How to Become Smarter (36 page)

• The combination of the antidepressant diet and twice-daily adapted cold showers may serve as an experimental model of hypomania.
  
• A hypomanic episode is consistent with increased creativity or active imagination; hence the above-mentioned experimental model is called the “creativity regimen.”
  
• Self-experimentation suggests that the creativity regimen reproduces most symptoms of a hypomanic episode within 2 to 4 days, including elevated internal mood, a flood of ideas, and overactivity.
  
• Due to the effects on the synthesis of dopamine in the relevant brain regions, the creativity regimen may be useful for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease or treatment of addiction to stimulants.
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Some people believe that elevated mood is a desirable mental state. In my experience, constant euphoria and excitement may be pleasant, especially for someone who has never experienced them for more than a few minutes, but these things can become uncomfortable quickly. Normal mood (
euthymia
) is a better mental state. We can define “normal mood” as an optimistic worldview and an ability to feel a full range of positive emotions, but without the constant feeling of euphoria and excitement.

In the previous sections, we saw several undesirable consequences of persistently elevated mood. This mental state reduces motivation for work and thereby can reduce productivity. Elevated mood can cause hyperhedonia, according to the effects of the “creativity regimen.” This can lead to an unproductive waste of time. Finally, elevated mood is not the best mental state to make important decisions that will have long-term consequences. I make the most realistic and sound decisions when my mood is normal or perhaps slightly lowered.

Speaking philosophically, the universe and nature are neither good nor bad, they are neutral. The same applies to the various laws of nature discovered by science. For example, is it a good thing or a bad thing that E = mc
²
? The answer is: it is neither; it is just a formula describing how nature works. People are a part and product of nature and the human body, including the brain, works according to the laws of physics and chemistry. By extension, all life events are also a part and product of nature. Therefore, a more neutral perception of life is more realistic and accurate than either positive (joy) or negative (anger, sadness) representation of life events in your mind. Note that I am not saying that you should be unemotional and try to get rid of all emotions. My point is that normal mood is the best frame of mind to make sound and realistic decisions.

Some studies have investigated the effects of elevated mood or high levels of life satisfaction on some mental abilities and on various life outcomes. Readers can find an excellent review of this topic in the paper by Drs. Shigehiro Oishi, Ed Diener, and Richard E. Lucas [
476
] entitled “The Optimum Level of Well-Being: Can People Be Too Happy?” Although elevated mood correlates with increased creativity [
473
-
475
,
477
], this mental state can worsen performance of some cognitive tasks in the laboratory. Several reports showed that elevated mood led to worse performance on the following cognitive tests: a syllogism task, a moral reasoning task, an estimation of correlation task, and a person-perception task [
478
-
481
]. Many of the above studies deal with elevated
internal
mood, according to self-ratings of the test subjects. Other studies assessed the effects of cheerfulness, which is a synonym of “external positive mood” or “observable positive affect.” Internal mood and external mood are not the same thing, as you saw earlier in this chapter. My own view is that internal mood is more relevant to life satisfaction than external mood. Two studies show that children who are more cheerful than average, as rated by parents and teachers, are more likely to drink, smoke, and to engage in risky behaviors later in life. These children also have a higher risk of mortality [
482
,
483
].

Other studies investigated the association of life satisfaction with various life outcomes. Life satisfaction is not the same as mood (internal or external); it is a concept that includes self-assessment of various aspects of life and of oneself. Internal mood is one of the components of life satisfaction. An overview of numerous studies shows that the highest levels of life satisfaction show the best correlation with having a stable long-term relationship and with active participation in volunteer work [
476
]. (These data represent
average
numbers, and it would be incorrect to assume that, for example, all single people are unhappy.) These researchers found that the highest level of life satisfaction correlates
less
strongly with the highest level of income and with the highest level of educational attainment (the highest degree earned). The last two outcomes correlate with a moderately high level of life satisfaction. A recent study shows that Americans feel somewhat happier, on average, when they earn incomes up to $75,000 a year [
997
]. Americans with incomes higher than $75,000 do not feel any happier, judging by emotional well-being. The same study shows that people with below-average incomes are more likely to be unhappy than groups with better income. Nonetheless, there are many people on low incomes who are happy [
476
,
997
].

As for academic success, college students who rated themselves as “happy” earned the highest grades: average GPA (grade point average) of 4.1 on a five-point scale. Students who were “very happy” achieved somewhat lower grades, average GPA 3.8, compared to the grades of “moderately happy” and “slightly happy” students (both groups at 3.9 GPA) [
476
]. Dr. Oishi and colleagues also analyzed several surveys and concluded that people will attain the highest increase of income in the future if they have moderate or even somewhat low level of life satisfaction today [
476
]. The happiest people do not achieve the biggest increase of income in the future. In summary, it is intriguing that the highest level of life satisfaction correlates with a stable long-term relationship and active volunteer work. The highest income and best academic performance correlate with moderate life satisfaction.

Studies that we reviewed above suggest that constantly elevated internal mood is not desirable because of suboptimal performance on some tasks and, possibly, reduced motivation for work. My personal experience suggests that long periods of elevated internal mood (moderate elevation) are uncomfortable even if work productivity is unaffected. Nonetheless, brief periods of elevated mood, for instance, several days, are beneficial when you need high creativity or generation of novel ideas. It seems that elevated internal mood can increase life satisfaction under unfavorable living conditions. My view is that internal mood does not have to be constantly elevated because even a temporary elevation is sufficient to change one’s outlook and produce lasting improvements in life satisfaction. In other words, if you know that you can lift your mood at any time, this will improve life satisfaction. These observations are based on the “creativity regimen” from the previous section. In conclusion, unlike constantly elevated mood, brief periods of elevated mood are beneficial and will increase creativity and life satisfaction.

• Although, on the surface, constantly elevated mood may seem desirable, practical testing suggests that it reduces motivation for work and increases procrastination.
  
• This observation is consistent with the studies showing that people with elevated mood are less productive than people with normal or somewhat low mood.
  
• Studies show that people with high levels of life satisfaction are, on average, more likely to be in a long-term relationship and to participate in volunteer work.
  
• This group of people is less likely to have the highest income or the highest educational achievement.
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My personal observations during experiments with the fruit-and-vegetable diet lead me to believe that pungent vegetables, such as onion, garlic, and radish, can cause feelings of hostility and anger and fits of rage. These negative effects take place with both raw and cooked pungent vegetables. The fruit-and-vegetable diet is a convenient way to observe the anger-provoking effects of pungent vegetables because this diet causes hyperactivity, impulsivity, and low self-control in general. A fruit-and-vegetable diet that excludes pungent vegetables has some entertainment value. But if you add pungent vegetables to this diet, and if you are in the company of a psychologically incompatible person, then angry tirades are likely to ensue. My best efforts to identify a possible biological mechanism were unsuccessful. The best I could find is that some Eastern belief systems prohibit consumption of garlic and onion because they cause anger, which is in line with my personal observations.

In my view, psychological factors are also important. Incompatible personalities will irritate each other, and if you add pungent vegetables to the mix, then an explosive situation may ensue. Conversely, if two people have compatible personalities, then pungent vegetables may result in angry thoughts or irritated mood. Yet this will not develop into an argument or a fit of anger because the psychological environment is peaceful and favorable. When I was a college student I used to have loud arguments with my mother on a regular basis. I guess we have incompatible personalities. I remembered that I had read somewhere that onion and garlic can cause anger and I had not taken this notion seriously at first. After some experimentation with the fruit-and-vegetable diet, I noticed that I could get angry and argumentative at times while on this diet. This made me think about possible causes and jogged my memory about the anger-provoking effects of pungent vegetables. I must admit that back then, onions were one of my favorite foods, which I ate with almost every meal, both cooked and raw. After I excluded onion, garlic, and all other pungent vegetables from my diet, the anger and irritability subsided and I became much calmer both inwardly and outwardly. Loud arguments and altercations with my mother were no longer occurring. I told my mother and some other people about this approach to anger management, but most of them were (and still are) skeptical. Sometime later a friend of the family told me that my mother had confided in him about this matter. These are her words: “Charlie thinks that he got rid of anger because he stopped consuming onions and garlic. But in actuality, I have been slipping holy water into his meals, so that’s what is really happening!” Well, whatever it was, I haven’t had an outburst of anger ever since. Nowadays, I eat onion and garlic every now and then, but most of the time I avoid them as much as I can. I do have angry thoughts sometimes, but they never escalate into a fit of rage or a loud scene.

Based on the above observations, a possible anger management protocol involves complete elimination of all pungent vegetables from the diet. Exclusion of all spices, food additives, and dietary supplements may also be necessary in order to identify a possible anger-provoking food, if you discover that pungent vegetables do not provoke anger in you. An elimination diet followed by gradual reintroduction of various foods will be useful in this investigation. In my experience, nuts increase irritability and it is best to avoid them when you have strong feelings of anger or hostility. These changes will prevent fits of anger; however, you can reduce preexisting feelings of anger by means of a high-protein high-fat diet, according to my experience.

Sedative treatments such as hot hydrotherapy (Chapter Two) and cooked grains are also beneficial. A hot environment is not useful. Don’t use cold hydrotherapy during fits of anger because it increases impulsivity and enhances the feeling of anger, when it is present. It is important that meat and fish have a high fat content in the context of the anger management protocol. Some studies show that low-fat diets correlate with feelings of hostility [
280
]. My personal experience suggests that the fruit-and-vegetable diet, which is a low-fat diet, can increase the feelings of hostility toward some people. Reintroduction of high-fat animal products into the diet seems to solve this problem.

The text below describes a possible “anger management diet.” You can use it for 1-2 days, which is sufficient for reducing anger and hostility. You can combine this regimen with psychological anger management programs if necessary.

Chapter Three discussed why you need to avoid eating large amounts of meat in one sitting. It is best to eat smaller amounts of cooked meat 3 to 5 times a day. You can find some recipes in Appendix I. The amounts listed below may seem large but this food is not filling and you may feel that your stomach is empty most of the time.

Breakfast:
one or two servings of raw fruits or vegetables; 200-250 grams (7-9 ounces) of boiled or steamed ground beef (at least 15% fat); 200-250 grams (7-9 ounces) of boiled or steamed whole grains (shredded wheat, steal-cut oats, buckwheat, brown rice, and others);

Lunch:
one or two servings of raw fruits or vegetables; 200-250 grams (7-9 ounces) of unsalted unprocessed cheese mixed with an equal amount of low-fat cultured milk; 200-250 grams (7-9 ounces) of boiled or steamed whole grains (shredded wheat, steal-cut oats, buckwheat, brown rice, and others);