'Cognition' issues are a definite problem when thyroid levels are wonky. That dratted Brain fog!
I don't suppose this 'powerful tool for cognitive improvement' will have the same effect as this study suggests if we're not optically medicated for thyroid. But I like the idea and might well give it a try.
Inhaling Pleasant Scents During Sleep Tied to a Dramatic Boost in Cognition
Or wine and whiskey breath husband (and his farts) 🤣
Seriously though aren’t all these home fragrances bad for us all the solvents and VOCs? Im very anti air freshener but I think that’s conditioning from my up bringing, no lenor no febreeze, no glade, no pot pourri the 80s were fragrance free in our house 🤣
A guy called Tommo Littlewood on Instagram is doing a PhD on endocrine disrupters causing thyroid disease, it’s worth a look but quite depressing... they’re just everywhere, we’ve made such a mess of this planet - anything from face creams, mattresses and tampons to food packaging, water, air, soil… it’s all apparently infected to some degree by phthalates, microplastics etc. it’s a big reason I feel put off NDT, just dunno what crap is now in the food and pigs that we are consuming the thyroids of.
And of course there is the TERRIFYING work of Shanna Swan… sorry to be so doom and gloom 🙈 just realised how apocalyptic this all sounds… 😵💫
Not at all! I am the same as you in this regard. Since my diagnosis, as well as diet, I have been looking to remove known and unknown disrupters (after all, if a manufacturer can’t even guarantee something is vegan how can the guarantee there isn’t anything else in it that shouldn’t be?!) of the thyroid as far as possible. So, I’ve taken to buying my meat directly from a farm that is organic. Pricy, but this disease is horrifying and I rather not chance these things any more. I’ve also looked to replacing other lifestyle products such as cosmetics, washing powder etc. one at time so it’s not so overwhelming. I find the EWG website quite useful for this.
Overall, I think living more sustainably can only be a good thing for our planet and I turn our health. So, that’s what I am doing too. I am horrified on the amount plastic I simply can’t recycle! Be warned: biodegradable bin bags blooming start biodegrading in the bin!
Do you find it very hard to get the balance between living normally and being so mindful of everything? I won’t let so much as a scented candle cross the threshold of our home, I’ve become that detailed about it but the stress of being so pedantic has its own negative repercussions. I sleep on an organic mattress, drink from a Berkey, grow own veg, haven’t touched deodorant since 2017 etc. and I’m still pretty unwell. Meanwhile my lovely uncle smokes cigars, eats processed sausages most days, has about 5 sugars in his tea and a whiskey every night, wouldn’t have a clue what “blue light” is or “microplastics” and he’s the healthiest, happiest person I know! 🤷♀️ I don’t begrudge him his vitality in spite of his lifestyle but I can’t help but wish more of those genes had made their way to me.
Sometimes I wonder if it’s the stress that’s getting to me/us and I should just eat the damn Mars bar and chill out, but then I find “stress” is such an irritating and useless causal factor to discuss, it’s almost meaningless with how often it’s used and with such variety.
Sorry HSD I have rambled there! Thank you for the pro tip re. The bins! We have a compost… I say compost. It’s a contained area in our garden full of partially disintegrated food… can’t say I totally get the point of it, but I keep dumping all my scraps in there anyway 😄
Oh SS, you might be able to help me… I swear the food just won’t break down. Do I need to add something to it to make it break down faster? At the moment it’s just a big pile of moldy food in the corner of the garden… I swear I can see egg shells from before last Christmas still going strong in there 😟
I used to have quite a lot of lawn which was fine but boring when my kids were little but now they've left home I wanted flower beds. I always wanted a cottage style garden. So about 4 years ago I started stripping back the turf around the sides, so I dug in loads of home made compost to enrich the soil.
I have quite free draining sandy soil so the compost helps it retain moisture and the added worms from my compost bin also do their thing. I've now got borders on all sides and its full of plants. I also use my compost as a top mulch in spring and autumn.
It replenishes what is lost through erosion and protects against drought in summer and frost in winter. I garden very organically and only use natural fertilisers like blood, fish and bone or comfrey/ nettle. I also have a lot of potted plants in my garden so use it to top up the pots in the spring.
I have a Dalek style bin, the key to good compost is to mix greens, full of nitrogen like fruit and veg peelings, tea bags, coffee grounds, grass clippings, plant material, with browns,full of carbon, so dry brown leaves, sticks, paper, but not glossy or heavily printed, inside of loo rolls, empty egg boxes,brown cardboard. Try and add a layer of each, rather like a lasagne.
If you keep small furries like rabbits or hamsters their used sawdust and hay is very good. If you have too many greens you'll get a horrible smelly sludgy mess, too much brown and it will be dry and slow to decompose. It sounds like your heap isnt gettting hot enough to break down. Turning the compost weekly with a fork helps mix old and new material and gets all important oxygen into where
Its needed.
You could try covering your heap with some tarpaulin or old carpet to add warmth or think about getting a bin. Even an old lidded dustbin with some holes drilled into the base to allow the worms in and placed on bare earth is as good as anything else
One final tip, try and cut up anything you are putting in into small pieces. The bigger the pieces the longer it takes to decompose. I stopped putting egg shells in as they never seem to break down but can make useful slug deterants if you put rushed egg shells around vulnerable plants.
Thank you SO much, that’s so helpful! It is inside of a “compost bin” but it hasn’t been a lasagne at all, more like a straight up veg and egg shell curry 🫠 I will start saving my egg shells for slug repellent!
I will do all of that and let my partner know TiggerMe says to pee on the lasagne. 🙂
If you can get hold of stinging nettles, cut them up small and stick them in, they are a natural compost accelerator being full of nitrogen. Turning the heap regularly is the key and rather like our gut biome, as much variety of material as possible.
a) it's the same as cooking veg ... the smaller the pieces , and the more cut edges there are ....... the faster it will 'cook' .... ie. get broken down by micro beasties.
so depending on what it is .... chop it up with secateurs before you put in on the compost , or pull it to pieces in the kitchen before you put it in the compost bucket , or with egg shells , leave them a day or so to dry out then crush them in your hand .
b) it's like making lasagne .. you need thin layers of different ingredients , not a thick layer of one thing . And you need to keep it all covered with sauce so the pasta on top doesn't dry out.
So rather than just chuck things on top , wait till you've got a decent collection of different things, and then make the lasagne properly once every few weeks, and then cover it up again... and start your next collection of ingredients .
This way you can make well finished compost out of pretty much anything no matter how tough , in a few months rather than a few years... it needs to get hot in the middle. , it needs some moisture, but not too much ..... so a bit of drainage is essential and a bit of ventilation ,... whenever you start a new pile , put a load of sticks/ branches at the bottom ,... have fairly 'open sides' (pallets are good) , but put a good lid on it to prevent evaporation from the sun ... and water it occasionally in summer if needed.
i have a huge old double tiered catering steamer / lid / saucepan outside the back door , to put kitchen stuff in , that takes quite a few weeks to fill up and as it rots the juice is collected in the saucepan underneath , (so no smell) . When both layers of the steamer gets full...... that is the time i make my 'lasagne' , distributing this semi rotted stuff evenly amongst layers of the other garden waste 'ingredients' i've colected , and pouring over the juice. and covering it up to finish cooking.
i have a double compost heap ... one side is a properly made lasagne with it's lid on, the other side is just piles of garden material, weeds , a few grass cuttings (not too many and not in a big lump) , leaves , twigs , seaweed off beach , crab shells that the seagulls have drop into the gutters etc ...... all 'ingredients in waiting' .. ready to make a nice lasagne for my microbeasties
Keep a lid of corrugated cardboard on top of the 'lasagne' , and then put a bit of ply wood or something on th top of that ~ it keeps it moist and it encourages the beasites to live at the top in the currugations and eat their dinner faster .. when the cardboard is finally eaten by the microbeasties , just put a new bit on .
Look at it this way .. you are not 'waiting for food to rot' ..... you are 'serving dinner to microbeasties'.
If you want them to eat it quicker , you have to serve it in a way they like and in comfortable surroundings ~ a nice warm moist dark place ... if you just chuck a whole grapefruit at them they won't eat it ....... they probably don't like grapefruit much ... but ..... if you chop up the grapefruit and mix it in with other stuff they do like ..., well , you get the picture .... it's like feeding fussy kids .
Oh Tatty, thanks very much for that, that’s very kind to give me so much information - it’s a lot to unpack, I will need to study it all tomorrow and let Jesse know about the lasagne and rearing microbeasts. I can see now we just haven’t made it appetizing at all.
I must know - do you pee on your compost like TiggerMe does? I know this will act as a great endorsement when marketing the lasagne to Jesse (who will be taking 90% of the responsibility for nourishing our new microbeast brood) I’d imagine donkey pee is quite potent.
yes occasionally ... i'd prefer to do it much more regularly , in the moonlight .... but i keep my compost heap in the communal alley .. so it's a bit tricky to get away with ... would be much easier if i was a bloke.
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lol , it was last week ..... i could do with a nice present .. so far all i've got is my gas cut off , and a surgeon saying i need a lump cut out of my lower eye lid , while i'm awake.
I also add a regular layer of paper from the shredder to the mix whenever that gets full… so many letters these days are on cheap paper that helps in the compost bin too! Obviously, no “shiny” paper, but ordinary printer paper works fine. I invested in one of the “double” bins when my very old pallet one started becoming part of the compost and it works just as well.
I have 6 daleks, my plot is like a rehoming centre for unwanted compost bins! I’m loving the compost chat here. I think everyone has mentioned what I do already, I am a bit of a cardboard collecting Womble for the lasagna making. I make a stinky comfrey and nettle tea in an old plastic dustbin and add a diluted 1:10ish watering can full if they are a bit slow. If they don’t get moving put a mower grass box of grass clippings on, that gets things moving, needs plenty of cardboard mixed in otherwise it goes a bit slimy. Really warms it up. Try as I might darling husband will not pee on the compost, might be to do with the busy carpark, garages and nearby flats overlooking 🤣 I’ve a suggested a bucket in the bathroom and I take it in an old can, but no… apparently that was a little too far for him 🙄
Last thing, I am very impatient and don’t wait, lift the bins in October and April, mulch my beds with partially digested compost, marvel at how many avocados and eggs we must have eaten and put any really big stuff back in. Plant a shit load of clover/rye/buckwheat/alphalpha/mustard slice that down a few weeks later and keep weeding. It disappears into the soil very quickly.
News just in though, our allotment rep says we are having a hotbin, this is epic, it can take the full actual left over lasagna alongside the peelings, chicken carcass, etc etc. I’m quite excited to see how well it works. Especially in a communal setting, there will be lots of chuntering about mixes 🤣 Hidden you might like a hotbin, it makes compost a bit quicker. Harris horticulture I think, I get John Harrison newsletters, he’s my favourite traditional allotment expert he’s always on about them. 🌱
I've been composting for years and never had rats, dont add cooked food, meat or dairy to the pile as that can attract them, but fruit and veg waste is fine.
I use the" Dalek" style bin which many local councils provide at low cost. Just place it on a patch of lawn or bare earth so the worms can get in and out. I've had mine for years.
Councils have to reduce waste and recycling levels as they have Govt targets to meet. So many offer discounted compost bins for households. You can check on their website as well to see if your council participates.
Compost bins come in all shapes, sizes and price ranges from the expensive hot composters which will set you back at least a couple of hundred quid to the humble Dalek which retails for around £30.
To be honest its down to space, budget and personal preference which one you go for and as long as you get the ingredients right anyone will do the job.
Thank you so much. A hundred years ago I had a big plastic rotating one but as it was full of compost when we sold, we left it to the new owners. They have it to this day and I never bought smoother because as it got full it became difficult to turn
I now live across the road from a small slow-flowing river and occasionally see a rat as I walk past and once found a dead one in our garden, so haven’t made compost since. Will have a look at your suggestions
Are you sure you don’t have water voles? They look very similar but are to be treasured (wasn’t dear Ratty in Wind in the Willows was such a creature). A sign that your water is not in too bad nick too.
Here is a link, scroll down for ages for pictures rather than cartoon drawings, they couldn’t have used a cuter pic for the water vole if they tried 🌱
Yes, we have voles aplenty but rats too. Council out frequently who place poison around the bins near the river. They’re very careful to ensure voles are safe
Not wishing to put you off but I have had tunnels in most compost bins and seen whopping great rats over the years. They stay nice and warm in the winter, so it’s important to ensure no food sources nearby, keep it a bit wetter, they don’t like that, seal round the bottom a bit, dig soil all round. Smaller tunnels this year, little miceys who ate all my pea seeds before they sprouted 😤 🌱
Cardboard and grass, I believe. And maybe some worms? Although you'd have to research the specific species for worm composting, and that works better if they are enclosed. I worm composted for two years but they would escape onto my balcony so I gave it up.
Are you turning your composting foods? Turning as in blending, mixing it often. In a composting bin, you want to use a shovel or rake to mix it up often to create heat. This speeds up the break down.
Me too. We use Bokashi bran and compost our own food waste in special cartons. This gets loaded into our garden compost after it's festered anaerobically for a couple of weeks. It's brilliant and makes the compost cook nicely even during the Winter months
We spread our home made compost on the garden each spring.........this year we've had a courgette plant, much bigger and healthier than those we planted deliberately, and several tomato plants popping up in various flowerbeds!!!! All from seeds in compost from where I throw out old veg trimmings etc! All much more robust than the 'proper' plants. Perhaps that's the secret to super veg, put the seeds through the composting process first.😃
I’m pedantic about many things, mostly English usage 😉However I gave up being a pedant about many lifestyle and health issues when I realised that overthinking and hyper-analysis was stressing me out.
If my husband wants to spend 10 minutes working out whether a particular plastic container is recyclable, so be it. My view is that if they can’t make it simple I’m not going to mither about it.
Woke up with a stonking headache this morning . Had a Cafe Americano with breakfast, probably loaded with caffeine.
Feel much better now 😊
• in reply to
I love the word mither but my auto correct doesn’t recognize it ☹️
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I suppose it tries to correct to ‘mother’. Autocorrect is good but you can’t beat the human brain
a northern English word from "murder". It usually refers to kids mithering their mothers about allowing something they want. "Oh stop mitherin me!" Pronounced myther. I suppose the word could be used to suggest turning somethng over and over in the mind.
At times it has been frightening and overwhelming, but overall no. I guess I am accustomed to avoiding things from a very age due to other conditions and lifestyle factors.
I also try and remind myself that it’s the consistent use of something harmful that has the worse impact, not a one off consumption most of the time.
My house has always been fragrance-free. I don't like them. And, I feel it just has to be bad for the lungs, breathing in all this stuff - my lungs are unhappy enough as it is!
Having said that, I do have to make exceptions when other people are staying in the house. Dog odours don't bother me. People odours do!
Regenallotment ' Im very anti air freshener but I think that’s conditioning from my up bringing, no lenor no febreeze, no glade, no pot pourri '
I completely agree with you about these horrible artificial 'smelly products'. I don't ever use them either. They all seem to be aimed at 'covering up' bad odours.
But I'm personally not against 'proper' perfumes, such as the one I posted a picture of. I do find certain fragrances can have an uplifting effect on my mood.
Yes I agree, I was given an all natural pillow spray years ago and it’s just dreamy. I also made my own products in a past life and learned how essential oils can be so powerful.
Sorry I wasn’t suggesting you were febreezing yourself to boosted cognition I realise I was a bit clumsy with my reply apologies .
You may like zum liquid laundry detergent with essential oils. I have just finished a bottle of frankincense and myrhh fragrance. Just started a bottle of frankincense and patchouli. Also bought a bottle of the lavender. Bought them from iherb, much cheaper than amazon. Don't know if it would suit you. It has coconut oil, baking soda, vegetable glycerin , essential oils and is sulfate free.
I am a great lover of essential oils, so was very pleased when I stumbled across this product whilst ordering vitamins.
Fragrance is very powerful. Scent goes straight to the primitive part of the brain, and scent can/does bring back memories. I used to work in a secure acute mental health hospital as an aromatherapist, and had plenty of experience and evidence of the value of essential oils in calming and soothing.
Apparently our olfactory memories are triggered many years after events. I still remember particular places and people I was with when I wore particular perfumes.
Worth’s Je Reviens and Estée Lauder’s Youth Dew ……. Ahhh
Conversely, the smell of hospital food is one which brings back memories of some difficult times
I could smell a dreadful chemical smell once - turned out to be the new neighbours washing out on the line, I’d forgotten how bad the general laundry liquids are. I do love a few drops of essential oils though, so different from the artificial scents, you’ve inspired me to go and find my essential oils book and have another read!
Supermarket detergent aisles are pretty terrible. I used to pass through Warrington on the train - and the smell, no, the stink, from the detergent factory there was awful.
Come out of those with red eyes and sneezing! A long time ago used a launderette in California and they supplied the powder, and an hour later everything came out as if it had been in a 50 year Levi stonewash. That wouldn’t have even been high temp. Since then on holidays I’ve always bought a bottle of the least dangerous stuff I can find as it’s worth it even for one wash. I often wonder what residue is left after the dishwasher and makes it into the tea ….
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