Correlation Myth: Feed a Cold, Starve a Fever

Kalau lagi flu (cold) banyak makan, tapi kalau lagi demam (fever) banyak puasa.

The saying “feed a cold, starve a fever” dates back to a dictionary published by John Withals in 1574 because of a note that indicated “fasting is a great remedy of fever.”

There are many exercise myths

1. Exercise turns fat into muscle > fat and muscle two different tissues that can not be converted
2. No pain no gain > great body can be achieved without pain
3. Stretching before workout > not that mandatory
4. You can spot reduce fat > Spot reduction is a myth – we can’t control where our bodies lose fat

Personally I add some

1. Health is myth, your body can do self healing
2. After exercise water intake is a must
3. If you sick you need a lot of food
4. You can survive without coffee
5. Caffeine cure fever
6. Fasting cure fever

Correlation: Bidirectional, Reciprocal, Complex Cycle

Just start to realize I can face the day without coffee. The reason, originally I thought that coffee might reduce stress, but now I realize, in hati yang tenang, we don’t need coffee at all.

Keyword: Intelligence, coffee

Keyakinan yang tidak perlu diyakini: Olahraga dan minum air: Exercise Myth

Bahwa setelah lari itu harus minum air. Tidak perlu, karena kalau ini diyakini maka implikasinya adalah selama bulan puasa tidak akan pernah bisa berolahraga.

How much water should be drink a day

• 3,6 liters (about 1.2 liter every meal: breakfast, dinner, lunch)
• 2.0 liters (about 8 cups a day: 3 every meal (6,12,18), 3 in between meal (colorful: 3, 9, 3) 2 in beginning and end of the day (4, 20)

How much water should be drink after 1 hour running

• 0.5-1 liters per hours
• 2-3% per body weight (e.g 2% * 50kg = 1 liters)

Why Drinking Water All Day Long Is Not the Best Way to Stay Hydrated (Time 2019)
“People who are drinking bottles and bottles of water in between meals and with no food, they’re probably just peeing most of that out,” Nieman says. Also, the popular idea that constant and heavy water consumption “flushes” the body of toxins or unwanted material is a half-truth. While urine does transport chemical byproducts and waste out of the body, drinking lots of water on an empty stomach doesn’t improve this cleansing process, he says.

In some rare cases, excessive water consumption can even be harmful. “In athletes or people who are exercising for hours, if they’re only drinking water, they can throw out too much sodium in their urine, which leads to an imbalance in the body’s sodium levels,” explains Nieman, who has spent a chunk of his career investigating exercise-related hydration. Doctors call this imbalance “hyponatremia,” and in some cases it can be deadly. In this scenario, sports drinks and other beverages that contain nutrients and sodium are safer than plain water.

Correlation: Does stress cause cognitive decline or does cognitive decline cause stress

Pakar menunggu: The problem with reality

This is interesting. I went to music studio, exactly at 15:00 but just start to realize that we need to wait until more than 30 minutes (actually its 1h42m), doing nothing. That’s the problem with reality. No matter how strong you are, no matter how good is the mental health facing a long waiting for a very long period of time is exhausting.

The Social Significance of Queuing: Queuing in the UK goes beyond mere practicality—it reflects a commitment to fairness, order, and respect for others. Understanding the social significance of queuing sheds light on the values that underpin British politeness (britishgirl.co.uk)

Does stress cause cognitive decline or does cognitive decline cause stress

Scientific American: Your Response to Stress Improves as You Grow Older
Harvard Medical School: Does stress management become more difficult as you age?

‘Stress’, however, is a multidimensional construct and few studies have investigated the inter-relationship of subjective stress and biological stress with cognitive decline

The world is complex (complicated), super complex. In statistics, correlation or dependence is any statistical relationship, whether causal or not, between two random variables or bivariate data. Correlations are useful because they can indicate a predictive relationship that can be exploited in practice. For example, an electrical utility may produce less power on a mild day based on the correlation between electricity demand and weather.

Correlation does not imply causation

Correlation: Kopi tanpa diaduk

A meaningless, uncorrelated

Correlation: Sleep

Ini temuan yang menarik. Tidur nyenyak tidak ada hubungannya dengan kondisi mental (mental health). Saya menemukan bahwa tidur nyenyak justru lebih terkait dengan kondisi fisik (fatigue/lelah, travel, kebanyakan makan). Faktor yang paling signifikan menurut saya adalah aging. Semakin tua, semakin terganggu tidurnya -bukan karena kebanyakan pikiran. Kalau sama-sama usianya, bisa jadi faktor pikiran akan signifikan dampaknya.

Reading:

• Time will tell: a retrospective study investigating the relationship between insomnia and objectively defined punctuality (2011)
• ScienceShot: Insomnia Linked to Punctuality

Ketenangan hati

Correlation. Ketenangan hati (peace of mind). Menarik juga, beberapa hari ini menemukan bahwa sholat itu bukan menghasilkan ketenangan hati, tapi ketenangan hati justru bisa membuat sholat khusyuk. Tadinya berpikir bahwa flow, ternyata sebenarnya contraflow. Ternyata reversal.

Revisited 9 Jun 2023. Begitu juga dengan musik, musik itu bukan membuat hati tenang, tapi dalam hati yang tenang maka orang bisa memainkan musik, menikmati film, menambah wawasan, membaca buku. Ketenangan hati adalah pre-requisite. Kalau hati tidak tenang, melakukan apapun tidak akan bisa. Ketika hati tidak tenang ya maka kita harus bersabar. Memang kesannya “Do nothing” tapi on the mind level just be like that.

Insomnia is a myth, 12 hours is a max

Orang Jakarta rata rata bekerja 12 jam sehari.  Dari jam 6 pagi sampai 6 sore. Orang Cirebon bekerja jam 8 jam sehari, dari jam 7 hingga jam 3 sore. Nyaris tidak ada aspek transport.

Beberapa orang Jakarta bekerja 12 jam sehari, tapi dari jam 09:00-21:00. Ada juga yang bekerja hingga jam 24:00 tapi sebenarnya juga 12 jam sehari, jam makan malam terlalu panjang.

Orang yang workaholic sekalipun tidak ada yang insomnia. Saya tahu orang yang baru tidur jam 3 pagi, tapi ia bangun jam 11 siang. Delapan jam juga.

Worklife balance is a myth

The balance between the work (an activity, an effort to get the money) versus the life (an activity other then the work, is a never ending and very interesting one. Usually I divide the work as workday and the life as the weekend. Sometimes it is true. Most of the time I get higher stress on the weekday and lowe stress at weekend. But not always like that, some weekend even higher due to a lot of activity that happened that day.

Balance is an effort to maintain the dynamics, the composition, with the premise/assumption that too much of everything is bad. This premise should be agreed, as this premise will not be applied for cases that think that too much of work is not bad, or the one that think that work is life, for example: a sea diver instruction will not have any concern on the balance between work and life. A celebrity of reality show, don’t differentiate between this balance. In the event of war there is no need a balance with move and stop.

Worklife balance, the same as justice as a goal (jargon) can be a myth. But as a tools, is can be implemented. Justice is a myth, however Audit is not, examination is not. Worklife balance as goal is a myth, but as a method to slowing down, to think for longer term in the future is valid.

Practically, there is an infinite methodology in science

Hirota et al 2017, A methodology on health effects estimation from air pollution. Instead of using Relative Risk, it can be used correlation model. Why?
– Relative risk requires estimating respiratory / cardiovascular disease groups (correlation is simple)
– Air pollution data is more available than number of deaths caused by disease
– Result more significant