Cocoa Love

I'm not a huge fan of so-called superfoods...diversity is probably the key to a truly healthy human diet in an ancestral and mictobiome sense, but hey, chocolate may be an exception to the rule. I can rain on the parade with the sustainability issues...anyway, here's my new post:

Your Brain on Chocolate

Already an "Essential Read" at Psychology Today. People love positive news about coffee and chocolate.

Also the second in my three part series at Whole9:

Advanced Tips for a Good Night's Sleep

Part 3 should come out at the end of next month and has to do with teenagers and sleep. I'm probably going to add part 4 at Psychology Today to talk about melatonin. I've always been suspicious of using a hormone as a nightly sleep aid and the science behind it is interesting and scary, considering the widespread popular usage. Itsthewoo was ranting about it on twitter...she uses 1mg in the summer for shift work sleep support, but feels (as I do) that supplementing large supra physiologic doses of a wide-acting hormone is an apocalyptically bad idea on a regular basis. Physiologic doses are somewhere around 0.5mg. You can buy pills with as high a dosage as 10mg! I usually recommend people take small doses for circadian support (jet lag, shift work) for brief periods, when they ask. But it is one of those supplements like creatine that so many people take and don't bother to tell you (even if you ask directly).

More later!

I had a great time in Toronto for the American Psychiatric Association annual meeting. Our Food and Mood workshop was a hot ticket as always, with many people turned away, and so many interested folks. We are still perfecting a couple of the broken slides so if you emailed for a copy, hang in there...it's always so great to see the interest in food and psychiatry at these professional meetings.

It's been a while since I linked a song. Here's an oldie but a goodie: I'll Be You by The Replacements