Good article, but I'm not sure that I agree with you. Mental illness definitely isn't confined to the mind, and you give examples such as weight loss and insomnia. I like your idea of heterostasis - maybe just 'balance'.
However, I'm bipolar, and for years I've been well. In balance, in a heterostatic condition. As you say, a bit down for a few days, or a bit up for a few days, but always reverting to 'the norm' whatever that is - my balance.
But - this is a big but - in the past I have been very unwell indeed. My family and friends had no hesitation in calling me ill, and (when down) I knew I was ill. Ill in just the same way as I've been ill with pneumonia. I got better with treatment - drugs, hospitalisation, therapy.
I've been lucky enough to stay well for so long by yes, doing all the right things, sleep, exercise, diet, but also by taking my medication every day. Just the same as I take thyroxine every day because my thyroid gland is underactive.
So I don't want to pretend that mental illness isn't 'real' illness like physical illness. We are meant (as medics) to subscribe to 'parity of esteem' which means treating physical and mental illness with equal seriousness.
I want mental illness to be viewed in the same way as chronic physical illness and not to be stigmatised. Politicians who have no medical qualifications telling us that mental illness is over diagnosed don't help matters.
Love the braindrop (concept and name) but too easy-peasy. Perhaps because of the first hyphenated word. I won't spoil it for anyone still trying, but a clue is that I'm egging you on...
I love this weeks newsletter. It touches, with a butterfly kiss, something I hold true. The truism as I see it, loiters shyly behind these two phrases. 1. Homeostasis is a biological state of anatomical steadiness. 2. And if it’s biological, what are the biochemical processes that underpin these terrible conditions…
Em. How to express my heartfelt belief without sounding, em, like I have a misaligned tourbillon. Let’s return to our forebears, those wonderful little amoebas. Those swimming single cells who gave rise too so much and then us, who conversely, give rise too so little, other than chaos. We generally give up our notions of speech and thoughts when we think of them. Yet, they had a want to survive and didn’t they just, they evolved into us. Is it unrealistic to consider that our cells have the same want to survive and have evolved a symbiotic connection in order to do so. In principle we know that is true, even down to the bacteria within our guts who (yes, it should be who) heavily influence the brain. Why not then consider that our cells do to?
I could even suggest that the brain is the means for the cells to survive, and not the other way around, as we tend to believe. The brain is the gear box, but our cells are doing the driving and the steering. When we meet that special one our body physically reacts. Is the brain telling the body to react, or is it the body telling the brain? “Reach out to that life form, their cells are connecting with us. Their rhythm is the same as ours.”
If you could accept the possibility of that, if… then might it be possible that a large part of our mental health, as touched on by your reference to Homeostasis, is also controlled not just by the brain but our complete oneness - meaning how our cells are communicating symbiotically. If through some ‘circumstance’ they are not ‘reaching out’, meaning, sensing the environment in which the brain moves them, as they ought or would, could that encourage an overall state of mental discombobulation to over tilt the tourbillon.
How much better most things seem when the weather is warm and the sun is shining. What does the brain know of that, stuck inside its dark damp cap?
Good article, but I'm not sure that I agree with you. Mental illness definitely isn't confined to the mind, and you give examples such as weight loss and insomnia. I like your idea of heterostasis - maybe just 'balance'.
However, I'm bipolar, and for years I've been well. In balance, in a heterostatic condition. As you say, a bit down for a few days, or a bit up for a few days, but always reverting to 'the norm' whatever that is - my balance.
But - this is a big but - in the past I have been very unwell indeed. My family and friends had no hesitation in calling me ill, and (when down) I knew I was ill. Ill in just the same way as I've been ill with pneumonia. I got better with treatment - drugs, hospitalisation, therapy.
I've been lucky enough to stay well for so long by yes, doing all the right things, sleep, exercise, diet, but also by taking my medication every day. Just the same as I take thyroxine every day because my thyroid gland is underactive.
So I don't want to pretend that mental illness isn't 'real' illness like physical illness. We are meant (as medics) to subscribe to 'parity of esteem' which means treating physical and mental illness with equal seriousness.
I want mental illness to be viewed in the same way as chronic physical illness and not to be stigmatised. Politicians who have no medical qualifications telling us that mental illness is over diagnosed don't help matters.
Fair comment, Diana. We wouldn’t want to minimise the seriousness of being “heterostatic”...
Love the braindrop (concept and name) but too easy-peasy. Perhaps because of the first hyphenated word. I won't spoil it for anyone still trying, but a clue is that I'm egging you on...
I love this weeks newsletter. It touches, with a butterfly kiss, something I hold true. The truism as I see it, loiters shyly behind these two phrases. 1. Homeostasis is a biological state of anatomical steadiness. 2. And if it’s biological, what are the biochemical processes that underpin these terrible conditions…
Em. How to express my heartfelt belief without sounding, em, like I have a misaligned tourbillon. Let’s return to our forebears, those wonderful little amoebas. Those swimming single cells who gave rise too so much and then us, who conversely, give rise too so little, other than chaos. We generally give up our notions of speech and thoughts when we think of them. Yet, they had a want to survive and didn’t they just, they evolved into us. Is it unrealistic to consider that our cells have the same want to survive and have evolved a symbiotic connection in order to do so. In principle we know that is true, even down to the bacteria within our guts who (yes, it should be who) heavily influence the brain. Why not then consider that our cells do to?
I could even suggest that the brain is the means for the cells to survive, and not the other way around, as we tend to believe. The brain is the gear box, but our cells are doing the driving and the steering. When we meet that special one our body physically reacts. Is the brain telling the body to react, or is it the body telling the brain? “Reach out to that life form, their cells are connecting with us. Their rhythm is the same as ours.”
If you could accept the possibility of that, if… then might it be possible that a large part of our mental health, as touched on by your reference to Homeostasis, is also controlled not just by the brain but our complete oneness - meaning how our cells are communicating symbiotically. If through some ‘circumstance’ they are not ‘reaching out’, meaning, sensing the environment in which the brain moves them, as they ought or would, could that encourage an overall state of mental discombobulation to over tilt the tourbillon.
How much better most things seem when the weather is warm and the sun is shining. What does the brain know of that, stuck inside its dark damp cap?
Your link doesn't work - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/sep/26/recycling-rate-falls-in-uk-as-just-44-of-household-waste-is-recycled.
Works for me! Maybe ur browser?? Or just that the article knows ur a Green councillor?!!
Weirdly, it works now!
Erm, cheesecake contains cream cheese, or another soft cheese.
Not real cheese!