The Weekly Dose

The Weekly Dose...

... the latest from Dr Karan

  Here is your weekly dose...  

Hi all!Here is your weekly dose of the Sunday Six! A few things I found interesting this week. If you enjoy this please feel free to forward this to friends. families and enemies alike!**You'll find more in depth analysis of some of these subjects on my social platforms in the links just below, including Dr Karan Investigates! for deep dives into interesting topics on my YouTube channel.**

Why It Is Awesome To Experience Awe...

Why Awe Is Good

I recently went to Oxford University to speak to medical students there and I was in utter awe of the historic building and the atmosphere of the great buildings and libraries I came across.You don't need to stand at the edge of the Grand Canyon or see an eclipse to experience awe. You can reap the benefits of awe from going out in nature, or just experienced positive interactions with other people. 

Psychologists say it can play an important role in bolstering happiness, health and our social interactions — and it may have actually long played a role in how and why humans get along and ultimately cooperate with one another.Neuroscientists who study awe define it as an emotion we feel in response to something vast that defies our existing frame of reference and leads us to change our perception of that frame of reference  

Other research found that people who reported experiencing more awe also appeared to have better immune health. In a group of 94 students, those who reported more regularly feeling more positive emotions than negative emotions had lower levels of chronic pro inflammatory cytokines.

Pro-inflammatory cytokines can be helpful in certain scenarios, if the body is injured or sick, but chronically elevated levels of these molecules has been associated with several chronic conditions, like diabetes, heart disease, and depression. Awe was the single positive emotion most likely to be linked to these lower levels of pro inflammatory cytokines on a chronic basis.Get more awe by: 1) Going into nature 2) Looking up more 3) Get out of your comfort zone 4) Get out of your comfort zone

How I Feel About Naps...

Napping has traditionally been seen as a symbol of laziness in the western world but it can improve our memory, creativity, empathy and even problem-solving. In many cultures napping is an essential facet of daily lives; Mediterranean "siestas" and even the Japanese reward naps with their "Inemuri" - a phenomenon where naps are encourage at work to boost productivity (inemuri = asleep on the job, a sign someone is working so hard they need to sleep) A word of caution however, if you have trouble falling asleep at night should approach naps with caution. My rules are simple: avoid napping after 4pm & don't nap for longer than 90 minutes..If you nap too late in the day it’s a bit like snacking before main meal and it can take the edge off your sleep hunger at night. Length wise anything longer than 90 minutes (which is the average duration of one sleep cycle) , will push you into a deeper sleep cycle meaning when you do wake up, it'll be in a deep stage of sleep and when you wake up you will experience “sleep inertia”, or grogginess.

What I Want You To Know About Psychedelics

Hallucinogenic mushrooms have shown promise for their medical benefits, but we are only now beginning to understand how they might help to treat depression. Shockingly, up to 30% of people with depression don't respond to traditional antidepressants. This may be down to differences in biology between patients and the fact that it often takes a long time to respond to the drugs – with some people giving up after a while. So there is an urgent need to expand the repertoire of drugs available to people with depression...We've had interesting recent studies looking at Psilocybin which will usher the era of psychedelics for mental health further forwards.Aside from Psilocybin and Magic Mushrooms you have LSD. LSD, or Lysergic Acid Diethylamide-25, is a chemical trickster and mimicks the morphology of serotonin by latching onto the synapses of the brain’s 5-HT2A receptors to trigger potentially new patterns of thought, belief, and emotion.Now the results for psychedelics are slowly paying off...in the last 10 years, psychedelic drugs like LSD, magic mushrooms, DMT, a host of "plant medicines" – including ayahuasca, iboga, salvia, peyote – and related compounds like MDMA and ketamine have begun to shed off some of their "trippy hippy" stigma an are becoming genuine promising alternative treatments for mental health conditions. Promising clinical trials suggest that psychedelics may prove game-changing treatments for depression, PTSD and addiction. 

Whilst psychedelics remain Class-A in the UK and Schedule-1 for the most part in the USA, rules are slowly relaxing. For example in Austria and Spain in the EU and Washington in the USA as well as a string of other US cities, psilocybin mushrooms and LSD have been decriminalised and legalised for therapeutic medical uses. The next decade could see us entering the psychedelic renaissance.

What I'm Watching

All Quiet On The Western FrontI'm usually not a huge fan of war dramas or anything war related when it comes to my TV consumption but there are two reasons I began watching this movie: 1) I was bored 2) It's in German and I fancied brushing up on my German to keep up my fluency.I'm not being hyperbolic with my words when I say this was the best film I've seen in 2022, and arguably the best war film I've seen (Yes even better than Saving Private Ryan). It's a visceral representation of the misery of war for the young soldiers that volunteer and this movie is from the perspective of a young German high schooler who signs up with enthusiasm before being eroded by the harsh reality of life on the front. I can't speak highly enough of this film. 

What I'm Reading

Attention, distraction & focus

I've spoken before about how our attention spans seemingly get shorter and shorter, particularly with the rise of short form videos and the multiple distractions we surround ourselves with. However it's more than short attnetion spans, our focus is re-directed more often than not to distractiopns which repurpose our precious attention elsewhere (e.g that 20 minute cat video you don't want to watch on YouTube but do anyway). Social media for example has evolved to manipulate us and adapt according to our interests. This long-read piece from the Guardian is an eloquent depiction of how social media tricks us, hijacks our attention and the rise of attention economy. Worrying how much of our lives we commandeer to forces beyond our control and don't even realise.

What I've Been Hiding...

Over the past few months I've been working on a secret project...Late nights, early starts and stressful weekends. I'm going to have to leave you on tenterhooks and reveal the news to you on Monday 21st November. You'll have to show patience padawans and hopefully the reveal won't be an anti-climax. I am incredibly proud of this project so keeps watching this space!

As always, please give me feedback on Twitter. Which of this weeks Sunday six is your favourite? Is there something you want more, or less of? I'm open to any suggestions so please let me know! Just send a  tweet to @drkaranrajan and use the hashtag #theweeklydose at the end so I can find it!

Have a wonderful week, all.

Much love,

Karan