Did bioenergetic principles impact my emotions and behaviors?
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CONTEXT: 165 lb man @ 23 yo
Firstly, I am writing this because I have searched the internet and have been unable to find other people who have described similar experiences. Thus, I am hoping to receive insights from this community.
I started incorporating bioenergetic principles and Dr. Peat's advice such as increasing sugar significantly, reducing starch, replacing PUFA with SFA. etc. about 14 months ago. Over the past 4-5 months, I've noticed improvements in my general contentment/appreciation of life. But I've also made interesting observations about personal changes. I'm unsure of how these patterns are related to bioenergetic principles/other factors.
Observations:
- greater peaks and valleys within emotional range. Joy and sadness feel more intense.
- An enjoyable song is more pleasurable, and I can enjoy "more subtle qualities" in a sense
- Random urges to engage in errands, clean, study for school, or get stuff done
- Instances of pain/suffering in others makes me feel even more uncomfortable, sad, etc.
- Susceptibility to crying is much higher.
- Greater desire to talk to other people for self amusement. Feel much more energized by conversation
Notes:
I wasn't a robot previously by any means. However, I would rarely cry in my life. (I'd guess maybe <20 times over the past 10 years). Not as a means to prove a virtue, but I genuinely rarely was emotionally or physiologically brought to that state. Yet in the past 4-5 months, about a dozen times, I was brought to tears due to sad events or randomly feeling grateful for my life and blessings while driving, etc. Subjectively, I suspect these increased sensitivities to emotion are due to bioenergetic principles considering nothing else significant changed in my life. -
Reasonable to assume it's related. Experience, expression and contextualisation of emotion seems energetically expensive. And very much interwoven with actual "intelligence", whatever that is.
But in my experience it's not so clear cut, you can keep experimenting to find you can move the needle and keep it appropriate. And with the memory you can stay out of a space that could be described as a kind of emotional lability. There's probably a corresponding and undesirable endocrinological signature to that.
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Interesting. My assumption is that bioenergetic dietary changes will act differently for different people depending on their life situation, emotions, stress, etc. but are a net positive. Maybe it is that you are able to confront or experience emotions better now?
Not to meme out here, but the whole "calcification of the pineal gland" meme, comes to mind. Who knows what, if anything, is true about this whole idea (or aluminum and fluoride / Alzheimer's / dementia, etc). But without a doubt we can all agree that brain function can be declining or improving.
Related is the fact SSRIs often turn people into "zombies" and flatten their emotions. My view is bioenergetic principles sort of undo what the body has done to adapt to stress. In this way it's like increasing the bandwidth to accept a greater range of frequencies that make up experience. Stress / poor adaptation, SSRIs, drugs, etc., a lot of this stuff is as if "reducing bandwidth" in order to limit what information enters the organism, in order to limit stressors and potential conflicts that would make resolution and recovery more difficult.
So, I think, again, Peaty bioenergetic principles open up the bandwidth, allowing us to accept ranges of experiences, good or bad or otherwise.
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@ThinPicking said in Did bioenergetic principles impact my emotions and behaviors?:
And with the memory you can stay out of a space that could be described as a kind of emotional liability*. There's probably a corresponding and undesirable endocrinological signature to that.
I noticed a few times eating too much sugar that this was an issue. That said, I have almost never given into cravings in this ordered / logical way since childhood.
My interest now is that with bioenergetic nutrition, we can free up energy to "solve" health issues which can be just about anything. This goes back to how there isn't some dogmatic dietary plan. Like the craving being a message from the body, I think it's a good idea to "listen to your body" and then understand what each part or organ / tissue is doing.