4:07am September 6, 2014

shewhoroars-fayanora-are-mormons-allowed-to

nekobakaz:

fayanora:

shewhoroars:

fayanora:

shewhoroars:

fayanora:

shewhoroars:

shewhoroars:

fayanora:

Are Mormons allowed to have decaf teas and coffees, given that there IS a small amount of caffeine in it?

It’s not technically the caffeine that we don’t do. In the Word of Wisdom it talks about not having hot drinks, which has been interpreted as no coffee and…

We can still drink things that are hot and warm, I love hot chocolate, and we drink herbal tea (my mom loves it) unless it’s derived from black tea. But not iced coffee, since it’s still coffee, and not ice tea, unless it’s just like, cold herbal tea or something. Section 89 in the Doctrine and Covenants is where it talks about the “Hot drinks are not for the body or belly” and if you’d like me to, I can look up the talks where the Prophets and Apostles clarify on that meaning coffee and tea (it’d have to wait until the morning, but I could totes do that!) so that you can see the legit words and not just have to trust me XD

Fascinating. I wonder what Joseph Smith would think about soda pop, though? Assuming someone explained that a lot of it has caffeine in it, like tea and coffee does. Because that didn’t exist in his day.

It’s not the caffeine, it just that we were told not to, and a lot of people want a solid reason, so they use that. But our modern Prophets haven’t said no soda, but they have urged moderation in all things, and to avoid substances that are addicting or that change your decision making process. But some members make the personal decision to not drink soda, just trying to get a little further from the line, I guess? So you don’t want to drink a 12 pack of soda every other day, but one or two, or probably even three or four is totally chill as long as it’s not something you’ve become addicted to.

Moderation is a good idea. Interestingly, the ancient Greek philosophy of hedonism actually taught moderation, since it’s hard to enjoy things if you’re overdoing them.

If I wanted to be pedantic, I could point out that it’s hard to find any substance, including foods, that *don’t* influence mood and therefore decision making process, and that one can become addicted to anything, but that would be nitpicking. :-)

The basic idea is sound, though, and a good idea. Especially when not everyone responds to the same things the same way. For me, caffeine is a depressant, up to a certain point, which is great if I need to relax with a cup of tea. But past that point, it makes me jittery and feeling ill in the same way that extreme hunger can. In fact, it could be the same exactly feeling, since caffeine stimulates production of insulin, and the jittery ill feeling only goes away after I’ve had a decent meal.

What’s worst about all that is, for a long time I didn’t know that different people could react differently to the same substance. So when I had a job that required me to wake up far earlier than I was comfortable with, I started drinking a lot of caffeinated beverages to try to stay awake. But it was doomed to fail because caffeine just makes me more tired. So I kept taking more and more, thinking I wasn’t having enough, to the point where I started taking No-Doz, which is basically a caffeine pill. When that didn’t work, I kept at it.

This all ended in my body developing an intolerance for caffeine, and as a result I started getting more migraines than I’d already been prone to (I’ve been prone to migraines my whole life). Only, I still had no idea what was really going on, so on something else I had read, and because I thought MSG* was the culprit (it wasn’t), I started taking migraine pills that contain caffeine. It took me months to finally figure out what was going on and go off caffeine. I was off of it for years before finally going back to it tentatively. I now imbibe caffeine in moderation, and only to relax.

Yeah, it wasn’t until I swore off caffeine that I came to discover that I naturally stay wakened without caffeine, even if I yawn a bit sometimes. In fact, I was yawning a lot during the day no matter how much sleep I got. And later I found out that part of the problem was sleep apnea’s fault.

And as to alcohol, I’ve tried it a couple times, but never really been interested. Most of it smells like human sewage to me. There was one time when a friend gave me some Mike’s Hard Lemonade to try, said it had pure alcohol added to the lemonade and so it should taste just like lemonade. That was when I learned I can taste and smell alcohol even when most other people can’t. It has a distinct taste and smell even in pure form, even mixed in with other stuff.

(That is not the only unusually sensory trait I have. For one, though I’m hard of hearing, I can hear some frequencies most people can’t. I also have tremendously good eyesight. Some people try to argue that I don’t, because sometimes I don’t see things right in front of me, but my vision is overly powerful and things sometimes get lost in the visual noise, so something obvious to some people is not necessarily so to me. I can see individual leaves on bushy deciduous trees that are miles away, and from the elevated seats on the MAX train I can look out the window and see the pores on individual blades of grass. It’s so much information that sometimes I get overwhelmed and have to cover my eyes and block out noises with music. It also doesn’t help that I am an empath who can’t shield. My empathic ability is a sixth sense. Well, seventh or more, depending on who you ask, as things like proprioception - the brain’s sense of the location and size of body parts - is considered a sense by many scientists.

(Oh yeah, and I have a keen ability to sense significant changes, no matter how small, while they are happening. If a change doesn’t matter, or has already occurred, I might or might not notice. But I was always the first person to spot things like roof leaks without being leaked on, even when others couldn’t see it when I pointed it out to them, because I can catch movement pretty well, even in peripheral vision. I’ve caught stuff like that in my peripheral vision from across two rooms before.)

Sorry I got off track there. All for now. Would have added a Read More, but apparently that’s not an option in comments.

* MSG, like greasy foods, can make a headache worse for me if I already have one, but neither of those things will cause a headache. Where the confusion came was, sometimes I can have a headache but not really notice it.

That’s really interesting that caffeine effects you that way! Do you have ADD? I know that when you do have ADD, and you take stimulants, it acts as a depressant, so I wonder if that might be a thing for you.

Headaches are the absolute worst. I always get them when it’s hot, which sucks because we have really hot summers where I live.

It would be great to have good eyesight like that- mine sucks, I have to wear glasses all the time.

I don’t think so. If anything, I might have something similar. I don’t remember the name of it, but there’s a condition similar to ADD that slows down reaction times, makes people with it think more slowly, and affects memory I think. There may be more, I don’t recall. But I remember reading about it and being like “That sounds more like me than a lot of other things.” Like, this one time I remember in gym class, a ball came at my face; I saw the ball coming, and I think neurotypical people could have ducked in time, but I kind of stared at it for 2 or 3 seconds, and I remember realizing what was happening, but it took so long that I hadn’t even gotten as far as thinking “I should duck” before it hit me. Of course, I had been letting my mind wander because it was volleyball, which was very boring to me, so part of it was switching mental gears. I’m pretty sure that 75% of the time of that incident was the active part of my brain going “Hey wait, what’s that? Better ask [other part]. Hey, [other part], what’s that?”
“What? Oh that’s a ball. It’s coming at us. We should-” WHAM!

The condition is basically a different form of ADD, so it has certain things in common with ADD, like the caffeine thing; I wish I could remember the name.

As to the eyesight thing, yeah, it has its benefits. I still smile whenever I remember the eye test I had once where the eye doctor told me my eyesight was BETTER than 20/20. Especially odd because everyone else in my family has glasses except for my sister, though she used to have glasses. I don’t know why she doesn’t anymore.

But it does have downsides. Sometimes things get lost in the noise; I would characterize it as “can’t see the trees for the forest.” Things that are obvious to others get missed that way. Also, sensory overload; sometimes I have to cover my eyes because the sensory overload is giving me a headache. And on computer screens, large batches of text tend to overwhelm me (long paragraphs, full pages or more of barely-broken up text). With my own writing, I skim. But if I try to skim other people’s stuff, I miss too much. So if I really need or want to read something, I have eSpeak read it to me. (Beeline Reader helps, but I still prefer eSpeak). I don’t have that problem with books or my Nook, oddly.

blinks

stimulants for people with ADD act as depressants??

GASP!! Wait, that’s what all AD/HD medication is…. generally/usually: stimulants. It sounds weird, but as someone who actually does HAVE ADD, it works.

*How* does it work? Cause unlike caffeine, which generally stimulates everything, ADD medication stimulants work on the part of the brain that regulate focus, attention span. Yes, a lot of them have side effects of depression and anxiety, and there’s the “does it work for you” dance. I was on Ritalin for the longest time before we realized that it doesn’t matter the dosage, it’ll always be too much for me, and switched me to a different medication. But that was not before I got a nicely established panic/anxiety disorder, a spell of depression, and lived through what happens when Ritalin meets puberty with psychosis results. Not fun. Still need the ADHD meds though, cause stimulants do their job. If it’s too late for me to take my meds, I reach for something caffeinated, cause boy, I know I need it.

Sorry to vent Fayanora, I hate misinformation about meds that are useful that I have experience with both the good and the bad.

Caffeine and ADD can be fun though; as a teen, it didn’t affect me the same way as other teens, so I could do things like drink an entire pot of coffee and then go to bed. I’m 29 now, can’t do that anymore.

And that sounds like some kind of processing/decoding thing. I know back when they were testing me for ADD in grade 9, the psychologist mentioned some information decoding and processing difficulty/disorder, which a psychiatrist then argued could be a Specific Learning Disability. Whatever it is, it means it takes me more time to take in information being presented to me, to decode it into what I understand, to react to it, and then later on, to retrieve it. Apparently, this is different from being ADD or Autistic, and is my main basis for needing a notetaker in class, cause I can’t keep up with taking notes while I’m trying to process what’s being said at the same time. Not serious notes, at least.

The thing being talked about is Slow Cognitive Tempo and it’s a part of ADHD (usually Inattentive type) but may also be its own thing. There’s an article about it on Wikipedia.

Stimulant meds affect dopamine; methylphenidate gets you to use your dopamine more efficiently, and amphetamine gets you to produce more dopamine (as well as use it more efficiently). Caffeine fits into the same receptors as dopamine.

It’s not that they’re depressants, it’s that without the right level of dopamine we are unable to sort through the various types of input to be able to pay attention to what’s most important (because we can’t tell what’s most important). Getting our dopamine levels right fixes that problem because it basically “wakes up” the part of the brain that controls that stuff (the frontal lobe).

Now, some people do find that certain stimulants cause depression. Since they often cause or increase anxiety and anxiety is often a component of depression, this isn’t really surprising.

From what I looked up, it’s called Sluggish Cognitive Tempo, not Slow Cognitive Tempo. And a lot of it fits me exactly in a way that even inattentive ADD doesn’t. Hmm. Not that I’m looking to get diagnosed, especially since my autism diagnosis covers things like that. But it’s interesting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sluggish_cognitive_tempo

Sluggish cognitive tempo symptoms: prone to daydreaming, difficulty staying awake or alert in boring situations, easily confused, easily bored, spacey or in a fog, lethargic or more tired than others, underactive or less energy than others, slow moving, don’t process information as quickly or accurately as others

I don’t get bored easily at all, but I do fall asleep readily in situations most people would consider boring, even ones that I actually consider interesting. And I’ve always felt like I process information on a slower wavelength almost, so that I’m constantly out of sync with everyone else. I notice it less when I’m alone, and I notice it the most when I go into a room full of people and they all look like a VCR tape on fast-forward. And I can’t break into any conversation anywhere even if i’m able to initiate (which is hard enough), because by the time I’ve approached the person, they’ve already gone.

Again, this could all be autism, but it’s interesting.