- Seth Godin’s criticism of schools
- Emily Nussbaum (New Yorker TV critic) podcast
- Joyce Cohen became oversensitive to sound due to loud ventilation
- Bariatric surgery trades obesity for alcoholism
- Edward Jay Epstein on the death of Boris Berevzofsky
- Chinese graduates from top schools play it safe
- ASMR videos. An example.
Thanks to Bryan Castañeda and Joyce Cohen.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Hyperacusis from exposure to loud noise sounds to me like the ear’s version of phantom limb pain: the cochlear fibers die, but the nerves that relayed their signals remain. I wish I could think of an analogue to the mirror therapy that helps sufferers of phantom limb pain.
Another good link : https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2013/03/major-weight-loss-tied-to-microbes/
So obesity is just a case of having too few of the good bacteria and too much of the bad ? Who knew ?
Maybe it’s even the bad bacteria that are hijacking our reward/craving mechanisms and forcing us to continue these obvious bad habits, how about that ?
Maybe you can join your 2 favorite topics (we need more good bacteria + smell/calorie association) here Seth ?
Interesting paper – How the Mid-Victorians Worked, Ate and Died:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2672390/
very sad, these stories about hyperacusis.
many people have had success with white noise therapy. in many cases it’s an anxiety disorder (sound makes you anxious and anxiety makes you more sensitive to sound) and so treating the anxiety is helpful too, or at the very least being aware of the role that anxiety plays in oversensitivity. in most cases there isn’t anything actually wrong with people’s ear fibers or nerves, they have just been trained into hypersensitivity to the point where normal noises are startling or in some cases threatening.
(disclosure: i don’t have hyperacusis but have other ear problems including chronic tinnitus. no reason that doctors can see, which isn’t that surprising given the delicate anatomy of the ear, and so no prospect of a cure. it’s a completely “subjective” ailment but one where focusing on the symptoms – even to measure them – makes it worse.)