back then, I didn't take it seriously and I'm not sure I ever took more than one a day, where three is usually the RDA. It seems elemental magnesium is the number you look at, with pills being on average about 115mg of elemental magnesium, three a day, with the RDA being around 400mg. I'm taking magnesium malate as magnesium oxide was harsh on my stomach. I might buy magnesium citrate when I finish the malate as it seems to have better absorption.
Magnsium deficiency is interesting, you can't measure magnesium levels by blood as only about 1% of the body's stores are in serum, with the majority held in bone and then soft tissue. The symptoms of magnesium deficiency are nearly universal, like thiamine, and, probably usually, the symptoms, like high blood pressure, are treated directly without looking at magnesium levels. Apparently most people are deficient in magnesium, a green vegetable like a cabbage in 1900 had on average 400mg of magnesium, now, due to the treatment of soil for fast growth and pesticides, it's about 50mg. Any diuretic makes you lose magnesium as well, which might be where I came in. Thankfully chocolate is high in magnesium (there might be a God after all), proper courveture chocolate that is, at least 70% or higher, the more cocoa content the less sugar. I don't find dark chocolate particularly bitter, probably because I don't eat much sugar. I remember eating an apple after I did my ten day fast years ago and being surprised at how sweet it tasted. Fruit though has radically changed since I was a kid. Back then an apple wasn't something you looked forward to eating, we had to of course, 'an apple a day keeps the doctor away', and it seems to have been particularly helpful for jaw development, as chewing is very important for this.
Leonid Tsypkin's Summer in Baden-Baden is well worth reading. He really tries to get into the head of Dostoyevsky. His description of Dostoyevsky's gambling addiction reminds me of the official Marmeladov, who Raskolnikov meets at the start of Crime and Punishmen in a tavern, an alcoholic whose daughter Sonya, the Christ-like heroine of the novel in a way, had recently applied for a 'yellow card', which would allow her to practice prostitution legally, in order to feed her family, as Marmeladov was drinking their money. The genius of it was that Marmeladov is telling Raskolnikov this while crying, he knows he's the reason for this daughter's actions. It's a hell of a start to a novel, actually, to paraphrase Joseph Brodsky writing about Dostoyevsky, it sets the spiritual pitch high right from the start.
Magnsium deficiency is interesting, you can't measure magnesium levels by blood as only about 1% of the body's stores are in serum, with the majority held in bone and then soft tissue. The symptoms of magnesium deficiency are nearly universal, like thiamine, and, probably usually, the symptoms, like high blood pressure, are treated directly without looking at magnesium levels. Apparently most people are deficient in magnesium, a green vegetable like a cabbage in 1900 had on average 400mg of magnesium, now, due to the treatment of soil for fast growth and pesticides, it's about 50mg. Any diuretic makes you lose magnesium as well, which might be where I came in. Thankfully chocolate is high in magnesium (there might be a God after all), proper courveture chocolate that is, at least 70% or higher, the more cocoa content the less sugar. I don't find dark chocolate particularly bitter, probably because I don't eat much sugar. I remember eating an apple after I did my ten day fast years ago and being surprised at how sweet it tasted. Fruit though has radically changed since I was a kid. Back then an apple wasn't something you looked forward to eating, we had to of course, 'an apple a day keeps the doctor away', and it seems to have been particularly helpful for jaw development, as chewing is very important for this.
Leonid Tsypkin's Summer in Baden-Baden is well worth reading. He really tries to get into the head of Dostoyevsky. His description of Dostoyevsky's gambling addiction reminds me of the official Marmeladov, who Raskolnikov meets at the start of Crime and Punishmen in a tavern, an alcoholic whose daughter Sonya, the Christ-like heroine of the novel in a way, had recently applied for a 'yellow card', which would allow her to practice prostitution legally, in order to feed her family, as Marmeladov was drinking their money. The genius of it was that Marmeladov is telling Raskolnikov this while crying, he knows he's the reason for this daughter's actions. It's a hell of a start to a novel, actually, to paraphrase Joseph Brodsky writing about Dostoyevsky, it sets the spiritual pitch high right from the start.