# Remember to eat well.



## novaburst (Feb 25, 2020)

Just want to say while many are in the industry of composition, you need to remember to eat well as not eating well can have a negative impact on your health, 

While you may not have a lot of time to get up and walk around and get your blood flowing from sitting for many hours at your workstation, eating well can counter a lot of negative health issues, 

Some tips, for you are stay away from sugar, and cakes and fast food, 

This tends to give you high blood sugar levels, especially if your not moving around, 

Stay away from alcohol because your liver is the only organ that can process this you can end up with a bad liver infection of course this is time dependant but best practices is 0 alcohol. 

Some good practices are keep a mixture of fresh fruits in front of you and not sweets, drink plenty of water and not coke or fruit choice, 

Have coffee with out sugar, and stop the energy drinks, 

And if you have lunch at your workstation make sure it's cooked food with lots of vegetables and saleds and oh yer no desserts

Not sure what to say about smokers and if you may use drugs like weed or coke, I think its a down down health issue if you do that

Any more good eating practices are welcome if you have any please share your knowledge.


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## I like music (Feb 25, 2020)

Yes but should I buy the JXL bones or spend my money on Century Brass? Can you please answer the IMPORTANT questions?

Joking aside, I work from home. And then if I get time, I try to compose. All of this equates to HOURS of sitting down. I built a home gym and will use it once or twice a day to get my body moving.

However, my diet was SHIT and was killing me. I now started preparing my meals for the coming week, and I have never been happier.

It means that come the end of the long work day, I have just that bit more energy to sit down at the DAW and try to write some music.


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## I like music (Feb 25, 2020)

Oh and don't forget SLEEP. Sleep is the most goddamn important thing in the world. I know that for working composers this is a particular challenge (deadlines, creativity spikes etc etc) but do take care of your health by getting your 8 hours. Then all the diet stuff you apply like Nova said above, will actually be even more beneficial.


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## Gerbil (Feb 25, 2020)

I have a bowl of fruit and a treadmill in my studio. Every hour my galaxy active nags me to do some exercise and I _mostly_ comply. Sleep's an issue and I agree that that's the biggy for mental health. Amazing how a couple of weeks of poor sleep can wreck you.


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## I like music (Feb 25, 2020)

Gerbil said:


> I have a bowl of fruit and a treadmill in my studio. Every hour my galaxy active nags me to do some exercise and I _mostly_ comply. Sleep's an issue and I agree that that's the biggy for mental health. Amazing how a couple of weeks of poor sleep can wreck you.



I read a book called "Why We Sleep" - the _only_ book I recommend to people. Utterly scary what even a MODERATE lack of sleep can do. Ugh!


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## novaburst (Feb 25, 2020)

In 2018 October I blacked out when I woke up I found myself in hospital in the intensive care unit with quite a lot of tubes sticking inside my arms. 

I spent 3 days in that unit then was transferred to the general ward all in all I was hospitalised for 7 days. 

I was told I had diabetes and metrobolic desease and nearly died. 

I could not believe what I was hearing the doctor said my blood suagar was uncountable, in other Words it reached a point where my sugar levels were too high to put a number to it. 

To cut a long story short that disease was all food related. 

Before the disease i used to be active and do a lot of running, exercise but it it could not counter a bad diet, my diet then was a lot of sugar drinking, and cakes and refined carbs, the thing is I had no idea I was killing myself. The thing about diabetes is you can have it for quite some time with out knowing. It is a very stealthy disease and attacks your liver, kidneys, and pancreas and other vital organs, and of course all this is time dependent, their was no real tell tell signal until It was to late. 

I think I got a second chance and thank God but I started to take what goes in my mouth much more seriously. 

The thing about food is we tend to go for what tast good and 90% of that is refined carbs sweets chocolate sugar, pies cake 

But the funny thing is we don't need that to live how strange is that. 

Food related sickness effects a lot of people especially office workers and those that sit down for most of our work in front of a PC and get used to very bad eating habits.

Food is very a powerful thing, it can give you a really healthy life if you eat well, but it can take your life if you don't have the knowledge about food and how to eat and when to eat and when not to eat. 

I did a little research on this and I found out that sugar is a really bad food addiction and additive but it's really hard to get that message across because from a child we get so used to it and if you tell someone you know you really shouldn't eat that sugar they will turn around and give you that are you insane look. 

This is not a scare mongering, you know I was one of those that said it can never happen to me no never, and I considered my self a fit person, but food had something else waiting in store for me. 

A change in diet really has made a great change in my life, but I think a lot of us are not aware of the dangers of wrong diet and while you sit down and create your music make sure you eat well.


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## nolotrippen (Feb 25, 2020)

I did have a Colonel Saunders chicken and donut for lunch, but usually…


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## I like music (Feb 25, 2020)

novaburst said:


> In 2018 October I blacked out when I woke up I found myself in hospital in the intensive care unit with quite a lot of tubes sticking inside my arms.
> 
> I spent 3 days in that unit then was transferred to the general ward all in all I was hospitalised for 7 days.
> 
> ...


Fucking hell. Diabetes killed my dad. It runs long and hard in my family and yet my diet is crap. This is because it truly is a stealthy bastard of a disease. Glad you are on a better path now.


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## chimuelo (Feb 25, 2020)

nolotrippen said:


> I did have a Colonel Saunders chicken and donut for lunch, but usually…



I love the Colonel, but Popeyes has the Hillary Clinton special for 2.99...
A left wing and two large thighs.

ankyu


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## asherpope (Feb 25, 2020)

chimuelo said:


> I love the Colonel, but Popeyes has the Hillary Clinton special for 2.99...
> A left wing and two large thighs.
> 
> ankyu


It's like you can't help yourself


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## chimuelo (Feb 25, 2020)

Well I should give a nod to Colonel Sanders brother Bernie.
His Chicken will be free.

ankyu........please.......stay seated.


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## gyprock (Feb 25, 2020)

Also be very careful of low fat products. When manufacturers reduce fat, they add sugar to get the flavour half decent. It is the sugar that kills, not the fat. However, the fat needs to come from good sources i.e. quality meats, olive oil (not Canola) and nuts, seeds and quality dairy products.


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## novaburst (Feb 25, 2020)

gyprock said:


> Also be very careful of low fat products. When manufacturers reduce fat, they add sugar to get the flavour half decent. It is the sugar that kills, not the fat. However, the fat needs to come from good sources i.e. quality meats, olive oil (not Canola) and nuts, seeds and quality dairy products.



100% correct, while there are a few food companies that are really trying with organic products, the food industry as a whole is really messed up and the trend has moved from land to land I think America was the biggest diebietes nation in the world, but now China appears to have overtaken the US and Brazil is looking to become the biggest the thing is China was once the fittest nation in the world.

There is a lot of money in the food industry and so even though many of them have the knowledge that there product is harmful they pull a cover over it and close their eyes to it. 

Pepsi cola, fizzy drinks, processed food compernys, processed oil, they all are aware of the harm that their products are coursing but because of shares and business it all is not about to suddenly change. 

Thankfully there is a lot of information out there that can help with how to eat and what to eat to stay healthy. 

But we generally never take food into consideration that it's the most harmful product in the world until something bad happens to us. 

At first my attitude was Hay its food yer eat it, and it never at any time in my life accure to me that food can be very harmful until it put me in hospital. 

Guns, war, knifes, accidents yes all of these have taken millions of lives away. 

But the biggest secret killer is food, but mainly that of the added sugar it contains in all this processed food,


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## gyprock (Feb 25, 2020)

Here's a good film to watch... That Sugar Film









That Sugar Film - Wikipedia







en.wikipedia.org


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## novaburst (Feb 26, 2020)

Great program lots of information, I think I saw in there a struggle to change diet, and of course why would anyone want to, only a few appear to get the sugar message. 

But I think sweets and added sugar is an addiction and has become the main diet of well the world, at the end of the day I don't think a lot of people go for what is good for living and what is good for the bodey, I think its more about what tast good and a quick fix and that attitude is very difficult to change and to be honest I know some friends that have been in hospital for food related problems and when the doctor fixed them up they just go back to the same eating habits. 

I think diet change must start when your young or a child or it just becomes increasingly difficult to change bad eating habits,


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## tav.one (Feb 26, 2020)

I like music said:


> I read a book called "Why We Sleep" - the _only_ book I recommend to people. Utterly scary what even a MODERATE lack of sleep can do. Ugh!


Thats the book I've been recommending & handing out to random friends and relatives since last 2 months, I feel like shouting about it on my rooftop.


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## I like music (Feb 26, 2020)

tav.one said:


> Thats the book I've been recommending & handing out to random friends and relatives since last 2 months, I feel like shouting about it on my rooftop.



Absolutely! To think that he's basically telling you never, ever, ever (even for a night!) sacrifice your sleep because you never really recover from it, is absolutely crazy! There was one part where he noted that those that only got around 6hrs of sleep in a night spent the next day in a prediabetic state! A book they should give to kids to read :D


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## MartinH. (Feb 26, 2020)

I like music said:


> Absolutely! To think that he's basically telling you never, ever, ever (even for a night!) sacrifice your sleep because you never really recover from it, is absolutely crazy! There was one part where he noted that those that only got around 6hrs of sleep in a night spent the next day in a prediabetic state!



Now I feel doubly bad for having naturally poor sleep quality :(. Without alarm clock I just stay awake longer every day, no matter when I go to sleep. With alarm clock I spend 7 ish hours in bed and wake up somewhere between 2 to 5 times per night probably.

I've started sleeping with lights on (very very warm lights, like 2000 kelvin or below I think) a little over 2 months ago. Subjectively I think I both fall asleep easier and feel slightly less tired when I get up in the morning. Is there anything in the book regarding the effect of sleeping with lights on?


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## I like music (Feb 26, 2020)

MartinH. said:


> Now I feel doubly bad for having naturally poor sleep quality :(. Without alarm clock I just stay awake longer every day, no matter when I go to sleep. With alarm clock I spend 7 ish hours in bed and wake up somewhere between 2 to 5 times per night probably.
> 
> I've started sleeping with lights on (very very warm lights, like 2000 kelvin or below I think) a little over 2 months ago. Subjectively I think I both fall asleep easier and feel slightly less tired when I get up in the morning. Is there anything in the book regarding the effect of sleeping with lights on?


Interesting! I have the exact same problem (broken sleep). It doesn't mention anything about sleeping with lights on but it does talk about the affect of light on sleep (screens etc). I'll leaf through it again and see if I can find what you asked, but I highly highly recommend it. No book has changed my life as dramatically. And all it convinced me to do was to get into bed around 10pm for myself. Best money I ever spent!


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## MartinH. (Feb 26, 2020)

I like music said:


> Interesting! I have the exact same problem (broken sleep). It doesn't mention anything about sleeping with lights on but it does talk about the affect of light on sleep (screens etc). I'll leaf through it again and see if I can find what you asked, but I highly highly recommend it. No book has changed my life as dramatically. And all it convinced me to do was to get into bed around 10pm for myself. Best money I ever spent!



I've had sleep issues my entire life and have experimented a lot, I doubt there's much in the book that could change anything for me, but maybe I'm wrong and there were some new discoveries that I don't know about yet? 

Everyone is different. When I go to bed early (for me that's anything before midnight), I either lie awake for up to several hours, or I fall asleep and wake up 3 hours later in a wide awake state and _then _lie awake for at least an hour. The only thing that seems to minimize lying awake for me personally seems going to bed around 2 a.m. or later. My alarm clock is set to 10 a.m., and often I'm already awake when it rings. So I conclude from that, that it's a reasonable time for me to get up.

The best sleep _quality _I ever had, was when I started work betwen 6 and 8 p.m., went home between 4 and 5 a.m., then played videogames till ~7 a.m or so and then slept till 3 p.m.. With "sleep quality" I mean I woke up less often and felt more awake after getting up. I only kept that rythm for about 2 weeks or so. It's too incompatible with the rest of the world and the risk of getting woken up by other people rises too much. When a package delivery, construction noise, loud neighbors or similar cuts my sleep below 6 hours and I can't fall asleep again, my day is pretty much ruined in terms of productivity and wellbeing. So I believe in a heartbeat that sleep is super important and I do my best to get enough of it, but it's not easy. 

Without alarm clock, plus lights out and curtains closed, I could sometimes manage to stay in bed 9-ish hours and maybe sleep 8 of those, give or take, but then I'm more tired the whole day and stay awake noticably longer, so it would let me drift into a ~25-hour day cylce if I don't keep it in check. 

I know that some people do practice "free running sleep", but to me personally it doesn't look like a good tradeoff.


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## Monkey Man (Feb 26, 2020)

Martin, the less light during sleep, the better, as a general rule.

My guess is that you may be feeling better when awaking from the 2000k light because the liver is stimulated by orange light, orange surroundings and many orange whole foods.

If you look at overweight and sluggish folks around the world, or even when you pull up at a set of traffic lights and are presented with a parade of passers-by, you may notice that the "heavier", less-energetic ones tend to be wearing black or shades of grey, _sometimes_ blue.

Wearing orange clothing and reading under orange light will stimulate your liver. Red has a similar but less-potent effect, but as we all know, can also feed frustration / intense feelings and whatnot.

I've discovered more-effective methods in the decades since I observed and learnt this, but I keep the heavy stuff to myself these days after a 45-year ordeal of trying to edumacate ostriches (peeps who prefer to bury their heads in the sand), including and especially family members. Too many painful experiences and outcomes (including many deaths) there, so as I suggested, I'm a bit loathe to go there.

Bottom line, the body is interested in one thing principally - healing, and this consists of efficient elimination and the production of new, healthy cells. That's all it boils down to really, and all we need to do is get the Hell out of its way, something very few of us do effectively. Even the most-disciplined folk I've ever met still fell short, often due to ignorance involving unintended sabotaging behaviours, but also lapses of judgement and transient deviations from healthy habits.


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## MartinH. (Feb 26, 2020)

Monkey Man said:


> If you look at overweight and sluggish folks around the world, or even when you pull up at a set of traffic lights and are presented with a parade of passers-by, you may notice that the "heavier", less-energetic ones tend to be wearing black or shades of grey, _sometimes_ blue.
> 
> Wearing orange clothing and reading under orange light will stimulate your liver. Red has a similar but less-potent effect, but as we all know, can also feed frustration / intense feelings and whatnot.


Thanks for commenting, I appreciate the suggestion.

I could imagine there to be correlation, maybe even a strong correlation, but a causation? I have some doubts you'll change people's weight significantly just by changing their clothes. Personally I've been wearing all black for 2 decades and my BMI is 23.5. Most things I own are black too. I really like black, just bought a black bass on ebay. Couldn't imagine having it be any other color. I tried a red bass once, sold it years ago, never again.

I know that there have been experiments with painting walls in different colors and it will have measurable effects on people's behavior, or their subjective feeling of room temperature changes. I could even see how forcing someone who is used to wearing bright colors to wear black, making them less active or less happy. I know there was an experiment where making students say words accociated with "old age" caused them to walk more slowly to the elevator after the experiment compared to the control-group who performed a similar task, but with neutral words (phonebook). 

So I don't want to discount the concept alltogether, but people are very very different and affected in different ways by different things. I don't think it's that easy to say "stop wearing black, it's making you fat". Sugar, stress and lack of excercise are going to have a lot more impact.



Monkey Man said:


> Martin, the less light during sleep, the better, as a general rule.


I thought so too! I know light plays a role in regulating sleep cycles and certain hormone levels, and for a while I even tried using "FLUX" on my pc, which turns the screens towards warmer colors later in the day to minimize blue-light exposure, but I can't work like that so I uninstalled it. Didn't notice it having an effect on me either. 

If I had a way to dim my lamps on a timer that would probably be ideal to have them on for when I fall asleep, because it's the light I'm used to, then slowly dimm them fully down as I sleep and use different colder and brighter lights to simulate sunrise at the time I want to wake up. I know there are "light alarm clocks". I never tried one, but I could see it working if I go back to sleeping with the lights off.


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## Monkey Man (Feb 26, 2020)

Hey Martin,

Yeah, the clothe-colour thing I mentioned is a symptom, not a cause, and of course it's a generalisation. I'm a patterns guy, so I noticed this over many years.

All organs have their own ideal resonant frequencies, so I guess intense exposure to orange must help raise that of the liver, assuming of course that sluggish livers exhibit a reduction in resonant frequency.

I probably should have said yesterday that the reasons I went straight for the liver in trying to help explain why you might've noticed the orange-light's effect after sleeping were that:
1) That colour's associated with a boost in said organ's functionality / vigour.
2) If your liver's stimulated during sleep you're more-likely to wake with cleaner blood than you might've otherwise.

The simplest and most-effective way to kick the liver into gear that I know of, BTW, is to have something raw-and-bitter on an empty stomach in the morning. Grapefruit, Swedish Bitters, lemon...

Just as in my colour-association observation, we can generalise to say that a sweet tooth, along with the consumption of heavily-heated fats, are enemies #1 for the liver's vigour. Hence, switching to the right fats and especially dialling in a bit of bitterness, will _always_ generate improvements. Things like changing the colours you wear will still make contributions to this; it's an overall "picture" / state-of-being we're talking about here. _Nothing_ happens in-isolation, not in one's life habit-wise, not in the body and not in the universe.


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## ProfoundSilence (Feb 26, 2020)

one life hack for me, was trying to figure out a cheaper and better solution to breathrite strips. Normally i cannot breath through my nose for the life of me reliably. When I'm awake it's no big deal because my body will occasionally take a mouth breath just to keep me running smooth. 

laying down however is worse in most positions, and I don't sleep with my mouth open - so sleep apnea has been a huge issue for me. 

One time I looked a bandaid and was like... hmm... now I look like a football player when I sleep - but I alternate which side I bandaid "open" to keep my sinuses nice and clear. This allows me to not become completely dependent on an external force keeping my airway open - while giving me a little bit of a boost. This also causes me to sleep on my back reliably, and gives me alternating sides to sleep on aswell, so that I don't always sleep on the same side. 

But as an overnight person it's incredibly difficult to be productive these days, due to 12 hour shifts causing me to be too wired when I get off work to wind down, so I average 3-5 hours of sleep a night on work days and then usually try to sleep 8-9 hours on one of my days off, which causes me to be either overtired and take a 2-3 hour nap in the middle of the night, or stay up like 4-5 hours later than normal and botch my sleep schedule either way.


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